Taming the wild Trevor requires lots of water. I drove him around this morning, trying desperately to think of something new to do when it is still 100 degrees outside. Anything that came to mind was either too hot, too germy, or takes too much preparation. The mom’s club was meeting at a pizza place with a kids’ play zone but I just could not bring myself to go and face the exposure. Brendan is just getting healthy again and making some progress. I am still worried about our brief library experience and what kind of bugs he picked up.

The only thing I can do when I am out of ideas is to turn on the hose and stand outside and sweat my butt off. (If only that actually worked literally)

During trach care tonight, Brendan kept pulling off his HME and chewing it. So I capped his trach. I didn’t expect he would do as well as he did! He wore it for 45 minutes!!! That is a Brendan record. YAY BRENDAN!!!

He was having his evening power surge I guess, his oxygen is in his hand and he is breathing entirely through his nose/mouth and not through the trach.

We checked him over and over and with NO oxygen attached, he was still sitting at 83%.

He was being extra silly practicing his walking. Even more good news – Trevor tolerated Brendan’s crying, yelling, talking and laughing with only one small bout of sad crying. Maybe he is finally realizing that it is OK for Brendan to have a voice too.

“I’ve got no strings
To hold me down
To make me fret, or make me frown
I had strings
But now I’m free
There are no strings on me”

Unfortunately, his string-freedom was temporary. He gets his feeding tube, Pulse-ox, and vent hooked back up to go to bed. He is on 1.5L of oxygen now on the ventilator to maintain 80% and above. Funny how he needs more oxygen when he has a machine to help him breathe. He has been using 0.5-1.0L on his HME which is where he was before he got sick again. Back to baseline, finally. Time to move FORWARD again. Go go go BRENDAN!!

Today was Mommy Monday Madness Day. We have no day help and Bill is very busy with work, so I get to manage the monsters alone. Bill takes a lunch break to come out and rock Brendan while I put Trevor down for a nap. Today was brutal. The floor crib is working well right now for Trevor so we are not going to rush and change it. I hope we can buy more time with this setup, I just have to find a way to make it a little better.

We bought some bananas yesterday. Trevor LOVES banana but they don’t love him back so we have to have them only occasionally. He loves them so much he gives them a kiss.

And a hug! He will devour a whole banana and if the others are visible on the counter, he will beg and plead for a second one. He yells “Bayaya!! Peel! Peel!” (Kayla would be proud)

I want to do good things with the boys, but they make it nearly impossible. Trevor loves to read books so I thought I had Brendan playing nicely and tried to read to Trevor. Nope! Sorry! Put the book down and capture the monkey!

I got them watching “Baby Signing Time” and working on signs with me, sitting so nicely together.

Trevor was going to give Brendan a kiss (to apologize for the brutal tackle earlier) but he got swatted away!

They were best friends and worst enemies today. Trevor charged Brendan who was sitting on the floor, he planted both hands on Brendan’s shoulders and shoved him over, landing on top of him and rolling. How do babies know how to do these fancy maneuvers?!
Brendan pursued Trevor all day trying to take toys away. You could not stop him (in the video below).
Yet, they chased and giggled and talked and bonked heads all cute all day too.

Here’s a sample of today’s mayhem.

The constant crying when they don’t get their way wears us down so fast. There is a ton of cleanup still to do tonight, dishes in the sink, formula to make, and laundry to put away. All I want to do is take a long hot shower and go to bed!!

It was a better day today, there was more fun and lots of chore-procrastinating but still lots of moods and work and exhaustion. The summer just needs to be done, we need some nice outdoor weather!! I think we all have summer cabin fever.

We opened up the outside play area and turned on the misters outside so that we could try to draw on the patio. It was hot and muggy but still good to be out.

We harvested pomegranates from our tree

You can always count on Trevor to spray things with a hose. He washed up the pomegranates as I picked them.

Brendan did a lot of swinging

If you stopped him or didn’t push hard enough, he would sign “More! Please!!”

Time to rinse off the boy covered in chalk and grass clippings

He will wash the chalk away

After Trevor’s nap this afternoon, he was bopping around in his crib. I was watching him on the spy cam while I was holding Brendan. He has never tried to climb out of his crib before, his crib is designed in a way that makes it very difficult. But he has gotten tall enough that he hangs over the rail. I watched him bounce and push himself a little further over, then he started putting his foot on the side and went a little further… and then Bill rushed in and grabbed him. I don’t know what he thought might have happened. He would have toppled right over and fell on his head.

I hoped that he would make it until 2yrs old before we had to take him out of his crib. With as much of a monkey as he is, I am surprised we made it this far.
His room is not ready for him to be loose in there, so for now, I took the floor out of the crib and put the mattress on the ground. I can barely put him in! He should not be able to climb, but it is not the best setup. We will have to do the toddler bed conversion.

Trevor helped me change his crib

And just like that, another leap forward from baby to big boy.
Here’s a spy cam shot of him in his deep crib