That being said, Having a two year old and a four year old under foot certainly makes you feel old and young again at the same time.

We’ve basically been celebrating all weekend, which is fine, as Mary Vic got to run around all weekend singing happy birthday and making birthday cards.

It’s been a good weekend. There has been so much going on, it’s hard to hit all the high points. The pool opened at Polk Place, so we spent several hours over there during the weekend. It was nice to be able to walk down there, but I have to say, it needs a bit more warming before that water is going to be really good. The kids pool was a bit chilly. The Main pool was downright cold. IF you jumped in, and stayed in, you’d be ok. You couldn’t ease in however… You’d never make it all the way. The kids, of course, were completely oblivious to the temperature. We need about a week of 85+ to get it nicer.

Papa has spent the last few months re-working our grill, and that hard work finally came to a close. Wrestling with mail order grill fulfillment has been the order of the day, complete with multiple shipments and broken grids. The supplier obviously isn’t used to drop shipments, as their packaging was completely inadequate for UPS (or Fedex for that matter). If I can’t ship servers that have been packed well without having UPS take pleasure in disassembly via tow motor and other abuses, there is no way the grids were going to make it with a single piece of Bubble wrap.

But it all came together in the end, and we cooked some burgers and hot dogs to start it up with. I managed to sear a temperature probe wire across my index finger and thumb. The wire braid over the sensor wire conducts heats ALL too well. That sucked pretty badly, but it was pretty much alright the next morning. Neither Mary or William would have anything to do with the cooking…. If they weren’t picky over everything right now, I’d take it personally. We did some trimming of the trees and bushes earlier in the day, which also allowed us to find that we have another family at the house…

They are hard to see, but there are a couple of grey little heads right at her feet. I don’t believe that she was overly happy about our discovery of them.

Mary was able to finally get a Rose bush. We waited until it was slightly cooler and less humid to plant it, but it was done. Mary dug some of the hole herself, and replaced almost ALL of the dirt herself. She was VERY proud of her gardening skills, complete with her own wheelbarrow and tools.

Papa picked up some crickets, so we had to find time to go and retrieve the smallest fishes capable of actually bitting the hook. More than a few hits on the lure and hook weren’t large enough to even think about getting the hook in their mouth. Mary and William didn’t care. I think they enjoyed the smallness of the fish, and the ability to torment them while hanging on the hook.

Monday was a bit of a washout in the afternoon, so no pool, but we did have a Birthday party. Mary acted as the officiator of presents, and William acted as the official Cake icing removal expert. Jeff has the pictures from that, so maybe they’ll come later.

The Grandparents looked after Mary and William while Jeff and I went to dinner and a movie (Indy 4). One of the high lights of the meal was the server coming by to check on us after our food was brought out. We went to a place that we had been going to since I moved to Tennessee. They have been revamping their service, definitely trying to push into the ‘upper level’ of service and food. For the most part they succeed, but it doesn’t feel the same for us anymore. The waitress was fresh from training, VERY nice, but unfortunately, we are definitely in the south. I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but in order to place our expectations in line, the phrasing of her inquiry into the preparation of our meal was toward the exemplary. “Is everything with YALL’s dinner excellent?” was the question. The dichotomy of the word choice was wonderful. And while the dinner was good, I can’t say that it was Excellent. It used to be. I want it to be. Heck, I proposed to Jeff in this place. We used to think very highly of it. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s also not as good as we remembered. They want to play in the bigger leagues, but they just aren’t there, and frankly, their metamorphosis hasn’t been the best for them in my opinion. Trying to be everything to everyone rarely works well. We’ll probably try there again in a while…. as I said, it’s not BAD, just expensive and not as good as it used to be. And we’ve got great memories there.

Indy 4 was entertaining. Suspension of Disbelief was a bit harder to come by with this movie as opposed to Raiders or Indy 3, but it was eventually fun enough that you stopped thinking about how insanely bad the realism isn’t.

Of course, one of the best gifts I could have had for my Birthday was William’s followup examination from his femur break and subsequent Spica cast. He did super well in the Xray room (for the FIRST time), and the Xray’s came out wonderfully. You can barely tell where the break occurred now on either angle, and he’s set for a followup in Six months. Unless something really drastic happens, we won’t even need to xray then. Dr. Martus was pleased with his recovery. Seeing that nearly clean Xray, especially in comparison to the previously broken shots was a wonderful gift. It’s amazing how well the body heals at this age. Dr. Martus told us in the beginning that they don’t try to match the ends of a break together, but just get them in the general area and pointing in the same direction. It’s strange to hear when they tell you that, but it does look like it’s true. He says that there isn’t much point in a followup xray after this, as it will look identical to the other bone.

Of course, that has to be peppered with a little additional ‘lookout’. Because the bone is going to heal faster and grow to match the other, it’s possible that the accelerated growth will cause the OTHER leg to be a little shorter. Of course, it’s also likely that over the next 20 years the two bones will leapfrog each other, eventually closing the gap to nothing, or effectively nothing.

Whew. That’s enough for now.

In a rare state of wakefulness, Daddy got up this morning and we went to the Zoo. It was a bit cool outside, but would warm on up to the mid 70′s by afternoon. We got there before most of the crowd, and was immediately in for a shock, and a treat.

William decided that he did not want to ride in the stroller, nor push it, nor be carried. William decided that he enjoyed walking yesterday, and would continue the tradition. From the car to the gates of the zoo. And then to the Macaws. AND THEN MOST OF THE REST of the Zoo. Kid did NOT want to be carried, would cry and scream if you picked him up. He’d stop, crouch down, occasionally LAY down on walkway, but then would get up and go. He walked almost non-stop from the Car to the far end of the zoo near the Cougars. At the end, Mary gave up her seat in the stroller so he could sit and eat some dinosaur chickens, but it was his stomach that got him in the end. I think that had he not been hungry (2 hours after starting this adventure), he would have kept going. Certainly after he ate, he was back up and walking again.

Mary Vic was quite happy to show Daddy the new Porcupines, and we got to watch a bird show with a hawk. Mary watched quite attentively, while William decided the most fun to be had was walking between where Mommy had sat to Mary and then up to Daddy, and repeat.

We stopped and had lunch at the Cafe there @ the zoo. Mary was introduced to Dipping Dots. I didn’t want to get her on those, but there weren’t any icee’s, and frankly, I was still in a bit of a cloud of bliss from all of the bipedal action William was demonstrating. I gave in.

After Lunch, it was on the play park, where guess what? William kept right on going.

You would think after as much as they did this morning and early afternoon, they’d be asleep immediately upon hitting the car seats. Both of them are still up as I write this.

Jeff’s try to get William to go to sleep, MV’s watching a movie as part of her quiet time, and Daddy is on cloud 9.

Now unfortunately, he does stumble quite a bit, and the speed simply isn’t there yet, but I don’t think it’s going to be long before he’s back. There were plenty of signs of it today. Anyone recognize this pose?

He’s bouncing back, and it’s one of the best feelings I can imagine.

MaryVic was the most excited. She was literally bouncing off the walls. “I’m so happy for William!” Practically shrieking as she spun around the bathroom. It was quite a contrast between her and William. He sat fastened in a chair while I ran a warm bath. He watched her and seemed quite oblivious to the fact he had lost 20 pounds of cast weight. He did move his legs but not with any excitement.

MaryVic mid-spin. She was running around brother. “Happy, happy, happy!”

William was not enthused with the idea of a bath. It was a surprise to discover he could not sit up in the tub when he was put in. It took just a few minutes for Grandmomma to be evicted so someone could get in and support him. We gently rubbed his legs and a lot of skin flaked off in the water. William did finally relax and play a bit in the water. He was okay so long as he had someone to lean on.

I rubbed his legs down with baby lotion after the bath. He did exhibit some distress during the diapering and dressing process as his legs and hips were moved.

After the bath we went for celebratory ice cream!

GrandPoppa carried him in.

Ice Cream!!!

Wow, look at all the candy up top!

The one mishap, MaryVic was running up and down the length of the counter. She squeezed past me and scraped her finger.

She did it Grandmomma!

Oh, the guilt!

William was served first.

MaryVic got her usual strawberry with sprinkles in a cone! We did ask for a kid cone.

After ice cream, we came back home and put William on the floor to play. He is not able to sit up by himself yet. He did surprise us by crawling some and he does remember how to stand from a crawl. He kept putting his right foot underneath him from a crawling position like he was going to push himself up. He rolled around a bit too. He tried to pull himself into his chair which is a rocker like the one in the bathroom picture but started crying. I had to pick him up and put him in it.

Sitting in his booster seat instead of the stroller. The spica cast had spread his legs too wide for the seat.

Enough with the pictures Momma!

After dinner, we did another warm bath. MaryVic got in with him and he did a bit better at sitting. Promises were required by us from MaryVic to be careful and not bump him. William didn’t want to get into the tub. He did finally wind up on his tummy in the water. He propped himself up on his elbows and played a little bit. I gently, gently rubbed his legs with a washcloth and applied more baby lotion to his legs afterwards.

He went into footie pajamas for the first time after. He slept okay but does have some pain as he moves in his sleep. He seemed to want his legs up and I tried propping them up on a pillow. He eventually wound up next to me with his feet on me. We were going to give him some pain medicine but I think he slept okay for being without it.

Mary Alice told me the following morning that at bedtime MaryVic said she sometimes gets scared at night and gets in bed with Mommy. MaryVic then wanted to come get in bed with me and William. She told Grandmomma she would be very careful and not bump William. I knew MaryVic had fallen asleep at the foot of the bed leaning on my legs. MaryAlice moved her to her bed after she passed out.

We are very grateful that William is out of his cast, for the support of family and friends and all the love and prayers for William’s recovery. It is wonderful to have him home, free to wiggle and snuggle. Grandmomma asked him if he was stuck while he was playing on the floor and William answered “uh-uh” so he does realize that the cast is gone and is enjoying being more mobile.

Yay!!

We spent more time at the library than planned. I needed to look for something for a co-worker which I couldn’t find in my office, of course! I spent some time in the office and the kids played very nicely. MaryVic shredded part of my ‘to be shredded’ stack and William did tummy time on the floor. Afterwards we walked around and touched base with co-workers.MaryVic got her first library card and checked out books. She was thrilled. I guess she takes after her mother’s reading tastes right now as she insists on checking out Halloween books. I like the scary stuff, good ghost stories and thrillers too. She was nice and checked out 2 board books for her brother.It was after one by the time we left the library so to apologize to the kids for having kept them there so long, we went to Sonic for milkshakes. They could not have the shakes in the just cleaned minivan so straight home. William fell asleep on the way but he did eat his shake after nap.After he woke up, ate lunch and I was finally able to get them moving. Well, I did give up after an hour and just bagged the chicken nuggets to go with us to the grocery store. We did the grocery shopping. I was very amused with MaryVic. We passed the store’s blood pressure check machine and she started going on about my arm. After spinning in circles 5 times trying to find what was on my arms?!, I figured out she was reminding to check my blood pressure which I had forgotten about. She sat in the cart telling me that she’d give me another sticker for checking it. I had already received two Kroger stickers because I was a good mommy (much to the Kroger pharmacists amusement). Blood pressure was fine: 117/50 and 106/67.The only other thing of note on Monday were I called Vandy again to double check about Williams appointment. Dr. Martus had said that April 1 was too soon to remove the cast and to either go to Vandy on Friday or come back to the Cool Springs office on Tuesday, April 8. The nurse called me back and said Dr. Martus needed to see William 3 weeks from the last appointment which would be April 2. The cast may or may not come off then. We have decided not to hold our breath hoping and just go with the flow.On Tuesday, MaryVic went to school with not a lot of fuss. William and I stayed home for the day. He was very good as I went on a small cleaning spree. Americare staff were back at the house again baiting the outside for the ants.We picked MaryVic up and went to Chik-fil-A for dinner. She got a pink and purple armadillo and William got a green alien man from the Balloon Guy. The alien guy was as big a hit as the train and he attacked Momma and stomped on dinner.The ants have found our primary garbage can in the garage. Of course, this is discovered in the evening, long after AmeriCare Pest Control is gone. Greg sprayed the corner of the garage down with Home Defense. So the Ant Wars wage on…All is well otherwise. We have an outing to the Apple store today, Wednesday, to see about the shift key on my laptop.

William and I had a bunch of errands to run. We went to Target, Costco and the car wash. We walked over to Home Depot to exchange some light bulbs while the car was being cleaned.

The shopping cart picture:

I meant to grab another pillow. He was more comfortable after I put a bag underneath him. He can’t sit in the seat because of that big bar and has a hard time staying in place so he’ll grab the sides of the cart.

Momma makes up for it with a berry drink that she doesn’t take away from him in the car. This is pre-car cleaning.

Hey! Are you taking a picture of me for that blog again! Momma Paparazzi Alert!

Looking very concerned as Momma tests her blood pressure at Publix. Are you sure you know what you are doing???

It was high at the doctors office the other day so I’m testing it weekly and keeping track, sort of, as I remember to do so. Today it started at 140/79 which is not good and dropped to 125/67 which was better. This was after walking over to Home Depot and on the way back to the car wash.

After all that we went home for lunch, William napped and then we went back to Sams for some lawn maintenance supplies and water. We went for a walk with the red wagon when we returned home.

Watched Greg/Daddy set up the spreader and do the yard. William was very impressed with Dad’s dumping the turf treatment in the spreader and cheered when the bag was empty. He was then relegated to the bay window in the kitchen where he could watch Daddy go around the yard and wave at him.

Dinner came with complimentary alfredo noodle sauce gel so we had the joy of washing William’s hair in the sink. He sooo does NOT enjoy this. Huge sobs and cries of “Noooo!”.

He was pretty tired at the end of the day and fell asleep pretty quick.

Despite all the bon bon talk, I watched my first movie and stayed up till 12:30 or so. Appleseed Ex Machina. An anime directed and produced by Jon Woo so it had the standard shots of shells falling to the floor in slow motion. Very pretty. I think the older Appleseed had a slightly better story and the computer animation made all the fight scenes feel very video-gamish to me. I’ve also gotten to watch part of the first show of the season of Medium. Ah well, Dora, Wonder Pets and SpongeBob aren’t all that bad.

It was a nice story time. The signing lady was there. William did sign some and several of the other children knew some signs too. I talked with the instructor. She does BabySigns which is 90% ASL . I think almost all of the signs she showed the children were ASL except for maybe bunny. The focus was on animals with Brown Bear, Brown Bear and we had fun making animal noises and signing.

William loved craft time and we were one of the last to leave. We had sheets of white paper with a white crayon. I distressed him by writing on the paper with the crayon but he settled down to painting on it quickly. The writing would show through after the paper was painted. People seemed to be amused that he colored the whole sheet.

The final product:

But one sheet isn’t enough. I wrote just his name on one side but he colored both sides of this page, flipping it over while I was talking to another mother.

After storytime, we roamed the library and chatted with my co-workers. William waved and was mostly cooperative. I would push the stroller back and forth while he leaned forward to see the wheels. He’d sit there and yell, “Go, go go!”

Then we headed out to Home Depot to pick up light bulbs, a bathroom light fixture, and some pansies. I bought a larger bathroom light fixture but it works, both in lighting and fitting in the room size wise. Opted for verbana instead of pansies.

William has to ride in the cart. He cannot sit in the cart child seats with the bar between his calves. I brought the big frog stuffed animal and tried to prop him up with him. He’ll ride along for a while then grab the sides and start trying to left himself to see around better. I’ll have to take a picture of him like this one day.

Afterwards we went home for the day. The exterminator got to our house a little early but waited for me. He sprayed the kitchen counter and baseboards, downstairs bathroom, and around the inside and outside of the front door. This is the 3 visit in as many weeks. We have little black ants that are being persistent pests. Steve found two places that they are trying to get under the house and inside. He put some bait there and hopefully the rain on Wednesday will not wash it all away.

We are using Americare and subscribing either to the annual quarterly or flex plan. Get regular sprayings to keep the little buggers away once we finally get rid of them. All of this is after I sprayed the outside, windows and doors as well as spraying the kitchen twice so it has been a five week battle. The guys that have come out have been extremely nice and seem to be confident that the ants will go away eventually. The company does have a good customer service ethic.

I cleaned the house up some. Planted the flowers while William napped and moved some bulbs. Greg came home tired and we decided not to go to Chik-Fil-A for family night. He put up the new fixture.

We chatted on the computer with Grandmomma and MaryVic. She cut up most of the time with a feather fan. It was good to see her with her curls and smiles.

Then bath and bed!

MaryVic went home with Grandmomma to Arab for however long it lasts. It may only be until tonight, lol. She wanted to go to Grandmomma’s house though. She sounded a little sad when they left and got frantic for another hug from Momma.

I took one of her little bears and smeared some of my body lotion on it so she could smell Momma if she got lonely and needed a snuggle. That seemed to perk her up. William hasn’t missed her yet although he looked for Grandmomma and Poppa.

William and I went to Barnes and Noble bookstore to see Spot. I was an hour early but he played with the train tracks and read books.

He high fived Spot and wasn’t scared of him at all.

We then got some lunch for Daddy and took it to him. William fell asleep in the van so Daddy had to come out and get his food. Back home for some tummy

We ran to Target for some Easter things and then Kroger for the all important bananas. Hopefully a banana a day contributes towards his leg healing somehow.

We came back home and I put him in the red wagon. We walked our street and down by the ponds. William was disappointed that I wouldn’t pick our neighbors pansies for him but he enjoyed being outside.

Greg is home. Dinner is cooking. William fusses everytime I leave the room and wants me to get him up again. I feel a little tired in the shoulders, must have carried him around more today.

I hope you all have had a good day too!

Shawn, The Balloon Guy bravely decided to battle the forces of copyright and Walt Disney’s Empire by making a hat for William, that I’m sure is NOT Mickey Mouse. He doesn’t normally do something of this scale, especially on a crowded night, but as predicted, William got an excellent Balloon animal once the cast was revealed.

Mary, having noticed the sing along guy in the front of the restaurant, helped get the party started.

What was two, soon became a whole flock of kids…. To the point that these pictures were the ones at the beginning… when we could still see Mary. Shortly after this, the numbers doubled, and then doubled again. We’d see a curl here and there, and then nothing….

They played (William did the Chicken Dance VERY well for only having the upper body mobile) like you would not believe. We thought for sure that they would pass out the moment we got the home.

Oh no. Second wind turned into forth wind, and no one slept well..

Load ‘em up, move ‘em out. Back down to the pond to feed the geese, take advantage of the nice weather, and get out of the house!

We went to Costco afterwards and grabbed a few things. Greg and I took turns carrying William some to shift his position around. He fell asleep in the stroller. Woke up when we put him the car and that was all the nap he took. Tried to get him and MaryVic to take a quiet time twice later in the day but no dice.

We took a nice walk down to the pond and fed the geese. William rode in the wagon again and enjoyed it. Greg posted pictures at our photo web site.

Greg had pointed out during lunch that the doctor said not to give William too much motrin since some studies had shown it inhibits bone growth. Mary Alice gave him some motrin around 10:30 and he didn’t get any more pain killers until bed time. He got really fussy later in the day.

I gave him the prescription pain killer at sponge bath time. He spat part of it out. I don’t know if it was lack of nap or that we missed a dose of pain killer but he screamed and fussed at bedtime. He kept yelling ‘stuck!’. I felt so bad for him. We wound up with him on his tummy on my chest when he finally went to sleep. Greg had to come and put me up on the bed. He tried to take W to the crib but he woke up screaming again. Greg got him arranged mostly next to me and so we slept. I think part of the reason he was waking was he was trying to turn over in his sleep and unable to