A lotta junk

This morning Corey held out one of his toys to me and said, "Mommy, this is my credit card." I replied, "Oh yeah? And what are you going to buy with this credit card?" He said, "I'm gonna buy a lotta junk!" Indeed.

Corey is suddenly not only concerned with his purchasing ability, but also his height. Each time I offer him food, he asks, "Is that big & tall food, mommy?" Often he follows up with, "Am I gonna be as big as Uncle Dave if I eat zat, mommy?" Uncle Dave, at 6' 5", is the the gold standard for big & tall around here. I have now taken to suggesting that all good foods, if eaten in decent quantity, will lead to equaling or surpassing Uncle Dave in height, and this is working really well. So thank you, Uncle Dave, for inspiring my heart child to eat.

The other child learned how to use a fork today. Always interested in food, Mason has now started showing interest in my cutlery, so I handed him a fork, gave him a demonstration on how to use it, and immediately he got it. Go Mason Thomas! He has been forking up chicken/bananas/anything he can stab with mad passion. He is also using the signs for "eat" and "more" all the time; "eat" meaning "I want food" or "I am thirsty", and occasionally he combines the two to say that he wants to "eat more". This is no surprise to anyone who has tried to keep up with the little man's appetite.

In conclusion, there's a whole lotta junk and eating going on at Chez Corey.

Fontan & Lead Test

Can't get much heavier than that for a subject line, can I? First, let me say that Mason's lead test came back fine, thank God!

On to the Fontan. I spoke with Dr. Brenner yesterday, and the latest news is that we can either do the Fontan in October, or we can wait until next April. Factors to consider: 1) How is Corey doing now? That is, is he out of breath too easily, or is he playing well and holding his own? 2) Should we push ahead now, while Corey is healthy, in hopes of a better recovery time? If we wait, will his health decline, thus making the Fontan recovery more difficult? 3) Are there any other major events happening that would make the Fontan more difficult on our family as a whole in October or April?

Dr. Brenner and Dr. Vricella, to our surprise, essentially put the ball in our court. Dr. Vricella prefers to do the Fontan between ages 4 and 5. Corey will be 3 years 8 months in October, and slightly over 4 in April. So what are we going to do? The short answer is, we don't know. We are leaning toward waiting until April, but we want to discuss it further, and we are also hoping to get Dr. McKay's input. We'll, of course, let you know.....

Team wrestle mania visits Dr. McKay

When people ask me how I am these days, typically I just say, "good" or "fine". It's really just a greeting, in American terms, after all. But what I'd like to say is this: crazed. It's wrestle mania over here at casa de Corey, all day, every day. In fact, we just buzzed all Corey's hair off in an effort to keep Mason from grabbing Corey's hair by the fistful. My main job is no longer "mommy", it's ring ref. I bought some shirts the other day, and when I got them home, I realized they were all black and white - fitting for my job as ring ref. Mason, may I say, is truly in touch with his cave man ancestry these days. He likes to grunt, "uh uh uh" while he grabs hair and clothes, and if you're on the floor, expect to be dive bombed and/or steam rollered.

So I took team wrestle mania to Dr. McKay's office this morning for Mason's 15 month check-up. As you might have guessed, Mason is still weighing in with the line backers. Somewhere between the doctor's office and here I managed to lose the paper with his stats, but I can tell you that he is over 30 pounds and still off the charts. Developmentally, with respect to motor skills, he is ahead of the curve. With respect to language, he's behind. If he doesn't break out with "mommy" in the next two months, it's back to the speech pathologist.

Mason had only one shot today (dip/pertussis/tetanus), and he did not even cry. He flinched, but that was it! Unfortunately, because he has been chewing on his painted toys from China, Dr. McKay ordered a lab test for lead, so I had to take him over to LabCorp for a blood draw. While Mason was good for the draw, the tech had some trouble finding his vein, and I had to watch my poor sweet baby squirm all around and cry. This was less than fun. And now we get to worry about the test coming back positive for lead as well. No more painted toys that he can chew on from China, please! I'm throwing away all such toys in our house today.

When we got home, it was still a bit early for the nap time routine, and I wanted to snuggle with Mason a little. He had a big morning, after all. Corey said, "Are zoo gonna make my shake, mommy?" I said, "I need to give Mason some love for a little while, first, because he has some owies from this morning." Corey contemplated and then said, "When Mason is done with the love, then you will make my shake?" Ha!

Photos from VA & Corey on guitar

You can find pictures of our Williamsburg vacation, plus a couple shots of Corey playing guitar and Mason showing off his famous pig face expression, in the gallery or at this address:

http://photos.damianandjenn.com/index.php?album=032808

Enjoy!