Swimming update

Porter has long since graduated from his ISR (see previous blog) floating lessons. Although I'm not supposed to post video of them doing instruction, I can't help it because I'm so proud. Don't tell anyone. The video is of our swim instructor and Porter perfecting his float. Watch as she simulates him falling in, flips him over to disorient him, and each time, he calmly floats to the surface and waits patiently for someone to come get him. Although this doesn't ever make a child drownproof, it sure gives him a chance. This fall, we will work on swimming as well as floating. She did tell us that out of the hundreds of babies she has done this for, Porter is the calmest one and learned in almost record time. (4 weeks) She wants a first class flight to the Olympics opening ceremonies. We one-upped that and offered to fly her private :)



Sloane, on the other hand, has been a bit of a struggle. I made the mistake of not starting her when she was a baby and we have had a tougher time getting her comfortable in the water. This program is not for the squeamish or faint of heart or lazy parent - it's every day, 5 days a week at 7:45 in the morning. And for 2 months, Sloane has screamed through every minute of it. Sloane is also a bit like her mommy and has a bit of a stubborn streak in her - she will do things on her own time, on her own terms, and when she's darn good and ready and not a minute sooner. A couple of weeks ago, our hard work paid off. Sloane is SWIMMING and fearless!

Porter thinks I'm funny....

One of the funniest things in the world is to hear babies belly laugh. Porter is no exception. This is a great 8 second clip that I play over and over again when I need a smile. It's funny because it's usually the dumbest things that get them giggling. In this case, I had a little plastic ball in my mouth and was spitting it out at him. Who knew I was so hilarious??

Cowgirl!

I grew up on horses and honestly, one of the things I worry about most is that Sloane could never get the chance to learn how to ride. (I know Grandma Suitter would NEVER let that happen but, you know how mom's worry about stuff that is never going to happen...)

Sloane got the opportunity last month to go visit a shetland pony farm in Nampa with some good friends of hers that she met in Kindermusik class. We left Porter home, put our boots on and off we went to visit the little horses and see Sloane's reaction. The farm is run by a nice couple who operate as a non-profit and offer the horses to kids with disabilities and nursing homes. The owner also doubles as an Elvis impersonator (!) Sloane was so excited to see the little horses and she kept trying to feed them hay, even though the ponies weren't exactly starving and receptive to her offering. Mr. Elvis put Sloane on the back of one and she was a little shocked to have a live, breathing animal underneath her. She did great - although I think her biggest kicks that day were from jumping off the feed troughs and chasing the barn cats around. By the way, the dozen or so cats would all come running when Mr. Elvis cattle called them :)

Mother's and Father's Day

Mother's Day and Father's Day have long since come and gone, but this year they were especially meaningful now that we have both kids and Sloane is getting bigger! For Mother's Day, our nanny, Brianna, helped the kids make some darling little flowerpots they they helped paint and surprised me with - I was so excited! For Father's Day, Phil's gift was a new set of golf clubs - a pink set, for a child about 36" high. I don't know who was more excited...

Butterflies at the zoo!

Summer in Boise is a great time to go to the zoo. They have many interactive kid friendly exhibits that allow them to feed the baby giraffes, goats, fish and this year, they added a great enclosed butterfly exhibit filled with beautiful flowers, bushes and TONS of big, colorful butterflies from Costa Rica that will land on you if you hold really still. It takes a minute to get used to them flying all around you and the first one that lands on you, it's tough not to swat the poor things away. Sloane warmed up pretty quickly and found that butterflies really aren't that scary!

Looking up at all of the butterflies

A big one on her head and back - she didn't know about...

Easter

Baby chick week at CAL Ranch store in Idaho Falls. Big hit.

Coloring eggs with Grandma Suitter. Grandmas have bigger mess tolerance levels than moms.

Easter has already came and went. Seemed late this year. Maybe because the weather has been so cold this spring. Or maybe because it was just, late. Sloane is still just a skosh too young to really get it. I have so been looking forward to the time when we could bribe her with "you need to be good or (insert Easter Bunny, Santa Clause, Great Pumpkin etc.) will not visit you this year." Porter was especially too young. 10 months now - can you believe it? Last year, we really overdid the Easter thing and learned a lesson: too much Easter candy when they can't really eat it leaves it to the parents to eat for the next 6 months or Phil takes to the office where it gets devoured in under 30 minutes. This year, I think we struck a good balance.

The Easter Bunny's loot

We did hide some Easter eggs around the house which thrilled Sloane - especially the ones with coins in them. She ran around the house with her basket and when she would find one, she would gasp, pause a little, then grab the egg and empty the contents onto the floor, then discard the empty egg and run on to find the next one. This left us scrambling to pick up jelly beans, coins and little pieces of chocolate desperately before Porter could army-crawl over and shovel the discarded goodies into his mouth. Her favorite item was a little tin of lip glosses. She carries them everywhere and even sleeps with them, but has yet to really put any on her lips.

We had a nice Easter brunch at Crane Creek with some friends and there was another egg hunt there after the meal. They divided the kids into 2 age groups: 5 and older and under 5 and sent them out to 2 different greens to divide and conquer. The kids lined up, the starting whistle blew and off they went. Keep in mind, Sloane is very cautious without an aggressive streak anywhere in her. She ran to several groups of eggs, only to be caught off guard by some Easter crazed 4 year olds who shoved her out of the way and scooped up all of the eggs before she could protest while their admiring parents cheered them on. I had no idea that egg-hunting competitiveness would outweigh politeness or "sharing" that we all teach them so hard to learn from an early age. Oh no. All of that gets THROWN OUT THE WINDOW for the egg hunt. Another lesson learned. While we will still demand that our children learn how to share and play nice for the rest of the year, we will secretly be training her for the next 11 months for the next bunny-eat-bunny egg hunt. Happy Easter!

Porter cannot decide if this bunny is creepy or cool. Sloane likes him WAY better than Santa.With her friend Thatcher before the egg hunt.Hunting on the putting green for eggs at Crane CreekWe did get a nice photo, if no eggs.No crazy 4 year olds at Grandma Suitter's house to compete with for eggs!Sloane found ALL the eggs and got to keep them!

Infant swim

I did it. I enrolled Porter in Infant Swim Survival class. At 8 months old. Heard of it? It's a national program (sometimes controversial) that teaches babies survival classes in the water. You see, when babies or other children fall in water, they tend to sink like a rock straight to the bottom. Or, if they try to swim after falling in a body of water unprepared, they will flail uncontrollably and quickly drown. There are far too many stories out there that begin with "I only turned away for a second" and end with tragedy. Enter, ISR. www.infantswim.com

ISR for infants is not to teach babies how to swim and impress people at the pool like those "your baby can read" programs. This class is designed to teach babies to hold their breath underwater, roll over to orient themselves face-up, and calmly float on their backs while breathing and wait for someone to come and get them out of the water. Needless to say, this kind of training is a bit intense and requires ALOT of dedication. It is 5 days a week, every morning at the same time (7:45 a.m.) for 10 minutes a day, we must keep track of all of his bowel movements, urination, diet and sleep patterns every day, and follow strict guidelines. The instructor is a delightful lady we call Miss Ann who has trained extensively herself to be able to teach this amazing course.

Not all moms are willing to go through this.Miss Ann and Porter at the end of his first week

Why did we decide to do this? Well, because it's available in this modern day and age, for one. It's not for everyone - most moms would rightly be terrified to turn their infant over to a stranger at a pool and watch calmly on the sidelines while their baby learns to float. I, however, am not "that mom." For another reason, we live at the pool at Crane Creek in the summer. And this year, not only will we have a crawler, we will have a crazy toddler. However, I am "that mom" who is most likely to lose attention for "just 1 second." This class is also for me. Both Grandma's houses are surrounded by water, pools, lakes, ponds, canals, birdbaths, you name it. More bodies of water than my ADD allows with 2 small children. While it will not make him "drownproof," it will dramatically increase the odds that if he falls in a body of water, he will be able to survive.

Phil's parents backyard in Atlanta. Pool and hot tub surrounded by lake.

Hopefully, in 6-8 weeks, he will have learned to fall in the water and float. Graduation is complete when he can not only do this in the water in his cute little bathing suit, but when he demonstrates it with the instructor in full summer and winter clothes - including coat, hat and boots. I'll keep you posted!!

The desired end result - soon to be Porter

septoplasty

For quite a few years now, I have been plagued with chronic sinus infections. I get them in the spring, I get them in the fall and I get them even worse since I've gotten older. About 3 years ago, my doctor was finally tired of prescribing antibiotics and referred me to an ear, nose and throat specialist who could find out what the problem really was. One cat scan later, we found a severely deviated septum and some other gross stuff going on. Good news - it could be fixed forever with an outpatient surgery. Bad news - I had just found out I was pregnant with Sloane. He said to come see him again after I had all of my kids and was finished nursing. Literally the week I finished with Porter, I called. I was ready.

Diagram of a deviated septum

We scheduled the surgery, lined up for childcare for awhile with my mom and dad, and in I went. It was a fairly lengthy surgery. We decided to go for the whole gusto while we were up there and not only straighten out the septum, but widen up nasal passages and sinus passages and remove a turbinate which had grown into the deviation. The whole enchilada, if you will.

A non-gory diagram of surgery

What was supposed to be a 2.5 hour procedure ended up being 4. Thankfully, he took his time and once he got up there, found out things were worse than he thought. He corrected them nicely, stitched me back up and I woke up in a recovery room none the wiser of the brutality that my nose had just gone through. In the beginning, I specifically asked the kind doctor that he spare me the gory details of what it was he was going to do or the aspects of what to expect for recovery, lest I talk myself out a much-needed procedure. (I found out EXACTLY what he did a couple of weeks after..... Thank you, Youtube. I am now scarred from those images burning into my mind. It was NOT a delicate procedure as I had naively imagined.)

My wonderful husband was such a rockstar. He set up our recliner in our living room in front of the TV and for a full week, he would come home after working all day and take care of both kids and a patient. Recovery was a bit worse than I thought, but with the help of alot of pain meds and my awesome friends who came by to visit and bring me things, I got through it.

Immediately after surgery

The day after

3 days after

I am still recovering. The doctor has said it could be 6 months before I'm back to normal and maybe even longer. Unfortunately, both children have taken a pretty good shot at my nose, reinjuring it twice now. I'm hoping there's not any new damage because of this, but in the meantime, I can breathe like I have never breathed before and optimistic that when the sagebrush starts blooming, I'll stay healthy and infection-free.

Florida!

One of the great things about Phil's job is that they often have meetings at FANTASTIC places. Usually, they are so good that they count as an annual vacation. This year was no exception when we found out it was in the Florida Keys - Duck Key, to be exact - in the middle keys. Sounded pretty good to leave good ol' Idaho in February and be closer to the equator. My Mom and Dad agreed to watch Porter in Eagle for the week and we dropped Sloane off at Camp Dyer in Atlanta with Grandma and Grandpa.


I had never been to the keys and was excited to do all things "keysian." I wanted to drive the highway, see Key West, lay on the beach, etc. so we flew from Atlanta to Miami and rented a convertible (thank you, honey) and drove down.

Unfortunately, Phil had the flu and was miserable for the first part of the trip. He surprised me by booking a trip to go fishing in the shallow waters for tarpon and permit - something I have always wanted to do. He bucked up enough to go and we had a blast! In a flat bottomed boat, 6 miles out (still in 6 feet deep water) we caught tons of spanish mackerel, grunt fish, snapper and all sorts of fun fish I had never seen. When the guide told us that we were going to go shark hunting, I just laughed because I thought he was kidding. He was not. Turns out, the fish we caught early on had a more noble purpose - shark bait... During the last hour of our trip, we did just that and Phil caught a 50 lb Caribbean reef shark. Crazy. What a great time I'll not soon forget and can cross that off my list now.


Another new and fun thing I got to do was paddleboard. Our good friends Vaughn and Katie had rented a couple early on and since Vaughn was going to be in meetings all day, Katie needed a sidekick to kick their butt on a board. I'm always up for getting my butt kicked with Katie so off we went! It was suprisingly stable and we paddled all the way around the key in a waterway without ever falling off or really getting wet at all. Talk about a workout!


Finally, Phil got a little break in the meetings and we were able to drive down to Key West. We hit all the high points like Hemingway's House with the 6 toed cats, Southermost Point, Sloppy Joes and ate sloppy joes, Margaritaville, watched the sunset from the pier and ate oysters with our trusty guides the Olson's, who always know where the goods are. Great vacation, can't wait till the next sales meeting!

Porter's first meal

It's hard to believe that Porter is 7 months old now! Seems like yesterday we brought the little nugget home. As with Sloane, Porter nursed exclusively for 6 months and has now broken free to expand his little gourmet experiences beyond breastmilk. This is always bittersweet for me - sad to have broken the bond between mother and child and excited to have FREEDOM to feed babies with something other than ME so that I can go places without having to worry about it. Honestly, I didn't think I would make it 6 months the second time around but my resolve proved to be stronger than my whining. Porter is the easiest baby in the universe and switching him to a bottle and formula was a non-issue. (As were his first teeth, solid foods, sleeping through the night, etc.) His first solid food meal was rice cereal out of the nice pewter bowl and spoon given to us by our dear friends Vaughn and Katie Olson. Here's to the future of adventurous (and messy) eating!

Sloane's first haircut!

FINALLY! After 2+ years, Sloane finally has enough hair to cut without it being completely obvious! I decided it was time after watching her for awhile run around with it hanging directly over her eyes and obstructing her vision. Yes, it was time. Fortunately, Aunt Julie had an appointment with Tas Caldara, our fantastic friend and hairdresser. The plan was to take Sloane in while Julie was processing and that she would sit quietly and patiently and get her hair cut. Well....I've learned that with Sloane, the best laid plans can come quickly unraveled.

Actually, it wasn't ALL that bad. Tas busted out the booster seat and cute little cape with surfing penguins on it. Not long after wetting her hair, however, we realized that she wasn't going to sit quietly without a bribe. In public places, I'm never above a good bribe and I happened to have a secret weapon in the diaper bag - a BLOWPOP SUCKER! Great idea, right?? I watched her unwrap the sucker and sit still while Tas began cutting her hair. As I was silently congratulating myself on a job well done, I slowly began to see why we don't give suckers at haircuts. Mortified, we watched as each newly cut hair from her head gravitated toward and stuck on her sucker. Gross. Sloane didn't seem to notice or care. Even more gross. Julie said just watching it made her tongue itch and she felt like she was coughing up hairballs for the rest of the day. Sloane's first haircut was certainly unforgettable - especially after seeing the finished product!

Getting ready for the first cutThe first pieces trimmedTas showing Sloane her scissorsThe bangs!Yes, that's Julie watching with her hair wrapped in 2 lbs of tinfoilThe finished product