Sunday was a special day! It was Deuce's first trip to the NC Zoo! I had not been to the zoo since the 2nd grade myself so I was very excited! Also making the trip special was the fact that we went with 2 other babies. Ed, Ashwon and Corey all graduated from Chapel Hill High in '97 and Annie graduated with me in '99. We all had our little ones within 7 days of each other. Ashwon & Annie had Aja on April 19th, Deuce was born on April 22nd and Corey & Jessica had Zoe on April 26th. Needless to say, Deuce thoroughly enjoyed rollin' with 2 cuties all day!
And I must add that Ed was definately a trooper! He went to the zoo with us and managed to stay right with us either walking or using his crutches. Such an awesome daddy! :)
TJ's best friend Austin came over on Sunday to go trick-or-treating with us! TJ was The Joker and Austin was Iron Man. We live in a neighborhood packed with kids and live next to the neighborhood where TJ's school is, which is also packed with kids! While we were getting the boys ready, we had some early arrivals at our house. Believe it or not, I had never handed out candy before this Halloween so I was really excited to see the kids. Deuce had his skeleton costume on so he went to the door with me and he got really excited to see the flood of scary costumes and pretty princesses at the door.
Then we headed out to hit up our neighborhood. The different cul-de-sacs are either a hit or a miss. If it's one with kids, they most likely aren't home, they are out like us. So we hit up the hot spots and then headed over to Reedy Fork where TJ goes to school. In Reedy Fork, the houses are pretty close together and everybody moves their cars so the kids can go from house to house with minimal parental supervision. One of the houses sets up a mini-carnival every year and that particular street is always jumping with tons of kids in costumes. This year they had a little fire pit where all the kids could roast marshmallows, they had an area with a bench set up with pumpkins & scarecrows for parents to take pictures of their kids and of course candy & drinks. They even had a guy playing the banjo!! Needless to say the boys had a great time and came home with lots of candy.
Deuce enjoyed being strolled around for the most part but by the end of the night he was tired and cranky. My sister came up to stay with us for Ed's surgery and she was more than willing to carry him the rest of the way! Side Note: We bought that skeleton costume for him after Halloween last year for $2.99. This was before we knew if he was a boy or a girl and was just a guess as to the size he would be. We have been waiting for an entire year for him to wear it just that one time! I think he looked great!
Ed had his knee surgery yesterday and it went exactly as expected. The meniscus had "flipped" itself back into place and that's why Ed was able to move it and begin walking on it last week. However, during surgery Dr. Chandler was able to recreate the injury (the flipping & locking) very easily signifying that if Ed hadn't had surgery his knee could have locked up on him again at any moment. So they removed the entire posterior meniscus (behind the knee). The surgery took about an hour and 10 minutes and then he spent about an hour in recovery before I go to see him.
I spoke with Dr. Chandler following the surgery and he said it was very routine and there were no surprises once they were inside the knee. I asked him how removing the entire posterior meniscus would affect his ability to play sports and he said it shouldn't at all. Basically the meniscus absorbs shock to the knee so over time, Ed may be more likely to develop arthritis behind his knee later in life. They expect him to be able to return to work next Monday and a full recovery in 3-4 weeks.
Ed has taken it all very well for it being his first surgery. He has been in good spirits and has not needed any pain meds. He has been doing great with Ibuprofren. He has a knee brace that holds ice packs so I have been making sure that he keeps his leg elevated and continues to straighten & flex his legs often to avoid blood clots. I change his ice packs every couple of hours. He can remove his knee dressings tomorrow and shower so we will see what the puncture sites look like.
...Ed that is. He woke up at about 5am Monday morning to a loud pop in his knee while rolling over. As soon as he said my name, I could tell he was in some serious pain! He has messed up this knee twice since high school so when it initially happened he just knew he had torn something. Thank goodness he already had some crutches (or crunches as TJ calls them) at the house because there was no way I could have gotten him up and to the car by myself. Since the boys were asleep, we got Ed up and to the side of the bed and I got TJ ready for school without telling him. He may be the most worried child I have ever met when it comes to somebody being sick or hurt. Since I was up so early and knew I wasn't going in to work, I rushed TJ around and got him out of the house quick. I took him to McDonalds on the way to school, which he was SUPER excited about. He couldn't believe that we had enough time because we are usually always on his tail in the mornings. He moves at turtle speed when it's time to go to school.
I rushed back home, packed bottles & food for Deuce and got him up. I didn't even change his clothes because I knew I needed to get Ed to the Urgent Care asap. His leg was literally locked in place. He couldn't bend it or straighten it. He couldn't touch his toe to the ground and he couldn't lift his leg up. We spent about 3 1/2 hours at the Urgent Care where they kept asking Ed the same history questions over and over again. While we were waiting, we all decided to get Flu shots since we had so much time on our hands. (Deuce didn't flinch or cry during his. And then he smiled when it was over! Whew!) Finally a PA came in and looked at Ed's leg and said "Hmmmmm, I'll be right back." After abour 45 minutes I had to go track him down and ask him if he forgot about us. They hadn't given Ed any pain medicine or anything! He told us they had made an appointment with an orthopedist for that afternoon. So we left Urgent Care, got Chick-fil-A for lunch and went home for a brief 1 hour nap. Then we got up and went to see Dr. Paul at Guilford Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine.
Dr. Paul is a UNC Alum and took to Ed very quickly when we said we both went to Chapel Hill High and that the first time Ed messed his knee up was playing ball in high school. We really like him right away. after talking with him for awhile, he set Ed up for an MRI on Tuesday. So Tuesday I had to stay home again to take Ed to his appointment (it's his right knee so he can't drive). We went and had the MRI and got the results back yesterday. And............it's a torn lateral meniscus. Sooooo, surgery is scheduled for Monday. As the days have passed, the pain has eased and the range of motion has returned so he can walk on it (with a slight limp but still he can move at least). Dr. Paul asked him if wanted surgery on Friday or Monday and he chose Monday. I mean come on, if he had surgery on Friday, he would be in no shape to go to the football game Saturday!
So Ed will have arthroscopic surgery on his right knee Monday at 12:30. I'll keep everyone updated! Here are some pictures of Daddy & Deuce throughout his different appointments.
For anybody out there that has a Droid phone...download the Google Sky Map application! I highly recommend it, especially to those of you with kids. It's takes your GPS location and displays the stars, planets, sun, moon, etc based off of where you are standing at that moment. It's incredibly accurate! It brings to life the fact that the Earth is a sphere and there are stars and planets "beneath" us. TJ & I had a great time looking at the stars last night! While we were looking up at the moon, the sun was "below the ground" (or on the other side of the Earth) at that moment!
...I allowed Deuce to have his first sleepover. With Nana and Auntie, of course. My mom and sister came to visit on Saturday and watched Chris while we did some much needed house cleaning! (I think I did like 8 or 9 loads of laundry Saturday and still have more to go...wow!) My sister had eaten some bad food the night before so she was sick as soon as she got to Greensboro. Nana and Deuce read books and napped in the sunshine while Auntie took a nap. Since my sister was feeling so bad, and we were trying to work inside the house, I told them to just go on back to my mom's house and I would come pick him up later. BUT later turned in to 11:30pm after the Carolina game so I decided to let him stay down there! Because I am efficiently learning to plan ahead, I had packed plenty of bottles, food & clothes to get him through the night so off they went. Nana said he slept great and she didn't have to get out of bed until morning! Thank goodness for camera phones now days because they sent me a picture of him almost every hour. It was nice to get a good nights sleep but I sure did miss him. (I don't think Ed wanted him to go but he was nice and obliged). Here are some shots from Auntie's phone of the sleepover!
Wow...6 months has come and gone so fast. I just can't believe it. We took Deuce to see Dr. Davis for his 6 month well visit on Monday. He is a tall, skinny fella with a little head. He weighed 14lbs12oz (10th percentile...yikes!) was 26.5 inches long (55th percentile) and his head circumference is 42.5cm (18th percentile).
Sooooo, it turns out that I have to start supplementing with formula because my milk production has drastically slowed down since I returned to work. Even with the pumping every 2 hours, I am not producing enough for him (hence, the low weight). Dr. Davis assured us he is not malnourished or anything (he also has rice cereal twice a day, fruits and vegetables with every bottle AND juice) but it made me feel bad. Dr. Davis told me that I had done a great job exculsively breastfeeding for the first 6 months and that the first 4 months are the most important months for nursing when it comes to brain development, etc.
I was only pumping enough to feed him 4oz bottles but at 6 months he should be drinking 6-8oz per bottle. So I will continue to pump so he has some breastmilk in his bottles and then top off the rest of it with formula. I have not nursed him since Sunday (5 days). I was a little worried that not nursing him before bed would hinder his newfound sleeping habits but it hasn't. He holds his own bottles now when we prop him up on the couch or in his seat and he's good to go. So we can all eat dinner at the same time. Then his belly is full and he likes to play with his daddy for awhile or have his bath. Then when it's time to hit the sack, he goes down with ease and talks to himself for about 5 minutes before he zonks out.
I love this little dude so much and love being his momma!!!
This past Saturday we ventured up to Charlottesville for the Carolina / UVA football game. It was a beautiful fall day: perfect for football! Charlottesville is such a beautiful place. My dad and I had gone up there once before when I was at State to watch the Wolfpack play UVA. Ed really wanted to visit their stadium so we decided to make the trip this year. Carolina had not won in Charlottesville since 1981: the year that my cousin Rod was the starting quarterback. We live right off of Highway 29 in Greensboro and it runs straight in to Charlottesville. It only took us about 2 hours and 40 minutes to get there. There was no traffic and some beautiful country scenery along the way. My dad lives at the VA coast (Hampton Roads area) so he joined us at the game. He hadn't seen Deuce since the beginning of August so he was excited to meet up with us! We got home around 1am but had a great day and, of course, enjoyed the lopsided victory!
...and he slept through the night. And I mean, slept through the night!!!!! On Thursday, October 14th, Chris slept from 8pm until 7am, when I had to wake him to feed him before I left for work. Yes, I have been blogging about how he's been pretty much sleeping through the night for a few weeks now, but this time he didn't make a peep. I didn't have to soothe him back to sleep. I didn't have to give him his paci. I didn't even have to get out of my bed. It was amazing!!! And he's slept through the night every night since...
And then on Friday night, October 15th, he decided that he would be able to sit up on his own, without any help from me! All of this stuff is so exciting, but it also means that he's getting bigger and bigger and reminds me that I will soon be chasing after him. These baby stages go by too fast...ahhhhhhh!
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