23 Months!

This post is loooong overdue. Here we go- At 23 months:

-Jackson is totally obsessed with all things Toy Story! I even caught him talking about "Buzz and Woody" in his sleep one night. He loves for me to tell him the summary of Toy Story 3 at night for his bedtime story. He loves to fill in all of the parts and names of the characters when I tell him the story.

-He is starting to talk in complete sentences. Our favorite is "I love you Daddy and Mommy". He is constantly stringing new words together. He also loves to count to 10 and will start counting if he sees more than one of anything. Another thing he loves to do-he points out every cell phone antenna and every flag that we see when he is in the car. Also, he does great with his ABCs!

-He loves toy cars and zooming them all around our floor. He also loves letting his cars and action figures slide down his car ramps. He will do it and say "slide...Wheeee!"

-His eyes are slowly turning green. They are almost staring to look like green eyes instead of blue.

-Jackson is obsessed with playgrounds and also with Monkey Joes, which is a sort of gym with jump castles. He plays very rough and is really beginning to climb well. He also loves playing hide and go seek, which he calls "hide, boo". Another fun game he came up with is that he loves to look for the sunshine that peeks through our windows at dusk. He will beg us to take him upstairs so that he can find his special spot of sunshine. He yells "sunshine, sunshine" over and over.

-He is still doing well with sleeping in his own bed all night. He goes through times when he sleeps all night in his bed, and then other nights he will wake up once. If he does wake up, one of us puts him back and bed and sits next to his bed until he falls back asleep. Overall, he has done a great job of sleeping in his own bed. We still make a big deal out of him sleeping in his "big boy bed" and tell him how proud we are of him every morning.

-Potty training-well I guess you can say we are making small progress. We are not pushing him at all. We talk about it alot with him. Every morning when one of us goes to the bathroom, he will sit on his potty at the same time (fully clothed) and tell us "pee pee" or "poo poo". He also tells us every time that he goes poo in his diaper. We talk about how when he learns how to pee or poo in the potty like a big boy, he will be able to pick out his big boy underwear. I guess we will start more actively trying potty train him in the next few months.

-He is still eating well and has been pretty good about trying new things. He loves his daddy's famous grilled ribs, as well as his mommy's famous organic chocolate cake. I have noticed his appetite has increased slightly lately-I wonder if he is going through another growth spurt.

-He plays well with his friends at his MMO program and at church. As far as other children that he doesnt know, it just depends on the situation as to whether he is comfortable to play with them. If there are a bunch of rambunctious screaming kids, he avoids them but will sit back and watch them. He seems to avoid chaotic situations. I have noticed that he is more interested in older children and will try to imitate them. We are trying to teach him the concept of sharing, which seems to be going well. Overall, Jackson is a very friendly and playful child with others, but only if you are in his "circle of trust" :)

-He continues to be a very happy child. He has the best laugh and a wonderful sense of humor! Jackson LOVES playtime and rough housing with daddy. He is also extremely affectionate still and continues to be a huge snuggler with both of us-which we love!

Musical Boy!

Jamming with Grandpa! Jackson got to "play" his first guitar during our trip to Indiana-his Grandpa's vintage 1976 Gibson Les Paul Guitar...nice! Also, Jackson LOVED the piano. He wanted to play over and over again during our trip!

4th of July Weekend in Indiana

We decided to take a quick trip to South Bend to visit Justin's Dad and Stepmom. We booked our flight and chose not buy Jackson his own plane ticket b/c it was a quick flight. This is the last flight that we won't have to pay for him a ticket, since he is turning 2 soon. The flight there was interesting. We timed it so that Jackson would take his nap on the way there. The problem is that we were in the back of the plane next to the bathrooms. It seemed like as soon as we got him to sleep, the line to the bathroom started. There were at least 2 people waiting at all times. And it was a 1 1/2 hour flight-Seriously people- use the bathroom before getting on the plane!! Geez. With every person that went in the door would slam and Jackson would flinch. After about 45 minutes, Jackson woke up crying and was in that in-between stage of being awake and almost falling back asleep. He had almost drifted off when this creepy guy in line for the bathroom reached over tickled his foot. I am sure that man didnt realize that Jackson was almost back to sleep, but we were so annoyed! Also there was a child with a hacking cough in the row in front of us for the whole flight. Once Jackson was finally awake, he was cranky and fussing/crying. We were glad to get to South Bend.

Once we got the flight over with, the rest of the trip was great! We had so much fun visiting and Jackson really enjoyed all of the fun activities. Some of the highlights were: trips to the playground, trips to the mall, Jackson playing with the animals (especially Max, Koa, and Meer), Jackson playing guitar or "tar" as he calls it with papa, Jackson playing the piano, a trip to the AWESOME children's museum, and a fun trip to the zoo. I think the highlight of the trip was when Justin's dad gave Jackson a Buzz Lightyear (from Toy Story) action figure. He loves that thing!

Justin also had a great time catching a movie with his dad, and also being able to go with his dad to a really cool gig that his dad's band was playing at on Saturday night. We ate at some great restaurants as well. We left on Sunday so that we had a day to unpack and rest for the 4th of July. The plane ride back was a piece of cake, and Jackson was an angel the whole time! It was great to have our little traveler back to his happy self. :) We had so much fun...it was a great trip!

Stressful Week

The past week has been one crazy ride! It started two Fridays ago when I went for my very first screening mammogram. Since my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age and since I have had a previous biopsy, they recommended that I get a mammogram at age 30. They wanted me to be done breastfeeding for at least 6 months and then get a mammogram before I get pregnant again. Well, I went ahead and scheduled it early (2 months after end of breastfeeding). The radiologist wasnt crazy about it, but agreed to go ahead and do the mammo now. I wasn't worried about it at all. In the past I have had several breast ultrasounds, a fine needle aspiration, and an excisional biopsy. Let's not forget the breast ultrasound that I got four days after giving birth because I was convinced I had breast cancer. Ahhh, gotta love hormones! Anyway, I guess I should have known that it wasn't going to be easy for me.

The radiologist read my screening mammogram and ordered a diagnostic mammo with several magnified views. Right then my worry started kicking in. By the time it was over, the radiologist gave me a category 3-probably benign result due to some microcalcifications in the left breast. She said to come back in for repeat 6 month mammogram. Well, that was not going to do for me. See, I'm not really a "wait and see" kind of patient. I guess you could call me demanding. The mamm tech called me "assertive" ha-my mom would be proud! The radiologist conferred with my surgeon and they decided to send me for a breast MRI. I went the following Wednesday. Gotta love this-My MRI was at 7 AM and then I drove straight to Columbia for two straight days of meetings. They called me later that day and said that the MRI would be ANOTHER category 3 (probably benign) because there were two areas of enhancement (not suspicious) on both sides that they wanted to ultrasound. I had been warned that breast MRI is like pandoras box because it is extremely sensitive. Fast forward to Friday-I went for my ultrasounds. One side looked good but the other was graded a Category 4-suspicious. That is pretty much when I got the daylights scared out of me. As a comparison, my mom got a category 4 result before she was diagnosed. So you can imagine that her anxiety level was through the roof. They went ahead and scheduled me that afternoon for a stereotactic biopsy (mammogram guided) on the left and then an ultrasound guided bx on the right. I think I was in a fog going home. After I got home, I found out that my long time dance teacher had passed away that morning. I just broke down crying from the stress of it all.

I went for both ultrasounds, which took about 2 1/2 hours. Before they started, they told me I had to stay very still and not move, but that at least I had a nice picture that I could look at to distract me. When I looked at the picture, it was a framed poster for my dance teacher's company's performance in Spoleto from 1984. It had his name in big bold letters. I told the nurses that I had danced for him for years and that he had passed away that morning and they were all so shocked. What are the odds that I was in that room and the staff told me to stare at that poster? Strange stuff, I say. The biopsies were tolerable, but then again I think I have a high threshold of pain. I could see how some women could really have problems with it.

At any rate, I was ok as I waited over the weekend with my results, but by the middle of Monday, I was a wreck. Also, Justin left Sun night for a meeting in NYC, so I was missing him and taking care of Jackson. By Tuesday, I think my (and my mom's!) anxiety level was sky high. Finally I got the results that were BENIGN! I definitely had a good relief, or destress cry as my mom says. They found benign calcifications and fibroadenoma, as well as changes due to lactation. Whew!

It's funny-I work for a CDC funded breast and cervical screening program through the American Cancer Society. I mainly work with providers, so I pretty much knew every one of my medical providers, from the rad tech to the surgical oncology nurses. I would say that I def got extra special attention. The radiologist took me back more than once to her office to show me my films, and show me different presentations that she has done to show what benign vs. suspicious films look like. She answered a TON of questions from me. The tech is a long time friend of mine from when I first started the job. The staff there really love the program that I work for and they were so nice-they kept me laughing and assured me that everything was going to be fine. One of my contacts at the hospital came and sat with me before the biopsy. I am really happy with the care I received. The only thing I would suggest is that if a patient has a family history of breast cancer and a history of past biopsies, then I think they should get to scoot the front of the line at pathology. Those 4 days of waiting were so hard, but even harder on my mom. Thank God everything turned out well! I will go back in 6 months for follow up imaging, which is standard procedure. Since I am considered high risk, I will always be a little crazy when it comes to these things. It feels good to have last week behind me!

Needless to say, I am way late on Jackson's 23 month update, as well as a post about our trip to Indiana over the 4th of July weekend. I will work on them soon!

Landscaping

We wanted to spruce the yard up a little bit, so we hired a friend's landscape company to come in and make the yard look nicer. I wish I had taken before pictures, but the only "before" photos that I have are from when we first moved in around 2006 and after we did some do it yourself landscaping in 2007. Before we had the professional landscaping done, everything looked pretty much the same as the "before" photos below, but the bushes were obviously a little bigger. We transplanted the bushes in the front to the back and added some nicer plants/flowers to the front. We planted pink encore azaleas, lower red pedlam bushes, gardenias, shannon of the valley bushes, and yellow lantana. We are really happy with the way it has turned out. I need to take some updated "after" photos, because the flowers have really begun to bloom. We also sold of our lawn furniture in a yard sale, as it was beginning to look worn. We still need to get some new furniture. Also, I wish our tree would get some leaves at the top again! Check out the before and after photos:

BEFORE
2006 when we moved in:





2007 "do it yourself" landscaping:

AFTER