We Just Have to Laugh

Recently Tucker has really been cracking us up!! He is sometimes funny without even meaning it, but lately he has been trying to do silly things too:) I try to write these down so I don't forget them, but I know I have still forgotten some. He has gotten very sneaky....why did I think that his getting smarter would help me at all? Of course he uses his brains against me. When he has something naughty in mind, he makes sure the adults are out of the way. He will push me (or Chris or Nana) on the couch and say "sit." Then he runs to the toy room and slams the door. If you follow him, he pushes you back to the couch and says "sit." Last Saturday night Mom found him with PullUps and Dog food, two big No Nos!! The other day I was on the phone, and Tucker was feeding me what I thought was a Coco Puff. It was actually dog food, so I spit it out and said "yuck!!" Tucker laughed and laughed at me, I am 99% sure he knew exactly what he was doing. The other day he somehow got the dog food again and tried to feed it to me...that time I refused! Tucker also has a few phrases like "Oh, no!" that he uses appropriately. He falls a lot, so he is saying "oh, no" all the time, and it makes me laugh everytime. He also tells people "hi" or "bye" usually with prompting. The other day he said "Hi" very loudly to his therapist Joy when she came in. He was very happy to see her. Right when the hour was up, he grabbed her hand, put it on his buckle (he sits in a buckle chair) and demanded "get out!" She got him out, and then he pushed her bags of toys out of the room, then told her "get out!" She said, "well I know when I'm not welcome! I'll see you next week." One funny thing about Tucker is that he loves snacktime at school, but he eats NONE of the snacks! Yesterday we went to Target before feeding therapy, so he picked out some Doritos to bring to OT. He brought the huge bag into therapy, and an older kid asked me why I let him bring all those chips to therapy? I said, "Tucker doesn't like to eat, so when he likes a food, we give it to him. He is coming to eating therapy." The boy did not understand what "eating therapy" meant, so I told him "Tucker doesn't eat at all, he has a button in his tummy to get his food. We come to therapy so that he will get used to eating." The boy replied, "really? He doesn't eat? Because he is carrying around those chips like they are his prized possession!" I said, "Good observation." And all of the adults cracked up! It really makes no obvious sense, because Tucker wants all of the food he can get...he just doesn't swallow any of it. Tucker has been going to Vacation Bible School at Chris's cousin's church. Our church has VBS during the day when Tucker's at preschool, so I signed him up at this church. He loves it, and the teachers and volunteers say he is doing great. The first night they said he ate three pretzels.....I said "um, no he didn't! He probably licked them, and then some other kid ate them!" Chris said if he actually ATE pretzels, then forget therapy, we are signing him up for VBS year-round:) Our collective sense of humor has gotten through a lot, even back in the NICU. I remember for Tucker's first Christmas, he was in the NICU, and he coded a few days before Christmas. We asked Tucker what he wanted from Santa, and his primary nurse Linsdsay said "a new set of lungs, haha." Well, we cracked up, and Tucker let out this big belly laugh, which was just about the cutest thing we'd ever seen! When Tucker was moved to the "long term" area of the NICU, we were devastated that such an area existed. At the same time we were glad to be in a quieter area with more room for us to visit and bring toys and activities for Tucker. We called it the Geriatric section of the NICU, and Tucker was the "old man" in the NICU. There were babies that were older than him for most of the time, but during his last month in the NICU he was the oldest baby there. Using funny names or laughing at things that were obviously funny really helped us get through it all. The NICU docs kept giving Tucker more food and calories to fatten him up. This was very important to help his body and specifically his lungs grow, but at some points he was quite fat! We would tell him he needed to lay off of the formula (even though we were pushing it down his g-tube) or that he needed to hit the gym:) We would call him the world's fattest preemie. The pulmonologist went one step further and told him he needed to do the Louisiana Two-Step: Eat Less, Move More! This was hilarious since he could literally do nothing at this point but lay around. When it was time to move Tucker from the big hospital vent down to the home vent (a HUGE step towards home), he wrote in the chart: Try Tucker on Home Vent...expect many adventures. There were some adventures, and Tucker went back on the hospital vent and coded before finally going back on the home vent to stay. This same doctor recently warned me not to plan on buying a big house or fancy cars anytime soon...he said we will spend thousands of dollars on Tucker for orthodontix in the future due to his prolonged intibation and oddly shaped jaw....so save our money! I laughed at him, but I won't find it so funny in a few years, I guess! We have of course had many sad moments, and many angry moments over the last few years. Thankfully, we have had just as many funny moments, Tucker is one funny kid!