Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011 has come and gone, and it was a very Merry Christmas for our family!

Tucker got so many gifts from family and friends that he got tired of opening them, haha! Santa stuck to the 3 present rule (my mom had that for us, we got the same number of gifts as Jesus got, though not the same ones, haha). Those presents were well-received, as they were a big kid Spiderman bike, a talking moving firetruck, and a new IPod Touch for all of Tucker's music, games, and pictures. Chris and I have finally learned how to text on it so that hopefully we will soon transfer all of our photos and videos to his IPod for his amusement. As of now, when I walk in the door he demands "phone!" then he takes my phone, and scrolls through the photos until he finds whichever one he wants that day. Lately it is the picture I took of him with Grace, Morgan, Gina and Jene'e at the Poche's last week. He loves it!

He got all kinds of other great toys and gifts, but more importantly, we were all well and together on Christmas day instead of stuck in the After Hours clinic with strep throat like last year. Last Christmas we actually got take-out Chinese food for lunch, it was pathetic! This year Chris got a stomach bug two days before Christmas, just in time to leave all of the last minute wrapping and errands to me ;) So Tucker and I made ourselves scarce so that Chris could rest. We had fun visiting with Lacy and Josh and Gina; we also took Gina to breakfast one day, and Tucker was very upset when the eggs we ordered showed up on his plate already cracked and cooked! 

A few weeks before Christmas, Tucker decided that a little bear with a Santa hat was his new best friend. He calls him "Chri-mas bear" or "santa bear" depending on his mood. Well, Christmas bear is Tucker's imaginary friend, or imaginary baby, we can't decide. He puts Christmas bear into all of Kinley's seats, like her high chair and walker. He also makes Christmas bear have his own couch cushion, so if you think you can move Christmas bear out of the way so that you can sit down, you are wrong! One time I put Christmas bear into his own seatbelt next to Tucker's carseat, and he was so excited. So now Christmas bear always has to be buckled up, that was a mistake starting that. Christmas bear goes everywhere that Tucker goes, so for example, when I say "let's go to Sissy and Pops", he says "Chri-mas bear come wit us!" haha

We spent a lot of time with family over the break; I was off of work for 11 days, and it was so nice. Of course we spent a good bit of that time in doctor's offices, we wouldn't be us otherwise. On December 20, Grace and Morgan came with us to New Orleans for two appointments. Tucker was ecstatic to have his cousins riding with him all the way to Nola and back, although he was upset that Christmas bear didn't get his own seat.  The girls each wanted to push Tucker in his stroller, take turns feeding him his tube feeds, really anything they could do to play with Tucker and/or help him. The ENT said that Tucker's ear tubes both fell out, so now we are watching him closely to see if he will need replacement tubes or if he has maybe outgrown the need for them. Tucker put Christmas Bear in the patient seat, and asked the doctor "check Bea's ears" she said no she had to check Tucker's ears! He is such a mess ;)

On the same day as the dr. appointments, it was Grace's 9th birthday, so after the first appointment (ENT) we took the girls to the mall and had pizza for lunch. I took Morgan and Tucker to the Pottery Barn Kids store, where Morgan fell in love with the Star Wars bedding, and Tucker fell in love with the beds and lamps. He is like Goldilocks, trying every bed to see which one was just right, even though there were tons of toys. Our second appointment was a bust, as we got there 5 minutes late, got checked in, then were left in a hallway and the waiting area for 30 minutes, then told that we were 40 minutes late and the dr. couldn't see us! Seriously, we were so angry.

The girls were so good, though, and they were happy to be heading home a little early. We stopped at McD's on the way home for ice cream, then we bee-bopped the whole way home to Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, and Maroon 5. Christmas Bear also got into the spirit, Tucker made him dance, it was adorable.

The day after Christmas we left for Lake Charles, then onto Houston for Tucker's EEG. I'll post about that in the next few days (hopefully!).

Christmas fun with Cousins

Tucker has been having a blast with his cousins. If you don't know, the cousins that Tucker spends the most time with, both older and younger than him, are all girls. So Tucker spends most of his playdates with Barbie, Justin Bieber, make-up, Princesses, Dora, etc. The other day he actually cried when he asked Molli for a firetruck and she didn't have one!

 Tucker adores his cousins, and he loves spending time with them. Here is a picture of Tucker playing with baby Kinley.

 Here is a pic of them eating Cheetos together. This is from yesterday. Tucker had a rude awakening when Kinley started crawling and toddling around. He was used to her laying in her seat or having people hold her, now she is everywhere, lol.  He is pretty bossy (in case you haven't noticed) and a 10 month old is pretty hard to boss!  His reactions to Kinley are very "normal" but we are not used to normal, so they have taken all of us by big surprise. Kinley is quite the boss as well, and both Tucker and Kinley are so cute that neither one of them hears "no" too often :)

The next picture is proof that Tucker has been spending a lot of time with Molli! We went to her house two weekends ago, then this Saturday Molli spent the day with us. She goes straight for the one pair of high heels I own. I do not have a very good dress-up collection, haha. Tucker wants to do anything and everything that Molli does, including trying on my high heels, too :)

He only made it about two steps before falling over, just like me.  Which is of course the reason I own just the one pair of high heels.

About a month ago, I made the great suggestion to my sister and aunt: "let's get the kids together for a baking day." They all thought it was great...and it was great, but wow, we really underestimated the amount of work it took for us to bake cookies alone, not to mention trying to get the kids involved without ruining the kitchen, haha.  Thank goodness Meagan was there, I don't think Susan and I had any clue what was going on.....no offense to us!

We thought we picked two easy tasks, cutting out sugar cookie dough into stars, then stacking the baked cookies on top of eachother to make a Christmas tree. The second cookie was gingerbread men, simple enough, right? The kids had an absolute blast rolling out the dough, cutting the dough, then decorating the cookies once they were baked.

Here is Tucker decorating his gingerbread man. They have been having a Gingerbread unit at school. So when you say "Run run run as fast as you" he says "can!?" then you say, "you can't catch me, I'm the" he says "Gingabed man!" It is SO CUTE! He also knows all the words to Jingle Bells, including the "Dashing through the snow" beginning, which Molli didn't even know. It cracks me up when I teach Molli the words to a song, she is just so amazed that Leigh Leigh knows anything at all. My mom says that is because kids think only their teachers at school know stuff, not their moms or aunts. So anyways, Tucker and Molli both know all the words to Jingle Bells, and Tucker's face lights up when anyone sings it with him.

 Tucker's older cousins Addi and Aliyah also decorated cookies. They did the work of rolling and cutting while Molli and Tucker just decorated. Tucker also mashed up a pan of carefully cut-out stars, but his cuteness kept him out of trouble, as usual :)

Here is the note that Addi and Aliyah wrote once they were done baking and had gone outside to play.

 The note was very effective. Even I, a self-professed cookie monster, would not dare touch these.

And a fantastic part of the day-Uncle Joey taught Tucker how to ride Molli's big bike. Tucker worked so hard at it, and Uncle Joey stayed on him and wouldn't let him quit. His face just lit up when he got the bike going without help, and now he is a bike-riding machine. Perhaps Santa will deliver a new bike under our (now-dead) live Christmas tree. Maybe it will even be pink ;)

I also went to my parents' house this past Saturday to bake cookies with my sister Jessica. She is more of a watcher than a baker, but luckily Molli came over and was very eager to help. I don't have any pictures from that day, I forgot the camera at home. The cookies were delicious, as they are all gone and it's only Monday.

Tucker's language has blown us away this past week. His therapists are teaching me how to ask Tucker the right questions. One of my biggest issues is that I never know how Tucker's day has gone, or what emotion he is feeling, why he is frustrated or acting funny....really the inability for him to share anything with me. His language has exploded as far as labeling items and demanding things of us, which is a fantastic first step. The next stage is to learn how to extract the information that he has been storing in his brain for years, unable to get it all out. His therapists are showing me how, and I am blown away. One instance is when his therapist started with the gingerbread story, and Tucker finished it. She said that there are so many more things that Tucker knows and wants to talk about, but he doesn't know how. So we will be working on that for months and months I'm sure, but the gingerbread instance gives us all so much hope :)

Next weekend is the big Lavigne party (bring on the tacky sweaters!). Then Morgan and Grace are spending the week at our grandparents' house. The girls are coming with us to two dr. appointments and hopefully a Santa visit on the Tuesday, and I know that Tucker will love spending the whole day with them. We'll probably be over to visit each night, too, as long as Tucker's not too tired.

Thankful Mommy

NOTE:  I just found this post from Thanksgiving, I never hit "post."

Tucker has been hilarious lately, while also trying to drive me crazy ;)

I think he took his loony pills last Sunday before 930 mass, as he started laughing hysterically during Fr. Rubin's homily...I had to clap my hand over his mouth and drag him to the cry room...of course the name didn't really fit, as my child found everything to be hilarious for the rest of church.

We don't usually go to church so early, but I thought we could try to get to the mall for noon when it opened so that we could see Santa before a line formed. Tucker really doesn't understand about Santa, and I am trying to make a big deal about Santa bringing presents for Christmas. I am also trying to make a big deal about Baby Jesus being born on Christmas, I am sure Tucker is very confused about how the two concepts relate, lol. He gets elves and Santa Claus and old men confused.....so I thought seeing the "real" Santa at the mall would help the confusion. Of course we got home on Sunday at 1045 or so, and Tucker demanded that Chris rock him and "take a map." Chris asked if he wanted to take a map or go see Santa, thinking that he'd say go see Santa since he asked him that last....but no, he said "take a map." So we did, all three of us slept for over 2 hours.  It was nice, at least, but we didn't see Santa yet.

Tucker loves the Mickey Mouse clubhouse Adventure in Wonderland video. He watches the 45 minute video at least once each day, and he is FINALLY starting to sing along and/or answer Mickey's questions. At the beginning, you have to say "meeska, mooska, Mickey Mouse" to get the clubhouse to appear, and you say "oh toodles" to get the mousekatools. Anyways, it is hard to see if Tucker is paying any attention at all, but lately he is singing along to "tick tock, tick tock, we have to fix the cuckoo clock" and telling Donald Duck, "be patient!" when Donald gets all fussy about the clock.  It is one of the cutest things ever! He is so into it.

Thanksgiving was nice, but Tucker was pretty out of it for most of the weekend. Chris took him to get his flu shot on Wednesday afternoon, and I'm not sure if that just tired his little system out. He took two naps on Thursday, and two more on Friday after sleeping all night. On Thanksgiving Day, we went to Meagan's and Chris's house for tons of food...two turkeys, two hams, tons of sides, and about 8 desserts, lol. That evening we had planned to take Tucker and Molli to the movies to see the Muppets, but by the afternoon I could already tell that Tucker wasn't going to make it. He slept almost all morning, and then in the afternoon he was tired and cranky again.  Tucker and Chris stayed home, and Molli and I still went to the movies. She worked hard at school and had three happy faces, plus she was super excited about going. Of course she had no idea who the Muppets are...she thought they were Alvin and the Chipmunks!  She slept the whole way to the movies, and I was worried that the excitement was too much for her. When I parked the car, she woke right up and she was so happy. The movie theatre is in a new development with several nice clothing stores, restaurants, and furniture stores. They were all closed for Thanksgiving day, but Molli loved looking at all of the mannequins through the window.  She made me promise her that I'd buy her sparkly dresses, pretty earrings, and really high heels as soon as she was big enough to fit into them, haha. It will be a while, as she is only 4!

We had fun at the movies, then we got hamburgers at McDonald's for dinner. How very un-Thanksgiving of us, I know, but I hadn't grabbed any leftovers from lunch.  I knew that Molli would fall asleep on the way home, so I wanted her to eat first. Of course she fell asleep pretty much as soon as we got back into the car. By this time, Tucker was awake and was waiting on Molli to come home and play, even though it was 9pm. Being off of school had totally thrown off his schedule. When we got home I carried Molli into the house and put her in the day bed, and Tucker just stared at her. He kept saying "wake her up" and "Mo-wee, play wit me!" so we had to close the door and tell him to leave her alone! Poor kid, but soon he was asleep, too, and so were we.

On Friday morning we woke up, and Chris cooked breakfast for us. Molli had to have her coffee (really one drop of coffee with the rest of the cup filled with milk), which Chris thought was the funniest thing.  We all got ready and went to Lowe's to pick out a real Christmas tree. Tucker had much more fun riding in the race car shopping cart, but Molli was excited about the tree. We put it in the truck and then headed home to decorate it. Chris put up the tree and the lights, and then I realized that I really didn't have any ornaments. Molli had helped me put all of my old ornaments into a big vase to make a Christmas centerpiece, so I really had none left. The tree just stayed up with the lights for the afternoon.

On Friday afternoon, we all gathered at my house to watch the big Arkansas game. It was great, and of course we won :) The Honey Badger made that great over-80 yard touchdown, and I swear the house shook from everyone's celebration. But Tucker slept through it all!

It was hard to adjust back to being at work and school after Thanksgiving, it was nice to spend a few days together.  Chris has a new job, where he works outside for 10 hours each day, which is bad when it is so cold lately.  The job is in St. Charles Parish, so he gets home later than me now, which Tucker does not care for, haha.  Once I'm home Tucker stands at the window waiting for Chris.

I meant to write up a "Why I am Thankful" blog, but I never sat down to do that. I will soon, maybe to wrap up the year, and how far our little Tucker has come since Jan 1, 2011.