08/22/08

Well we leave for Seattle tomorrow & I haven't even begun to pack yet. I did write out my list yesterday now I just have to gather everything. I keep thinking of things we need to take though. I asked Brent if he could think of anything and he said clothes and toothbrush, gee what alot of help he is! I am actually ready to start packing now but since Korben is taking his nap I can't. Any slight noise will wake him up. That is the downside to sharing a room with him. We plan on moving into a rent house this coming spring & I am so ready for that! Brent & I won't have to tiptoe around when Korben is sleeping.

Korben has been sleeping very well the last two nights. He has gone to sleep at 9 and not a peep out of him until 9 - 9:30 the next morning! Extremely helpful for all of us since we are all still sick. Today is the first day I haven't had a fever!!! Korben's went away a couple days ago but he still has diarrhea but getting less & less everyday, same thing for Brent.

Korben has been really fussy this morning with the slightest things setting him off. He ripped two pages out of his favorite book - One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish - and he cried for about 30 mins over that. He finally started playing with something else and then about 15 mins later he went back to his book and once he got to the torn pages he started crying again. I had to rip out the rest of the page so he can't see where it was ripped out. But I have a feeling he is still going to notice because one of those is one of his favorite pages. I guess I will have to buy him a new one.

Anyway I knew all the fussing wasn't all about the book. So I checked his teeth and he is getting another tooth in and I found out there is indeed a 12th tooth already in there and one of his bottom molars is all the way through! What an explosion of teeth in the last couple of weeks!

Today I was working on his words with him (like I do everyday) and we look at books together and I say the words over and over again and point to things. For the first time today he seemed to really be trying to say other words, he said flag today which he hasn't said in a long time! But the funniest thing was when he was trying to say 'balloon' he says "ba" and then a bunch of gibberish but he says it the same way every time he saw the balloon in the book & pointed to it. Today is also the first day he turned away from looking at the book to watch my mouth move when I was saying the words. So I think that is progress. It is just so frustrating that he is a little behind on his speech since he did every thing else early. But the pediatrician (and I have read in several books) said that kids that learn all the physical stuff early are slow to talk and those who take longer to do all the physical stuff learn to talk earlier. From talking with other moms I too have found this to be true but it is still frustrating that we can't fully communicate with him yet.

Well I guess that is all for today. We will be gone for a week so I won't be updating this during that time. :)

08/20/08

First of all today is Skylar's birthday, he would have been 15 today. :( I miss him more everyday. Happy Birthday Peanut!

Korben and I are both sick...again. Yesterday Korben had diarrhea all day & he leaked his diaper every time so he wore 5 different outfits yesterday. I felt fine until last night, Brent & I both felt nauseous and had upset tummies. I started running a fever last night and I still have it. Brent woke up fine but is very tired & feels worn out. Korben is still running a fever too & has been wheezing. If it continues through tomorrow I might take him to the doctor on Friday. I would hate to be in Seattle and then have to deal with all that. Hopefully all of us will be well when we leave on Saturday! Keep your fingers crossed for that!

Since Korben has been sick this week he has been fairly mellow - or I should say more like a "normal" kid. We did have an incident on Monday. I was sitting in my mom's recliner and Korben came up to me with something black in his mouth and as I was going to take it out to see what he had he laid it in my lap. It was a cricket!!!! I about died, I am terrified of crickets! It was still half alive. I have no idea how he even caught the thing. I jumped out of the chair and was screaming & it scared Korben half to death. He went running in my mom's bathroom and just stood in there looking terrified. Poor baby! I didn't mean to scare him and I am sure he didn't mean to scare me either....well, maybe!

Korben has been giving himself away when he is about to do something bad. He says "NO" and then does what he knows he is not allowed to do. It is pretty funny and I have been able to catch him alot faster now since he tells on himself!

For some reason Korben has taken to calling me "Da or Dada" ***SIGH*** I don't know why he won't call me Momma. Today after dinner Brent said to Korben where is Momma & Korben pointed to me and said "Da - No" because after every time he calls me Da or Dada I say no. Anyway Korben likes to annoy me I guess.

Oh I almost forgot Korben has new teeth! I think I posted before that one came through, well including that one he got 3 new teeth in the last week plus one of his molars is all the way through now! He has 11 teeth now. I actually think there is a 12th one there but he won't let me feel for it and he surely won't let me see it. But finally we are making some progress with the teeth!

He is starting to say more and more words. He now says (as he points these things out) hair, teeth, nose, and eye. He points to each ear too but doesn't say ear yet. I know the pediatrician said that we need to delay responding to him to force him to ask or learn to talk more quickly but she doesn't understand how Korben is. He goes from 1 to 20 in seconds and is very intense. It seems mean to make him go through that when it can be prevented. The only time I ignore him when he is crying is when he does throw a fit. That used to happen so often & after we ignored him everytime he gave it up real fast. He threw a big fit today because Daddy wasn't home on time. He somehow knows what time Daddy gets home and everyday he starts looking out the window on the door at 5:15. Daddy didn't make it home until 6 pm today (he surprised me by buying a birthday cake for Skylar because he knew I wanted to celebrate his birthday) so Korben wanted to go outside and wait for Daddy. I said no because I am sick and I was still in my pjs. He screamed for 30 mins nonstop.

We are getting excited about our upcoming trip. I am a little anxious about the flight. On the way there it is right during his nap time. When he is overstimulated he won't nap and become really cranky. I am hoping that doesn't happen. I did buy some new toys and books that he won't see until the plane ride and then I will leave them in our suitcase and bring them out again on the ride home. Hopefully that will distract him enough. I am worried he is going to want to run up and down the aisle of the plane.

Well I think that is all for today. Brent & I are about to put Korben to bed and get in bed ourselves and watch a movie.

Oh and a note about the pictures, no Korben doesn't take a pacifier. My aunt had bought a pack because her son needed one for a school play or something. They were sitting on my dresser and Korben got ahold of one. He started chewing on it, I thought it looked so weird I just had to take a picture. He ended up not even liking it and handed it to me.

08/19/08

Well we made it back from Hot Springs fine. Korben was an angel on the way there and back and a little devil in the hotel! On the drive there he took 2 very short naps and mostly just looked out the window. I think he spotted every flag on the way there and kept saying "Clock" we are starting to think maybe he is saying "Look." Anyway it was sprinkling lightly and Brent had the wipers set to come on every so often and Korben thought it was the funniest thing. He laughed and laughed and by the time he stopped laughing the wiper would come on again and then it would start all over. I tried to get a video of it but my batteries died in my camera. :(

When we were driving up in the curvy roads in the mountain (I was getting sick!) Brent & I both smelled something and I turned to Korben and asked him if he had a poopy. He shook his head yes so I told Brent we needed to find a place to stop. Brent said there is no place, I told him just to pull in somebody's driveway or into a parking lot somewhere. So we found this shack that looks like it used to be a buisness. It had a sign out front that said onions and an old happy birthday sign hanging in the window. The parking lot was gravel. So we got Korben laid out on the front seat and I had the bag ready and was getting the wipes out and Brent took off his diaper and he was clean! The little booger fooled us both.

Korben had fun running around the hotel room and up and down the hallway and climbing the stairs but it was exhausting keeping up with him, esp. since I was still sick. Korben was able to turn on and off the tv, open the mini fridge and figured out how to turn the radio on the alarm clock (which Brent couldn't figure out to turn off.) But the problem came at sleep time. He didn't go to sleep until close to 2 am both nights. I ended up going to the funeral services by myself, I rode with Dan. Brent stayed home to give cranky Korben a nap. After the services I went with Dan and some of his friends to have some appetizers and desserts. I called Brent and he said Korben had screamed the entire time I was gone - almost 2 hrs by that point! Poor Brent! He finally was able to get him to sleep for about an hour and a half.

The next morning we got up and had breakfast with Dan then got on the road. Korben fell asleep about 30 mins into the drive and slept for about 2 hrs. Every time Korben would get bored I had a bag of toys and I would pull out a different book or toy for him. He was getting bored with the toys so then I did turn on the Baby Einstein DVD and he watched about 15 mins of it before getting bored of that and then went back to looking out the window.

08/11/08

Korben got a new tooth!!! Finally! It is on the bottom, he now has 9 teeth. They sure are taking their time coming in.

Today has been a crazy day. I am still really sick & I have no energy. Korben is getting worse, his breathing is labored like mine & he keeps coughing & sneezing now. He is taking his nap now but I don't think he is sleeping very well as I keep hearing him move around & he is coughing. My poor baby! :(

Anyway before his nap he was running around the house like a mad man. He got into the kitchen drawers - again - and found a pair of Kaylan's scissors from school and was running with them! YIKES!!!! Then he figured out how to climb on the love seat which is higher up then the couch and he was jumping on there. Then he was in the kitchen being quiet so I ran to find out what he was doing and he was sitting in the middle of the kitchen table!!!! He climbed up on a kitchen chair which he hasn't been able to do before. He was trying to get into his animal crackers & was playing with the paper that mom had on the table. After that he got into mom's purse again and had her wallet and was taking out the cards as he ran. This all happened in less than an hours time & I was wore out from chasing him. He just thinks its a big game & runs in circles, so I put his pack n' play to block one way so I could catch him. The pack n' play blocks the DVDs, so when I moved the pack n' play guess what he got into next. Needless to say he spent most of the morning in time out (we put him in the pack n' play) I have to leave the room when he is in there now because I just want to laugh at him. As soon as he starts heading to time out he says NOOOOO & then over & over he says no-no. It is so cute but I can't let him see that so I have to leave the room.

I told Brent about my day when he called me on his lunch and he promised to try to do something with the drawers - tonight. We'll see though, I have been asking him for at least 2 months now. A few weeks back I put one of the childproof locks on, it doesn't lock it but it does make it difficult to open it and for now Korb can't open that one drawer - which is the one with the most dangerous stuff in it. I would do the rest but my wrists are really bad and it took me forever (not to mention it hurt like heck!) to get that one in. I am going to bug Brent every hour after he gets home until he does it. :) I want my baby to be safe! I don't know what I am going to do about the climbing on the table, the only good thing is if I make sure all the chairs are pushed in before I let him play then I can hear when he moves the chairs on the tile floor it is noisy. Today though that one chair was pushed out already so he just climbed up without me hearing. It really does amaze me how fast he gets into things.

Tomorrow we are heading to AR for my friend's moms funeral. We'll see how Korben handles the 6 hr long drive, this will be his longest drive to date. I am going to take my DVD player and his Baby Einstein DVD's. I don't usually let him watch tv - he sometimes will watch what we watch but mostly he likes to play. Brent does put on cartoons when he is home but Korben just watches the intros, dances and then runs off to play. I don't like to use tv as a babysitter, esp. when I am right there, I would rather put on music and let him dance. He has never watched tv in a car before so this trip might be the first time but only if he gets really fussy and nothing else will calm him down. Poor Korben will never have a tv in his room, I will never allow it - meanie mom! :)

08/10/08

I haven't kept up with this for a few days. Korben hasn't been taking his naps and he has a bit of a cold - which I now have except mine is really bad. We also have had some sad news the last few days; found out my Grandpa (my dad's dad) has terminal cancer in the lung & heart area and doctors said he has at best 6 months to live. :( Also one of my good friends' (Dan) mom has been in the hospital the last few weeks and she passed away last night. :( Brent, Korben, and I will be driving up for the services, they live in AR.

Anyway enough sadness, besides not taking naps and having a little cold Korben is doing pretty good. Still no new teeth, he gums next to his bottom 2 teeth are swelled up so big I can't believe they haven't broke through the gums yet. He has been sleeping better for the most part. In the middle of the night last night he did wake up and apparently I put him in our bed. I don't remember doing it but Brent said I did and I probably did. I wasn't sleeping well last night because of my cold so I probably ran and got him as soon as he started crying so I could get some sleep.

Korben is in to EVERYTHING and he is so sneaky about it too. Last night we were watching Psych and Korben was in the kitchen being quiet so I knew he was in to something. Mom went in there and Korben pulled our her kitchen towels out of a drawer. Then a little while later we heard something fall and Korben came running around the corner with mom's cell phone and while I was chasing Korb, Brent went to see what the crash was and Korb had mom's purse on the ground and was playing with stuff in it. Then he got into the silverware drawer and was running around with a skewer! For some reason the childproof latches won't work on mom's drawers so we are having issues with that. I need to see if they have any other kind. Korb keeps getting the forks and corn holders. The other day he found matches in one of mom's drawers! It worries me! I don't know what to do about it, I don't want to lock him out of the kitchen again because he loves to run, we already lock him out of all the other rooms.

Friday night Kaylan, Ryan, and Zylee came over & Brent and I watched them until my mom got home from grocery shopping. We decided to walk to the school to play on the playground. They all had a blast. Korben loves his cousins and tries his best to keep up with them. Korben walked most of the way there and most of the way back. I am surprised at how good he is at walking long distances. Almost everyday after Brent gets home from work he takes Korben on a walk around the block. Korben walks the whole way - except the other day when he didn't have a nap he wanted to be carried and fell asleep on Brent as soon as they got home. I walked with them one time and we got to a house that had a car blocking the sidewalk and Korben stopped and reached up for Brent's hand so that they could walk in the street to go around the car. Little smarty! He did it again later on that same trip.

Korben doesn't have any new words but he cracks me up. He points to the flag in the kitchen now and instead of saying "AG" he says "clock" then says "no" and laughs. He is silly. When you ask him if he has a poopy diaper he will shake his head yes and then if you ask him if he wants a clean diaper he runs from you, he would rather stay in poopy then have his diaper cleaned because that means he has to sit still!

Well it sounds like Korben's done eating lunch now so I am going to go lay on the couch with some hot tea and Brent and I are going to watch a movie.

08/05/08

Sleepy, sleepy! Korben is teething & has been hurting so bad - during the night. Two of his molars have poked through and the pediatrician said two more are coming in as well. When I looked at his teeth this morning and attempting to brush his teeth I saw that two more of his front bottom teeth are coming in. Sunday night he woke up at 4:30 am and cried until 7:30. Motrin isn't helping a whole lot, neither is oragel or his cold teethers. We did try the teething tablets - against my better judgement because they have caffeine in them. I will never use those again, we used them about a month ago & they stopped his pain but made him hyper. We had given them to him right before bed at 9 & he was awake and playing in his crib until 3:30 am! Last night Korben went to sleep fine but them woke up at midnight and didn't stop crying until 2 am. He would only go to sleep last night if either me or Brent was holding him. He tossed & turned & whined in our bed all night so all three of us didn't sleep very good last night.

It has been hot here! On Sunday my mom and I took Korben, Kaylan, Ryan, and Zylee to the library because I entered pictures of Korben & Zylee in a contest and the pictures were on display. It was 106° and the library's A/C was broken, we sat and let the kids play for a little bit (they have puppets, puzzles, blocks, and a train set) but it was just too hot to say for very long. Poor Korben was wet from sweat from just riding over to the library.

The new pics are of all of us waiting outside to go to the library and Korben after his shower last night. Korben likes to take showers now instead of baths, it's really cute. :)

07/30/08

Well Korben is 18 months old now, that is just crazy to me. He is growing up way too fast. :(



Monday he had his 18 month check up. He grew 2 1/2 inches in 3 months so he is now 32 1/2 inches tall. He is in the 75 percentile and the pediatrician said he is going to grow up to be very tall. He only gained one pound in 3 months so he is now 25 lbs and in the 25 percentile. Dr. said not to worry about that since he is growing and he does eat 3 meals a day plus snacks & milk. I guess it is because he is SO active.



He does eat very good though, I swear he eats like an adult! Every morning he has a whole banana & a whole piece of toast with fruit (baby food) spread on it, with V8 fruit & veggie juice. Then for lunch he has sliced apples and veggie patties which have beans, rice and all kinds of vegetables in them. He also likes burritos or grilled cheese but right now his favorite thing is the veggie patties. For dinner he has a little bit of whatever we are having. We still keep him away from sugar & junk food. If we are eating it in front of him and he 'asks' for a bite then we don't deny it but it is not an everyday food for him. I think it is working pretty good & it is funny when he is given sugar food because he makes the funniest faces. A couple of weeks ago my mom babysat him while we went to the movies and they ate fast food. I told mom to just get him a kids cheeseburger with nothing else on it. So she did but she gave him some of her fries, (he likes them but they are not his favorite thing sometimes he won't even eat them) and the fry she gave him had ketchup on it. We had never given him ketchup before because it has alot of sugar in it. Mom said he licked off the ketchup, made a funny face & threw the fry like it was poison. She said it was so funny, she tried it again & the same thing happened. Then she gave him a fry without ketchup & he ate it. On days like that it makes me feel like we are doing the right thing by limiting his sugar. I don't want him to grow up addicted to sugar like me & I don't want him to be diabetic like me.



Anyway back to his appointment. The dr. was looking at Korb's eczema on his feet (it is the worst there but he also has it on his arms and every once in a while across his back) she decided to give us a prescription for a steroid cream to be used for a week once a month. We have switched to sensitive skin wipes, baby laundry det., special lotion & baby wash for the last 6 months and it has not gotten any better. Turns out that I have it too, I only get it on my arms though. My mom said that I got it when I had the rash like Korben when I was a baby but she thought it was heat rash. So unfortunately he has got my skin. I am glad we did find a sunscreen that he is not allergic to. I thought since it worked on him it would work on me - wrong! We went to the zoo & I just put it on my face & my whole face broke out in hives. Which is why I never wear sunscreen & I always get burnt.

As the dr. was looking at Korb's feet she noticed how wide they are. He has got giant feet! I told her how shoes have been a real issue for us. He hasn't been able to fit properly in any shoe & he walks funny in them all. They hurt is feet & he pulls them off. So she told me to not even buy anymore regular shoes because it will affect his feet & his walking. She told me to look for Wide width, I have never even seen wide width shoes for toddlers & kids. She recommended Stride Rite shoes & said they are pricey so find them used as long as they have good soles still on them. When I got home I looked at their website, $32 for the cheapest sandals!!!! $55 for a pair of tennis shoes!!! And he will outgrow them in a month or so. The next day I went to our local baby & kid consignment store & I found 2 pairs of Stride Rite sandals in his size (found out he actually needs the Extra Wide Width ones - XW) one pair was leather & the other pair is brand new! So I bought him those 2 pairs plus a new pair of slippers (Thomas the Train) as his other ones were way too small & he was still making me put them on him everyday. I also bought him a toy clock since he goes around saying "clock" all day, everyday & points at every clock he sees. Also I got him another bath book, his Grandma S. bought him some Disney bath books and those are his new favorite books, they are perfect for his teething. He carries them with him all day long. Anyway so 3 pairs of shoes, a toy & a book cost me $24 and on top of that I had a $5 off coupon for that store so I got it all for $19, woo hoo! Less than the cost of one of those pairs of shoes brand new. Later that evening we went to Wal-Mart to drop off Korben's prescription and Brent & I could already tell a HUGE difference in Korben's walking he was going as fast as he does barefoot. So I am happy that I was able to find those shoes for him cheap. I also just won another pair in the next size up on eBay for .99 cents $4.50 shipping so that is a good deal too.

The doctor was also very pleased that Korben has been off the bottle since he was 9 months old, the pacifer since he was 4 months old and sleeps in his own bed. She said that if we were just now trying to work on those things then we would have huge battles on our hands. Which is exactly why I did all that stuff sooner because I know that the longer you wait the harder it gets to break the habits.

Well I had better wrap this up, it only took me two days to type this one out while Korben was taking a nap. :) Until next time.