Gulp

One of Emily's resolutions for last year was to chew. She managed to pull that off pretty successfully, but she still struggles a bit when handling food in her mouth. My dad and brother have both had some major troubles with swallowing. I eat really slowly, although I don't attribute that to any trouble with swallowing.

Anyway, all that together with Emily's remarkable drool-powers led us to be a little bit concerned that she might have some sort of swallowing disorder. I mentioned that concern to the pediatrician during a visit for something else, hoping that the pediatrician could give me some additional information or opinion. Instead, she set up an appointment for us to go through a swallowing study at the hospital. The swallowing study, we were informed, involves a radiologist and a speech pathologist feeding the child and monitoring the results. Already, this sounded significantly disproportionate to my level of concern, but for some reason we still went through with it.

I was pretty worried about my little girl before we went in. She couldn't eat the morning before her study, but that didn't seem to bother her.

The children's hospital is really well setup for handling kids. Right after I snapped this shot, I noticed the orange sign saying, "Please do not allow children to lie on the CT scanner." Oops.

They gave her a hospital gown and then strapped her into Captain Picard's command console. They mixed up some barium with water and chocolate pudding and then dipped a graham cracker in the pudding. Emily ate all of them like a champion while the radiologist and speech pathologist watched a live x-ray of her throat. We waited for about an hour. The study took about 5 minutes. The pathologist said that Emily doesn't have any problems with swallowing, but probably has low sensitivity in her mouth so she can't tell when it's full of saliva and sometimes gags on her food.

Emily was remarkably well-behaved. We gave her a princess plate and cup as a reward for how good she was. We couldn't leave without taking a moment to play with the ball-machine of doom. This thing's pretty cool. There's not much one can do to interact with it, but Emily still felt like she was in complete control. We're glad nothing's wrong with her swallowing. I hope we didn't cause too much damage while irradiating her head.

A Major Breakthrough

Emily loves playdough. I still can't tell when she's asking for potatoes or playdough, but I generally assume it's the latter. Today I made some play dough to keep her occupied while Caleb was sleeping and she could not get enough! She kept at it for two full hours with almost no supervision (I was called over a couple of times to sample her pretend gummi worms, but that was it). She only stopped when I forced her to because I had decided it was time to go to the library. Good thing the library is also something she gets excited about!

This is a major breakthrough - two whole hours! I will have to keep this in mind.

My friend Jenn posted her play dough recipe a long time ago and that is what we have been using. It works great!

1 cup flour
1 cup warm water
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon oil
1/4 cup salt
food coloring

Mix all ingredients, adding food coloring last. Stir over medium heat until smooth. Remove from pan and knead until blended smooth. Place in plastic bag or airtight container when cooled.

I usually keep it on the stove until it thickens up enough to knead... maybe you didn't need that detail, but I wasn't sure how long to keep it on the first time.

CocoLopez Reprise

Do you remember our CocoLopez incident? I found the receipt later and learned that that coconut stuff cost us about $2.50. Anyway, last night we had a CocoLopez inspired meal consisting of Hawaiian haystacks (our first time having these as a family - yum!) and berry-pina colada smoothies. It was a grand success and the kids loved it. Actually mostly Caleb loved it. He loves him a good smoothie... and these were really good smoothies. Joseph has a talent. We love CocoLopez. That Emily knew what she was doing.

Bunk bed trials

I have been searching Craigslist for a LONG time for a bunk bed. So many times when I spotted a deal someone else snatched it up before me. Once we drove all the way across Austin (a good 40 minute drive) to be early for a garage sale that started at 8am only to find that someone had arrived an hour early to buy the bunk beds I was after.
We still have lots of time before the baby's born. I wasn't too worried about the bunk bed situation. Emily didn't start sleeping in a twin bed until after Caleb was born and Caleb still loves the crib.
It must have a good mattress or something. Neither of our kids have ever even attempted to climb out. When she was a baby, Emily used to ask to be put in when she was distressed.

We finally did find a bed that was an acceptable price and had the specific details I was looking for (attached ladder, no drawers underneath, lower height) and got it! Emily was so excited to go to the "bunk bed store" and to sleep in her new bed. She was frustrated that it was taking me so long to set up.
She slept on the bottom bed for a couple of nights before I had some slats cut and sanded and Joseph went out and got a mattress for the top. Emily insisted on sleeping up there from the first day it was an option. We thought it would take longer for her to feel comfortable with that.
Now we just have to wait for Caleb to grow up a little bit. He is small enough that he really does still need a crib right now. The kids have had fun playing on Emily's old bed.
I am just annoyed that there are probably only two square feet of floor space left in that room. Our next step is to sell the old bed and make that room usable again!
We are preparing for the new baby slowly but surely!

All in a day's work

This morning while I was back and forth between the apartment and the laundromat, Emily and Caleb were also keeping busy. Caleb pulled down any shirts hanging in my closet with ties and tried on Joseph's belt, but I could tell this was the project he was most proud of. Almost as good as sleeping with a teddy bear, right?

Emily worked on adding a touch of glamor to her boring old regular clothes. When dressed like this, she insists that we call her "Sister Cooper Princess." Quite the title, huh. And I always swore I wouldn't raise a girly girl. :)

Mothers' Day During Allergy Season

Today Joseph woke up feeling really sick and allergic. Austin is a really bad place for seasonal allergies - they say that if you move here and don't get allergies you will in a couple of years. Someone in our ward today told us that this is the worst allergy season Austin has had in 50 years. I haven't been here for long enough to make a good comparison to other years, but it has been pretty bad. I've been feeling itchy-eyed and runny-nosed as well and I never normally get allergies. It might be because I'm pregnant though.
Anyway, Joseph woke up feeling gross but still insisted on making a special breakfast for Mothers' Day. He probably has a little bit of what the kids had on top of his allergies. He really is such a good husband. This is what he presented me with when we sat down to eat:
You can kind of see the roses that he gave me last night over there on the left.

After church and after naps Joseph and Emily wrapped my presents. Emily was so excited for me to open them that we ended up unwrapping them probably 20 minutes later. Emily opened one, Caleb opened one, and I opened one. It's nice to know I have good help around here.














Joseph also made a nice dinner for the family (even though he was still feeling crummy) and my visiting teachers brought over delicious home made cream puffs! It was a fantastic Mothers' Day. I sure feel lucky to have such great family and friends.

Update

The weather here has been getting a lot hotter recently, but we have had some beautiful weather as well. Last Sunday was really nice so Emily and I took our after church snacks outside to enjoy together. The boys were sleeping.

After eating Emily took a little stray trike out for a spin. I thought she was so cute riding it in her little dress.


Caleb and Joseph joined us before too long and Caleb had to do some maintenance work on this little car.


I love this picture below because Caleb's head looks so huge. It really is huge, I guess. His body is 60th percentile for height and weight while his head is 97th.

This week both kids have been sick. Joseph took Emily to the pediatrician on Tuesday (while I was getting my ultrasound) and she was prescribed some antibiotics for her persistent cough. The following night Caleb's cough got really bad so we took him to the doctor and found out he had an ear infection and croup. And he's cutting his canines on top of that. Poor little guy. We spent a couple of days inside so we have been trying to come up with some fun indoor activities. Emily really enjoyed painting. Thanks for the book, Steph!
We are now doling out lots of medicine - Caleb has some with every meal - but the kids are doing a lot better.

Sunday Activities

Emily has been working really hard on drawing. She surprised us by filling in these faces last Sunday in church after Joseph gave her one example. We love the last face. Joseph asked her if she was going to add eyes and a nose and she told him that he already had them (those dots on top of his head).
He looks pretty deformed but I guess that's okay because he is a priest of Baal.

Wahoo!

It's a girl!!

Good thing I saved all of Emily's old stuff!

Will the real Joseph Cooper please step forward

I got my Gmail account pretty early in the game. According to Wikipedia, gmail accounts first started trickling out in March 2004. My first email dates back to August 2004. Getting in while invites were still something of a rarity meant that my name was still available as an address. Since I figured that I'd be using the account for a while, my name seemed like a better choice than my_favorite_80s_cartoon_character@gmail.com.

It's nice to have a good address. People don't have a hard time remembering it. The down side is that, with a name as common as mine, I get a lot of random communication from all across North America and Britain. An automobile repair shop in Arizona. A Geico insurance account in California. Overdue library books in North Carolina. Someone trying to open a merchant credit account for their new trade school in Canada. Someone's "BT Inspire" point accumulation in London. A letter from Avraham inviting me and Yeshua to spend Sukkot with their family. If it looks like a real person might get my response, I try to inform them that they must be missing a middle initial or some trailing digits, but I still continue to get lots of random messages.

Today I got this:

i've envisioned of writing this email nonstop for months now. i've imagined this for so long although I was afraid.....I love you. i won't keep living without saying something anymore. I need to say everything to you. I wrote all i want to say in a blogspot secretly. I'm very terrified yet im sure I have to act on this or i'll never have you. If I wake tomorrow and i see you've answered i will realize I didn't fantasize this.

There was a link that I didn't click on because this actually looks more like an attempt to get me to click on an infected webpage in order to download malware onto my machine. But who knows? Maybe someone is actually in love with a Joseph somewhere... but not enough to find out his real email address.