Where the Heck Have I Been?

I just realized how long it's been since I've posted anything here, so I thought today I'd get back on the ol' blogging bandwagon. I think the last time I posted, Matthew was just starting to crawl and Chris had just turned three.

Well...not a whole lot has really changed since then. Matthew can now pull himself up to a standing position by holding on to tables, chairs, my leg hairs (OUCH!) and anything else that's handy. He's managed to walk his way around many of these objects, but still refuses to try to walk on his own. The closest he's come so far has been to use a small chair at Holly's parents' house as a kind of walker. He'd push it along in front of himself while he walked behind it. Not exactly walking, but pretty damned cute all the same!

Matthew also has four teeth now, the top two of which are (for lack of a better word here) bucked. They've got a small gap between them, so his smile is hilariously goofy. Holly assures me that they'll be pushed together once he starts getting more teeth, so I'm really trying to take extra time to enjoy them for now.

What's the most amazing to us is the remarkable amount of growth that Matthew has experienced over the past month or so. He finally turned off the puke factory in his tummy, so now the food he eats actually stays INSIDE! INCREDIBLE! In the time since that's happened, he's gained well over a pound, and is really starting to get big. Apparently barfing your food back up has the unfortunate side effect of sending with it any sort of vocabulary, because since he stopped yacking...he's started yakking! The kid talks a blue streak these days! We went from only getting "dadadadadadadada" all day long to mama, papa, baba, and a whole plethora of other noises. It's great! The little monkey is finally starting to grow up into a little person!

Chris is also doing great these days. Every day he seems to learn something new, though over the past couple of weeks he's been picking up some bad habits from some of the kids at school (at least I HOPE that's where he's getting them...). He's been smarting off a little more than we'd prefer, so we've had to lay the smack down a few times. Never fun... We've found that the best punishments for Chris are taking away his books and his Spidey costume, the latter of which has spent the past four days in our closet because of some attitude he was throwing at us over the weekend.

BUT...I don't want to dwell on that anymore. Let's talk about how damned CUTE he is! I'm sure Chris will want to kill me later in his life for writing this, but he tells us at night that he's a princess or the "Good Fairy" (from the Little Bunny Foo Foo song), and puts on long t-shirts that he calls his "dress." Then he takes out a plastic coat hanger and uses it as his wand, telling us that he's going to turn us into a Goon (again, from Little Bunny Foo Foo)! It's frickin' hysterical!

But I think the funniest thing he's been up to these days is coming up with kid's versions of swear words. The curse word du jour has been "Coconut Head," which he uses pretty much constantly. This is far better than some of the other ones he's brought home...Booty Butt, Baby Bath, Baby Booty and more! I think the funniest of those is Baby Bath, though, since it makes absolutely no sense!

On the growing up side of things, Chris is finally sleeping without a diaper! He's been walking around without one for several months now, but we are just now getting him to sleep without one. It's pretty cool, and he's done a great job of not wetting the bed. We're so proud of him!
Boy...I never thought it'd be FUN to write about my kid not peeing...I must be getting old!

Well, that's about it on the kid front for now. I'll do my best to keep posting now that I've remembered this little blog. Hope you enjoyed the update!

Touchdown Buddies II

For whatever reason, I couldn't get this picture of Chris to load earlier. Enjoy!

Touchdown Buddies!

I just realized how long it's been since I've posted anything useful here, and I thought it'd be nice to give everyone a quick heads-up as to what's new with the Buddies. Since I'm a little short on time and creativity, I'll go with the good old-fashioned bullet point system:
Chris

• Started potty training late last month, and has since almost completely gotten the hang of it (if you'll pardon the pun...guess I wasn't short on creativity after all!). He uses the bathroom all day, but still sleeps in a diaper just in case
• We've rearranged his room so it feels more like a big-boy room. His bed is out away from the wall now because he didn't have any problems with falling out. The problem NOW, though, is that he likes to get out of bed in the middle of the night and crawl UNDER it!
• You wouldn't believe how much this kid talks unless you heard it for yourself. He's got an AMAZING vocabulary, and can pretty much hold a normal conversation with you if you're patient with him.
• ...couldn't be cuter!

Matthew

• Still working on rolling over. This has got to be the laziest kid on the planet! I swear he'd sleep all day if we'd let him. He does like to bat at his toys and everything; he just can't be bothered to chase them down!
• Started on solid foods this weekend. We started him with yellow squash, and he's working on green beans right now.
• He may be teething a little bit. He's got a bit of a white line under his gums, and he's constantly chewing on his hands. I'll keep updating on this if we have tooth action!
• Sleeping through the night with ease. He'll have a bottle before he goes to bed at about 9:00, and sleeps until about 6:00 most mornings. We'll usually give him another bottle at that point, though, and go back to sleep for a while (especially on weekends).
• ...also could not be cuter!

That's pretty much all for now. Now that I've remembered how to post, I'll need to go back through the notes I've kept about these two and post a bit more. Here are some pictures for everyone to ooh and ahh over.

Until next time...

Picture Time!

Given that The Matthew spent the better part of the first week of his life with wires, hoses, and the like sticking out of his little head like a Snork, there wasn't much opportunity to get a very professional shot of him. Still, the folks at Northside did everything they could to get a good shot of him prior to our leaving the hospital. Matthew was somewhat less than cooperative, leading to a nice afternoon out last week with a trip to Kiddie Kandids at Toys 'R Us.

If you haven't heard of these guys before, they do a PHENOMENAL job of capturing the inherent cuteness of munchkins of all ages. We took the boys (in their matching "Big Brother/Little Brother" outfits, of course) to Kiddie Kandids to fill the photography gap, and what a great job!

You can see the results by clicking here.
To see all the pictures, you'll need the following information as well:
Sitting Number: 564010051
Sitting Code: 2EX32C

Enjoy!

The Honeymoon's Over!

So just when you think Chris is completely enamored with the idea of having "The Matthew" around, the bottom drops out...

We were putting Chris to bed the other night when Matthew started fussing a little bit (time once again for an ever-so-tasty bottle of Isomil!). As we were right in the middle of a story at the time, this made Chris none-too-happy as you might imagine. In a stark contrast to his loving request to keep Matthew, Chris looked at us (completely disgusted and visibly irritated) and said, "Mommy, I want to take Matthew back to the hospital!"

Holly handled it well, of course, but it took everything in our power not to crack up right there on the spot. Guess the little guy is fighting for his right to party... :-)

Back to the Hospital...But Not For Matthew

In an effort to further clothe, educate, and generally enrich the lives of the people at Aetna and the Atlanta area medical community, today we had the pleasure of taking Chris, not The Matthew this time, to the hospital. Nothing to worry about, as it was a scheduled procedure.

Last February we had tubes put in Chris's ears, one of which fell out a short 6 months or so later. The doctors kept an eye on it to see whether his ears would get infected again, and low and behold, they did. Not only did he have to replace the fallen tube, but his other one was well on the way out, too. SO...they replaced BOTH sets of tubes. FUN!

And just for good measure, they threw in an adenoidectomy to boot. I won't get into the details of that...just click the link above and you can learn everything you'll ever need to know. But I will say this...the little guy handled it like a champ. He had to be put under for the procedure, which was a little scary to him, but when he came out he was back to semi-normal in just a couple of hours. I don't know where he got his resilliency, but I'm constantly amazed how well he handles being sick.

Anyway, he's perfectly fine now and back to ransacking the house every chance he gets. Just looking for an excuse to brag about my little guy!

Tubby Time!

Another quick cuteness update on The Matthew...

Saturday night we gave the little guy his first bath. What a cool experience! We have this little chair for him that's got a million little holes in it, so water pretty much drains right through. We just plunked down a towel underneath and got to scrubbin'...

He actually handled things pretty well, and managed not to pee on anyone. Take it from me, that's a pretty big accomplishment. Any time you can get his diaper changed or have him be momentarily naked and NOT get peed on, you should consider yourself extremely lucky...

Since he was such a good kid, there's really not much else to report. Basically this whole story was just an excuse to show off the crazy-eyed shot of our little monkey. Meanwhile, he's still cute, and we still love him!

Can We Keep Him?

So I'm not sure when it happened, but Holly told me the funniest story about something Chris said to her last week...

Chris was peeking at Matthew, and Holly asked him, "Do you like Matthew?" In his typically adorable little voice, Chris replied...

"Yeah. He's cuuuute! Can we keep him?"

Just thought that was too cute not to share...

Mama I'm Coming Home (Revisited)!

Yesterday was such a wonderful day!! We finally got to pick up our little guy from the hospital...

Mom and Dad came down for the big day, as did Holly's mom Nancy. Of course, Chris came along. He was so excited about the whole deal that he was practically bursting out of his skin! We had to leave them all in the waiting room while we collected all of Matthew's goodies, and I came out at one point to go get the car. When I got to the waiting room with everything Chris came FLYING around the corner screaming at the top of his lungs, "BABY MATTHEW!!!" Completely adorable...

We finally got everything together and the nurse wheeled Holly and Matthew out of the nursery. Not sure why they have to wheel you out when you've been out of the hospital for 3 days, but whatever... Anyway, here we come rolling down the hall to a welcoming wall of smiles, hugs and camera flashes, as well as continued screams of "BABY MATTHEW!!" from Chris. What a cool experience!

The whole situation reminded me a bit of when Annie and Hope (my sisters, who are adopted and from Korea) arrived on their respective airplanes to Houston, where we lived at the time. You could cut the excitement in the air with a knife, and it was a great experience for everyone.

After we finally left the hospital, we went out to lunch with everyone. I know, I know...everyone tells you that you should wait two months or some nonsense before taking your baby out in public. What I can tell you from our experience with Chris is that has to be BS. We took him out when he was a week old, and haven't stopped since then. He's turned out absolutely wonderfully! But I've gotten off the topic...

We went out to lunch at On The Border, where Holly and I met and fell in love, and where most major events in our lives have taken place (met, fell in love, got engaged, first meals out for both of our kids, etc.). Lots of fun, and we ran into an old friend that I used to work with, so we got to show off the boys.

We also made a quick stop at work to show off everyone, then finally made it home by about 4:00. PHEW! We were exhausted! More to come later...

Mama I'm Coming Home!

WHOO HOO!! Just got a call from the doctor, and she said Matthew is looking great and will be ready to come home sometime in the late part of tomorrow morning! Can't wait, and I'll be sure to upload pictures!!

Movin' On Up!!

GREAT NEWS!! Last night at about 10:30 or so, my parents were down visiting Matthew when they overheard one of the nurses say, "The Johnston? Yes, they're up here...Oh! Just bring me one of the wooden cribs, then, please." To the average person, that probably means about jack...but to us, it meant that it was time for Matthew to leave the ICU and head to the transitional nursery!!!

Naturally this news caused Holly and I to jump in the van and haul ass down to the hospital so we could see him sans wires. And what a great trip it turned out to be! Not only did we get to spend nearly two hours with him, but we got to feed him, change him (twice!) and take his temperature, too. It was just like having him home (except for the whole institutional sterility thing)!!

He's slated to pretty much just spend today in transitional room, and we should have him home tomorrow!! Needless to say, we're overflowing with excitement. Can't wait to bring him home to meet his litle brother!

Hittin' The Bottle!

The day just keeps on getting better!! Not only did we get the call this morning that the numothorax was completely gone, but this afternoon we got to bottle feed him!

We went up to visit this morning at about 10:30, and the nurse on duty gave us the rundown. She told us that she'd like to keep an eye on his SATs (oxygen saturation levels...typcially between 90 & 100%) and his respiration to see how things went, and then would consider bottle feeding.

When she checked him for his 11:00 assessment, though, she found out that he was way ahead of the curve, and decided to lessen the amount of oxygen she was giving. We gave this a few minutes' worth of testing, and she thought his breathing was great. That being the case, she offered to let him try the bottle. Cool!

Holly got to hold him while he ate, and he drank like a champ! Even got his burps out without any assistance...guess he really IS a Johnston! :-) Holly continued holding him for almost two hours after that, which gave us ample in-between time to make it feeding time once again at 2:00.

MY TURN! I got to hold and feed Matthew this afternoon, and loved every minute of it!

Holly's getting her staples taken out right now, and we're slated to leave the hospital in about an hour or so. We're trying to figure out whether we want to risk the emotions of going back up to see him one more time, or whether it'd be better to check on him tomorrow when we come back for CPR classes...guess we'll have to see!

It's the Easter Buddy!!

Yesterday I finally got to hold my little guy! What a wonderful experience! Up till then, I'd only gotten to hold him for a minute or two in the OR after he was born. They pretty much took him straight from there to the NICU, though, so it wasn't much. Yesterday, though, I got him for almost an HOUR!

Things progressed pretty well yesterday, as the "Lorax" is now completely gone, and they're looking into bottle feeding him sometime today or tomorrow. I wish like crazy that I could say that he'll be coming home with us this afternoon, but it's just not in the cards. The good news, though, is that the doctor we talked with this morning said, "He should be home with you in a few days." That's the first time anyone has given us any kind of timeline, so it's encouraging.

Holly's doing well, and the pain is starting to subside nicely. It'll be nice for her to get to spend some time with Chris, I think, as it'll remind her what we're waiting for. The whole fam damily came down yesterday, and Holly's mom made a really nice Easter dinner including ham, potatoes and all the fixins. We hijacked a private dining room in the hospital cafeteria and celebrated Easter right here at the hospital. That sure got a few funny looks!

After lunch we had a quickie visit from the Easter Bunny in our room for Chris. He got a nice basket of toys and candy, and promptly went to work destroying the Easter grass from the basket. Even put some on Annie's (his aunt's) head (see picture)!

Anyway...we're going home this afternoon at about 4:00, so we'll leave Matthew in the capable hands of the NICU staff and look to hear more from them as he progresses. As I get more information I'll post it here. Thanks for visiting!

Happy Easter...No More Lorax In Matthew's Thorax

What a great morning so far! We got a phone call this morning from the NICU doctor informing us that the numothorax (I misspoke before when I called it a hemothorax, but I still don't know the difference) is almost completely gone!! WHOO HOO!

Please excuse the title of today's update. My sister Hope came by to visit yesterday, and said something pretty funny. When I asked her if Mom had filled her in on Matthew's situation, she said, "Yeah. He's got a Lorax in his thorax or something, right?" Loved that! Guess we'll have to buy the book now...

Anyway, they took off Matthew's Astroboy helmet thing this morning at about 10:30, and replaced it with nose plug thingies. They're providing him with an oxygen mixture of about 30%. Normal air is about 21%, so he's almost there as far as what he needs to be doing.

They'll start feeding him sometime late tonight or tomorrow, we hope. They're holding off on that for right now because they want to see how he handles being off of the strong oxygen. All in all, a pretty cool day!

The Elephant Boy Returns...Followed By Astroboy!

This morning we went up to visit Matthew, thinking that we would see him looking much the same way we left him last night...cool with his little nose plugs. Much to our dismay, he was back to his old tricks with the elephant nose tube.

Apparently, he crashed a little bit overnight as a result of a hemothorax. That's a small bubble of air located just outside of his lungs that takes away the oxygen that they've been pumping into him.

SO...we spent most of the afternoon worried sick about our little guy, and finally got the chance to go back up to visit at around 4:30. When we got there, he was still an elephant, but they had chest X-ray scheduled to see how the hemothorax had progressed/regressed. The picture was a scary one, as it looked like this thing had actually INCREASED in size. The nurses called the on-call doctor, who ordered another X-ray shot from a different angle. This made all the difference, and the hemo had actually DECREASED a bit.

The doctor was so pleased with this, coupled with his apparent rallying in terms of the oxygen he needed, that she is going to take off his elephant nose and go back to his original form of oxygen...the Oxymask. This is a cool little contraption that looks an awful lot like an astronaut's helmet. It sits over his head (with a little hole where his neck sticks out) and provides him with oxygen.

What all this means is as yet unclear, but at least it appears to be progress. Plus, now we'll get to see his face again! We've been talking to a lot of other folks whose kids have had similar problems, and all of them say that their kids were out of the hospital in under a week...that'd be ncie!

I'll update again after we visit him tonight.

Bungee Baby (Or, The Return Of The Snorks)!!

Quick update...

The nurses in the ICU were concerned that Matthew's IV was starting to irritate his hand, so they started looking for alternate veins elsewhere. They tried his other hand, as well as his right foot, but to no avail.

Ultimately, they ended up sticking it IN HIS HEAD!!! This left him in the unfortunate position of resembling a Snork, those lovable undersea creatures from back in the days of USA's Cartoon Express. Either that, or he kind of looks like he's got a bungee cord attached to his head...you be the judge:

Matthew Update #1

The day started off pretty well for our new little guy. At about 12:30 last night, he got his first visit from Mommy, who spent about an hour and a half just looking at him and stroking his hands and hair. There wasn't much change in his status, so he still had his little elephant trunk on (that's what we called his air tubes...check out the picture). We finally left the room at about 2:00 and conked out until the morning.

We had a great surprise when we woke up today...Christy & Thor had baby Katelyn at around 2:30, just about the same time we were getting to sleep! She weighed in at 6 lbs, 14 oz, 19 inches, and is absolutely beautiful (see the next picture). Congrats to the Thors!!

The big moment of the day came at about 12:15 this afternoon...Holly was finally allowed to go up and hold Matthew. This was particularly exciting because she hadn't had any opportunity to hold him up to this point. What a wonderful way to kick off the day. The nurses put a surgical gown on her, unplugged all of Matthew's various monitors and passed the little guy to Holly. She was SO pleased to finally give him a hug, and he seemed to be thrilled to be in her arms, too!

The grandparents (minus my dad, who had to run out of town last night and will return this evening) came down this afternoon and brought Chris along. The poor little guy hasn't really even seen his brother up close, except to see him through the windows of the nursery. He doesn't really get what's going on, and it's hard to fill him in without scaring him. We just keep telling him that Mommy and Daddy are going to visit the doctor when we go visit Mattew. He's really excited to meet his little brother, and I can't wait to see how they get along.

The grandparents naturally went back to visit with Matthew, and everyone's completely enamored with him (not surprising...). I think they're really looking forward to holding him, too. It's really been tough to be in the "no touching" zone.

On a positive note, the doctor took Chris's goofy elephant hose off today and inserted more standard nose-plug-style air hoses. They're going to lower the level of oxygen that they're giving him, and plan on trying to feed him a bit through an IV this evening. The new air hose is under a 12-hour test period, and then we'll see what happens next. Can't wait to see how that works out! I'll keep updating here as things progress!

And Then There Were TWO!

Walking farts and contractions be damned!

The new little guy arrived this afternoon at 12:08 PM. He weighed in at a hefty 7 lbs, 12 oz, and is 20 inches long (that's the same as his height, not what you're thinking sicko!). He's absolutely beautiful, and looks so much like his big brother that it's almost scary...

The sucky thing is that he was whisked away from us shortly after being brought into the recovery room. His oxygen levels were a little low, so the nurse in there thought it would be good to send him up to the transitional nursery.

And it was a good call, too...apparently the little monkey has fluid in his lungs, and they need to keep him chock full of oxygen to help eliminate it. They say it's nothing to worry about, and that he'll be just fine in a few days. Still, it's been really rough on Holly to not be able to hang out with him, give him hugs and generally love on him.

She's really been a trooper though. She's fighting through the pain of the C-section, and dealing with all of the fun things that come along with that. All the while trying to entertain the various guests who've dropped by.

The crazy thing is that another one of our friends actually went into labor this afternoon, too. She was originally due sometime next week, and her doctor hand't given her any indication that things would happen any sooner, but here she is in the labor and delivery room while we're sitting in our recovery/post-op room. Guess our little guy'll have a nice new girlfriend to play with!

All in all, a stressful but extremely memorable and wonderful day!

A Little Gentleman (or, Chivalry is Not Dead)

Just when you think the world is going to Hell in a handbasket with kids generally being arrogant little bastards who would sooner slap you than help out in any way, along comes a two-year-old to put things right...

A few weeks ago we were getting ready to put Chris to bed, and Holly was having a hard time getting up...being 8 months pregnant will do that to ya'...

Anyway, she's sitting there struggling to right herself, and Chris walks over to her and says, "I help you Mommy!" He reaches out his little hand and starts pulling for all he's worth. Of course, there's not much pull in him since he's so small, but it was a really cool gesture for such a little guy, and it made me proud to be his daddy.

Irrational Fears

So I understand that kids have all kinds of irrational fears, but this one officially takes the cake...

The other night we were putting Chris to bed, and we follow our nightly ritual of "blowing the light out." Chris puffs up his little cheeks and blows with all his might toward the lights switch. The overhead light goes out, and the nightlight kicks in. This is where the trouble started...

Chris starts to whine and points at the nightlight. I ask him what the deal is, and he says, "There's a monster in there, Daddy!" Thinking he must SURELY be pointing at the closet like a normal kid, I say, "You mean in the closet, buddy?" "No, Daddy," he says, "in the light! Make it go away!"

No lie, we had to turn OFF his nightlight to get him to calm down! I've heard of kids being afraid of the dark...but afraid of the LIGHT? That's got to be a first...