One of my excuses for not posting occurred right at the start of March. Cade had a stomach bug starting on the Thursday right at the end of February. I came home late from a work trip late Friday night, and Susie got back from B-town the next morning (Susie's mom was watching Cade at our house that week). We went to a some friends' house Saturday night for a baby shower and some of the people at that shower had been at a youth function at their church in a packed room all weekend. So we don't know if we/Cade passed it over to them or if they passed it to me, but two of our friends and I got very sick the next day/night. I missed half the gold medal hockey game, so you know it had to be bad. :)
Unfortunately, one of our friends that got sick was Carla, the person whose baby shower we had just attended. The flu caused her to go into labor about eight weeks early and she ended up in the hospital. Fortunately for her and her baby, they were able to stop the labor and she went home a couple days later. So far, the baby has stayed put, so we're thankful for that.
Back at our house, Susie was dishing out the Pedialyte to both Cade and I with alarming efficiency. Between bathroom sessions, I pulled out my laptop to catch up on some work and school emails. I set my laptop down near the bed and tried to sleep, but I suddenly felt the urge. In my dash to the bathroom I knocked the Pedialyte onto my laptop's ultimately too accepting keyboard: not good. This is a work laptop, and luckily our Helpless Desk was able to direct me straight to Dell. Dell fixed me up, I didn't lose any of my hard drive, but I was without my link to work and school for almost two weeks. I had a couple days of slowly coming back out of my cloud and then a week out in the field working on a compressor, so I didn't need it too much, but I found out how much I take technology for granted. So that's my excuse for roughly half the month.
I guess if I was going to make an excuse for the other half I'd cite Susie's knee surgery two Fridays ago. Her left knee had been bothering her for a few months so she had it checked out and it turns out she had a torn meniscus. Her surgery went very well and she only needed a few days on crutches, but it still slowed things down for us. Susie's mom came into town before the surgery and stayed a few days afterwards. We are so fortunate to have her and her servant heart and I know Cade enjoyed all the time he was able to spend with his VeeVee.
So between those two events and work and school, I haven't done a very good job of maintaining this blog. We haven't even been very good picture takers. But here are a few that we've taken over the last month.
Bloomington has some great parks, and now that the weather is warming up we've taken Cade out a few times. He loves sliding and swinging the best.
Last Saturday the weather was perfect: mid-sixties and sunny. I had a 10K race in the morning and was able to spend a lot of the rest of the day working outside in the yard. Cade came out and was a big help. It was the first time we'd been able to spend a decent amount of time cleaning the yard and gardens up after the winter. It's amazing how much the yard waste and leaves and sticks and dog turds build up over the winter. Cade really does like to be a help. He was actually very good at putting leaves and sticks in the yard trash bags and I didn't catch him putting even one small Chili bomb in his mouth! Another thing we determined that day is that Cade likes to hang out in the bed of the truck.
As you can see, he's figured out how to say "Cheese!"
We spent a lot of time in the TV room the last Thursday through Sunday evenings because once Cade learned there was going to be a lot of basketball on TV he wanted to watch all the time. He also wants to wear any clothing that has basketballs on it and he wants to shoot baskets all the time too. I guess it only makes sense since he's a Kentucky native and this is definitely a roundball state.
This is a picture of our everyday life. We try to keep the same bedtime routine every night and Cade usually responds pretty well to it. We give him a bath, then read stories while he drinks his milk. Then we brush his teeth, say our prayers, and it's off to bed. As you can see, Cade doesn't lack for books. He loves them all and can recite sizeable chunks out of quite a few of them. He's kind of funny because he hasn't really developed a snotty toddler "NO!" yet. And his communication skills are getting better and better. You can give him choices and options and he really comprehends a lot and responds pretty consistently. So sometimes when we're reading stories we'll pick one up and if he doesn't want to read that one he'll say a little "nope." Not "no" or "NO!" Just "nope." Pretty cute.
News Flash! I guess we may be at a developmental transition. As I was typing this, Susie just informed me that Cade climbed out of his crib while she was putting him to bed tonight. So we're looking at how to transform the crib into the toddler bed tomorrow. I guess if he knows how to get out I'd rather have him slide off the mattress instead of skydiving from the top rail. More updates to come on that, so hopefully we'll have good things to post sooner rather than later. We're also starting a little bit of the beginnings of potty training, so I'll save that story for a sooner post as well. Like I mentioned earlier, if you're still with us: Thanks!
