orlando

Disney…and the trip home

February 1, 2010 by Jessica

My presentations on Thursday went quite well. The sessions were fully attended, and we received a lot of positive feedback. I also had a series of great meetings with some clients. I received confirmation of a contract renewal, and worked out the details for a new contract with an old client.

As I am sure I have now said hundreds of times, I cannot believe how much Micah has grown and changed over the past year. All week, I kept remembering how little Micah was his first trip to Orlando last year, and I was amazed at how…BIG…he seemed this year. On Thursday evening, we took Micah to Downtown Disney. I have to say, dinner with a toddler was a bit more challenging than dinner with a newborn last year. Once again, we got a bit of a late start – we went to a reception at 5:30, and it was 7:00 pm before we made it to the restaurant. By that point, Micah was fidgety and hungry. There was butcher paper on the table, so I gave Micah a crayon and let him play a bit. My little boy was coloring!! Well, when he wasn’t trying to eat the crayons. Micah was not being so cooperative at dinner – he didn’t want to sit still, and he wanted to practice walking. The waiter gave him a plastic cup of water with a straw, and he wanted to play with the cup and the straw the entire time. Naturally, he managed to figure out how to douse himself with the water, and screamed bloody murder any time I tried to confiscate his new “toy.”

Last year, Micah slept through dinner…well, he actually slept through the entire visit to Downtown Disney. We joked about him being a traveling gnome – he was sound asleep and we were taking him out of his stroller and snapping photos of him everywhere – at Lego Land, trying on hats, and at the candy store. By far, this was my favorite photo of Micah:

Elliot held him up next to the Lego bulldog while he slept. The bulldog was maybe 18-22 inches off the ground, and we were laughing at how little Micah seemed next to the bulldog. This year, we couldn’t resist revisiting that spot and trying to re-create the moment. Can you believe the difference?

Funny – this year, the bulldog looks so tiny, and Micah looks like a giant!!

On Friday, we spent the afternoon in the Magic Kingdom. We drove over to the parking area and took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. Micah is FULL of energy and just does not like to sit still. He is content in his stroller if we are moving, but he hates to be on line, and he really hates when we hold him and prevent him from wandering around on his own. Upon arrival, we picked up our tickets and headed straight down Main Street. Micah seemed to enjoy the music and he LOVED the balloons.

We decided to start off in Fantasyland. Our first ride of the day was “It’s a Small World.” The line was relatively short – maybe 5-7 minutes long, but Micah was pretty unhappy that we were keeping him so confined. When we first climbed into the ride, he was angry and screaming. As the safety bar pulled down, he was squirming and crying. I turned to Elliot and said “if this does not go well, I think we’ll be heading back to the hotel.” As the car moved forward, Micah got a bit quieter, and when we entered the first room and heard the song “It’s a Small World” from all the moving people, Micah’s face lit up and he started to clap!! It was the sweetest thing I have seen. He was enthralled the entire ride!! He smiled, he clapped, he danced – our first ride was a complete success!!

After “It’s a Small World,” we picked up a fast pass for Peter Pan’s flight, then immediately hopped on the carousel. Once again, Micah was not so thrilled while we waited, but after the horses started moving, he was all smiles. We took a quick spin on Snow White – he was calm and content, but not so much interested in clapping. Then, Elliot decided to take Micah on the dumbo ride. At this point, I was having some issues with morning sickness, so I decided to sit this one out. This ride might have been the worst decision we made all day. Elliot ended up waiting in line about 40 minutes, and Micah was cranking and complaining the entire time! Once the dumbos took off, he was back to smiling. Immediately after the ride, we gave Micah a quick snack and decided to head on over to Frontierland to see the Country Bear Jamboree. We arrived just as the show started, so we had about 20 minutes to pass. We ran into the food shop and grabbed a veggie burger for the three of us to share, then made it back to the Country Bear Jamboree just in the nick of time. Once again, Micah was cranky about being held on my lap…until the lights went down and the bears started talking and singing. He was back to smiling and clapping for the entire show!

After the Country Bear Jamboree, we headed to Adventureland and took a ride on the Jungle Cruise. That has to be one of the cheesiest rides ever! Micah did seem to enjoy the animals, and he was even pointing at different things that caught his eye. We decided to ride on Pirates of the Caribbean before heading back to Fantasyland to use our fast passes on Peter Pan’s flight. By the end of the day, Micah was clearly exhausted, but he seemed to have an amazing time. There were only a few other rides and shows I think he could have enjoyed at Disney, but we definitely felt that we took full advantage of those tickets. I am certain that Micah will not remember this trip, but I think it was a great learning experience for him and he seemed to have a wonderful day. Most of all, seeing him light up and enjoy the rides brought a bit of joy to an otherwise sad day for me.

That night, a friend of mine drove up to Orlando to attend my conference! While we waited for her to arrive, we stopped off at a wine and cheese party at one of the other villas. My friend arrived around 7:00 pm, and was able to see Micah in person. We went out for dinner together and caught up. After the crazy day Micah had at the Magic Kingdom, he just needed to go to sleep, so Elliot graciously volunteered to stay behind and put him to bed while I went out. I loved having the time to get out and catch up with a friend.

Saturday morning, I woke up and gave my final presentation. Another successful session, and I received more good news – apparently, the program in the Virgin Islands was thrilled with my sessions and wants to bring me out to provide my assistance there! Can I tell you how excited I am about the opportunity to go to the Virgin Islands? We might also have to visit Puerto Rico on the way out. Usually, I end up going to Wichita or Minneapolis or Podunk, USA – this trip promises to be far more exciting! My mother has already volunteered to come along as a “Grananny.”

After my presentation, I spent a bit more time in the exhibit hall, said my goodbyes, and then we headed out nice and early to the airport. On the way there, my mom called to tell me that another friend of hers was stuck in Palm Beach because of the weather issues and flight cancellations. We checked on our flight…only to discover it was canceled! I was panicking – we needed to be back so that I could get to my grandmother’s funeral, and Elliot had a group of Red Cross delegates he was coordinating for departure to Haiti. We spent the next few hours trying to switch our flights, change airlines, etc. During that time, my mom decided to postpone the funeral a day – the snow was far worse than had been anticipated. Ultimately, we finally did get on a flight home at 5:20 pm. Poor, Micah – it was quite a long day for him. We were lucky enough (again) to have a seat for him on the airplane. But, he just did not want to sit still. Elliot put on an Elmo DVD to keep him entertained, but it was a tough flight back. We finally landed around 7:20 and rushed to the car. Micah fell asleep on the way home, and transferred easily into his crib and slept through the night.

This morning, Elliot woke up early to help the Red Cross delegation leave for Haiti. I made Micah pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, and we had a fun morning together. This afternoon, we took Micah to a friend’s house for a birthday party. He had a good time playing this afternoon, and he is just so sweet!

Tomorrow, I have to leave quite early to drive to Pennsylvania for my grandmother’s funeral. We decided that Elliot and Micah would stay behind – the ride is just too difficult to make in one day with a toddler. I’m dreading tomorrow and saying goodbye, but I am so thankful that after everything, I made it back to be there with my family. I will post more pictures from Florida and a few other stories later in the week.

Goodbye, Grammy

January 30, 2010 by Jessica

My grandmother died this morning. I think, for the most part, I’m a bit numb. I’ve had my moments of crying and sadness on and off all day today – in fact, I’m tearing up now as I write this blog. And yet…a part of me feels as if I already mourned her loss. I think, on some level, I’ve been mourning her loss for years.

My grandmother developed dementia in her last years. Initially, she would misplace her car or her keys, or incessantly repeat herself. She forgot some basic things, and she started to have trouble knitting and playing cards or mah jong. In 1999, she moved from her home in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Homecrest House, an independent living facility near my parents’ house. She was a lot of fun to have around – the repetition could be irritating, but she was in good physical shape, and she loved to just run errands, chat on the phone and keep me company. I used to visit with her every weekend (and talk to her several times during the week). She lived about 30 minutes from me, and I often went out to see her both Saturdays and Sundays. I would make the drive to her house and pick her up so I could run around, go shopping, grab lunch – whatever errands I had planned. Sundays, my mom, my grandmother and I would always spend the day together. We usually went to stores during the day, but we always finished our Sundays with a trip to the grocery store and dinner. I treasured those times we spent together.

While we knew her memory was getting worse, she was able to physically keep pace, and she always knew who we were. She repeated stories, but we could chat with her – about our lives, about important matters, and even she did not remember the conversation the next day, she was able to respond with advice and humor over the course of the conversation.

Things began to change when she fell and broke her hip. If my memory serves, it happened in 2002 – I had left my law firm and was taking classes so that I could sit for the patent bar. I had just started a part-time job (that ultimately led me to the work I do now). While physically she recovered from the injury, she rapidly deteriorated mentally after that. We had to hire assistants to make sure she ate and took her medication, and we had someone walk her to dinner every night. She lived for about another year or two in the independent living community before it became too difficult to sustain.

At that time, we decided to move my grandmother to an assisted living facility, Alfred House. She was aware of the move, and we discussed options with her. She did not always remember that we were moving her, and some days her memory was better than others. At that time, it was determined that she did not qualify for many of the care options because she was in great physical shape, and her memory challenges did not fully interfere with her daily living activities – she could feed herself, she could swallow pills, she could get herself dressed, and she could walk. Sometimes, she even knew the year and who was President. She always knew my mother and me.

After we moved my grandmother to Alfred House, she began to deteriorate rather quickly. Her memory worsened, and she slowly lost her ability to walk. It became too difficult to take her out for family dinners. By 2005, there were a lot of bad days – days when she did not remember me, and days when she was outright not herself when I would go to visit. I brought Elliot to meet her for the first time in 2005. It was a decent day – she was pleased to see us, she thanked Elliot a million times for the beautiful flowers he brought for her (“Are those for me – they are GORGEOUS!). As we said goodbye, she told me that Elliot was a keeper. He often likes to remind me of that day. I was always sad that Elliot never got to meet my “real” grandmother – the one I knew before she was affected by dementia. I was always sad that she never really remembered him, or that we had gotten married, or that she was able to be at our wedding. After a few horrible interactions on my own with my grandmother, I became afraid of going to visit her by myself later that year – emotionally, I just could not handle the “bad” visits alone.

I’m ashamed to admit that as the years progressed, I visited her less and less often. She was never awake after 6 or 7 pm. She was always sleeping during the day when I did arrive. It was hard to coordinate my schedule to either bring Elliot or go with my mom. She was getting more frail and I did not want to see her when I was sick. But, more than anything, so often those visits just devastated me. I hated going to see her…and missing her while she was right in front me. Even worse, I hated the visits when she was angry or just did not know who I was. By the time I got pregnant with Micah, my visits slowed – sometimes weeks or even a month would pass between my visits. Towards the end of my pregnancy, we moved back into Elliot’s house, so my drive to visit her was over 1/2 an hour. I was on bedrest for the last few months of the pregnancy, we were trying to settle into a new place and prepare for a baby, and 30 minutes in a car was uncomfortable for me. Once Micah arrived, it was hard to coordinate his napping and feeding schedule with a car ride and my work and her schedule. I brought him to meet his great-grandmother for the first time 2 years ago on her 95th birthday when he was 2 weeks old. Micah and I have both been sick a lot over the past 13 months, and I would have to say that sometimes 6-8 weeks would stretch in between my visits this year – perhaps even longer than that once or twice. This past year, my grandmother rarely knew who I was. On good days, she thought I was my mother. In a strange way, that comforted me – you see, I look a lot like my mother, and I always felt she was recognizing that I was her family when she thought I was my mother.

As always, we went to visit my grandmother on her birthday – January 1. I brought Micah for a visit then, and made her a birthday cake. It was a nice visit, but I had no idea that it was really the last time I would see her in such…good…shape. Less than two weeks later, she fell and fractured her skull, receiving the fatal injury that resulted in her death this morning. I went to her at the hospital the day she fell, and I even rode in the ambulance with her to the nursing home where we were placing her for hospice care. I visited her most days that she was there, but did not get there everyday.

On Sunday, I went to see my grandmother for the last time. It was bittersweet – I was so sad to see her like that. She was largely nonresponsive for most of the visit. When we finally woke her up, she ate a few bites of food, then started to refuse any more. She quickly went back to sleeping. I stayed for about 1 hour before we left. I said goodbye, gave her a kiss, and told her that I loved her. This time, for the first time, she did not respond. As I looked back at her from the elevator bank, I saw a very old woman sitting there – one who vaguely reminded me of the grandmother I had known and loved for so many years – but yet not the woman I remembered as my Grammy. She was disheveled and missing teeth, and she had a huge gash on her head from the fall. She looked thin and frail, and was sleeping with her mouth open as she sat in a wheelchair. I took one last look and thought “this may be the last time I ever see her.”

I have worried all week that my grandmother would die this week while I was away. Even more so, I selfishly worried she would die at the beginning of the week, making it impossible for me to even attend her funeral. I cannot tell you the relief I felt when Wednesday came and went and she seemed to be relatively stable.

My mom called me last night (Thursday) to say that my grandmother had not had any morphine in over 24 hours and was still nonresponsive. She said she was breathing heavily, her heartrate was elevated, and she was covered in perspiration from breathing so hard. We both knew that my grandmother was done fighting – that the end was imminent. I think we both suspected the call would come in the middle of the night. I fell asleep at 1:00 am and woke up at 4:30. I checked my telephone, afraid I had missed a call. I was surprised that there were no messages. I tried to go back to sleep, but instead was up watching television. Around 5:30, I started to get drowsy…and just before 6:00 am, the phone rang. I knew before I even stood up to answer the phone that it was my mother and that my grandmother had died. My mother sounded very calm, and I do not think I even reacted much at first. The tears welled up a few times, but mostly we just talked about funeral logistics. My mom wanted to go visit my grandmother one last time, so she had to get off the phone and go.

I was up for the day at that point – tears coming briefly on and off all day, but for the most part, I kept busy. I was in meetings from 9 until 12 (and I fielded a few phone calls from family members about the funeral and travel). My grandmother’s funeral was pre-planned and pre-paid…we only needed to agree on the time and day. The funeral will be on Sunday at 3:00. We decided there was no reason for me to rush home before my scheduled flight back tomorrow (Saturday). I came back to the room around noon, and Elliot and I decided to go about our day as planned.

So, what did I do the day my grandmother died? I went to Disney World. Literally – we took Micah to the Magic Kingdom. I think on so many levels, I am appalled that the day my grandmother died, my world continued exactly as it would have if she was still alive. And while I am disgusted with that thought…I also think my grandmother would have liked that, too. We had two free tickets to Disney that Elliot earned as a Red Cross volunteer through the give a day get a day program. Unlike any other year, I actually had no presentations scheduled today at the conference. We had decided before we even came down here that we would take Micah to the Magic Kingdom today. Since we decided not to fly back early, and since our only other alternative would have been to sit in the room looking sad all day, we decided that it was silly not to take Micah as we had planned. He certainly did not know that anything had happened, and I could not see how sitting around feeling sad and helpless would change anything. She would have loved seeing Micah on the rides and smiling, and she would have been happy knowing that he brought some joy to my world on a very sad day.

Nevertheless, I’m ashamed to admit it, but my grandmother died, and I went to Disney World. Since I really am having a hard time with that, I will save my story about our time in the Magic Kingdom for another, happier post. I hope that doing something trivial and fun today does not make me a bad person – and I hope my Grammy knows how much I loved her, and how much I truly miss her in my life. I am so sad to think I will never again have a chat with her, or hold her hand, or kiss her cheek, or tell her that I love her, and hear her say “And I love you.” I am so lucky that I had so many years with her, and so many wonderful times and memories. I cannot wait to go home and bake “Gram’s Brownies” – and eat every last chocolatey, gooey one in her honor. Goodbye, Grammy. I miss you – this world is not the same without you.

Expanding Horizons

January 27, 2010 by Jessica

The phrase “expanding horizons” has been at the forefront of my brain this week. Everyday, Micah is expanding his horizons – he is learning and exploring and growing and developing at an amazing rate.

On Monday, Micah, Elliot and I flew down to Orlando for my annual conference at the Caribe Royale – one full year after we took Micah on his first plane trip. This year was quite a different journey. We were lucky enough to take Micah’s car seat on the plane and put him in his own seat. He looked like such a big boy sitting in his car seat! We gave him some milk, cheese, crackers and applesauce, and Micah sat in his seat happily munching, clapping, laughing and chatting. During takeoff and our ascent, we ran into some fairly significant turbulence. At one point, the plane was thrown around quite a bit, and all I can say is how thankful I was that Micah was safely strapped into his car seat – I am certain he would have hit the roof of the plane during some of those bumps and drops had he not been securely seated.

For the entire trip, Micah was alert, awake, and quite active. Perhaps too active. In fact, he had a lot to say on the plane ride. He was practicing his high-pitched screech for all the passengers (one of his new tricks that drives my father insane – and probably all of those traveling on the plane with us). He felt the need to say “hi” and “bye” to the other passengers as well. After we happily ate and played a bit…Micah got antsy. After checking on the time, I realized that we were only 30 minutes into a 2 hour flight. Uh-oh!! Elliot took Micah for a quick walk up and down the aisle. When he returned, Micah was more interested in climbing on his car seat and smiling at the man sitting behind him than sitting in the car seat. We strapped him in over his objections, and then the fun began.

Micah was a bit cranky about being tied down and he was not afraid to express his displeasure. For the next 40 minutes or so, I was able to keep him quiet as long as I was singing to him. If I stopped singing for even a moment, the loud complaints started again. I then spent some time tickling and playing with Micah…which kept him happy, but laughing quite loudly and probably disturbing the passengers almost as much as his unhappy noises. We intermittently gave him his bottle of milk and plied him with food. While we were on the plane, Micah spotted Elliot’s cup of selzer water, and made it clear he wanted to drink from that cup. So, we let him try. While he did dribble a fair amount down his shirt, he was actually pretty adept at using the cup. Even funnier – he LOVED the selzer water! I thought he would hate the carbonation, but he could not drink enough of it. I think he easily drank 1/2-3/4 of a can all by himself. It was so funny to watch. Although the selzer water kept him occupied for the remaining part of the trip, he was clearly exhausted and ready for his nap. We finally made it to Orlando about 20 minutes late.

We moved quickly off the plane and over to the car rental place. Naturally, things did not go exactly as planned. The bank of elevators was broken and would not let us off on the first floor to get to the car rental. Elliot took the escalator up to check in, then I had to go back and sign the paperwork when he returned, and then we had to traipse all over the airport trying to find an alternate path via elevator back to the first floor so that we could get over to the garage and pick up our vehicle. After that ordeal, both Elliot and I were tired and frustrated and Micah was exhausted and desperate for his afternoon nap.

Our next challenge – installing the car seat. After doing a lot of calculation and consideration, we decided to buy a new but inexpensive car seat last week, specifically for traveling. We selected the Graco ComfortSport because it was inexpensive (normally $100, marked down to $80 because they were trying to deplete their stock of this color, and on a special sale for 20% off – so all told, the car seat cost us $65). This car seat is fairly easy to install, relatively lightweight, and comes with the EPS side-impact protection foam. We felt that it was a perfect seat that balanced safety against cost. We had researched renting a car seat, and we learned that the car seats cost about $15-$25 per day (so a 6 day rental would have cost us $90-$150). Additionally, many of the car seats offered by rental companies are not the best quality. With that information, we figured that this trip alone would cover the expense of the car seat.

Anyway, the day we bought the car seat, they showed us how to install it. I had asked Elliot to practice installing the seat before we left, just in case it presented any problems. I bet you see where I am heading with this. Yes, you guessed it – Elliot did NOT practice installing the car seat, and did not know how to properly install it when we arrived in Orlando. He would not read the directions and he would not listen to me as I explained to him what needed to be done. I was SOOO frustrated with him! We initially tried installing via the seatbelt method (as we had been shown) but Elliot did not understand how to make it tighter so the seat would not move, and I just did not have the strength to do it myself. After that, we switched to the “latch” method of installation. After watching Elliot struggle with the installation, I pointed out the obvious flaw in his installation method. Once he gave in and listened to me, we were able to hook the seat in fairly quickly and tighten it up…just over 1 hour after we first started the process. Poor, Micah – he was tired and cranky and just wanted to nap!!

We got in the car and headed to the hotel. Micah fell asleep immediately and napped during the ride home, while we checked in, and while Elliot unloaded the car. This year, we decided to stay in one of the “villas” as opposed to the regular rooms. The villas are quite nice – they come with 2 full bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a living room/dining room area, a kitchen and a screened in balcony. Having the kitchen is so much easier for feeding Micah meals, and the layout really does give him a fair amount of room to walk and play.

Our first night, we decided to head out to dinner. We intended to go to Olive Garden – quick, inexpensive, and we know Micah loves the food. Instead, we decided to stop at Golden Corral. I think Micah fell in love with that restaurant. I find it amusing, as Golden Corral is not exactly known for its high-quality atmosphere. Regardless, Micah loved the music playing – he danced and clapped along. The diversity of food options also worked for him – whatever he did not like, he threw on the floor, but there were 300 other options to try!

We did make a few new discoveries at the Golden Corral. First, Micah learned that he likes olives (much to my surprise – I guess he takes after mommy and not daddy) and hard boiled egg whites. We gave him beans and fruit (he was particularly fond of the canned pears and peaches, and he even ate craisins, papaya and melon (and he NEVER likes melon!)). He ate a few strawberries, grapes and pineapple as well. Unfortunately, he would not eat the macaroni and cheese or the meat and chicken, but he did eat a bit of potato. I did not have much luck getting him to eat broccoli.

For a few weeks now, Micah has been obsessed with ice cubes. He will crawl over to the freezer whenever it is open (we have a french-door refrigerator with a bottom drawer freezer) and he reaches in and grabs ice cubes from the icemaker. He loves to sit and play with them, suck on them, and generally make a big mess whenever he can. When he sees ice cubes in Elliot’s glass, he often will fuss and cry until Elliot gives him one. At the Golden Corral, Micah’s experience drinking from a cup on the plane and his ice cube obsession converged into a new experience! He saw mommy drinking water through a straw from a glass with ice, and he wanted it, too. I presented him with the straw and told him to suck, and much to my amazement, he was able to drink the water! He went to town drinking water from the straw. Naturally, Micah spotted ice cubes in the glass, so he also had to dip his hands into the glass while he was drinking and fish out the ice cubes for playing. I swear, his hands were so red and cold that I think he might have gotten frostbite! He played with that cup of water, drinking, splashing, and enjoying the straw, for over half an hour. We did have one minor crisis – Micah dropped the straw and became hysterical. Luckily, the waitress quickly brought us a new straw and order was restored. I felt terrible about the huge mess we left on the floor for the staff – I hope the nice big tip we left makes up for that!

We stopped at the grocery store on the way back to the villa to pick up some food for breakfast and lunch. Micah went to bed fairly easily, and slept well. On Tuesday, I woke up bright and early to attend my first all-day meeting. Elliot played “manny” all day and the two of them had a great time. At lunch time, Elliot and Micah came to visit me. Micah showed off for all of my colleagues, walking all over the place, flirting with the ladies, and generally looking adorable. We fed him lunch and then I went back to my meeting. We had dinner plans to meet up with some of my work colleagues for dinner at 6:30. Once again, Micah was charming and quite well behaved (albeit loud). We opted to eat dinner in the “fancy” restaurant (I do not think they are used to children there). Service was incredibly slow – we were seated at 7 but saw no food until after 8:00 pm. We loaded Micah up on bread, but he really did not get much of anything nutritional for dinner. By the time the food arrived, he was disinterested in the options and sick of sitting in the high chair – he felt it was time to walk. Elliot was only able to eat half of his meal before he had to excuse himself and take Micah back for bedtime.

Today was the all-day pre-conference I was co-teaching. It was an 8 hour day, and I was the lead for 4 hours. My day got off to a rough start – I had set the alarm for 6:00 am, but the first thing I heard this morning was Micah wailing…at 7:45 am! My pre-conference began at 8:00, so it was a crazy mad and disorganized dash out the door and off to my meeting. I was quite out of breath when I got there. Running while pregnant (and without breakfast or medications in me) was a BAD idea. Once I caught my breath, the pre-conference went quite well. I returned to the villa around 5:00 pm, only to find that Micah fell asleep for his afternoon nap at 4:15. Elliot and Micah spent time at the pool today and apparently had a wonderful time. Micah slept until after 7:00. We eventually woke him up, and the 3 of us ate dinner together at the dining room table – a real family dinner! Because he napped so late, it was almost 9:30 before he fell asleep tonight. He is currently sleeping soundly in the pack and play in the second bedroom. Micah also discovered his stroller tonight. This is our new MacLaren Volo (the lightweight umbrella stroller). We are loving it – GREAT for travel. Micah thinks it is a toy – he loves to climb in and out of it and push it all around. He has been trying to climb on chairs and couches and coffee tables everywhere, too. We have quite a climber on our hands!

Tomorrow I have two more presentations and a series of meetings. It will likely be another crazy day. We are trying to figure out our plans for tomorrow night, and if I can keep my schedule clear on Friday, we are hoping to do something fun with Micah during the day. I have a friend coming up for a visit on Friday afternoon, then on Saturday I have one more presentation before our flight out at 2:45. Let’s hope Micah falls asleep on the plane ride back!

It is hard to believe that another year has passed. I love to watch him now, exactly one year later, and see how much he has changed since our last journey down here. What a year this has been, with so many opportunities to expand his horizons! Over the past few weeks, we have been learning so much about Micah as he explores new things. He LOVES Clementines – he gobbles those little oranges up as fast as he can shove them in his mouth. He makes me laugh – if he sees us peeling one, he comes running right over to grab a section. No need to offer it up – he will snap it right out of our hands! If allowed, I think he would eat 2 or 3 Clementines on his own at any one sitting.

We’ve finally had some success getting Micah to switch to a sippy cup. He still prefers his bottle for comfort first thing in the morning and at bedtime (and if he is extremely tired or not feeling well), but I suspect we will be able to break him of that over the next few weeks. I still love how he snores when he sleeps, and how he can be actively playing with toys and he just needs to run over to me for a moment to give me a hug, snuggle his head down and suck his thumb for a moment before he returns to playing. I love watching him interact with his toys as he learns to use them more everyday. He loves to take all the different toys and stuff them inside other toys. We have a gumball machine, and we are constantly finding weebles, a polar bear and blocks stuffed in the top in addition to the gumballs that belong in there. The same goes for his choo-choo train that is meant to “spit” colored “ping-pong” balls – he prefers to stuff the caboose with blocks, legos and puzzle pieces. He makes me laugh as he waddles all over the house carrying his toys…or a dish towel…or puzzle pieces. I love his obsession with the phone and how he always pulls his socks off. I also love how Elmo is the center of his world – Sesame Street puts him in a stupor, but the moment he sees Elmo (and in particular, the Elmo’s World segment on Sesame Street), he begins clapping and smiling.

I guess I am feeling a bit nostalgic about Micah growing up. At the same time, I am so excited to continue watching him grow and learn. There will be so many more opportunities for him to continue to expand his horizons, and I hope I will continue to experience all of them.

On another note, my grandmother is still hanging in there. She is no longer really eating much of anything, and she is rarely awake and communicating anymore. Everyone is amazed that she has managed to hold on this long – unfortunately, I wish I knew if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I am glad that she has held on this long for me. I just hope she can be at peace and comfortable.

The Traveling Gnome

January 28, 2009 by Jessica

Have you ever seen those commercials with the traveling gnome? The one that is taken all over the world and people snap vacation photos of the gnome, as if it had a clue that it was on vacation? Well, we officially made Micah our traveling gnome last night. Our traveling sleeping gnome.

Last night for dinner, Micah, Mommy, Daddy and Grammy went to downtown Disney. We ate dinner at Fulton’s Crab House and then wandered around to see the sights. We went in and out of a few art stores, then off to Lego Land. Micah posed for quite a few pictures . . . sound asleep and oblivious. We took a photo of him with the Loch Ness Monster:

And we took a shot of Micah with a Lego bull dog (sorry Uncle Jeremy . . . you missed out)!

After taking on the Loch Ness Monster, Micah was feeling a bit adventuresome, so in we went to the Disney store. Micah felt like trying on some hats . . . or at least, Micah’s Daddy felt like taking pictures of him in a bazillion different hats:

Since Micah was having so much fun, Daddy and Grammy decided to join in on the fun:

On the way out, we stopped off for some candy apples:

Micah appears to be enjoying his trip to Disney from the pictures . . . although I’m not sure he has opened his eyes at any of the sights!

All in all, we’re doing well. We’re still having some feeding challenges, and I’m feeling a bit out of sorts because I don’t have the scale here to tell me how things are going. He is latching really well, but I’m not sure he is getting enough off the breast each feeding. Sometimes he seems to do really well, and others . . . . not so much. He also sometimes does seem really hungry and the breast does not satisfy him, so we do need to supplement with pumped breast milk at least a few times during the day. Some days, we run out of pumped breast milk, so then we also need to supplement with formula, but we’ve only had to give him about 1-2 ounces max when this happens.

I do think we might be dealing with a case of acid reflux. He does appear to be developing hunger cues! He has been waking up and crying when he is hungry, which is nice for a change. Of course, last night, we couldn’t get him to wake up to eat for almost 7 hours. I fed him at 5:00, and he slept through his 8:00 feeding completely. I got him to wake up and nurse for about 5 minutes at 10:00, and then he finally took a more normal feed at 12:00. He zonked out after that and didn’t wake up until almost 6:00 this morning. I fed him then, and he dozed a bit and was ready to eat again at 8:00 am. He was again kind of sleepy for the 11:00 feeding, but he did get hungry again around 1:00. He woke up, I nursed him on one side for about 10 minutes, and then he fell into an unconscious stupor. I decided to pump to leave more milk for my mom, and wouldn’t you know it, he woke up while I was pumping, shrieking for milk!! We ended up feeding him everything in a bottle, and back to sleep he went.

Our latest feeding challenge is a bit of acid reflux. Micah is not a cranky or crying baby, but he does appear to be refluxing too much – he sometimes does it while he is eating and it causes him to choke. He has been making these odd grunting/wheezing/congested noises for about a week, and I’m fairly certain it is reflux. We definitely cannot lay him flat after eating or he is very uncomfortable (and starts spitting up a bit too much). The grunting/wheezing/congested noises seem to happen most after feedings. I think he’ll probably need some Zantac, but I do not think the doctor will prescribe it over the phone. I should probably call and talk to them tomorrow – the earliest I could go in would be on Monday.

Well, I’m off to do more conference stuff, and tonight we are going to take the traveling Micah gnome around Disney for more pictures. This afternoon, Micah has been working hard as Daddy’s best receptionist . . . poolside:

Friday night we plan to drive to Sarasota/Long Boat Key to visit Elliot’s aunt and uncle. Wish us luck on our presentations and meetings!