Rhett: 18 Months

Rhett went ahead and grew up a bit. He turned 18 months end of March and continues to grow and amaze us. He talks very well in my opinion, a lot more than Max and Kate did at this age, and I know that is due to the little teachers he has around him constantly  He is a parrot and spouts off words as soon as he hears them. He continues to mimic tone and pitch with words and sound with amazing accuracy, screams included.



He loves to be outside, ride cars with Max and Kate and putter around the yard. The kid LOVES water! Loves it! He is the last one out of the tub and has figured out how to turn on the faucet. With Max and Kate out of the bath he finally has free reign and he will spend as much time as I let him filling up his cups and dumping them out. When I finally pry him out he protests vehemently!



He loves to tease his siblings and is also tenderhearted. He now comes to me and reports when they are teasing him. "Mom! They teasing...". Seriously, he says that and it is crazy and hilarious to hear. He is very good at hollering out everyone's name, he calls out to our neighbors Kendra and Dylan. He calls me constantly, "Mom!, Mom!". When my parents were here visiting he loved calling out to his Papa and it was so darling the way he said it. Made Grandma a bit jealous. :-)



He eats like a champ and tells me what he wants to eat all the time. "Mom! A apple..., I cereal, cracker, cookie..." My boyfriend knows what he wants.

He is busy and will generally keep himself entertained. He loves to color, read, play with toys, tag along with his brother and sister. He is constantly emptying my bathroom drawers, likes to get into the dishwasher and the trash-throwing anything and everything away.



18 Month Stats:

Weight: 22 pounds 14 ounces: 10th%
Height: 32.25 inches: 44th%
Size 4 diaper, size 4 shoe, 12-18 mos clothes.

The biggest change for Rhett was my hack job of a haircut. His hair is so fine and straight and there isn't any leeway for error when you trim/cut his hair. He was getting really long and bushy in the back so I got a wild hair and decided to just trim it up. Ahem...

Welp! My trim wasn't going so well and I kept taking off more and more trying to "fix" it. Finally the only choice was to use the clippers to even out the back. Phil had taken the main clipper set and all the guides with him out of town. All I had was a mini set with the longest guide being a 4. A 4 isn't very long...

Rhett went from this:

To this in a matter of minutes.

I was sad and frankly mortified to tell Phil. I knew he was going to kill me. I dreaded telling him but sucked it up and got it over with. I called him and he heard the trepidation and dread in my voice.
H: "I have to tell you something..."
P: "You did something to the truck?"
H: "Um, no. I cut Rhett's hair" (waiting for the backlash)

I sent him this picture, immediately after it went through Phil called me back and said "You have got to be kidding me!!". He was devastated! He loved his hair and so did I. Yes, he looked a little like Lloyd Christmas with the bowl cut and I loved it best when it was brushed to the side. We both went through a mourning period over the loss of his long hair. Phil has made me promise to never touch the boys hair again.

It's just hair, right?! It will grow back. For days afterward every time I got him out of his crib it would take me off guard. It also aged him by 10 years. He is now a boy. Sniff, sniff! But still a very handsome one.

Rhett is officially in nursery and has actually been going for over a month. To say he loves it is an understatement! He gladly walks through the door and doesn't look back. Lately I have been taking him out early because Max and Kate are being stinkers in Primary, he doesn't have any problems whatsoever and has fabulous leaders.

Sweet brown eyed boy.



Rhett, you are one of the best! We love you to pieces, don't ever grow up, got it?

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day we went to the Arizona Museum for Youth in downtown Mesa to have breakfast with Curious George and play. The kids LOVE watching Curious George and we talked about going to a party with him and how much fun it would be. They were excited and Kate kept saying he would be really tall.

Phil was doing a rotation at an urgent care in February and worked the late shift so he was home in the morning to come with us. I could not have managed on my own! It was so busy and surely I would have lost one or all of our children multiple times. And it was a fun outing as a family.

So we get there and go on back to the breakfast area for a continental breakfast. Basically a mini muffin, half a banana and a yogurt. Slim pickings but for the kids it was fine. We grab a table, our food and wait for the beloved George to grace us with his presence. I will let the pictures do the talking first...

Not shown is Max hiding under the table screaming.

And because we are awesome parents we forced a family photo with George. Dang blurry motion, I was certainly not in a position to get another shot.

After the George fiasco we finished up and headed back into the museum to poke around and enjoy the planned festivities. We first hit all the weather exhibits and crafts. The kids made snowflakes, clouds and other fun crafts. They mainly just liked that they were cutting and gluing.
 

We forecasted the weather...



Waited with scads of other mothers to get balloon animals made per individual request. Bless this woman! Kate got a duck, Max a sword and Rhett a mouse. Only Kate's made it home and I got tired of the fighting over it so it went into the trash the next day or so.

 

Then we frosted banana shaped cookies with yellow frosting and the kids thought this was pretty darn special! Especially Rhett.

 

There was story time with Curious George that we didn't attend for obvious reasons and then later the fire department was due to come for a tour of their truck. I knew they would love this but they kids were tired and the museum was swarming with people. We called it a morning and went home. Phil had driven separately so he could get some studying in before his shift. It was a good day! 

Earlier in the month we had decorated the house with hearts, wrote love notes to each other and the kids had little mailboxes that I put treats in each morning for 10 days or so leading up to the 14th. The loved checking their mail each morning and this is a tradition we will continue.

 

Phil and I went to a sweetheart dance that our ward hosted and it was really fun. We got a babysitter, learned the West Coast Swing and danced a bit. Pretty sure neither of us will remember the moves since we haven't danced since. But in our future I would love to take lessons with Phil.

I had a moment of realization that I was no longer in the "young" crowd as I watched the young twenty-somethings with one small infant in our ward busting out dance moves. And I am okay with that, it was just weird to recognize that I am getting old. There was a cute photobooth where we snapped a few pictures and I am bummed that whoever was in charge of that has yet to email the pictures out. I hope to add it when I receive it.

10 on 10: March 2013

One photo, every hour, for 10 hours, on the 10th day of the month.

Our weather has been rainy the past two days and our house was a bit chilly this morning. Kate snuggled down deep as we did our morning routine.

The kids have been fed and all immediate needs tended to. I grab a shower while I can and it isn't too long before I am found.

I get dressed and ready for church in stages as I continue to tend to the needs of the kids. Finally, everyone is dressed in their Sunday best. We are 40 minutes late for church but we are going and I get points for that. And yes, I totally put my kids in my bathtub to snag the light and document their cuteness.

We hurry off to church, drop Rhett off in nursery, (The nursery leader has taken pity on us and has let him go in early. He LOVES it!)and I go into Primary with Max and Kate. Max and Kate are having a hard time going to class on their own and our current game plan is for me to sit with them during Sharing Time and slowly wean them off my presence.

Here they are  doing "Once there was a Snowman" to get all their wiggles out. And goodness, they were wiggly!
  

I love this picture of the kids huddled around their teacher and the scriptures as they help during the Sharing Time lesson. The lesson was on the Atonement and the things Jesus did leading up to the crucifixion, the class looked up who Jesus dined with during the Last Supper. Kate got to take up the paper to the leader and when she was asked what the answer was she said Jesus ate cookies. :)

Max and Kate go to class, I go to opening exercises in Young Women and then get to sit in Relief Society for the lesson. So nice to actually be in class without children!

The kids are ravenous and exhausted. Meltdowns ensue and I get them changed, fed and into bed as quickly as possible. Max ate lunch, Kate didn't want to and Rhett went straight to bed.

While the kids napped I ate lunch myself and then made a batch of cookies for family who were coming to visit in the evening.

The kids wake, we watch Busytown Mysteries on Netflix and snuggle as they wake up.

Phil's parents are coming to visit at 4:00 and I am trying to tidy up the house before they get here. Rhett was not happy with that plan and kept insisting I stop everything and pay attention to him. So I did.

4:00 hour we visit with Grandma and Grandpa Gunnell.

The kids play with play dough for a good long while. I feed Rhett dinner and tidy up.
 

Max and Kate clean up their play, eat dinner and we head outside to burn off some energy. They have been cooped up in the house for the past few days due to the rain and my being gone for the dental convention. Their favorite thing to do is go out front and ride their cars around the cul-de-sac and up and down the neighbor's driveways. Rhett's face says it all.



It gets cold so we head inside. The kids play on starfall.com and I relax with a game on my phone for a bit. Kate wanders in to find me lying on Max's bed and we snuggle for a minute, then she is off again.

Baths, jammies, snacks, teeth brushed, BED! 

Cottonwood

For the month of January Phil rotated at a hospital in Cottonwood, roughly 2 1/2 hours from our home. The focus was internal medicine and while it was hard to have him away from us and the rotation was stressful for Phil, he actually really enjoyed it. He liked being challenged, being around some incredible doctors and the overall program there is really great.

The original thought was that he would stay away the full month; so he could focus on studying. But after a few days he realized that he missed us too much. :) He came home a few weekends and one day he surprised us by coming home on a Wednesday night, he arrived at 8pm just before the kids went to bed and then left at 4am the next morning.

 

He did make it home on our anniversary too, which was a nice surprise. We stayed in but it was good to be together.

It was hard though and being alone most nights started to get to me. I am really independent and did well overall but goodness a girl needs to talk to someone! Yes, the kids kept me plenty busy during the day, we tried to get out and do things but it was awful lonesome. I missed my right hand man and parenting partner, my friend.

We kept in contact via FaceTime and I texted pictures of the kids. Thank goodness for technology! The kids were able to feel connected to their dad and show him things that were important to them, like new Buzz Lightyear socks. :)

Our dad works so hard for us. He is doing his very best in medical school and it is draining and stressful for us both. But we are very committed to one another, to our family and to our goals. We still have a long hard road ahead of us and many hurdles and hoops to jump through before we finally make it to to the other side. 

Ear Tubes

Late January Rhett got another ear infection. I am sad to say that it took me a few days to figure it out. It had been a few months since he has had one and I lost my mommy radar when it came to knowing he was sick. I asked Phil to use his otoscope and check his ears and he said one looked red. Took him to urgent care and got a script. Four days after we finished the antibiotic Rhett came down with double ear infections. Ridiculous! He literally cried all day long and he has never done that. I didn't know what to do for him and he wasn't quiet unless he was sleeping. Phil checked his ears again and we scheduled an appointment with the pediatrician, who confirmed the double ear infection. I put a call into his ENT and we scheduled surgery. No more messing around over here!

His surgery was on February 15th with Dr. Mancuso. He is wonderful and the surgery went really well. It is an easy procedure, very quick. The thing that I was most worried about was that Rhett had to be fasting and when my boy wakes up he wants his cup of milk ASAP. He downs his milk and then is immediately ready for breakfast. So I was anxious about putting off eating for him.

Luckily due to his age we were scheduled earlier in the morning for his surgery. I woke him at 6:30 and we headed to the surgery center a few miles down the road. We checked in, filled out paperwork and changed his diaper.



He did really well not having any food or drink but got impatient and a bit cranky towards the end when we were waiting in the pre-op area.

The doctor came in and briefly reviewed things with me and then the nurse came to take him back. Rhett was getting squirmy and arched his back and bonked his head on the chair we were in. Cue the crying and I had to pass him off totally upset. He was sad/mad that I wasn't holding him and I felt bad he had to go back crying.

Someone took me back to recovery to wait for Rhett. I got situated, distracted myself on my phone for a few minutes and then a nurse came and said he was all done and was just needing to wake up from the anesthesia. So fast! He did wake a moment later and he was very groggy and grumpy.

He smelled of operating room and after a few moments of snuggles and coaxing he took his milk but hadn't
yet opened his eyes.

As soon as Dr. Mancuso came to clear us and I signed discharge paperwork we loaded up and left for home. In and out in just over an hour, with the bulk of the time spent waiting. Rhett was given an intramuscular shot of ibuprofen and we came home and he took a nap. When he woke up we went to the mall to play and it was like nothing had happened to him. He was happy!

 

And thus far we haven't had any issues. I need to schedule a follow-up visit but I am really happy that Rhett is healthy and hope that he stays that way.