Doug-centric Post III - Surgery Update

Well, it is official, ladies and gentleman, my husband is now the bionic man!

Doug's surgery was a great success and we are home from the hospital and he is doing well. He is still pretty loopy from the anesthesia and the pain meds, but he is in good spirits. Actually, after a strawberry shake and a PBJ he seems to be doing much better!

After the surgery, Doug's surgeon came to update us on the surgery and showed us x-rays of the new steel plate and 6 screws that are holding his collar bone together. Going through airport security from now on is going to be a riot!

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers!

Another Doug-centric Post

Doug is having surgery tomorrow on his collar bone, so I will be on nurse duty. Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated and I will post tomorrow afternoon post surgery. My poor baby!

Doug-centric Post

Doug teases me sometimes that I never blog about him. I usually remind him that he has author rights on the blog and he can contribute anything, any time he wants. Well, I guess he just wasn't satisfied with his blog coverage, so he went out and broke his collar bone today -- a cry for attention if you ask me! ;) Wink wink.

Ok, so I am just teasing about the cry for attention, but my poor sweetie did indeed break his collar bone in a mountain biking crash. He is doing ok and managing through the pain the best he can, thanks to the pain meds provided by the ER doctor. Thankfully, I suggested we try out a different emergency room to avoid the long wait we had with Tyler and sure enough, he was in and out in less than 1.5 hours!

Get better soon, baby!

Score 1 for Mommy!

Doug and I (selfishly) ask the boys all of the time, "Who's your favorite, Mommy or Daddy?". I know it sounds horrible, but it really is all in good fun and it usually ends in some sort of tickle fight. The boys squeal and they love it. Andrew will even ask Tyler who his favorite is, "Mommy, Daddy or a Pickle?"

Tyler has consistently chosen Daddy as his favorites for months now. Every once in a while, I can get Tyler to respond to this question with "Mommy" but more often than not it is "Daddy" -- until tonight! It was with conviction and consistency that Mommy was the winner tonight! So much so that he almost answered Daddy once, caught himself and said Mommy!

Andrew, however, is my Mr. Reliable. He always answers Mommy, even under duress, e.g. being tickled and bribed for an extra $1 by his Daddy!

I love winning and getting Daddy's goat ...

Just wait until I travel for work in mid-June, I will come back as second fiddle.

Busy Weekends

The last couple of weekends have been busy but fun. We played in the park with friends, had Andrew's last tball game and end of tball party, and spent lots of time in the backyard with the boys.

Here are some recent photos of my boys

Tyler's Stitches




T-ball Fun


Andrew with his 3rd base coach ... his Daddy!


Ty -- look how much better his eye looks!

6 Hours

That is how many hours we spent at the Emergency room today with Tyler so that my baby could get 4 stitches above his right eye.

The plan was to celebrate Mother's day today since we were traveling last weekend. My in-laws came over for a wonderful brunch prepared by my amazing cook (e.g., my husband) just past 11:00 a.m.

While Doug and I were finishing up brunch, the boys were playing upstairs when we heard Tyler start to cry. I figured the boys were arguing over Spiderman (again) but poor Peepaw came downstairs with Tyler covered in blood.

First, I have to say, you never want to see that much child coming out of your child. I was desperately trying to keep my cool, get the blood to stop and to evaluate how bad the situation actually was. Thankfully, after 5 minutes or so of crying we were able to calm him down and the blood began to clot. A little juice and he was almost a happy camper.

Before I go any further, I need to be clear that it was only a matter of time before our bruiser ended up with stitches. You have all read the stories about Tyler's constant close calls. Well, today he was playing and he fell and hit his head on the corner of the table at just the right angle. It could have happened on anyone's watch. Tyler is just a rough and tumble little boy.

Somehow, Doug still managed to get a delicious brunch served and the boys gave Mom Mom her presents, including a great family portrait drawn by Andrew. After brunch we took Tyler to the Emergency Room and Mom Mom and Peepaw took Andrew to their house. We just didn't realize we were going to be spending the whole day in the ER.

An entire Rockets Playoff game later we were still sitting in the ER waiting to be taken back to a room. It took 3.5 hours to get Tyler back to a room, and it was nearly 6 hours before he was finally stitched up and given his discharge papers.

He is recovering like a champ, but what else would you expect from a bruiser? So much for a relaxing mother's day! The silver lining? I spent 6 hours cuddling with my little guy today.

Write This Down!

We have officially made the switch from Comcast to AT&T Uverse, which also means we had to update our email addresses (this reason alone delayed the switch for months!), effective immediately. I know you want to stay in touch with us, so take a minute to update your address book. Mass email reminder to follow.

Anne's new email: texasmoores @ att . net
Doug's new email: drmoore71 @ att . net

(obviously no spaces -- I included spaces above to avoid spam)

p.s. Doug is beyond excited about the clarity of our new cable service!

I’ve Been Bitten …

... (pun intended) by the Twilight bug. I resisted. I paid no attention to the Twilight excitement. I didn’t rent the movie. I didn’t even consider buying the books. I didn’t have the time to read a vampire love story.

Fast forward to today – I am struggling to stay awake because I am going on less than 4 hours of sleep after having stayed up until 2:00 a.m. finishing Twilight.

How did I get from there to here? Peer pressure.

All of the cool moms were reading Twilight and telling me how good the books were. I began to consider the possibility of reading the books, still not convinced that I had the time or the inclination (not another thing on my endless to do list).

Well, on a whim on our trip to FL (see Iron Dreams for those details) I decided that it would be a good idea to buy the first book for the car ride back to Houston. I didn't start the book until we were well into our trip home, but I was hooked. 100 pages down. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of down time to read, so I found time where I could. Reading while on the spinner at the gym. One short chapter sitting in the parking lot at work. While trying to dry my hair and getting ready for work. It was ridiculous.

I decided to relax last night by reading and before I knew it, hours had passed, literally, and I was so close to finishing the book that I knew I was staying up as long as it took, regardless of how little sleep I was going to get or how it would feel when I got up to run long before dawn.

Now what? I am definitely purchasing the next books this weekend, but I am going to do my best to take them slowly and savor the books instead of pulling another all nighter. Plus, I need to save something to read while on the spinner!

I have now fulfilled my duty of attempting to bite the next Twighlight victim, err, fan. Come on, go pick up a copy. All of the cool kids are doing it!

Water Fun!

This afternoon was pretty warm, so after lunch we let the boys run around in the backyard in their bathing suits and Doug chased them with the water hose. They had a blast! It was so cute to see them run away from Doug and then call out to Daddy to tell him where they were so that he could "get them" again.

Andrew taking his turn on the slide


Getting some air coming off the slide


Andrew sporting a pair of goggles I decided were not for me ...


Look at me, Mommy!


Tyler's turn!


Daddy's Boy!


Tyler going super fast down the wet slide


Tyler running from the water (see spray on bottom left)

Swine Flu Stinks

In an effort to prevent the spread of the Swine Flu, all extra curricular activities in the Houston area have been postponed indefinitely (but at least through May 11), including T-Ball! No games, no practices and no team pictures. Ugggh - poor kids!

Other Moore Happenings

Field Day - Friday, April 24
Last Friday was Field Day at Andrew's school and Doug and I both took vacation days to volunteer and participate in all of the field day fun -- field events, silly string, confetti eggs, and raffle tickets oh my! Mom Mom even came out to partake in the fun as well!

Mummy Wrap the Teacher


Pony Race


Fun with Friends


Storm
If Houston was in a drought a month ago, that ship has sailed! We have gotten more rain in the last 2 weeks than the creeks, bayous and streets know what to do with. Monday night/Tuesday morning this week the area where we live got 11 (yes, eleven!) inches of rain over just a couple of hours. Schools were closed. Streets were flooded. The city was a mess, and our area is still recovering. Thankfully, our house did not sustain any damage. I ended up working from home since school was closed and we had a great day, despite the rain.

Cute Stories

Andrew
Andrew usually wakes up between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. on the weekends. Most mornings he will play in his room, reading books, looking out the window and playing with his train table for at least 30 minutes before calling us to come and get him.

Yes, that is right. We taught him when he was very little that he was not to come downstairs, or leave his room for that matter, without Mommy or Daddy. We had to become a little more lax about the leaving the room part since he has to be able to leave his room to go to the bathroom, but he still doesn't come downstairs.

For full disclosure, we do have a gate up that separates Andrew and Tyler's rooms and the bathroom from the stairs, but I know Andrew could take it down if he wanted to (he takes down the one downstairs). The gate just makes us feel safer that the boys are not going to stumble down the stairs at night.

Anyhow, I always appreciate the extra 30 minutes Andrew gives me while he is playing upstairs -- I can read the paper, tidy the house or sleep. When he is ready to get up he just calls out for Mommy or Daddy. He usually says, "Mommy, I am ready now." Well, last weekend after his play time he called for me by saying, "Mommy!, Anne Moore!, Mommy", Anne Moore!" I thought it was pretty funny and he certainly knows how to get my attention.

Oh, and very recently Andrew has started to say, "You're mean!" when I send him to time out - it breaks my heart a little each time he says it, but he always says he is sorry when he comes out of time out. He is definitely able to articulate his feelings now! Worry not, I am definitely still his favorite (even when I am mean!).

"Lyler"
Tyler is talking up a storm and everyday he surprises me by using new words. We understand most of what he is saying, but there is still quite a bit of Tyler speak. Once you pick up on a few key words, everything else makes sense.

For example, he refers to Andrew as Ddrew Moore and he says the word "first", but it sounds more like "frisht". So, today he wanted Andrew to do something first so he said, "No, Ddrew Moore frisht". He calls himself Lyler Moore :)

My boys make me so happy!