What sound does a cow make?

I just recently discovered that Frank knows how to do animal noises.  I never specifically set out to teach them to him, but we do read a lot of books with animal sounds, and I am sure they also learn them at day care.  He is so proud of himself, and clearly we are pretty proud of him too!  It is so fun to watch him learn new things.

17 months

Frankie is 17 months old today! I have not done a monthly update in a while, so I figured I would do one this month. At 17 months, Frankie is starting to really assert his independence and is also showing that he has a definite defiant streak. He has meltdowns when he does not get what he wants...whether it is a cookie, watching TV, going outside, or me letting him walk or press the buttons on the elevator. He is very sweet, and he loves giving hugs and kisses. He loves being outside. He loves practicing his words, and his newest word is "Frank!" He likes to say "mama, dada, Frank" all at the same time. He is getting stronger and stronger, and it is getting harder for me to control him. He is still a very good eater, but he is more demanding about what he wants to eat.

He is still a great sleeper, but he will not go to bed peacefully anymore. He stands up and screams every time we lay him down to sleep. A couple of nights ago he tried to climb out of the crib for the first time during one of his screaming fits. He was leaning up over the rail when Frank got up there and distracted him. I really hope that this was a fluke and that we can keep him in his crib as long as possible.

This morning we went to visit two preschools near our house, and it was very encouraging! We actually liked both places, but I think we liked one better than the other for right now and one better for elementary school if we decide to go the private school route. Both places were warm, inviting, and seemed to inspire learning and creativity in a way that i loved. It is so crazy to think that in just a year or two he will be learning how to use computers and how to read.

We love you so much little boy, and I cannot wait to watch you become the awesome little boy that I know you will be. I love looking at the world through your eyes.

One sweet side effect

One sweet side effect of Frankie's ankle injury is that he has been very sweet and cuddly the last few weeks. He is getting used to being picked up, and he constantly wants to give hugs and kisses. I used to be able to lay him down for naps or bedtime without any fuss, but now he grabs on to me for dear life when he senses that I am about to lay him down. Usually when he does this I rock and sing to him for a few more minutes and then put him down. He knows that I will usually give in to whatever he wants. It is so hard for me to discipline him, and he knows it. I will do just about anything for those great big hugs! He has been more cuddly this past month than he has been for the last year, and I love that.

As far as his ankle goes...he is doing so much better! We had it x-rayed again last week, and the x-rays are still clear. We decided to make a huge concerted effort, with help from Ms. Crystal at day care, to keep him off his foot the last few days, and it has made a huge difference. Today he was running around with no limp, so I think it is finally healed. We have an appointment with the orthopedic specialist scheduled for Thursday, so we are going to see how he is doing tomorrow and then decide if we still need to go. I am so happy that he is finally doing better.

Keep your medical opinions to yourself

Since Frankie hurt his foot/ankle, I have told the story to a bunch of people, and I have received a ton of differing advice and opinions. Some people think we went overboard taking him to the ER and having a bunch of tests done, and other people think we did not get enough tests done. Some people think we should take him back to the doctor, get him an MRI, take him to a specialist, or have his entire leg reexamined. Others think that we should just keep watching him. Obviously I am not a doctor, so I have no idea what to do. The doctors at both ERs told us that sprains are extremely rare for toddlers, and they did not give us any advice regarding treatment, except that we should try to keep him off his feet as much as we could. That is (of course) really hard to do with a toddler. They did not give us a wrap, a splint, or anything else to help, and they did not recommend ice or heat. They did say we should give ibuprofen for pain management.

Anyway, today when I picked Frankie up from day care, his normal teacher was already gone for the day and the two other teachers gave me a really hard time about his ankle. They told me that he was very upset in the afternoon and wanted to be held (duh--his ankle hurt from walking on it all day), and that I really needed to get him a splint so that it could heal. I don't know why, but it really bothered me, because I felt like they were insinuating that I was not doing everything I could to help him feel better. I called his pediatrician earlier today and she wants me to bring him in tomorrow so that she can check out his injury. I am assuming she will either tell us to hold tight or refer us to a specialist after our visit. Hopefully she will give us some answers to help alleviate his pain and help him heal faster. I hate seeing my baby boy in pain and frustrated because he cannot run around and climb like he wants to.

Happy Easter!

We spent a wonderful Easter weekend in Houston with Nana and Papa. We took Frankie up to my parents' country club on Saturday for a big Easter festival. Frankie was too young for some of the activities, but he got to help my decorate a sugar cookie (a huge mess), hunt for Easter eggs, meet the Easter bunny, and eat a big yummy lunch. On Saturday night, my grandparents and Tyler came over and we had a big dinner. Frankie loved the honey baked ham! It was wonderful to spend time with family for this special holiday.

Frankie had a huge meltdown on the way to Houston Friday afternoon. We ended up having to stop at a Target on the way down and get him some advil, because he was crying in pain. Once the meds kicked in he was doing much better. His ankle is still not better, and he is still limping when he walks. I am going to call his pediatrician tomorrow to see if she thinks we need to have it x-rayed again or if we just need to give it some more time to heal.

Here are some pictures from this weekend:

family after church

love these boys

Frank and Frankie

hunting for eggs

Nana and Papa

with Mama

first Easter egg hunt

Hare Fair

decorating cookies

"Lucky" day and Frankie update

Today I was at a work conference and I went down to the hotel's convenience store to buy a sugar free red bull to get my through the rest of the day. The cashier at the store was super sweet, and she told me that she thought something really good was going to happen to me today and that it was my lucky day. Four hours later, after I had picked Frankie up from daycare and driven all the way home, I realized that I had left my briefcase with my work laptop and other company files at the conference. I frantically e-mailed some of my co-workers hoping that someone had seen it and picked it up and I called the hotel to see if anyone had turned it into to the lost and found. A few hours went by and I was starting to get really nervous. Then, a few minutes ago, the hotel called--they found my briefcase, and everything was still inside! HURRAY! So, even though the luck did not take the form I would have expected, I do feel like something super good happened to me today, so that cashier was right.

Frankie's ankle is slowly healing. He is able to walk most of the time now, although he still has a pretty noticeable limp and he still wants to be carried more than normal. He is significantly better than he was last weekend though, so I am so thankful for that. He is still taking pain medicine at least once a day, and he gets pretty fussy toward the end of the day after walking all day. After doing some internet research this week, I learned that you should never ride on a slide with a toddler. It is very common for a toddler's leg to get stuck while riding down a slide with a parent and for the leg to fracture. I am so thankful that Frankie's leg was not broken.

What a weekend!

Well, as you can see from these pictures, our weekend was pretty much sandwiched between two extremes: a wonderful Saturday baby shower with good friends, gorgeous weather, and fun and a miserable Sunday spend at the Dallas Children's Hospital ER. On Saturday we were at a baby shower at our friends' house and I went down a slide on their playground with Frankie in my lap. He was fine at the top of the slide and then was crying when we got to the bottom. It is a pretty fast slide, so I figured he was just scared. I did not notice his foot or leg bending or anything at the time. I carried him around for a while trying to calm him down, and then I brought him inside to eat. He ate, seemed better, and then cried the moment I put him down on the ground. My friend Sara (another mom) noticed that and suggested we take his shoes off to see if he had a bite or burn or something on his foot. His feet and ankles both looked fine, although one foot was a little red on the top. We put him down to try to walk again and noticed he was kindof limping, like he didn’t want to put weight on one foot. So, I called the pediatrician's nurses hotline who suggested we go to the ER. We went to the ER by our house, told them what happened and that we thought it was his left foot (the one that was slightly red). They x-rayed Frankie's foot and then said it looked fine, must be a sprain, and sent us home.

Sunday morning, he woke up and trying to stand in his crib and then started crying like crazy--he was inconsolable. So after we fed him we realized that it was actually his RIGHT foot that he refused to stand on, not his left. I was so irritated that we told the doctor the wrong foot, and that they did not even bother to check which foot was actually hurt. So we decided to go to the Dallas Children's Hospital ER and have them check the other foot. We were really impressed with them, because they were super thorough, checked both of his legs, x-rayed his entire right leg, checked his hips for infection (which is supposedly pretty common at this age), and did a bunch of blood work to rule out a bunch of other scary things. Basically, they found nothing, so they think it is just a sprain or bone bruise or something like that. I am hoping and praying that he can walk on it today, because it was so hard to carry him around all day yesterday. He was sooo good in the hospital though. We were there yesterday for 7 hours!!! And they had to give him an IV, which was the hardest thing I have ever had to see. He was screaming, sweating, and crying, the whole time. It felt like an eternity, but it was probably only like 5 minutes. After they put the IV in they had to put a diaper "glove" on his other hand to keep him from ripping the IV out. He tried to bite it off several times. Poor little guy! He was a trooper.

As of this morning, he is still not wanting to put any weight at all on his right foot. We are supposed to go back to the doctor on Wednesday if he is not noticeably better. Please pray for a speedy recovery! Little man is miserable not being able to walk and move around like normal.

Here are a few pictures from Saturday morning in front of our beautiful roses:

such a ham!

so handsome