Looking forward to the weekend

It's totally a catch-22. I love being back at work, but I love my boys, and I miss them. While its good to have routine and structure (i.e the job), and truly great to have adult things to work on and think about (i.e., work and colleagues), I'm ready to hangout this weekend in toddler land!

It is supposed to rain all weekend, which creates the challenge of what to do, but this too should be fun. I'm thinking tents and forts, baking, stacking blocks, maybe the train set can come out. Of course there will be laundry, dishes and sorting the mess from the week, but yeah, I finally am looking forward to that too.

DS2 this week has started saying "more" instead of just signing it, and saying "high five" when he gives them. These are the things I'm missing out on, that I want to see. His first four words with consistent use has been; mama, DS1's name, bye bye, and sausage. DS1 tells me about preschool at night, but I know he wants to talk about it more and is missing the family play time. Last night he said he wanted to go to work with me, or better, I should go to school with him. I agreed that sounds like fun, but we compromised that we'll play this weekend.

DS2 had a doctors visit, he gained 1 and 1/2 lbs this month!! yeah!! It is amazing, but great. He is a good eater and focused on protein and fat. he's not interested at all in rice or bread, but will do any form of pasta. To gain weight is actually a lot of food intake. First he's more active, so that's burning calories. Also the brain is growing big time which takes a lot of calories, then the extra goes to the weight gain. So far he is very healthy, but we had to take more blood to re due his titer checks on Hep B and Polio vaccines, as they came back negative although his vaccine records report multiple immunizations. However what he was given may have been old/defunct, so better to check now.

I'm starting to get anxious to get him to the surgeons office, but that visit isn't until early October! But the language development has totally surprised me and I take it as a good sign. I'm sure speech therapy is in our future, but getting scheduled for all the appointments takes longer than I would have guessed. But, honestly, I'm not rushing it too much, as he appears to be doing well and I'm constantly testing his hearing to make sure that is solid. (Note; CL/CP kids often get fluid in their ears due to the muscle that helps drain the ears being in the affected part of the palette. When the ears hold too much fluid they have hearing loss; which is totally fixable, but also generally leads to inserting ear tubes).

Historically, I'm not a vaccine fan. As a family we have not had flue shots in years. However, the doctor brought this up. She thinks DS2 will likely need it this year because he's going to be exposed to so many new viruses here. Also, DS1 having started preschool is in prime petri-dish environment. So those moms that have been there, done that, let me know your experience with the flu vaccines.

Have a great weekend!