More about Harrison

Eventually this baby will be born and you will probably hear less about Harrison as a newborn steals attention so for now I will continue to lavish my blog time upon him.

For some time now, Harrison sometimes refers to a friend he calls "Pooks," who is not an imaginary playmate, however when he is being silly he will say things like, "I saw Will, Amelie, Dash and Pooks at the park today" but only the first three kids are real. He knows he is being silly and Pooks is not real.

That said, recently he said something about Pooks and it was somewhat in reference to his baby brother so we have decided to nickname his baby brother "Pooks" while in utero. You may recall we used to call Harrison "Barry" until he was born.

Friday night we went out to dinner and Harrison decided to draw a picture on the back of his kids menu. To be sure, he has rarely drawn anything faintly resembling anything real however with a little direction from dad Harrison blossomed into a little Pablo Picasso. He let me label the picture as he went along:

The main person is Harrison and he totally drew the head, two eyes with the irises, a mouth, hair on top and even legs and arms which are the stick like things on the bottom and the sides. On the far right there is also a really big letter "H", which other than "O", is the only letter he draws reliably but he loves it and calls it "My H." Also notice he included his whole family including Pooks as wells as "daddy going down a slide at the park."

Harrison's latest cute phrases, which he uses correctly in context:

• "That's a bummer, mom." - said with just the right amount of sadness.
• "Oh my gosh." - not sure who he picked it up from, I purposely say "oh my goodness" but often change it up with "oh my word" or "oh my" to keep him from catching the phrase. Guess that tactic failed.
• "I have an idea..." - then usually he doesn't but he strokes his chin like he is thinking.
• "That's awesome." - said a bit slowly, as if with awe
• "...actually." - he tacks it on to the end of sentence. Although it can make sense in context, I am not sure he understands what it means. Ex: "My friends are at the park actually."
• On the upside, he stopped saying "darn it" or "damn it" (we couldn't quite tell which); mom and dad both fessed up to muttering that one and it took months to train it out of all of us. That kid has super sonic hearing when he wants to. 

Following is a translation of a few words Harrison mangles the pronunciation of but I will be a little sad when he finally masters the sounds:

• ka-mote: (n) remote control to the television or dvd player
• kidzeeum: (n) kids museum, specifically the Imagine Children's Museum 
• noo-noo: (n) noodle. Mentioned it in the past, but it's too cute to correct.
• ta-lish-ous: (adj) delicious. Auntie Chyna taught him the word and he uses it correctly in reference to food and when he pretends to eat mom's arm and tells me "mmm, you're talicious!"

Following are his favorite phrases from movies; if we quote them in an imitative way he will crack up laughing and then beg for repeats:

• "Oh, you must be grumpy!" - Snow White from Snow White
• "You broke my smolder." - Flynn Ryder from Tangled
• "Your Graaaaace." - Anastasia from Cinderella

This kid thrives on advanced scheduling, like his mommy. Often at breakfast time, he will ask me "who's going to read books tonight?" For that particular question, he always wants mommy because I spend a little more time with him and if the answer is daddy he will circle back to the question at dinner time with dad and begin negotiating with us. Harrison is a master negotiator, often closing the deal presumptively such as: "Mommy's going to read books, daddy will rest on the couch and watch tv. Ok? Ok" - said all in one breath. 

He has also learned how to use my digital camera and now begs to use it often. He will walk around the house and snap photos which, upon review, tend to be of the important things in his life including his toy box, a lone ball, his Lightening McQueen tent, the ottoman he jumps off of and of course some photos of us. Here are a few we posed for, I especially love the one in the kitchen as you can see his short point of view:

Harrison is also taking more responsibility for his personal appearance. He can brush his teeth and floss (of course we have to go do it again afterwards, he isn't that thorough yet). Last weekend he started telling me that he wanted to wash his hair and body by himself which he now does pretty proficiently with little help. His potty training is nearly complete and he can do each step by himself; he still wears a pull up at night but honestly he is dry 75% of most mornings and rarely has accidents.

Although he would much rather I dress him, he is getting pretty good at putting on his shoes, underwear and pants by himself and he can take off any piece of clothing except a shirt. He just learned to get those pesky socks over his heels which was a trouble point for awhile. He is also becoming more persistent at what he wears, often telling me he doesn't want to wear jeans, he wants to wear specific shoes or a certain shirt some days. Often this means he wants to wear short sleeves, shorts and sandals when it is 50* and raining outside and he still lets me use reason to dissuade him as he doesn't like to be cold. Truth be told he would wear pajamas all day, every day, if I let him.

And as stated before, he is becoming ever more loving, sweet and kind (most days). Yesterday while having lunch (and honestly I was feeling a bit annoyed with him), he suddenly leaned over, told me he was having a really good day, wrapped his arms tightly around my neck and then assaulted me with kisses! It was so intense I gave him some fake screams and he thought it was the funniest thing ever. When dad got home last night he got the same treatment; it was great. 

Po Po's visit

Thank you to our dearest Po Po who spent a week away from her husband and 17 year old to help us care for Harrison. When we scheduled the surgery, I didn't realize that her flight to Seattle on Sunday was on Mother's Day and that her birthday was on Thursday of that same week. We were happy to have her here, especially as Harrison's life in casts wasn't too hard and we were able to have relaxing fun together.

Among other things, we visited the zoo, attended the University District Street Fair and spent a morning at Jump Planet. When we arrived at 9:30am there were maybe five other kids in a giant warehouse of inflatable slides and jump houses so we pretty much had the run of the place. Po Po was a great sport and every time Harrison shouted, "Come On, Po Po!" she would climb up the ladders to the top of the slides and they would race down while pregnant mom laughed and looked on.

For her birthday, we took Po Po out for a birthday brunch at the Maltby Cafe as the night before we had watched a Food Network show which included a gigantic cinnamon roll and we both started drooling (boy, am I an enabler).

We drove a mile down the rode to Flower World to pick up some herbs to plant on the deck and then strolled in gardens and farm area. A peacock spread his tail feathers as Harrison approached which Po Po says is good luck.

On Saturday we stir fried together, which we never get to do. Harrison took a pretty good photo but was across the room so it came out grainy and looked best in B&W. By the way Po Po is making brownies... we ate baked goods every day she was here!

When she departed the following Sunday, I immediately went to book club after taking her to the airport. Our book involved a circus and weeks ahead of time I had decided to build a carousel which would hold mini caramel apples. I had the thing half built before she arrived but she helped me figure out how to get the tented topping on and look pretty which took a couple hours Saturday night. Then on Sunday morning, I thought I would quickly make these mini caramel apples but the caramel kept sliding off and we spent another hour or more trying out probably six different methods until we finally decided to melt chocolate, dip the apples and the drizzle them with caramel. In the end it turned out more awesome than this picture could do it justice. Needless to say, I miss my mommy, we had so much fun together despite the trauma of Harrison's surgery!

Bilateral Trigger Thumbs

Back in March I mentioned that Harrison's pediatrician believed that he had "trigger thumb" which is a condition wherein his ligaments are obstructed and cannot pull his thumbs straight. After consulting with an orthopedic surgeon at Seattle Children's Hospital, we were told that there is no therapy to correct the issue and that surgery is the only option. If we didn't correct it in the near future, his bones would continue to grow while his thumbs were stuck and the bones would eventually become malformed; surgery later on would not correct the issue. The problem is not genetic, he was not born with it and it was not caused by injury. In children it can simply occur (although in adults it can be caused by repetitive movement or injury) and does often enough that the surgeon does about one of these operations a week.

Well, no parent likes to hear that their three year old needs to be put under anesthesia but as far as these things go, it was really a minor surgery; we scheduled it for May 14th as my mom would be available to stay with us for a week. Each thumb required a small incision and a snip to a ligament sheath that released the ligament and allow it to function normally, about ten minutes per thumb. Here are before photos of Harrison while waiting to be called into the anesthesia room; note the super hero cape and batman shirt... taking uncle Jon Jon's advice we told him that after the doctor fixed his thumbs he would have "super thumbs" with the rare power to win all thumb wrestling matches and give super duper thumbs up:

The team at children's is great and when it came to the anesthesia mask, they let him swab the inside with a strawberry scented cotton ball and then told him it was just like a fire fighter's mask (which he loved considering his FF grandfather, Zaidy, was in the waiting area). He was still nervous but dad and I started singing the University of Washington's "Bow Down to Washington", a bedtime favorite, although he impressed us by refusing to fall asleep until the last couple lines, he really didn't want to fall asleep.

After drinking a hot chocolate and eating a yogurt to keep this pregnant mother stable, despite the fact I didn't want to eat, it was already time to go meet Harrison in the recovery room. From past experience, we knew that his father always vomits and his mother always cries when coming out of anesthesia so we were prepared for these possible outcomes. What we were met with was a groggy little boy who cried, begged to take the casts off and refused to drink apple juice, eat crackers or Popsicles and fought like a boxer to get away. Dad held him while he arched his back and flailed his newly cast-ed arms and begged to go outside.

After about an hour and a dose of Tylenol and a bit of Popsicle to level out his blood sugar, he was calm and ready to go home. The nurses gave him a "hospital bag" (with latex gloves, stickers, band aids, mask, medicine dropper), a stuffed dog with a mini-hospital gown and bandaged up thumbs just like his, a new Kinects toy and two Popsicles to take home.

Our boy had a lot of caring people around him. His Po Po flew up from Las Vegas and spent the week with us to help and a lot of friends and family came by the house. Many of his friends in the neighborhood came by with balloons, new movies, a new kick ball and generally lots of love. Uncle Jon Jon sent over a neat Toy Story video game. Great Aunt Sharon sent some toys and t-shirts in a box plastered with multicolored stamps.

Harrison spent 10 days with the casts on and after just a few hours he had learned to pick things up with his other fingers and generally got along just fine. It did take two of us to bathe him and there were some foods we had to feed to him to keep his casts clean and dry. He couldn't ride his bike or go to Little Gym but he otherwise functioned fairly normally.

Today we spent 60 minutes driving to the hospital and back for his post-op appointment to have his casts unwrapped (partially by me) and checked by the doctor in less than 5 minutes. He didn't like the look of his incision wounds, still a little blue with bruising and some of the dissoluble stitches visible, and he said they hurt but once we put some band aids on them he calmed down. He spent the next few hours holding his arms in a box shape parallel to the ground and making me feed him and hold his sippy cup for him... honestly it was easier with his casts on! In fact prior to the doctor visit he asked to leave them on a few more days as he had grown accustomed to them and liked that he could hit things hard with them.

This afternoon we went to the park and within minutes he was picking up tree branches and holding things normally. Just before bedtime, one of his band aids had fallen off and he didn't notice it was missing so I am sure the pain he seems to feel is mostly mental. Tomorrow we go to a make up class at Little Gym (no physical restrictions are required!) and once it looks like he is willing to grip things tightly it will be time to get on the bike again. I think we are all looking forward to life going back to normal.

Family Photo Shoot

At the end of April we went to Newcastle Beach Park for a family photo shoot. We had never been there before as it is a 30 minute drive from my house but the photographer recommended it because it had almost everything I wanted: railroad tracks, beach, water, woods. Here are some of my favorites:

XXXIII

I think typing your age in Roman numerals is a good reminder of just how old you are getting, XXXIII = 33! On April 21st I was awoken bright and early by my little ray of sunshine who was promptly shushed out the door to retrieve a birthday present for me in another room. When dad and Harrison returned I was rewarded with a super trendy watch (chosen to match the aquamarine and diamond earrings I got as a push gift with Harrison) and a car detailing scheduled for next week. What could make a pregnant, aging mom happier than jewelry and hired help to clean a toddler infested car?! Michael has really honed his gift skills the past 15 years.

The boys than left the house and returned bearing pastries from a new French bakery including an almond croissant, my favorite!

At lunch time we went to a shred event and shredded about 20 boxes of documents that the previous owners had left under the house (that's two car loads, we shredded the other half last year!) and since we were near a furniture store I popped in and walked out a couple hours later with a receipt for a new dining room table and chairs! Happy birthday to me indeed, we have had an empty dining room for over two years and this was on my to-do list before baby is born.

That evening aunt Alexis came over to hang out with Harrison while Michael and I went to The Coterie Room which offers trendy French inspired food. An evening out without a kid in downtown Seattle really made us miss living in/near the city and we vowed to do it a little more often. Take note and let's see if we actually do it anytime soon.