iPod nano red has arrived!!

Tuesday, the ipod nano red that I won from MommyCast arrived! It's so awesome. It's even inscribed - see photo below. I just love the way that Apple packages their products. I've been playing the iquiz game a lot. It quizzes you on the songs you have loaded. Too fun!

Holiday madness

How did this time of year get to be so crazy?! To me, the preparation of the holidays is so stressful and chaotic. The celebration factor has been lost. I've been working like a mad woman in my office on some "projects" which cannot be revealed until after next week. I will definitely be posting photos, just not yet. I'm so excited. Zander has been helping me, so it makes it even more fun!

Lucky winner of...

an iPod nano red!!!! I've been enetering the "secret word" contest from the MommyCast podcast. There are secret words hidden in the 5 most recent podcasts. I found them all and emailed the show each time I heard a secret word. I've won a bunch of prizes already. Then, on the 5th and final podcast you have to email the show all 5 secret words and also figure out what the 5 words have in common. It was easy.... all were things or characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer! A classic at our house! The 7th person to do this final task, wins the iPod nano and that is ME!!!! So excited!!

Mason - monthly photo (9 months)

Here's Mason's monthly photo - better late than never. The previous monthly photos are posted here and here.

water heater :(

A few days ago, our basement had a giant puddle. Turns out the water heater is leaking . We're having it replaced tomorrow morning. It will be $800... Merry Christmas to us!

watch and wait

Watch and wait is the name of the game for Mason lately...

I finally connected with the pediatric surgeon today. He feels comfortable moving forward with the surgery to repair Mason's hernia.... but I don't. With differing opinions, and the fact that the surgery isn't an emergency surgery, I'd like to wait until we can visibly see the hernia, he's uncomfortable or when his main doc can check him again at the one year check-up. The only risk of "watching and waiting" is the risk of strangulation - occurs when part of the intestine gets trapped inside the hernia. This happens about 5% of the time and requires emergency surgery.

Got a call from Liz that Mason has not been eating well and been really fussy. She suspected an ear infection. I called the clinic and got an appt for 3:30pm. Doc checked him out and said his ears are "suspicious". He gave us a prescription for amoxicillin and said only to fill it if he gets a fever (which he hasn't had yet) or if the cold and stuffiness persists a week from now. Let's hope kid #2 will be better about taking meds (and doesn't puke at the sight of the bottle).

And since we were at the doc (which happened to be a different one, but one we also know), we asked him to check out Mason's supposed hernia. He couldn't find one either. Both him and the surgeon think that the "baby fat" in that area may be making it hard to find - or making it appear to be a hernia when it isn't. So, as I discussed with the surgeon earlier in the afternoon, we'll watch and wait.

bootie bump

Tonight Zander and I were doing word flashcards. He was working on the word "soon". He wasn't quite sure how to sound out the two o's, so I helped him a bit. I told him they sound like "ooooh" and he responded, "like bootie bump?!" and then bumped me from the side with his little bootie. I was laughing so hard and asked where he heard that. He said, "dad always gives me bootie bumps!"