Wednesday, March 31, 2010

National Doctor's Day

My family is known for needing to go to the ER on holidays. It could be Christmas or Memorial Day, you name the holiday and someone is at the hospital. I looked up what holiday yesterday could have been and was not at all surprised to find that it was National Doctor's Day. How did our family celebrate? By making sure at least 4 of us were at the hospital throughout the day.

Karen had a scheduled surgery yesterday, but she still counts. She's doing fabulous and everything went even better than we could have hoped. I talked to her last night and her pain was minimal, she was able to eat, and she should be going home today.

Around 2 pm my mom called to tell me that my grandma Warehime had been admitted for severe stomach pain. She's been fighting off a bladder infection and it looks like she needs another round of antibiotics and some medicine to help get her sodium levels up. I haven't heard much on her but I know she's where she should be and hopefully in a lot less pain.

I've been having minor contractions on and off for awhile now, nothing worth tracking, they just end up annoying me. What started bothering me was the fact that every time I had one my chest felt tight and I had trouble breathing. I finally called my OBGYN and the nurse said, "That is not something I've heard before, go to Labor and Delivery to get checked." I asked if she thought it was something I needed to do immediately or if I could wait for just a bit for my husband to get home to watch my 2 year old. She didn't seem happy that I wanted to wait but she thought I'd be okay. Not only had Brenden just laid down for a nap but I'm pretty sure trying to explain to him that he needed to sit down and be quiet while we were at the hospital would have been like talking to a wall.

The first thing they always do is strap on the monitors to check the baby's heartbeat and contractions. Lauren was doing just fine, kicking and wiggling and driving me crazy because OH MY GOODNESS my belly is sore. I was having random contractions, which I knew, but that wasn't what caught the nurse's attention. My pulse, which started at about 80 bpm, which is normal, kept jumping up to 125-130 bpm. Every time that would happen I would get dizzy, my arms would tingle, and I'd start breathing hard.

The main concern was if Lauren and I were getting enough oxygen and they ran all the tests to check for that. I had an Arterial Blood Gas, which checked the oxygen in my blood. They stick a needle deep in your wrist to get blood from an artery and when she first did it I thought she was telling me it should hurt pretty bad just so I would be happily surprised when it wasn't that bad at all. For about 15 seconds I was fine...then out of nowhere my entire arm started throbbing. Seriously, that hurt.

The other 2 tests didn't hurt at all, thank goodness. They did an ultrasound of the veins in my legs to make sure I didn't have a blood clot and an EKG to make sure my heart was fine. Everything came back totally normal so they sent me home. It looks like my body is just stressed. The nurse thinks I'll be in labor sooner rather than later, but we'll see if she's right. I've heard that before.

My brother called us about 9 pm to let us know that he was taking my mom to the ER. She was having chest pains and trouble breathing, which is never good. I know it had to be pretty bad because my mom is not a fan of going to the hospital for herself at all. Thankfully she wasn't there for very long and it turns out that she has an upper respiratory infection and bronchitis, which is what my brother had last week. It's not a fun diagnosis but it's better than what it could have been.

All in all, a long day. Someday we'll all be healthy again, and then it will be time for the next holiday.


Sunday, March 28, 2010

Baby Shower!

Saturday was the baby shower that Meredith, my future sister-in-law, was kind enough to put together for me. She and my mom did a ton of work and it was a beautiful day!

That morning Tim and I took Brenden to the open house at Soccer City, which is where he's been going for soccer. They had a bouncy house, clowns making balloons, face painting and soccer balls, of course. Brenden would have lived in the bouncy house but we talked him into doing a few other things. He did get his face painted and he requested a brown happy face, which was not what we expected at all. We have such a silly boy.

After that I headed to Bartlesville. The baby shower was held at the church we've been members at forever. Meredith, my mom and Connie made sure there was a TON of food, including frozen peas for me, and Meredith had the most adorable cake EVER made. I mean...look:


Soooo cute, right!?! She also had some really funny games. We played "My water broke!" which was a plastic cup full of water with a tiny, plastic baby in the bottom. We had to find a way to get the baby out. I think I saw my grandma Halter holding her cup over a lit candle...she's a bit crazy. :) After that, Meredith asked for 6 volunteers and wow...were they in for a surprise. They paired up and had to face each other, wearing trashbags like ponchos and blindfolded. They ended up having to feed each other baby food, which I know, from experience, can be disgusting. Amazingly, they all stomached it and it was a race to the finish! Connie and Susan won! The last game was the chocolate in the diaper, which can be absolutely nasty looking. My friend Andrea is apparently an expert on melted chocolate. She got them all correct. We also had a diaper raffle where everyone brought a package of diapers and were entered for a gift. I pulled Lynda's name out of the basket, which is Meredith's mom. :) It was all a ton of fun.

I got mine out!

The brave ladies!

Connie and Susan...the winners!

Andi and the icky chocolate diaper. :)

Then...the gifts. Lauren is already just as spoiled as Brenden! Clothes, more diapers, socks, bibs, stuffed animals, etc. She's set! Connie and Jessica even made me one of those adorable diaper cakes, which looks like it had to have taken hours to make. All those rolled up diapers! Somehow I fit it all into the car and when I made it home Tim helped me "ooh!" and "ahh!" over all of it again. We even found a spot for everything!

The diaper cake that Connie and Jessica made. :)

Tim is so happy he doesn't have to carry a pink diaper bag!



A HUGE thank you to Meredith for doing so much work!

My frozen peas!

Another GINORMOUS thank you to my mom, Alex, and Connie who did so much to help out.

And of course, thank you to everyone who could make it to celebrate with me.

You are all wonderful and I'm so very grateful!

Okay Lauren, we've made it past the maternity pictures and the baby shower. You can make your debut anytime now!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

37 weeks...

This is a post about baby stuff...if you're totally uncomfortable with pregnancy talk I recommend just not reading. Sorry! :)

I had my regular doctor visit today, although it didn't look like I was going to be able to get in. Normally I have them on Tuesdays, which is when I was scheduled this week, but Dr. Baldwin ended up being called away for a c-section. I'm surprised this has only happened this one time since August. They rescheduled me for 11:30 am today so that Tim could come during his lunch break. Then, last night, their automated reminder called to tell me I was scheduled at 9:30 am...um, no. I couldn't do 9:30 am even if I wanted to. I hit "2" to say that wouldn't work and was told to call to reschedule. AHH!

Brenden woke up at 8 am today and I called immediately. Without listening to who answered the phone I went into my spiel about what had happened. The nice woman let me yammer on and then said, "Your day isn't going to get much better. I'm not the doctor's office, just the hospital operator." CRUD! I apologized but she was really nice about it. She told me to wait 15 minutes and then call back, which I did, and it went to the right office...which doesn't open until 8:30 am. Wow, I felt dumb.

So I called at 8:30 am, and then 8:35 am. By 8:45 am I was getting angry because their phones were still set to away. Finally, at 8:50 am someone answered. She was not really very happy to talk to me and was not exactly in the mood to accommodate me. (Someone needed their coffee!) I just kept saying I was sorry that I screwed up by pushing "2" and that I had no idea who I had actually talked to when I made the appointment for 11:30 and eventually she said she'd let me see the nurse practitioner at 2:15 pm. I was happy to get in at all at that point so I called Tim to tell him we had no choice. I didn't want to wait for another week.

I was a little worried that they would be kinda mean to me but surprisingly she didn't even ask my name. "Hey girl! I'll let them know you're here!" was not at all what I expected to hear, but maybe she felt bad for being snippy. I also wasn't sure what the nurse practitioner would be like but that was a nice surprise, too. She actually spent time talking to me about how her 2nd pregnancy was a lot harder on her, which is what I've been dealing with, and that's why she only has 2 kiddos. She also told me I was doing great with my weight gain, my blood pressure was perfect and said she'd check my cervix after my group-B strep test to see if anything was happening.

What's group-B strep? It's something that they check for around 37 weeks that the mother, if she tests positive, can pass to the baby during birth and possibly make the baby sick. If you test positive they pump you full of penicillin during labor to prevent it. Nothing big and since I had tested positive when I was pregnant with Brenden I knew what to expect. Hopefully this time I won't have to worry about it.

My stats this week:

- measuring 35 1/2 weeks. I'm not sure how that is even possible! She sticks WAY out there.
- I'm dilated 1 cm and starting to thin out, but it's nothing big. She said I probably had a few weeks left, which I expected.

What does that mean? I could go into labor tomorrow or the week after my due date. I was 2 cm dilated with Brenden for 4 weeks before he was born. She'll get here when she's supposed to or we'll set a date to evict her. I'm just happy things are moving in the right direction. I'm ready to be able to breathe again!


Set Backs

I expected Brenden to regress on his potty training when Lauren was born. I was warned that he would be jealous of all the attention she was getting, that he would want to "be the baby" again. I've been trying to convince myself that I'm mentally prepared to deal with that on top of having an infant. (HAHAHA! I'm insane, I know) But what I didn't expect was that one day, out of nowhere, he would stop telling us that he had to go and would have accident after accident, long before Lauren has made her arrival.

For a month he was practically perfect. Nighttime still had a few kinks but we eventually worked those out. I stopped worrying about it 24/7, which probably should have been my first clue to expect something. We were making pizza and, out of nowhere, he informs us "I'm peeing." Um...ok? Why didn't you tell us like you've been telling me for weeks? Why are you suddenly standing in a puddle in the kitchen? I thought he had just gotten distracted, which I knew could happen, and had, but not to that extent. I tried to brush it off as no big deal. Then, not 2 hours later, he said the same thing and once again he was standing in a huge puddle in his playroom.

The next few days were horrible. He stopped telling me completely, except at naptime and bedtime when it worked in his favor to tell us. He didn't even tell us "I'm peeing" so that we would know to rush him towards the bathroom. He would even laugh and exclaim "I peed in my underwear!" like it was fun. Maybe he thinks it is, I'm still not sure.

I tried taking away his rewards but that just angered him and seemed to make him even more reluctant to tell me. I was nervous about leaving the house by myself since I don't move as quickly as I need to right now. When we finally did take him out he surprised me by telling me he needed to go, no problem. What in the world is going on?

I'm still not completely sure, but I have some ideas. Part of his problem was the fact that he got in trouble when he started doing it all the time. He is much more responsive to positive reinforcement than he is to being punished. I should have known that since he's more likely to eat well when we clap for him when he takes a bite instead of sending him to time out for being a screaming mess. I also think that the novelty of using the potty wore off; he got bored with it. Besides, when there are 18 other fun things to be doing, why would he take time out of his day to use the potty? I eventually had to start recognizing when he needed to go (his very own potty dance) and then explain to him that if he had to go potty that we would come right back and continue whatever we were doing.

He's still not back to 100% but we're slowly seeing some progress. Maybe, when Lauren finally gets here and that lovely period of regression comes again, we'll be better prepared because we've dealt with it before. I would say I hope that he has all this out of his system and that from here on out it will only get better...but I'm pregnant, not CRAZY.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Walmart

We don't say we're "going grocery shopping" in this house. Nope...we "go to Walmart." This is not one of Tim's favorite activities. Why, exactly, does he dislike it? You would have to ask him. But Sunday. when a random snowstorm made the first few days of spring in Oklahoma as far from spring-like as you can imagine, he told me to stay home with Brenden and he would go shopping alone. I know he was happy to get out of the house after being holed up for the weekend but I'm pretty sure there are about 50 other places he'd rather go.

Off he went with a very detailed list. I only ended up calling him once to add something to it, but he surprised me by actually already having it in the cart. I don't think this trip was quite as bad as normal since the weather wasn't very nice and everyone was sticking close to home. He said it was pretty deserted.

He came back with more than what was on the list, which is not exactly uncommon. What was surprising was what the extras were. I needed a new pair of slippers, which was on the list, but while he was back near the shoes he was happy to find a cheap pair of shoes for Brenden. I had requested, several times in the past week, a big glass of sweet tea and some frozen peas. (Pregnancy cravings are WEIRD.) The peas were on the list, but he was nice enough to grab the sweet tea and then hide it in the back of the fridge to surprise me. He also passed some taquitos and thought of me since I had requested them on Saturday when we he ventured out to get us dinner. Who needs flowers when you get sweet tea and taquitos? (The answer to that is me...flowers are always good!) :)

Tim, next time you might want to screw up the shopping a bit. Getting exactly what we need and then surprising your wife with yummy extras? Remembering things that weren't on the list but should have been? Yeah...you may end up headed to Walmart alone more often than you'd like.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Happy Birthday Elaine!

A very happy birthday to Elaine! She's Karen's mother-in-law and one of Brenden's "extra" grandmas. We're so happy to have her in our lives!

Have a wonderful day, Elaine!



Happy Birthday Mom!

She makes her own fun. :)

A very VERY happy birthday to my super awesome, wonderfully amazing mom!

We hope you have a wonderful day!!!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Bad Morning, Wonderful Afternoon

Yesterday morning started off okay. I got to sleep in, which is always fabulous, and Tim got a million things done around the house. My mom was headed down to watch Brenden for us while Tim and I went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday, which was Tuesday. Then...my dad called to tell us that our long time friend, who I considered my aunt and was my mom's best friend, Cheryl had died.

Cheryl and I...sometime in the 80's. :)

Cheryl was the type of person that you always wanted on your side. A huge personality, she could always make you smile, always knew just what to say and when to listen, and she could put my dad in his place faster than you could snap your fingers. About a year and a half ago she was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of cancer that had spread to her lungs and brain. They only gave her 3 to 60 days. Yes...days. She held on for a year and a half. She was able to attend her family reunion and spend some more time giving my dad grief over the phone.

My dad couldn't get ahold of my mom. It turns out she had stopped by my grandma's house and had left her phone in the car. I ended up being the one that was able to reach her and I thought for sure she would turn right around and go home. However, even thought she was really upset, she told me there was really nothing she could do and would rather just keeps our plans. I think that was a great idea on her part. It's hard to dwell on sad things when you are being serenaded by a 2 1/2 year old who has recently learned to sing. (And apparently he learned how to bow when he was done...not sure where that came from!)


While Brenden took a nap my mom and I headed to get a few errands done. She needed to pick up a few extra baby shower invites (which are ADORABLE) and then we headed to Target. She and my dad had decided that they wanted to get us the changing table for Lauren's room. To say I was excited to get that done would be a huge understatement. We found a great one, along with some baby hangers that were on sale, which I needed desperately, and a trash can for her room. Mom even picked up some cookies for Brenden, although we all enjoyed them.

While we were shopping, Tim was busy. He called me to see if I could be home in 45 minutes to an hour so that someone could come look at our truck. Mike and Connie bought a new car not long ago and gave us their Expedition and we don't need 3 cars. Tim had placed the truck on Craigslist and within 3o minutes had 4 emails. (I'm pretty sure that's a good sign that we priced the truck too low, but that's okay.) I promised him we'd be home in time and when we pulled up into the driveway the truck was gone. I thought the person had shown up early and was driving it around. It turns out the truck was SOLD already. It only took about an hour...the fastest deal we've made on Craigslist, EVER.

After putting the changing table together in about 10 minutes we all got ready for our night out. We headed out to the Melting Pot and my mom took Brenden to El Viejo's, a Mexican restaurant that we all love. Mom said that Brenden was a big fan of his burrito, as usual, and devoured his rice, and she enjoyed her flautas, which Brenden called "grandma's burritos." Tim and I will never complain about the food at the Melting Pot and I made sure to take pictures before we attacked the plates.


Afterwards, Tim indulged me with a trip to Target. Somehow my purses seem to be shrinking. I just can't fit everything in them! I didn't think Tim would care all that much but he definitely had an opinion about which I should choose. Can you say, "Amanda was totally spoiled on her birthday"? Because I really really was. :)

A HUGE thank you to everyone who made the day possible and to everyone who sent me birthday cards and presents. I'm very excited to get my Kindle in the mail! Books in 60 seconds instead of having to wait a few days? Yes, please!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Congratulations Rachel and Ryan!!!

Just a quick note to say congratulation to my friend Rachel who I worked with at Dr. Foy's office. She had her little boy, Luke, on my birthday!!! In another crazy coincidence, Luke was the exact same size as Brenden...7 lbs 10 oz and 20 inches long. :)

I heard that everyone is doing great! Welcome to the world, Luke!


Thursday, March 11, 2010

200th Post

It feels like yesterday that I started this blog, and then not long after that that we hit 100 posts. I'm so happy that we've kept up with it (Come on Tim! Post more! Oh wait...you have a job? Alright then.) :) I've been able to look back and remember how I was feeling, what Brenden was doing, and even once I used it as a reference tool. Our blog was never intended to be life changing for anyone, just somewhere I could remember our life changes. And I'm so happy that we have it.

I couldn't think of anything fun to do for this little 200th post. No big birth story like last time, no big announcements. I just figured I would update everyone on what we were all doing. Thanks again for taking the time out of your day to see what we're doing. Even though this blog is really for us, it's still nice to share our lives with our friends.

Tim:

Still working hard, maybe a little too hard sometimes. If he's not staying late at work at Wallace then he's working on something for the Army at night. Poor guy deserves a break! That's pretty much consumed all of his time, although he said he'd really like a hobby. Anyone have any ideas on a good hobby for a soon-to-be father of two that barely has downtime already?

Me:

Still painfully pregnant...and whining about it. The last few days have been full of contractions and exhaustion. It's like when you pull a muscle, which is pretty much what is going on with my belly, and then you have to use it. It clenches and it HURTS. I think Tim asked me at least 10 times last night if I was okay. She's just low and trying to break my pelvis...that's all. The doctor did say on Tuesday that she is 5-ish lbs and most definitely head down so we're on our way. Only a few more weeks and she'll be here! I have got to get her nursery put together, her clothes hung up (we have WAY too many already) and my bag packed. Not having it done makes me nervous.

Brenden:

His potty training has had some rough times lately. Not sure what happened; maybe he's just bored with it? I'm sure he's bored with being at home so much. It takes a lot of energy for me to get up and go so we don't leave the house much. Shoot...it takes a lot of energy for me to walk to the kitchen to get a sandwich! Plus I get out of breath in about 2 seconds. I think he's excited about the baby right now, but we'll see how he feels when he realizes that she is actually staying with us. :) We found the PBS website last night and he looooved it. His favorite game was matching dogs in swimsuits to the innertube that was the same color as their suits. He knew them all! So even if he doesn't know the name of the color, he can differentiate. He's also a big fan of "helping" in the kitchen, although if you've ever had a 2 year old "help" you do anything you know how interesting that can be.

New, fun things Brenden will say/do:

"Daddy you're big. Mommy's big. Brenden's small. I'm small."

"I'm tall! TALL!" (So he's small AND tall.)

He can sing the Rescue Pack song. "Ooooh...Rescue Pack! Coming to the rescue!" So very funny!

Knowing the difference between "happy" and "sad". He has a great "sad face" that he pulls out for no reason, an "angel face" that, up until now was just when we asked him. Now...he's learned to use it when he wants something. Scary! He also saw his Wii character after he finished playing a game and it was making a not so happy face, which is what they do when you don't get a good score. He never cared before. Now, he'll say, "Oh no! Poor me!" He'll also deploy his "happy face" on us if we aren't paying attention to him. He'll tap us and just smile until we have to smile back. I'm pretty sure I did that when I was little, too, but I didn't teach it to him!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Happy Birthday Justin!

(This is a little late due to this little thing called ME BEING PREGNANT. Sorry, Justin!)

My little brother's birthday was March 2nd and I'm feeling old. He said several times that he is now "closer to being 30 than 20 now that he is 26" and seriously, it's impossible for me to look at him and think of him as 26. I still see him as a little kid!



Seriously...it's so hard for me to think of him as older than this!

Last Saturday Justin invited us to go eat dinner with him at the new Buffalo Wild Wings in Bartlesville. One of the higher up dudes that does the openings came into his work to rent a car (he works at Enterprise) and it turns out that he went to school with Justin's manager. He invited Justin to the soft opening of the restaurant, which means that we were all going to get a yummy meal for free! Can't turn that down.

We all had a great time and the waitstaff was super nice. We were a party of 12 so they had to split us up between 2 tables but really...free food! No complaints! Both tables got one appetizer, we all got an entree', and we shared one dessert. If you ever eat there you really have to try their deep fried bread pudding dippers. OH MY GOSH THEY ARE FABULOUS. I told Tim that if we lived any closer to the location in Broken Arrow that I would be requesting those every night. I would also weigh 400 lbs. :) They also offered everyone their first round of alcoholic drinks free and after that they were only $2. I think our table's tab was well over $100 and we ended up paying $8 plus a tip, all of which, including the money they were making off of drinks, went to the Boys and Girls Club.

So thank you, Justin, for inviting us out for a free meal! We hope you had a wonderful night!

He was reacting to his card...which happened to read "For the Birthday Girl!"
(Tim picked it out. I also made him sign it.)

My little poser. :)

I LOVE MAC AND CHEESE! :)


Thursday, March 4, 2010

Just Between Friends

This past weekend was the Just Between Friends sale, a HUGE consignment sale of everything you could possibly imagine for kids. Clothes, toys, books, DVDs, furniture, strollers...you name it, it's there. We went last year with the whole crew, but this year we knew what to expect so we left Tim, Mike and Brenden at the house. (Brenden took a nap. Mike helped Tim do our taxes. Thanks, Mike!) We didn't realize that showing up when it opened meant that we would be in a line that stretched all the way behind the building. Just practice for checking out, really. It took a lot less time to get inside than I expected, but it was still long enough for any of the cheaper, good strollers and changing tables, the only 2 big items I wanted to look at, to be gone. We also completely forgot to bring anything to carry our purchases in. My arm is SORE. It wasn't until we checked out that they told us they have huge Ikea bags available to use. Just a little late for that information, thanks!

Not having a bag didn't stop us from shopping like crazy. We found a ton of clothes and accessories for Lauren and a few things for Brenden. The 4T aisle really didn't have all that much, although it may have been picked over pretty well by the time we made it over there. Brenden is crazy about his new Spiderman swim trunks and we were all crazy about the dress/coat/hat combo that Connie found. Seriously...it's adorable. Both kids are set for a good, long time.

The line...oh, the line. I have never heard so many complaints. I actually tried to jump in about halfway through, completely unintentionally. Connie said that the guy I stepped in front of (there was a space! I had no idea!) looked like he was about to deck me. Honest mistake, I promise! I mean, if I was trying to "cut" I wouldn't have announced how happy I was that I made it to the end. :) Eventually we made it back to the end, which just so happened to be exactly where we started looking for it. We didn't know it had actually doubled back around. Thank goodness they were giving away bottles of water.

By this time my 33 week pregnant feet and hips were aching and my arms were just not going to take it anymore. Connie offered several times to hold my stuff but there was no way I could have done that. She had her arms full, too! Then...inspiration hit me! I had my coat, which happens to be Tim's coat because all of mine are way too small, and I made a make shift bag out of it. When we eventually made it to the registers an hour later the lady actually thought it was a bag and when she realized it was a coat was very impressed! I gotta take my compliments where I can get them. (She also thought I had to be almost ready to pop and told me she was so sorry I still had 7 weeks left. Wow...I must be huge.)

All in all, a productive day. A huge thanks to Connie for braving it with me again this year! And for practically paying for all of it. I think I need to put a note on our registry that clothing is really not needed. Diapers and wipes...desperately need those!


Monday, March 1, 2010

Conversations

There was a time in my life when I remember thinking, "I can't wait until Brenden can talk and tell me what he wants!" I also remember saying, "I can't wait until he can walk" but that's a completely different story.

So, on the subject of talking, he's learning new things every day, just like any other toddler. Some things are very clear. "I want that" or "I want more milk/a banana/a cookie" is pretty easy for anyone to understand. (Funny how he learned "I want..." so quickly!) Other things take some interpreting. I'd say I can understand him 80% of the time as long as he's not too excited.

This past weekend I experienced my first conversation with Brenden. I'm not sure why this one shocked me so much. I think it's because he asked questions and remembered facts that I didn't expect. And it was longer than "I want (something)" with me replying "I'm sorry, I don't have that" which is usually followed by "Oh no!" and some crying.

Brenden, talking to Diego through his watch: "I'm going to the dance studio!"

Me: "What was that?"

Brenden: "The dance studio!"

Me: "Oh, sorry babe. We go to the dance studio on Wednesday. We're going to Walmart."

Brenden: "To get mommy's medicine?"

(We had gone the night before to get my heartburn medicine, which took 2 weeks to finally get filled. Again...a totally different story.)

Me: "No, we got that yesterday. We're going to get food."

Brenden: "Okay." (resumes talking to Diego about how we aren't going to the studio, how mommy has her medicine, and we're going to Walmart now.)

It was a very short conversation, but it was still a conversation. He's actually remembering things that I don't expect him to, like the names of objects or what we did the day before. Yesterday we were talking about the boat with Mike and Connie and he told us he had to have his "jacket" on. As in his life jacket, which he hasn't seen since last August. This is scary! Who knows what else he'll remember and tattle on me to Tim about. :)