Merry Christmas!

 This was an awesome Christmas!  For the first time I was truly excited about everything related to Santa, elves, presents, decorations, holiday songs, etc.   On Christmas Eve we set out some milk and cookies on our outside fireplace, we tracked Santa's journey on norad's website and I was very eager to see what Santa would bring me the next day.  When I woke up I saw Santa brought the rescue bot headquarters and two bots - Boulder and Chase!  I have not stopped playing with them yet.  For Christmas I got tons of Transformers toys and even some transformer books. I love everyone of them!  I also made some presents for mommy and daddy by drawing them pictures (lucky I did this before I broke my right arm!) which they both loved.   I hope everyone had as wonderful a day as we had here.

Getting along just fine

This broken arm thing is really not so bad.  I am still doing most things I want to do, and if I don't want to do it I just say "I have a broken arm" and that seems to excuse me from things.  It also gives me extra attention when out walking the dogs or at the supermarket. It certainly will not stop me from opening Christmas presents tomorrow!

Broken Arm

My last 24 hours:
Friday 16:20 - I fell at my school playground.
Friday 16:30 - The school called mom because I tell my teachers my elbow hurts and I can't move my arm.
Friday 16:50 - Dad picks me up and takes me home, It hurts too much to get out of the car, so we try cupcake medicine - which for the first time ever, doesn't fix the problem.  I then fall asleep in the garage from crying non-stop for 45 minutes.

Friday 17:30 - 19:00 Dad and Dexter go to the local urgent care.  They take x-rays and tell us Dexter's arm is broken but all they can do is splint it and tell us to go to an ER. Since mom is still at work they go to her hospital.

Friday 19:30 - Dad and Dexter arrive at Prince William hospital to get checked out.  They get x-rays taken again which confirms what urgent care said: "There is transverse transcondylar fracture through the distal humeral metaphysis with dorsal displacement of distal component."  Translation:  broken upper arm with elbow displacement.  The orthopedic doctor on call can't fix a child's elbow so he recommends we transfer to the big hospital in DC which has pediatric orthopedic doctors on call.  They call ahead so the next hospital knows we are coming, but we turn down the ambulance ride and mommy drives Dexter instead. 

Friday 22:30 - We leave Prince William Hospital and drive to Fairfax Hospital.

Friday 23:30 - We arrive and are quickly checked in and the ortho doctor resident is waiting for us.  They look at our X-ray CD and again confirm the break.  Described as "the worst kind of long bone break kids get." Dexter will be NPO and have surgery first thing in the morning. I get my first real dose of pain medicine - Morphine - and become happy and then very sleepy. 

Saturday 01:00 - We get transferred to our room for the night and I begin freaking out about my hunger and the sink in my room not being able to give me water.

Saturday 02:45 - We all finally fall asleep for the night.

Saturday 07:00 - We go down for surgery.  We meet the CRNA that will do the anesthesia and the attending orthopedic doctor, Dr. Theiss, who will be doing the surgery.   The plan is to sedate him under general anesthesia, then do a closed reduction of his elbow and a percuteneous pinning (3 pins total) of his upper arm, and splint it back again.

Saturday 08:00 - We roll back to the OR, with mommy, until I fall alseep, move to the OR table and get hooked up to the monitors.  I do great with this due to my complete exhaustion and get put off to sleep.  Mom leaves and surgery can start.

Saturday 09:30 - Surgery is done, he did fine.  He will remain with his splint for 3 weeks and then come into the office to have his pins removed.  He is supposed to not "run, climb, or jump" for 2 months.

Saturday 11:00 - Woke up and ate all his breakfast and chocolate milk.  Had another dose of Tylenol and rested in his room watching Toy Story 3.

Saturday 13:00 - Cleared for discharge and eager to go home!

Saturday 14:30 - Finally arrive home, less than 24 hours after all my drama began.  Sad I can't go to my cousin's house this weekend like we planned because I wanted to visit them all and exchange our presents!

Now we can begin the 3 weeks of healing before the cast and sling can come out.  All I am allowed to do is wiggle my fingers on my right side. 

Christmas spirit

I am getting more into the Christmas spirit every day!  I have made a holiday train at Lowes, I have mailed my list off to Santa, I have picked out some of my old toys to give to mommy's coworkers two year old twins, I have donated a transformer toy to "Toys for Tots", this Thursday I will sing in our school concert and this weekend I will go to my cousins house for a big Christmas dinner.   Phew! Only 8 more days to go, I can't wait!

2 songs

Here is the Chubby little snowman. 
This is not a common one, so here are the lyrics so you can learn it as well:
A chubby little snowman
Had a carrot nose
Along came a rabbit
And what do you expect?
That hungry little bunny,
Looking for his lunch,
When he saw the snowman's carrot nose...
Nibble, nibble, CRUNCH!




Here is Jingle Bells (with a little santa claus is coming to town mixed in)




Enjoy!

Santa!!

Today Santa came to my neighborhood.  I was so excited to meet him and talk to him.  He asked if I was a good boy (yes!) and what I wanted for Christmas (Transformers).  We were supposed to do a hay ride around the neighborhood but it was cold and raining so we only played indoors.  They did have some arts and craft stations and some treats for us as well.    It was so great to finally meet him after learning so much about him these last few weeks. 

Snow family

Today was a snow day!  Schools and work were canceled and I got to stay home and play all day.  Mommy and I built a snow family.  It is hard to see it but there is a baby snowman at the foot of daddy snowman.  I wanted a carrot nose but we didn't have any in the house.   Overall it was a fun day but now it is back to school tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Ophelia

My dog turned 11 today.  That is pretty old.  She didn't get a birthday cake but we sang happy birthday to her and gave her a special rawhide treat. 

Organs and Yoda

During November we learned about organs at school.  Here is my silhouette and the organs I learned about and what I think those organs do:  Brain (where you think), Heart (pumps blood), Lungs (help you breathe), stomach (chews up food), liver (not sure), kidneys (make pee), intestines (make poop).  Watch out doctors and nurses I am coming for you in 20 years.  

Here I am in the Yoda winter cap Gram made.  It is super warm and mommy takes it all the time because she thinks the ear flaps are cool.

Famous

Me, Daddy, Grandfather and Nana are all famous now - we made the monthly Pre-K newsletter!  Also in the newsletter it said we are having a concert in 2 weeks to sing all our great holiday songs.  In December we are going to learn more about the states of the USA, birds, clouds and the water cycle.   The character trait for the month is kindness- so I will try to practice that.

Tree Trimming

We got the tree up and decorated today.  We also discovered all our Christmas books.  Sadly some of mommy's old Christmas books from when she was a kid are falling apart.  Maybe they will last a few more years if I am gentle with them. 

Thanksgiving Week Fun

 This week we celebrated two birthdays and Thanksgiving.  We had lots of family come to our house to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.  During the week we also fun activities like:

Go to the National Children's Museum and draw self portraits

Paint birdhouses

Play on the kids gym

Eat the Thanksgiving dinner

Play games

We had Nana, Grandfather, Gram, Deb, Joe, Ben, Nikki, Beth, Shane & Mike come to the house for Thanksgiving dinner.  We ate lots of food, played fun games, went on walks and just talked with each other.  I hope everyone else had as good a time as we did. 

Workout time!

Our unfinished basement gets lots of attention in our house.  We started with our gym equipment from New Mexico - A elliptical, bike stand and rowing machine (all bought in yard sales or craigslist).  Then we added our old TV when Grandfather bought us a new TV for the house. Then we threw down some spare carpet the builders left for us.   Now we have Dexter's playset built - which has ladders, monkey bars and a trapeze.  It also has a pull up bar for us.  Finally we are adding a treadmill from Dan's Aunt as soon as we have a truck or trailer to get it home.   It is a great place to workout and just in time for winter to hit us. 

Feelings

At school this week we are learning about your feelings. Yesterday we were supposed to draw pictures of things what would help you feel better if you were mad or sad.    Here were my ideas:  Lay down and look at the sun, eat candy, eat a doughnut, take a bath, fall asleep, put on my pajamas, eat pineapples, write my name or pretend I am flying like Superman.   So if you ever find me mad or sad you could suggest one of those things :)

 Also this weekend we took our family photo for the Christmas card.  This one didnt make the cut, but I will share it with you anyways.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is Daddy's birthday.  He will get presents and ice cream cake!   I will wear my new silly glasses I got at the dentist yesterday.  Mommy and I both saw the dentist and we both have awesome clean & straight teeth :)

Another present is Daddy gets new tile in the master shower.  We discovered last week that it was leaking into our basement and they came Monday to rip out the tile and saw that there was a hole in the shower drain pan and they have to replace it and re-tile.  Hopefully that is the only major issue we ever have with our new beautiful house! 

Swimmer - Level 3

 

I have done 4 classes now at SwimKids and I still love it!  After my third class with Jacqueline I graduated from the Level 1/2 class to the Level 3/4 class.  This means I was able to: Open my eyes underwater, Blow bubbles in the water and put my whole head underwater. 

Today I had my first level 3/4 class.  I have new coach named Christian and I was surprised because I knew the other kid in my class!  It is a friend from preK named Jayden.  That was great, we laughed and played together the whole time. 

The goals for level 3 are - front kick to the wall, push off the wall to the coach, sit and fall off the wall to the coach, and float for 5 seconds on my back and front.    Today I mastered the "sit and fall off the wall" and started working on back floats. 

Mystery Box!!

At school we have a great game called Mystery box.  A student is assigned a letter, takes the suitcase home and then finds things around the house that start with that letter.  Then the next day brings in the suitcase and gets to share the items with the class while they guess what letter you were assigned. 

I have a banana, block, boat, Brobee, baseball, book, batmobile, bear and bumblebee.  I am super excited to share my items with my friends at school!!

Ophelia & Dexter

Since we moved to Virginia Ophelia has become my dog.  She sleeps with me every night and always follows me around to play games with me or eat whatever food falls her way.

Bosley however is afraid of me and always leaves when I come close to him. 

Busy Weekend

 I had a busy weekend!  I "played" my final soccer game and got a cool medal.  Soccer has not been a great success.  We are lucky if I plays a quarter of the games.  Practices are better since everyone gets a ball but I think we are taking a break from that sport for a while.   I then had my swimming lesson.  This is tons of fun, the water is warm, I like my teacher and I am fully participating and enjoying the full 30 minutes.  After that we drove  2 hours over to my cousins house.  I got to play a lot of princess games with Nikki and construction/truck games with Ben,  Plus I got to eat yummy sloppy joes and Halloween candy!   That was a great weekend, now it is back to normal for 3 weeks until birthdays and Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

Thor!

Today was "the best Halloween ever!!"   I dressed up like Thor and went trick or treating with my good friends Josh and Kyle.  We hit every single house in my neighborhood and now I have so much candy!! Everyone said I made a good Thor with my hammer, helmet and my big muscles.   That was so much fun, I can't wait to do it again next year!