Wordless Wednesday

All The Things

Okay, wow, I was so excited to move my blog over here and get some regular blogging done. Ha! That's what happens when you plan things. A lot has happened since my last post, so this will be a quick rundown of life at the Spano house.

We love dressing up all the same...well as you can see the boys are not completely impressed. This was a little late, we did it on Sunday, but I'm certain nobody minded. :)

I took some drastic measures with regards to my weight loss. I hired a personal trainer. She's given me a diet to follow and I have a workout regimen. I just finished my first week, and what do you know? I'm down 4 pounds!! That's right, I'm at 270 pounds. I'm feeling really good about that, and I'm working out 6 days a week. I go to the gym Mon-Sat at 5AM and do cardio for 30 minutes. Two nights a week I meet with the trainer and do weight lifting, which totally kicked my butt last week! Then 2 days a week on top of my cardio I am going to water aerobics. I feel really great about myself and how things are going.

Christopher's speech therapy has been going well, he now signs "gimme" or "please" depending on who teaches you the signs. We're still trying to get some different sounds in, but it is slow going. We are unsure how much he is hearing, and after meeting with the ENT, there is some concern. His right ear lost the tube before his follow-up visit after the surgery, and they aren't sure if the left tube is still where it should be. All of this means that he has to have a sedated auditory test. I'm pretty nervous about this, but we don't have a date yet, I will update when I can.

 Dominic's vocabulary is seriously skyrocketing. It is so fun! He's started saying "what happened?" when something random happens that he doesn't understand. He likes to say "hi Church/chocolate/bear/Gary/Larry/SpongeBob/anything that he is looking at or playing with" and when he's done with it he will say bye to whatever it was. He has a balance bicycle that he loves riding all over the house, and he's even getting the hang of the keeping his feet up and balancing.

I'd say that's enough of an update for this post...well, you know, it's long enough already anyway. ;-)

A Picture Heavy Update

So, again, I've really slacked off and not written at all on my blog. I have all these lofty ideas for doing daily posts, and it just doesn't happen. It should. I should make time for it because it makes me happy. Not because all my loyal (ha! yeah right!) readers will miss my voice, but because writing things that are happening in our lives is enjoyable to me. It's like a journal where I can share what is happening and make it easier to go back and remember moments of our lives.

Christopher has been fighting ear infections for a few months. We just ended #5 and 6 a couple weeks ago and it has been hard. I know that there is some research about the cyclical effect of antibiotics and ear infections, but ibuprofen didn't cut it with him and we had to help him get over it. Being a parent is all about taking information that is available and making the best decision for your children. Choosing antibiotics seemed like the best, right decision for Christopher. Because of the frequency of his ear infections, we will be seeing an ENT at the end of November to find out about tubes. :(

[caption id="attachment_638" align="aligncenter" width="169"] Holding his bottle[/caption]

I also weaned Christopher. I was ready to be done for months, but could tell he was not ready so I didn't push it too hard. We were down to before sleeping and in the night. But, I used the frozen milk I had and some whole milk and started giving him milk in the bottle. And he liked it!! This was a shock because a few months ago if I tried to give a bottle to him he would angrily push it away. So, I knew he was more ready. Now he is happily drinking warm whole milk in the bottle. If I put it in his sippy cup (that he uses for anything else!) he will push it away like he can't believe I would try to force him to drink such a concoction. 14 months of nursing is awesome. I was certain once he got teeth (6 months) I would not continue nursing. Then when that wasn't so bad and I kept at it I was sure at 12 months exactly I would be done and forcibly wean. But, I knew that wasn't right either.

Around 21-22 months old I started noticing Dominic crossing his eyes. Sometimes when he was watching the TV, sometimes when he was looking at me, or just zoning out. So I asked at his 2 year checkup and the doc suggested seeing an eye doctor. We saw a local eye doctor but he wasn't able to get anywhere so he sent us to a specialist in Colorado Springs. They found that he does have lazy eye as well as being far sighted. We needed to do eye patch therapy every day to help keep his lazy eye's vision strong. If the brain gets double vision or bad vision from that eye, it will stop reading that information and you basically become blind in the lazy eye. How scary!!! We won't know if this will save us from surgery, but it is a start. Unfortunately he was not able to calm down enough for them to get a measurements for glasses. Hopefully when we go back in December.

[caption id="attachment_636" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Starting to not hate the eye patch.[/caption]

The boys are starting to really enjoy playing together and it is so fun to watch. We hope to grow our family even more soon! :)



[caption id="attachment_639" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Playing together in a fountain in Chicago[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_640" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Being spun in the chair looking out the pretty window in Chicago.[/caption]