The Countdown

Another week down and only one more week until Max's x-ray appointment. Right now I'm keeping all of my fingers and toes crossed in hopes that the fracture has healed and the cast can come off. It's been a looong few weeks at our house and if Max has to keep the cast on another couple of weeks, I'm not sure which of us will cry harder! Max is officially stir crazy and really wants to be up and about. He keeps trying to crawl on his casted knee, which we keep trying to stop him from doing (since the doctors told us not to let him put weight on that leg). I'm so looking forward to Max getting his cast off -- I miss my happy, busy little boy. At least the weather has been a little nicer these last few days, so Max, Molly, and I have been able to go on some walks. Our strolls around the neighborhood have the three-fold benefit of really improving Max's mood, lulling Molly to sleep, and getting Mom some much-needed exercise. Pushing a wheelchair full of 35+ pounds of toddler/cast while a 20-pound infant is strapped to your person is quite the workout!

Even though we haven't used the wheelchair anywhere but in the house and around the neighborhood, I can start to understand how difficult a lot of things must be for people who use wheelchairs. Even just walking around our sub can be a pain when some of the curbs don't slope to the street and some of the sidewalks are in need of repair. My newly rediscovered pet peeve is people who park their cars across the sidewalk. It's difficult trying to maneuver a heavy wheelchair around the cars, especially when I have to shove the thing through a couple of feet of thick grass. Lets just say that I don't feel the slightest bit guilty for any wheelchair track marks that get left on people's lawns!

Molly continues to be super crabby. She was so bad on Thursday that I took her in to see the doctor, to make sure that she didn't have an ear infection or some other undiagnosed malady. She didn't -- she's as healthy as a horse! My "little" princess now tips the scales at 20 lbs, 14.5 ounces! In desperation, we decided to try starting her Zantac dose back up (we'd finally stopped it just about the time Max fractured his leg). I don't know if it is coincidence or if she has been having some silent reflux, because after a couple of days of Zantac she's been doing a lot better (i.e. actually sleeping for more than two hours at a pop, but still crankier than her mellow norm). Dad and I think we spotted some upper eyeteeth on their way in, which might also explain her recent Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde behavior. Max had the hardest teething time with his eyeteeth and, so far, Molly seems to be just as bad a teether as he was.

Molly is still on her quest for mobility -- she's getting really good at army crawling and can pull and push herself along pretty quickly. When she's on her hands and knees, she tries to take "steps" with her arms, but doesn't realize that she needs to move her legs too, so she eventually crawls herself into a belly flop. Since she can move around pretty well now, she's also getting good at being a pesky little sister. She loves to crawl over and see what Max is doing and, if possible, try to grab whatever toy he has. She is especially fond of his Nuby sippy cup -- the other day she managed to crawl over to the beanbag, pull herself up the side a bit, bat at the cup until she knocked it to the ground, then grab it, put it in her mouth, and start sucking away. I'm guessing we won't have much trouble getting this girl off the bottle earlier than Max! Now if we could just get her to sleep through the night on a regular basis ...