Mondays with Crosby

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 3 years and 5 weeks old!!!  His Baby Sister and I are now at 29 weeks!  I think this is the second time in my life I have said I was ready to be in my 30's.  I am pretty sure the last time I uttered those words I was 29 weeks with Crosby.  Waaaay back then, I was a newbie to the 30's (age-wise).  Now, I am more like a pro.  And to think half of my friends aren't even there yet.  Yikes!!!  But I can't complain.  The 30's have been good to me.  The obvious reason is pictured about.  My sweet boy, Crosby!  By far the best thing that has happened in my 30's.  Or in my LIFE, for that matter!!  He is such a doll.

Last night, we were getting him ready for bed.  He said, "I want to rock with Mommy and Baby Sister.  But I don't want to sit on that big 'ole belly."  I laughed so hard I nearly sent myself into labor.  Tonight he just rubbed the "big 'ole belly" while we rocked.  So sweet...

I thought it would be a good idea to take perspective pictures since it has been a while.  He is so compliant with having his picture taken these days!  I don't know what happened but I am loving his little smile.  So forced but cute nonetheless...

Crosby and his bear...

 Big hand, not-so-little hand...

 Mug shot...

 Big feet little feet...

You can look back here to see the little Fox over the years. (Couldn't find them...will later!) I cannot believe how big my sweet boy is now.  How time flies...

We had and eventful weekend to say the least.  Lulu managed to land herself in the hospital with a kidney stone on Friday morning.  She ended up having surgery Saturday morning and was discharged later that day.  Thankfully, she is feeling MUCH better and is on the road to recovery.

Sweet friends gave me a Blessingway on Saturday afternoon.  What is a Blessinway, you ask?  I will have to tell you all about it!  Only it deserves a post of it's own.  Hopefully I will get it up in the next few days!

Mondays with Crosby

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 3 years and 4 weeks old!!!  I am glad to report this has been an injury free week!  Well, I am sure there have been bumps and bruises along the way but nothing like last week!  Although we have had our share of items knocked off the wall thanks to soccer balls being blasted through rooms and "pretend falls" in the hallway.  Oddly enough, Crosby is not the reason for all of the above.  His oversized, child-like father is to blame.  I watched him do the same in his mother's house all through high school and am not sure why I am surprised.  I guess I thought he had outgrown such behavior.  Nope.  Not at all.  Quite the opposite in fact.  Rather than recalling his mother's constant pleads to take it out doors, he has found it necessary to pass his rowdiness down to the next generation.   And it seems the best time to engage in such activity is en route to bed!!!!  have been told I might as well get used it because it appears somethings are just never going to change!

Baby Girl and I are now at 28 weeks!  It is one of the big milestones so we are more than happy to be here.  Womb life still appears to be stable.  Friday's fetal fibrinectin test came back negative, which is what we were hoping to hear.  Technically, that means I won't go into labor in the next two weeks.  If that is the case (and I think it will be), it puts us right at 30 weeks.  Boy am I ready for the 30's!!  I actually have my eyes set on March 26th...37 weeks.  That is when she will be considered full term.  I would have no qualms with getting up on the 25th in an attempt to get things moving!

This week Crosby gets to share the limelight with two baby girls.  He was able to meet his sweet cousin, Harper Jean this week!!!  Justin and Katie welcomed the newest member to the Lipscomb family on Wednesday, January 18th at 10:52 am.  We took a little trip to Baptist that evening so we could meet Little Miss...

For the first time in his life, Crosby was shy when we entered the room.  Several of our friends were there visiting with the new family of three.  For some reason, Crosby was a little intimidated.  Hence the face in Blake's chest above!  Fear not.  It lasted all of 3 minutes.  All I had to do was ask if he wanted to hold her.  He was alllll about holding Miss Harper.  Justin and Katie were kind enough to let her be our guinea pig!  Luckily, the wild man did pretty good!  There is hope that he will be gentle with Baby Sister...

Of course I mentioned wanting to visit Harper with Dr. B.  (Katie uses him as well...)  I can't say that he exactly knew I was going when I went.  But, we left things with playing it by ear based on how I was feeling. I was feeling good! And I figured, if I was going to go into labor that night, I was in the best place to do it!  Fortunately, that was not an issue.  We got to have a nice little visit before heading back to the holding cell...I mean house. ;-)  

We are so very thankful Harper's got here safely and is so healthy.  It is going to be so much fun watching these cousins get to know each other.  And of course we are hoping to make our final contribution when the Good Lord says it is time!  Hopefully He has a little more baking time in mind!!  

Mondays with Crosby

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 3 years and 3 weeks old!!!  His baby sister is now at 27 weeks in the womb!  Sister is safely tucked away.  Meanwhile, the big boy took a knock to the face on Friday night.  I guess it is part of being a boy.  Daddy/son chase time leads to son tripping over his own two feet (we are hoping his coordination improves...;-) ) and landing near eye first on the corner of the magazine rack!  The son's response was as pitiful as you can imagine.  Fortunately, the Daddy was still able to scoop him up and soothe his broken soul.  Of course, preggo was about to fall apart and go into labor all at once.  "Blake can handle this...Crosby does not need you to hold him...Blake is perfectly capable of comforting Crosby just as well as you can...But, nobody can comfort him like his mama. He neeeeeds me!!!  Step back mother hen and let Blake be his hero right now..." Can you tell it took every ounce of energy I had to sit on my tush?  Did I mention it gave me a nose bleed?!?  It is probably just one of the lovely side effects of being with child. But the timing sure was ironic, no?

I just knew his eye would be black and blue after that hard knock.  So I thought it would be a good idea to document his first black eye!  This is him 30 minutes or so after the initial blow...  (the picture above is too)

And don't judge me over the Bubba.  Yes.  He is 3 and still sleeps with a Bubba.  Yes.  I should have taken it away 2 years ago.  I didn't.  My guess, he won't go to college with it.  And he is not seen in public with it.  We ran it by Dr. P and he agreed it is not the time to be fooling with Bubba removal.  So Crosby wins!  And I get to enjoy all of the sweet loving he gives as soon as you pop that bad boy into his mouth!  Okay.  Back to the eye...:)  Day 2...

Not too bad!?!  Where is the black I was anticipating?  Surely it will be black tomorrow...

Yea...nope!  It ain't turning black!  How disappointing.  I mean, if you are going to whack your face on a magazine I think you should get the shiner to show for it!   He looks proud of his wound on Day 3, regardless...

And Day 4...

The best we got was a little, yellowish, green discoloration and a couple of scabs...

What can you do?  We talked the black eye up but it never happened!  Something tells me there will be more bumps and bruises in our future.  I pray they are all as minor as this one.  I seriously don't think I could handle much more.  Oh how it broke my heart to see my little man screaming his head off after this   injury!  I have already tried to ban Daddy/son chase time with absolutely no luck.  Crosby would never go for it.  He LOVES playing with his Daddy.  The first words out of his mouth when Blake comes home are, "You better ruuuuuunnnn!!!!"  Maybe we can just remove all furniture and pad the walls and floor!  

As for Baby Sister...the fetal fibrinectin goes, we are good through tomorrow (Tuesday).  I will have another test on Friday that should let us know about the next 2 weeks.  No ultrasound.  As of Friday, she was 2.2 lbs and looking good.  The ole cervix was still in a safe range but I am not even really worried about those numbers an more.  I am having minimal contraction activity.  Probably what the average pregnant gal experiences.  And I am still on a super low dose of barely any meds.  There is a lot more that can be done if things start to go haywire.  How nice it feels to be pregnant and relatively calm!  

And here is the most recent picture of the little lady...

I thought this was such a clear picture.  They took three 4-D pictures and she looks like a different baby in each one!  So who knows if this is really what she will look like!   We will know soon enough.  For now, this will just have to do.  I am fine with that!

And, she remains nameless.  Not because I haven't thought of names.  Somebody, whose name I will not mention, is not really into discussing names just yet!  The best I can get is "fine" as a descriptor for each name I throw out.  I am pretty sure this anonymous person and I have a million conversations (like, since we were 15...) about how the word "fine" is not an acceptable way to describe anything in this household.  My clothes.  My hair.  My cooking.  A child's name.  You get the idea!  So, until I can get a response that is better than the one that makes my skin crawl, Baby Girl/Sister she is!  It seriously could be after she is born...

Sigh...

Mondays with Crosby

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 3 years and 2 weeks old!!  His Baby Sister is now at a gestational age of 26 weeks!!!  (Although I think technically her gestational age is really 24 weeks but that will just do nothing but confuse folks so pretend you didn't even read that.)  I am 26 weeks, and feeling good about it.  More on that later...

Is that picture of Crosby not precious?!?  Answer only if in agreement!  He looks soooo big to me.  And the hair is kind of tousled.  Almost like he is posing for an add or something.  Once again, I can take no credit for these pictures.  Melissa Rick saved the week!  If you have been following our family for a while, you know Margaret!  Well, Little Miss had her 3rd birthday party on Saturday.  (Her actual birthday is today, so, Happy Birthday Margaret!!!)  

I didn't know if Crosby was going to make the grand occasion.  On Friday afternoon, he came in from school acting pretty normal.  He was a little whiney and said he was tired.  Who knows how well he napped and he went to Monkey's Treehouse from 3-5.  I figured he was just worn out.  Then he started saying his mouth was sore.  I used a flashlight and take a look, thinking it could be strep.  Seeing how he has had a cough on and off for a few weeks, I have been watching for other symptoms.  But, his throat looked fine.  I noticed he had bitten down on the inside of his cheek, probably a few days before, and commented on it.  Next thing you know, all he talked about was the sore in his mouth.  And there was NO way it was sore.  Yet he kept talking about it.  And the whining increased.  And he kept crawling in and out of my lap.  Again, I just chalked it up to being exhausted.  By the time Blake got home, he was falling apart.  Tears started flowing and he was a mess.  By 7:00 pm, I was rocking him and trying to get him to bed.  But he couldn't settle.  The tears really started flowing and he started saying he needed medicine, needed to go to the doctor, etc.  You may remember my saying he has been doing this A LOT lately, when he is fine.  But this was different.  He really acted like he was in pain.  It was breaking my heart!  I was ready to throw him in the car and head to the ER.  Instead, Blake ran to get ibuprofen.  Meanwhile, I called the doctor and spoke with the nurse, while Crosby cried his eyes out.  Pitiful!!!  We followed nurses orders, gave him Motrin, and attempted to distract him with Mickey.  It didn't work initially.  But after 20 minutes or so, he calmed down.  Next thing you know, he is trying to play with Blake?!?  Then he was asking to eat dinner?!?  What in the world had we just witnessed?  He is a good actor but this was a completely different performance than we have ever seen!  One that lasted over 2 hours!  I kind of felt like I was out of my mind when I saw how quickly he changed his tune.  

When I was talking to the nurse, she went ahead and made an appointment for 9:10 Saturday morning. He was acting so normal, I considered canceling.  But, I couldn't send him to Margaret's party without having him seen based on Friday night's drama.  Lulu and I got him dressed for the party, just in case, and headed to see the doctor.  Sure enough, there was something wrong alright. My little fella had an ear infection!!  Who knows how long he has had one.  He had no symptoms other than a cough.  No fever.  No complaints.  Nothing, until Friday night!  Totally explained why he was pointing to the back, right side of his mouth, saying it hurt.  Totally explained why he couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.  Pressure must have built up in his ear, causing him serious pain.  Not sure if Motrin relieved the pain or if the pressure just released on it's on.  I am just glad something helped ease my little man's pain.  Seeing him hurting was definitely enough to send me in to labor!!!  Thankfully, that didn't happen or we would have been in a real bind!  WIth a diagnosis in place and a "he's not contagious" from the doctor, off to the party Crosby and Lulu went!

Margaret had a fairy theme this year.  Needless to say, we are lacking tutus around here.  But I did find this sweater with a castle that was handed down from cousin Gid!  What better time to put it to use.  Our "prince" even had a finger puppet horse in a little pocket attached to the sweater.  You can see the poor thing dangling by the string in all of the pictures! Don't know that he rode in like a night in shining armor but he definitely made an appearance!

This one cracks me UP!!!  Talk about blackmail. I am going to be pulling this one out when he is 16 and sharing it with all of his friends...

After a nice, long nap, the little guy was out the door again!  This time he and his Daddy went to John Christopher's birthday party.  Unfortunately, I failed to send the camera with Blake so I have no pictures to enjoy!  JCLW's party was at Gymboree.  I have never been there but Blake says he had a blast!

As for Baby Girl...her environment has been so calm the past few weeks.  My numbers were normal again on Friday.  I cannot tell you what this has done to my mental state.  I am in such a good place right now as a result.  What a blessing!  Praying it stays this way for at least 8 more weeks.  11 would be nice too!

In the meantime, we will just wait for my niece to make her grand appearance!  Come on Harper!  It is safe to come out now.  I know your parents would appreciate it!!

Mondays with Crosby

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 3 years and 1 week old!!!  Although Thursday was less than a week ago.  I cannot abandon my opening sentence so I will just have to go with it!

My baby is 3.  It is hard to believe that it has been three whole years since that blessed day he was born.  Yet in someways, it feels like we have known this little fella forever.  To try to describe in words the depth of my love for Crosby Fox is pointless.  There are no words that do it justice.

To miss the celebration of his birth was a hard pill to swallow.  I had hoped that a stretch of really good numbers with allow me to attend his party.  Wouldn't you know, my numbers were the lowest they have ever been this entire pregnancy on Wednesday.  Just in time for his party.  And to top that off, I wasn't even feeling many contractions.  It had been a "good" week.  Sigh.  For bad numbers.  And for missing my little love's party.

But the show must go on.  And on it went!  I was on top of it this year.  Knowing that I was pregnant and would likely be on bed rest, I jumped at the offer to book a half price birthday party at Monkey Joes. While having a party here would allow me to attend for sure, I knew it would be way to stressful.  Having a party there would ensure the birthday boy would have a blast and would cause little or no stress on me. Or should I say Blake!  They do most of the work for you.  All you have you have to do is show up.  And, pay, of course.  They even give you invitations to send out.  And I told myself I would send them out.  I would NOT order any cute ones...   But I needed an idea for a cake.  And Crosby needed a shirt to match the cake.  And I am good at breaking my own rules.  Oh, I did it.  I ordered them and I am so glad I did.  It made me feel like I was doing something to put a special touch on his birthday.  You have to admit the picture above is pretty cute...

So here he comes.  The VERY excited birthday boy...

Since it was his birthday, he got to use a few quarters on the machines out front...

Like this one!  I take it he was a fan...

And there is no doubt he had fun on the "jump jumps"...

Crawling in and out...

My boys.  I have to give Blake major props.  From what I hear, he ran around the whole time making sure he got all the pictures I had written down on a last minute list.  He did such a good job.  I think the tears that started falling down my face when they were headed out the door had something to do with him working so hard.  Gotta love him...

Anybody seen the pizza???

Party crowd from one end of the table...

And from the other!  Wait...where is the birthday boy???

Oh.  Here there he is!  He still loves singing the happy birthday song.  Here lately, we have been a lighting candle, singing the birthday song someone in the room, and blowing the candle out!  So silly! Little does he know I agreed to this game because I was secretly working on his ability to blow out a candle!  Too bad it didn't help!  Anyway, can you tell he was so excited to sing the song???

And then he tried to blow out the candles...

But I am afraid he just managed to spit all over the cake instead!!  Sorry friends...

Crosby got a surprise visit from Monkey Joe himself!  I am surprised he went to him so willingly but apparently he did.  Maybe it is because he is 3?!?

Blake got all of the kiddos to line up for a group shot.  Would you just look at those sweet things.  I was told that Margaret wormed her way right up next to the birthday boy! The thought if it melts my heart...

I requested he wait until he was home to open his gifts so I could partake in the excitement.  And I figure it would be to chaotic with all the little ones pictured above!  I don't think he even noticed.  He just wanted to get back out to the jump, jumps!  He was very excited about them once he got home.  He probably sat in this spot 5 minutes with me telling him to wait for one reason or another.  Believe it or not, he did!  Minus the fact that he pulled white tissue paper out of one bag and returned it about 50 times before he was finally given the green light to dive in...

Nugs had to get in the middle of the fun too!

Crosby standing in front of his birthday banner, which hung on the door for his big day!

There is one picture of me from the big day.  Yep.  Crosby took it.  And it is about the only way I will allow myself to be seen on here these days.  I will just say baby girls are rough on me and leave it at that...

Now if I can figure out how to get a video from the Flip to the MAC to the blog...  Will keep trying!

As for Baby Girl...

We are officially at 25 weeks!!!  And wouldn't you know, my numbers were back to normal on Friday.  (after the party was over...)  I am pretty sure it is safe to say I have the most dynamic cervix on the planet!  If he didn't know I knew what I had seen on Wednesday, Dr. C would have written me off as a looney bin when I told him how drastically my measurements changed in a 48 hour period.  He has no explanation.  I am still a bit of a medical mystery, with no rhyme or reason for the insanity.  I wasn't really even having many contractions.  Who knows.  Since Friday, I have given up my attempts to figure it out.  Thankfully that leaves me in a mentally good spot.  Now, that could all change tomorrow based on my appointment!  But for now, I will take the sanity while I have it.  Thankfully, Little Miss seems to be content kicking around in utero.  We are just aiming for 9 or 10 more weeks.  11 or 12 would be good too but I don't want to be too greedy...