Progress

Knock on wood.

Yesterday when I dropped Jackson off at school he started to cry and ran towards me. I picked him up and said, "Ms. Ernistine is your friend, remember?" and handed him off. He cried for a second and then stopped. She took him with her to erase the dry erase board. He loved it and was fine.

Today when I dropped Jackson off, Ms. Ernistine walked out of the classroom to get something. As soon as he saw her in the hall, he turned, buried his face in my leg, and wouldn't let go. I thought it was a sign it was going to be a bad drop off. I finally get him into his classroom and put away his stuff while he walked around (good sign). Then, I got a wipe to clean his face (which he actually likes). Instead of running to me, he ran to the toys and started playing. I decided to use that moment to say bye-bye and head for the door. He looked at me, looked at the toys, and went back to playing.

I know a lot of parents think it's a sad day when their kid doesn't look back at school and just wants to be with friends or play, but not me. I was overjoyed! Maybe I'll change my mind later, but for today it was a good start to the day. For two days in a row I didn't start my day with my heart being ripped out because Jackson is so upset that we're leaving him.

A Bath with the Morris Cousins

More Pictures from Morris Visit

Colin learns how to treat women by watching his Uncle Rob and Aunt Penny

Rob slam dunks Penny

Neil and his Daddy

My Little Man

Grandma MacGregor, Jackson, and Daddy

Uncle Chris and Mommy help William jump off the diving board

Someone taught this boy well -Eye on the ball...eye on the ball...

Cool Jackson and Daddy

Everyone

Jackson loves the bell

Best Cousins Picture EVER!

Lucky 13 (and a third)

Warning - Rob is writing this and is getting nostalgic about family. Reading on means you are okay with Lovefest '10 and pages of writing. You've been warned.

For the past two weeks my sister Penny has been in town with her two boys, William and Neil. This past weekend her husband Stephen joined the group, bringing the Houston family total to 13 1/3 people, counting little fetus Annyong. We had the opportunity to get together as a big family three times, once a week ago for barbecue and swimming here, and twice this weekend for swimming and pork tacos up north and Star Pizza in town. It all went too quick.



Penny is one of my best friends. I'm very lucky to have two siblings who I genuinely love being around, who always included me despite our big age gap. Those years separating us very quickly disappear whenever we're around each other as we tend to regress, except when I'm officiating a marriage or something. Penny is the first person I told when I decided to propose to Noelle, she's been an adviser (or teller) for so many decisions in my life, and even leaving a message on her cell phone is a high point of the day for me. Having her live in California sucks quite a bit.

Her boys are growing up so fast and establishing their identities without me there to give little nudges or noogies, and that also sucks. Jackson enjoyed spending time with them so much that he screamed when they left our house. Jackson loves his cousins, whether they're ten and Godzilla freaks, twenty and Korean soap opera fans, three and OCD about organizing Thomas trains and toys, or almost two and capable of communicating joy and anger through a series of shrieks and head-buckings. As I've said before, I have always wanted more opportunities to know my own cousins (hi Kirsty and Bridget in Scotland!) so seeing the five cousins all together made us very happy. It made Jackson happy too, except in this picture.



Let's try a young cousin shot where Jackson looks happy enough hanging out with Neil and William. He's actually being held by me in this picture, so find another Exhibit A, CPS.





I'm lucky also to have four amazing new siblings in the past few years who I love having as my new brothers or new sister. Noelle's brother Stephen is going to end up the star of this blog with all he does for Jackson and us and her brother Joseph has always helped make me feel like part of the family even if I am awful at actually shipping his gifts up to Chicago. Melissa, my brother's wife, is one of the best people I've ever met, fun and sweet and silly and sensible, but I love her most for how happy she and my brother are all the time. (Also, in the pool, she is okay with being elbowed and trying to dunk me. We're savages in the swimming pool and she's one of us.) And then there's the other Stephen, Penny's husband, who not only makes my sister so happy but also makes a hell of an uncle and dad. I loved getting to commiserate with him over Star Pizza about the things that have changed since fatherhood struck us but also getting to share in the actual pure joy that is being a new dad.



I love our family as individuals and as a group and feel so blessed to have had the past few weeks to remind myself how much they mean to me. We look forward to more times together.

The Light Box Unveiled

This is a long video, so it may not be for everyone, but it's mostly meant for one person. Uncle Stephen (Stockman) told us he left a present for Jackson at the house while we were out at the MacGregor/Morris family reunion 2010 (pics to follow).When we got home, we discovered the light box, aka "dark". Stephen had taken a tupperware container and fitted it with batteries, wires, lights, and, Jackson's favorite, a light switch. When we saw it, we knew Jackson would love it, so we decided to capture his first moments with it so Uncle Stephen could see how much his kindness is appreciated by his number one fan.

Bye bye Dark

Jackson has started putting 2 words together. The first time he did it was on Wednesday night. Rob went out to get new tires on our Subaru. After about an hour, Jackson looked at me and said, "Da-da, bye-bye?" It was the sweetest and saddest thing.

Tonight, when it was time for Jackson to go to bed, he looked at the present that his Uncle Stephen gave him (light box with switch - pic coming soon) he looked at it and said, "Bye bye dark."

Jackson Update

Yesterday Jackson took 2 steps. Good sign. He hasn't tried since.

Today we had the appointment with the specialist. He agreed there wasn't a break, but thinks there's a fracture.

He said 85% of kids under the age of 2, with a slide injury (usually going down with a parent), who refuse to walk, have a fracture. To be 100% sure Jackson would need a bone scan. The bone scan requires putting him under, giving him an IV with dye, and then doing the scan. It's expensive and an unnecessary danger. The doctor said if it's positive, they still don't do anything. Therefore, there's no point in doing the bone scan. With 3-7 days he should start walking with a limp. In 3 weeks he should walk without a limp. If not, we have to go back in. But, we do have to keep him from climbing, jumping, or playing on structures. That will be fun!

All in all this is good news. Never thought that 1 - I'd say a fracture is good news or 2 - that I would in some way contribute to fracturing my son's leg.

The Evil Slide

These are pictures of Jackson having fun at the park before the evil slide.


This is the evil slide.After crawling up the slide, Jackson wanted to go down the curly slide face first alone. Mommy decided it would be safer if she went down with him. They went down the curly slide a few times and Jackson had a blast. Then, he wanted to go down the evil slide face first alone. Once again, Mommy decided to go down it with him so it would be safer. The slide was much smaller and faster than anticipated. Poor Jackson got banged up on the way down and his feet caught the sides a couple of times. We thought he'd be okay, but after he finally calmed down he still wouldn't put weight on his leg.

We ended up taking him to the ER for an x-ray. After sitting there for 4 hours, we learned it wasn't broken, but the doctor (who was the nicest ER doctor I've ever seen) thinks he damaged the ligaments or cartilage in his left knee. But, at his age the doctor didn't know what they would do. He didn't think they would operate at his age. So, now we have to take him to a specialist on Tuesday.

While we were there, we got to experience the bright spot of Katy. I know this type of things happens elsewhere, we haven't ever seen anything like this in Katy. A trashy, trashy man came limping out of his room. A nurse asked where he was going and he said out to smoke. She explained that he couldn't because it's a non-smoking campus. He said he didn't care (with slightly different words) and went out. Blood was seeping through the thick, white towel wrapped around his foot. He went anyway. When he came back all hell broke lose. He was told he was discharged and would have to check in again if he wanted to have his foot treated or receive pain medication. He went nuts, cussing, yelling, screaming and shoving. Poor Jackson got scared and started crying. We overheard he got shot in the foot. Interesting... They had to chase them down in the parking lot to get them to sign some paperwork.

Today was supposed to be spent celebrating Grandma Stockman's birthday. Things definitely didn't turn out like it was supposed to...

Jackson is sleeping right now. We hope he wakes up and can suddenly put weight on his leg.