Happy 4th Birthday Mitchell-Pear!

Mitchell enjoying Chuck E Cheese!

Today, our oldest son, turns 4. I know it is very cliche to say, but it doesn't seem like he should be 4 already! Mitchell has always been my biggest Momma's child and I feel like he is still that little toddler that loved to cling to my leg and just be with me and no one else. But here he is, turning in to such a little man, enjoying his first year of preschool and just trying to find his place and explore his likes and dislikes. I would definitely classify him as my "spirited" child, very stubborn and strong-willed, but also the sweetest, most loving child. He is the first to give out a random "I love you" or to run in to your arms for a big hug.

Somewhere along the way, his nickname became Mitchell-Pear. I think it was Abigail that came up with this when she was about 3 and he was a year old. She just started calling him Mitchell-Pear one day and it stuck, with all of us. I love having little nicknames like that for the kids, they all have one and we use them frequently.

Right now at age 4, Mitchell is very much in to Hot Wheels, Toy Story 3 and his Geo Trax. When he can be outside he loves to play with his dump truck and hauls dirt everywhere. He is not so much in to sports right now, but would much rather push his truck all over, collecting whatever he can find. Mitchell is not afraid to get dirty! He likes to be rough and is definitely all boy, and he is very much looking forward to the day when he can wrestle more with his baby brother. He likes to always know what Abigail is doing and most of the time will change what he is doing just to be with her. He loves to color and is actually very good at it, not like most little boys. One of the workers at the YMCA actually commented on this and said she could not believe how well he colors!

We had a small family party for him yesterday, with a Toy Story 3 theme. He had one of his best buddies, Noah, over to celebrate and they had tons of fun running around the house and building some train tracks. They also chased or ran with Abigail and her friend Reaghan, the laughter and screeching in our house was wonderful! I loved to hear my big kids having such a fun time and even Hayden got in on the excitement!

The super cute cake!

Tonight, just for some added birthday thrills, we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese and met their friends Mary and AJ, along with their mom and dad, for some games and pizza. Mitchell was so elated to get a trip to Chuck E Cheese, as I am not a big fan and we don't go often. But to my surprise, it was not as bad as I had feared and we all had a great time. The pizza was good and we followed all the kids around as they tried out all the games they could with their cup full of tokens. And by the end of the night, they cashed in their accumulated tickets and chose their special prizes, which in our case was some rubber spiders and frogs! Oh, the small items that make kids giddy with joy!

So, this is a very big happy birthday to our Mitchell-Pear, who always keeps us on our toes and is our little comedian. We get so many laughs from the crazy things he says or does and we love that God blessed us with this sweet little blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy 4 years ago today.

The Vacuum Cleaner

Boys do some of the funniest things and it never ceases to amaze me what Mitchell will come up with. He is so different from Abigail in so many ways. Abigail has always, from a very young age, thought things through and weighed out risk vs. reward. Mitchell, on the other hand, just acts and thinks about the consequences later. This way of thinking came in to play over the past few days.

Rewind to Monday at naptime or what was suppose to be naptime. He was up after his regular amount of rest, so I went in to get him. To my surprise, I find that he has been up for a while just playing in his room, but doing so quietly. I turn the light on and see a rather large red mark on his forehead. I thought that it was a sleep mark, from lying on the same spot for a long period of time, but when I touched it I saw that it was kind of raw. I asked him what had happened and he said he didn't know. The next day the place looked much worse and I could tell that it was a rug burn of some kind. Tuesday night while Steve was getting Mitchell ready for bed, he asked him again what happened to his forehead. Mitchell, very matter of fact, told him that he was pretending to be a vacuum cleaner and cleaned his entire room during his nap the day before. My son had put his forehead to the carpet and preceded to scoot around the entire room, so much that he made a large rug burn on himself! Never once did he cry out or make any indication that it was painful during his "cleaning" of the carpet. Only afterwards, when I touched it, did he say "Ow, that hurts a little." And to make this whole event even more hilarious, he had his 3 year old Preschool pictures take at school on Thursday, with a very scabbed & red forehead!

Oh, my Mitchell...never a dull moment and I am sure there are many more of these incidents to come in our life! One thing is for sure, he will always be able to keep us guessing about what he will do next and hopefully, we will always be able to laugh about it afterwards! And having another little boy behind him, that already thinks he is the coolest, means double the fun down the road!

Mitchell in the hospital

Everything is okay now, but we had a big scare 2 weeks ago with Mitchell. We noticed on Monday night (8/11) that he had what appeared to be a small pimple on his lower back/tailbone area. When I felt it, I could feel some hardness under the surface. At this point, Steve & I were fairly certain it was the start of an abscess because just last October Abigail had one under her arm. After going to the dr on Tues & Wed and it not getting any better, but actually growing quite rapidly, we were told on Thurs that Mitchell would have to be admitted to Children's Hospital for surgery & IV antibiotics. It was one of the scariest things we have had to go through as parents! Before going to the hospital on Thurs, Mitchell was running a 104 degree fever, was very lethargic and could barely walk and could not bend over, he was in too much pain. It was heartbreaking to see him in that much pain!

We were admitted on Thurs afternoon, the surgeons came in Thurs late afternoon and determined that the abscess would have to be opened up and packed to get the rest of the infection out (our pediatrician had lanced it in the office on Wed, but there seemed to still be quite a bit of infection still there). They did the surgery Thurs around 8pm, he did not go under anesthetic, but instead they put a topical numbing cream on the abscess. I stayed in his room while Steve went into the surgery with him. It only took 10 minutes and he came out a much happier little man! The surgery immediately made him feel better, as the pressure from the abscess was so painful. For the first time in 3 days, he was playing and eating again! It was so nice to see his smile again!

The doctors decided to keep us in the hospital until Saturday afternoon, so they could keep Mitchell on IV antibiotics and monitor his open wound. Mitchell was discharged on Saturday afternoon with oral antibiotics to continue at home. He still had the packing in, but they wanted to make sure that if there was any infection left that it would be able to drain on it's own. We went back to the pediatrician's office the following Monday and had the packing removed.

Mitchell is still recovering, but is doing great. His appetite is back in full force and he is up playing and laughing like his old self. He still has a bandage on and the wound is still healing, but it is looking better & better each day!

Steve & I were so proud of Mitchell during this entire ordeal. He was such a brave little boy the entire time. He was always telling the doctors & nurses "thank you" even after they would do something that hurt him. He went through a great deal, but tried to always keep a little smile on his face! We are so thankful to God that He healed our son and that He is still healing him now!!

Some Mitchell translations

I thought it would be fun to record some of the different words that Mitchell uses at the time for certain things and some of the things he is saying right now. He is talking really well now and a lot (I must here "Mommy" 1000 times a day!) But he still has some words that need some translation, here are a few of them I can think of!

GaGa= Abigail
Oh-Ah-Ah= Monkey
Ni-Nite= His crib
Babi= Paci
Bawk-Bawk= Chicken (Abigail also used this one!)
Jooge= Curious George
Melmo= Elmo (another that Abigail used)

And on to some of the funny/cute things he has said to us in the past few weeks:

Mommy, I go poopy (as he points to his bottom and sure enough there is a dirty diaper!)
Mommy, eye hurt (he did have something in it that was irritating his eye)
Mommy, I go bye-bye

He is also very big into animal sounds right now. He can make the sound for snake, bear, lion, frog (my personal fave), kitty, doggy, elephant, and monkey.

So, all in all, our baby is growing up! He is getting too big, too fast! Last night we found out that he knows how to blow his nose, another step to needing Mommy a little less every day and that makes me sad! He is our big boy, but he will always by my baby!