Thursday was a sort of a bad day all the way around...Everyone has had one of those so I won't go into details. Friday was slated to be an incredibly full day...preparing for the graduation breakfast (at work by 6:45), the breakfast starting at 7:30, marshalling graduation at ~ 8:30 or so, shopping for speaker gifts for a program after that, picking up Kellen and getting out of town by 11, swinging by Conroe to drop off the dog and getting to the dr in Houston for the TMJ follow-up by 1. Yeah right..It ended up being a Murphy's Law morning...I couldn't get into the main office to start setting up for breakfast (new lock system and my ID wasn't coded yet), so I had to call a co-worker at 6:45 on their cell - luckily, that individual begins their day very early, so he was able to let me in within 5 minutes of the phone call. Everything smooth until checking out getting the speaker gifts and we managed to get a slower-than-molases checker....yadda, yadda, yadda..managed to get to Kellen's day care and wrangle him off of the play ground from his last splash day of the summer (stake in my heart - thank you very much), dry him off and get his clothes changed, and we're at the house at a little after 11. Off we go to Conroe..only now it's about 11:20..take the Millican road because it's shorter, right? HAH!! Unbeknownst to us, there is 10 miles of construction going on...no..there were no signs warning us..with the road down to 1 lane...man-oh-man...back on HW 6 and we finally get to Conroe...dump the dog, grab something to drink and we're hightailing it to the dr's office..mind you it's now 12:40...and let me remind you that my appt is at 1....a couple of phone calls to the office later (just to make sure they knew we were actually coming), we get there at 1:35 and zoom into the office. Apparently on Fridays the last appointment is at 1 and the dr usually leaves by 1:30 or so...they were all waiting around for me...*grin*
So...we chat about my jaws progress, or lack thereof, actually. Since we seem to have stalled on the oral steroids he decides to progress to muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory meds to see if those will loosen things up. And he wants to see me back in 2 weeks. I asked about what happens if these don't work and he mentioned steroid injections. I think he must have seen the frustrated look on my face because he patted my shoulder and said, "We will get this better. It will get fixed." It was reassuring to know that he has some sort of understanding about how frustrating this entire process has been.
So we leave the dr's office and the fun part of the weekend begins..We go out to eat at a little diner and Kellen keeps Matt and I in stiches! We walk in and all of the sudden he starts saying "Burrito." I'm not quite sure where he got the idea for that, but he kept saying it over and over, and louder and louder. (By the way, there were no burritos on the menu...). He was so cute during lunch...He didn't really want much of his food, but wanted Mommy's pasta and roll. It was just so nice for all three of us to be together...with no time constraints.
After lunch we took Kellen to the Downtown Aquarium.
He loved looking at the fish..liked the "big phish" and the "Nemo!"
But I think his favorite was the turtles, he actually got away from us a couple of times and went back through several exhibits to watch the turtles for a while. He kept asking for more turtles...too cute! I was really glad that it wasn't too crowded, because Kellen didn't really have too much of a concept of other people - he kept plowing through them when he saw something that he wanted to look at. We did mosey and take our good sweet time, and when we were all through looking at all of the exhibits, including the new white tiger exhit, we went to the interactive exhibit area.
They have several interactive exhibits at the end of the inside section. One part is where kids can climb underneath the water areas and see the stingrays and fish swimming around above them. Kellen actually did that a couple of times and I think enjoyed it. He made sure that he could see Mommy and Daddy while he was under there, but I think he liked seeing the fish from a different perspective. He liked that when we took him to the zoo, too - only that time he and Daddy were in the bubble together.
The other interactive exhibits they have are where you can touch and look at some different things. Kellen had so much fun trying to touch the stingray! There was one that was particularly friendly, even jumping out of the water a little close to Kellen a couple of times. I guess they are pretty used to human contact, so it doesn't really bother them too much. He did actually get to touch it once or twice and I'm not sure that he knew what to make of that. I guess he liked it, since he kept wanting to touch it over and over again.
Also part of the inside interactive exhibit is this cute photo opp. Such a great water suit with the aquatic background. In the larger picture you can see that is looks like a whole aquatic scene with plants and fish, etc. Matt worked really hard to try and get Kellen to pose for this shot.
After we were finished with the inside fun, we went outside, put a swim diaper on Kellen, and let him loose in the water. He got nailed a couple of times by the water sprouting up - but didn't seem to mind one single bit! He loves the water so much! He had such a great time playing! So much so that I stopped feeling guilty about taking him away from his splash day early...this was so much better! AND, he got to play in the water twice in one day...he was in Kellen-heaven!! We had wanted to go and see Tom since we were in downtown Houston, but couldn't get ahold of him...and we were running out of time as it was about 5 - and we were in downtown Houston at 5 o'clock - yikes.... So we decided to head back to Conroe. Kellen was so worn out that he crashed about 10 minutes after getting into the truck and on the road. We started out making good time and then the Murphy's Law day kicked into gear again, but it was ok...we just took a little bit of a scenic route back to Conroe. Then Matt and I took the night off from Mommy & Daddy duties and relaxed at the townhouse. We both really needed that....
Saturday morning hit with a jolt - literally - I woke up with a killer migraine - two Imitrex later and by mid-day I was feeling somewhat better...and we were heading back to College Station. Matt and I had a very productive afternoon. I managed to get the grass mowed while Matt was getting the materials to frame out the flower beds, and when he got back he weed eated and then got them installed as much as he could with the ground as hard as it was. It's going to look so nice when it's finished! As he was working on that Kellen was just playing outside - Mommy slacked off and didn't put any insect stuff on him and he's covered in mosquito bites today...he's got Mommy's blood and the mosquitos love him - I should have known better than to have done that...and Mommy pulled the weeds from the walkway and trimmed the drive way with the red bricks that used to be the flower bed in the front. It looks kind of nice that like and is at least a use for those bricks - at least something other than having them stacked up, which is what they have been. What was so funny is that while I was pulling the weeds from the walkway, Kellen was managing to find things to pull from inside the gate and was mimicking me. It was so cute and he tries to be so helpful! If I wasn't worried about the ants I would have let him help us, which he would have just loved to do.
Matt's on a 36-hour shift today, and Kellen and I have just played around today. We've watched some videos, played with trucks and stuffed animals, read some books, and I've cleaned up around the house. We've just had so much fun! (Except for his incurable desire to get into the DVD cabinet...it doesn't seem that any amount of spankings and standing in the hallway can take that urge away - what is that???)
Such a fun day...and other than the migraine...such a fun weekend...I started my new meds tonight and I'm really starting to feel them. I just looked at the clock and realized that it's almost 10:30...and I started this post at about 8...hmmm...I hope that it makes sense...but I did upload a lot of pictures and have to move them around some..which took some time...stilll, I'm so glad that it was such a fun weekend...I need a handful of those put together...oh wait..that's called a vacation, right?
Honey, *crossing fingers*, here's to the muscle relaxants. Go easy on yourself kiddo.
ReplyDeleteAnd how can you possibly stand how cute he is! I love the aquarium pics.
If it makes you feel any better, James has the same DVD/Video fascination. I can't keep him out of them. I told Chris that he needs to build me some wall shelves for them or pretty soon there won't be anything left to try and keep.