Darr Family Blog

I’m beginning to sense a pattern. I don’t think we’re in a rut, per se…just choosing to take it easy for a while. This week was another laid-back type of a week. Oh, one cute thing happened on Sunday that I forgot to write about in last week’s blog post: Joseph and I went with Paul as he went home teaching. The family has a little girl about Joseph’s age, and she spent some of the time that we were there chasing Joseph around and tickling him. It was SO funny! He loves being chased, first of all, and second of all, when she would tickle him, he’d get all silly and scrunch up his shoulders and try to edge away from her (but just a bit…I think he liked it when she tickled him, lol). We couldn’t help but laugh at how cute it was. Now back to this week!

Monday we went to Sea World for about an hour in the evening, which was really fun, as usual. Joseph loves being able to look at the animals, as well as all the people that are there. I think we’ve decided that next year, we’re going to get passes to the zoo, because while it’s not as close as Sea World, it’s still relatively close (about 30 minutes away), there are (obviously) a lot more animals to see (which is what Joseph likes the most), and passes are quite a bit cheaper. We didn’t do much else because we needed to give Joseph some down-time to heal a bit. He’s handled this injury like a trooper!

Thursday, we had a bit of a full day. In the morning, we went back to the Urgent Care to get them to take Joseph’s stitches out (another sheet-wrapping ordeal since he understandably didn’t want to hold still for them to take out the stitches), we went to Target for a few things (where we found some cool Spiderman Band Aids to use for his face since it was bleeding a bit and we also wanted to protect his face for the first day at least), and then we stopped to pick up a few dollars worth of fireworks to set off later in the evening.

After a relaxing afternoon and a BBQ with just us (which was nice), we ended up going across the street to set off fireworks with our neighbors (who happen to be in our ward). Joseph had a lot of fun playing with their two kids, and he wasn’t scared of the fireworks like we thought he might be (of course, none of them were super loud). The really loud ones weren’t set off until quite a bit later, when it was dark. They were so loud (and so cool), I was afraid they’d wake up Joseph, but he slept through the night without a problem. One thing I love about living outside of city limits is that there were so many backyard shows. All I needed to do was look out my bedroom window and I got to enjoy pretty fireworks from the comfort of my bed. 🙂

One nice thing about the holiday is that Paul got Thursday and Friday off. He also has tomorrow off, but he’ll have Mondays off for a while due to budget cuts because of the sequestration. Hopefully when the new fiscal year starts in September, they won’t have to do furlough days (or at least not as many). After this 5-day “weekend”, Joseph might be one sad little dude come Tuesday when Daddy has to go back to work…Mommy will be sad, too…but that will be because I’ve already gotten used to having him home helping me out all day, as opposed to only being able to help out when he’s home in the evenings 😉 Saturday

Saturday was the one-week mark since Joseph’s (literal) run-in with the desk, so I thought I’d take a picture to show how quickly it’s healing. Saturday was also a fun day because we went to a couple of different farmers’ markets (and got some really good home-made bread) and the table and chairs we bought for Joseph came in. Now he has a place that is his size that he can use to color, play with cars, or just sit and hang out (which he did a lot of on Saturday). We’re really pleased with the quality of what we got.

All-in-all, a great week!

This week was another pretty uneventful week. The weekend? Well, we’ll get to that.

The weather has been pretty warm (high 90s-low/mid 100s), so we haven’t really done too much out of the house. We ventured once to the park (early in the morning), but had to leave before too long because it was getting uncomfortable. Here are some pictures of the park and hanging around the house:

Friday night, we decided to go to a place for dinner because we had some gift cards that our Realtor had given us as a housewarming gift. It’s called Logan’s Roadhouse. The atmosphere was really fun, and the food was really good. Here’s a picture Paul got of me and Joseph:

Now…for the crazy Saturday. It was great until right before nap time. Paul had just set Joseph down in the loft when he (Joseph, that is) decided to run, at top speed, across the loft. I’m not really sure why, but he didn’t stop in time, and ran straight into the edge of Paul’s desk. He got a pretty deep cut directly under his left eye. Paul was able to get the bleeding under control and a Band Aid on it, and I was able to get him calmed down enough to take his nap, but when he got up from his nap and it was still bleeding, we decided it was time for a trip to Urgent Care (enter the part where I’m really grateful for something in Texas that we didn’t have in California: a bunch of different medical clinics and small Urgent Cares that aren’t attached to a major hospital, and most are open 24/7). We went to one that was about 5 miles from our house, and they were able to see him right away. They were able to give him a topical anesthetic (as opposed to having to inject the anesthetic) via holding gauze which was soaked in the anesthetic over the cut for a certain amount of time. Then came the fun part *sarcasm*: they wrapped him in a sheet with me holding his legs, Paul holding his torso, and the nurse holding his head, while the doctor put two stitches in. He didn’t like this one bit, and let us know, quite loudly. He calmed down pretty quickly after we let him free, and stopped crying all together (mid-cry, in fact) as soon as he saw that he was going to get to take a small toy home (he chose a little plastic knight that we think he has started calling either “Silverman” or “Superman” (it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s saying). We took him home to relax after that. We have to go back on Thursday to see if the stitches can come out yet. Thankfully they’ll be open, even on a holiday. We really lucked out with the place that we went to.

Here are some pictures that Paul took while at church today:

And since I always like to leave things on a positive note, here are two videos that Paul was able to get earlier in the week:

This week was a pretty laid-back week. We didn’t really go anywhere or do anything until the weekend (other than grocery shopping and stuff, of course). It was nice to just hang around the house and relax. Joseph found new and exciting ways to use old toys:

He also fell back on a favorite past time:

Now for all the fun stuff:

Joseph is turning out to be more observant than we thought possible. The other day, I went to get him out of his crib after nap time and he noticed something…he noticed that I had changed the color of the polish on my toenails. I opened the door and started walking towards the crib. First he said, “Hi!” (almost always the first thing he says) and then he got all excited and said, “Toes!” repeatedly while pointing at my feet. When I got him out of his crib, he immediately crouched down so that he could get a closer look.

Last Monday, I gave Joseph a small Mickey Mouse stuffed animal. That thing has been his constant companion for almost a week straight now. I don’t know exactly when his love of Mickey Mouse started, but he really loves “da Mouse!” as he calls it:

He’s even gone so far as to make sure that Mickey’s oral hygiene is up to par. The other day, I saw him holding the top of his little blue maraca so that the handle part was free. He told Mickey to “Open mowf” and then he moved the handle back and forth in Mickey’s mouth, saying “Brush teef!” The best part was that both were said in a tone of voice that was almost identical to the one I use when I’m coaxing him to open his mouth so that I can brush his teeth.

Another story about our super-observant boy: A few days ago, we were walking down the stairs when Joseph noticed a small, black speck on the wall (a ding from when we moved furniture upstairs after first moving in). He pointed at it and said, “A spiduh! A spiduh!” Later that same afternoon, he had gotten a hold of a napkin and was squishing it into a crevice in the windowsill. He was using the same hand motions that I had been using when I squished a spider there a few days prior. I have also squished other spiders…I just never realized that he was paying that much attention to me, lol.

Two big milestones this week: We moved Joseph up a size in shoes. Paul and I had both noticed that his shoes were getting a bit snug, but when I realized one day that his toes were practically hanging over the edge of his sandals, I realized that a trip to Payless was in order.  We got him exactly what he had before (church shoes, velcro sandals, and Spiderman tennis shoes), just in the next size up. He’s now wearing size 7 shoes in toddlers. He just keeps growing so fast! The other milestone is that his occupational therapist agrees that we’re okay to stop doing therapy for Joseph’s eating. He’s been eating all table food for a few weeks now, and is no longer pocketing food in his cheeks. He’s also chewing a lot better. We just have to do an exit evaluation (basically for paperwork reasons) and he’ll be done. Way to go, little man!

Yesterday, we went to another farmers’ market. This one is in downtown San Antonio, and is more like a traditional farmers’ market (with a lot of fresh produce and baked goods) as opposed to the market day that we go to in Helotes (closer to home) which is more crafts and stuff. It was nice to walk around, it wasn’t too hot, Joseph loved seeing all the different people and their dogs (there were a LOT of dogs there), and we got some yummy food to take home. It was a nice trip downtown.

Finally, an update on Joseph’s singing. He’s still singing along to a lot of different things, which we find highly entertaining and ridiculously cute. Yesterday, I was changing his diaper and I started singing one of his favorite songs, to which he said, “No, no!” I tried a few other songs, but after a few words in on each of them, I got the same result. Finally, I started singing, “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam”. Not only did he let me sing it, but he started singing along with me! I was surprised with how much he knew (I’d say he knows about 75%). I guess they sing it in Nursery a lot. It’s good to know that he’s getting more out of Nursery than just playing with toys. Now, if we could get him to stop climbing up and standing up on the tables there (quite triumphantly, according to Paul who witnessed it as he picked him up from Nursery today), that would be great. 🙂