The Only Child

Oh, the many faces of Walker...

Are you coming, Mama?

Jake left yesterday to go spend a few days with Tyson's mom, so it's just me and Walker these next few days. (Tyson starts "lock down" tomorrow, so he's super busy with work). I forget how nice (and easy) it is with just one child; I'm pretty sure my blood pressure is a lot lower than it has been in about a year and a half. ;)

Tyson and I were actually able to watch 2 movies last night after Walker went down without having to worry about the constant interruption of "I need to go potty!", "I don't want to sleep all by myself!", "I need my Buzz Lightyear!" I was also even able to sleep until 7:45 this morning versus having my 6:45 little alarm clock come crawl in bed with me. Ha!

All joking aside, we miss Jake very much. Walker seems lost without his big brother, and in all honesty, I kinda miss the chaos. I'm sure I'll be eating my words soon enough, though. ;)

A Zoo of a Day

Another new elephant

I've wanted to take the boys to the zoo for a while now, but it's just been too hot. Well, this morning, Jake was begging to go, so I thought we'd give it a try and go for a little while. I went ahead and put on Jake's bathing suit to wear to the zoo, though, so we could hit the pool immediately after we left. Let me tell you, that was one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever had. We grabbed something to eat after we left and went straight to the pool.

The boys had so much fun at the zoo! This was the first time I've let Walker get out of the stroller and walk around, and he loved it! He tried so hard to do everything his big brother would do. So so sweet. I'm so glad we fought the heat and went to the zoo.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Media Guide Pic for 2011

It's that time of the year again to submit a family photo for the UAB Football Media Guide. I thought I'd be smart this year and have a professional (well, semi-professional...ok, just a friend with a fancy camera and some great editing software) take the picture. Well, my semi-professional's computer crashed, and she had only sent me a few pictures before it crashed. :( Long story short, we didn't have very many pictures to choose from, and to make matters worse, we didn't have very many pictures to choose from that Jake wasn't making a ridiculous face in. Oh well, I'm so over these Media Guide pics! Does anyone even look at those things anyways besides my Dad? Ha!

Football season is right around the corner! I can't believe it! I've been trying to prepare myself for "single motherhood," but I'm pretty sure it's just not one of those things you can ever be prepared for. I just keep telling myself that I'm in such a better place than I was last year...Walker wasn't sleeping well meaning I wasn't sleeping well, Jake was going through a difficult phase and giving me lots of problems, and I didn't get to see my family much because traveling was so difficult at that time for my parents and me. We've got a pretty difficult schedule this season, but I'm ready! Here is a copy of the schedule in case I haven't posted it before now: http://uabsports.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/sched/albr-m-footbl-sched.html Go Blazers!

Allergy Testing

I took this picture with my phone, so it might not be the best quality. Anyways, I took Walker to the allergist today, and they decided to do a skin test on him to see what all he's allergic to. In the picture, there are 3 main red spots- 1 on the upper mid-left and 2 on the lower left. The upper one is the control and should be positive, and the other 2 are positive for peanuts and eggs. I'm not sure which one is which, though. Either way, my baby boy is allergic to eggs and peanuts. :(

I had NO CLUE he was allergic to peanuts! I've fed him peanut butter a good bit, and he hasn't had a problem. The allergist didn't think his allergy to peanuts is as severe as his egg allergy, but we still have to avoid it for the rest of his life. Oh, but here's the crazy thing, he wants me to give him a teaspoon of peanut butter a month to build up his tolerance.

As far as Walker's egg allergy, we'll do some blood work in about 1 year to assess the severity, but due to Walker's reaction, they think it's pretty severe. I can't remember if I blogged about his reaction- it was right around Walker's first birthday, and I had scrambled some eggs for the boys. It was the first time I had ever fed Walker eggs, so I was watching him pretty closely since I know it is a common allergen. Sure enough, he almost immediately broke out in hives, started swelling around his eyes and lips, and then began gagging. I immediately grabbed the Benadryl and "poured it down his throat" (as my cousin, Christy, would say). I've never given him whole eggs since, but I've continued to cook things with eggs in it and have never noticed a problem.

The allergist wants us to go this next month without giving Walker anything that may contain eggs or egg proteins. I had no clue how many foods contained these ingredients, but unfortunately, it seems like it's already about 75% of his current diet. But we can do this for month, and then hopefully after his immune system recovers, we can start re-introducing some eggs into his diet again in the next month or so.

One positive about the egg allergy is that Walker should outgrow it by age 5, thank goodness! For now, though, we will be carrying around an epi-pen and Benadryl and reading labels on everything! ;)

Alright, I gotta go do some researching on foods my sweet boy can eat. Have a great weekend everyone!

15 Months Old!

This past Sunday, Walker turned 15 months old. We have an appointment at the end of the month for his 15 month check-up, so I'll get back to y'all on his stats. He looks like he's starting to slim down some and slow down on his growth, though.

What's new with Walker:

• He has started saying a lot of new words this month. I'm sure I'm going to forget some, but here goes: juice (milk), ball, dog, no!, mine!, Max (our neighbor's dog), Pa Pa (my mom), and back pack (from Dora). He's really been mimicing a lot of our words lately, like "uh, oh" and "peekaboo" and "thank you" but he doesn't say those consistenly yet.




• He can feed himself with a spoon.




• He is such a climber! He can get up on pretty much all of the furniture (including the kitchen table) and can also get down pretty safely without help.




• He says "ROAR" if you ask him what sound an animal (any animal) makes.




• He walks 100% of the time and is even trying to run now.

• He has 10 teeth (4 upper front, 3 lower front, and 3 molars) and is about to cut his last molar.

Walker is still such a sweet and happy (and silly) baby. Unlike his big brother, he LOVES attention when we're in public. He is constantly blowing people kisses, waving hello or bye bye to them, or just giving them his flirtatious little smile. We definitely have a little charmer on our hands!

I'm taking Walker to the allergist on Thursday to be tested for food allergies and other allergies. I know he's allergic to eggs, and our pediatrician said that food allergies usually come in multiples. Since Walker has been so sick so much in the last few months, I'm really hoping that we get some answers. I think they are going to skin test him, too, for some other things; he seems to be severely allergic to grass and he is so sensitive to even the most hypoallergenic sunblock. It will be interesting to see what we find out. Prayers would be appreciated! Thanks!

Just Another Monday at the Pool

This kid LOVES to drink the pool water! Yuck!

The only way I can ever get Jake to look at the camera is to say something silly like, "Jake, does Mommy have an elephant on her head?" He falls for it everytime. ;)

This one just won't slow down long enough for me to take a good picture...

...until I catch him flirting with the pool monitor.

Here are a few pictures of the boys at the pool this morning. We had a fun play date at the pool with the Maddens and Jake and Ryan's friend, Kyle, and his sisters. I didn't catch any pictures of the play date, though, because we were way too busy having fun and chasing kids. :)

We All Scream For...

ICE CREAM!!!

I know these aren't the best pictures of my two, but I realized today that I haven't snapped very many pictures of the boys this week for the grandparents.

We've been spending a lot of time at this ice cream shop down the road from our house. We usually go to the pool in the mornings, eat lunch, nap, and then hit the ice cream shop before heading back to the pool or home to play. The store has a little mini-cone that is the perfect size for Walker, and he gobbles it right up. Well, there's not much he doesn't gobble right up these days. He does love an ice cream cone, though, almost more than the ice cream itself. It's kind of a running joke in our family that whenever we get done with our ice cream, we always hand our cones to Walker. He never turns one down. ;)

Jake is obsessed with this bubble gum ice cream, but only because it's blue. The kid doesn't even like bubble gum! Anyways, there are all these little gum balls in the ice cream, and the owner of the store thinks it is so incredibly cute that Jake spits the gum balls out that he gave Jake a "spit cup" and took a picture of Jake doing it so he could post it on his wall! Ha! I kind of don't know whether to be flattered or embarrassed. ;)

As of tomorrow, our vacations end and Tyson and I go back to work. :( Such a bummer! Anyways, I hope you all have a great weekend!

The Movies!

Jake in front of the movie theater.

Me to Jake: What did you think about the movie?

Jake: Well....

Jake got to go to the movies today for the first time, and we saw Cars 2. Tyson is still having a rough time with his wisdom teeth, so he stayed at home with Walker while he napped and Jake and I had a little date to the movies.

I've really been looking forward to taking Jake to his first movie, but it didn't go quite as I expected. I kind of set myself up, though, by choosing to let Jake skip his afternoon nap to go to the movies. Bad idea. Jake started getting so tired watching the movie that the only thing he could do to stay awake (after he downed the tub of popcorn) was to walk around. He kept leaning over the stadium seats and looking at the kid in front of him. Hahaha. I felt awful for the family, so I finally called it a day about 3/4 of the way through the movie (and 2 potty breaks later) and headed home.

Jake is usually pretty awesome about being able to sit still and watch an entire movie without budging, but that just wasn't the case today. Next time, I'm going to make sure he is well rested and well equipped with plenty of popcorn.

My Little Fish

Here he goes...

One proud Daddy...
...and one proud little brother.

I completely forgot about these pictures I took at the beach of Jake swimming. He had his last swim lesson on the Wednesday before we left for Georgia, and by that last lesson, he still wasn't swimming. Well, I took him to the pool on Thursday (the next day), and he just decided he was ready. Once he figured out how to swim, he was good to go.

We got lots of chances to practice swimming while we were on vacation since our "pimp" house had this quaint little swimming pool. By the end of the week, Jake was jumping off into the pool and swimming all the way to the steps without coming up for air. I'm so proud of him...I really was afraid it was going to take forever for him to swim. It just goes to show that he can do whatever he wants once he makes up his mind to do it. Now, if only I could find a way to get him to make up his mind that he should be sweet to his brother and mind his Mama and Daddy. ;)

The Beach: Part 2

Is it possible to have 2 mama's boys? Because I'm pretty sure I do. :)My parents and my boys. It was a little windy that day...can you tell?
Jake was obsessed with finding jellyfish! There seemed to be a lot more than normal this year. Yuck!

My parents and all of their grandchildren...except for Baby Girl Howell who is due in November!

While there aren't actually any pictures of us at the beach in this part, these are the last of our "beach pictures." Man, I wish we were still there! Instead, we are cooped up in our house while Tyson recovers from having all 4 wisdom teeth and some bone in his jaw removed yesterday. What a way to end your 4 week vacation, huh? I'll try to get some pictures for the blog of my little chipmunk while he's not looking. :) Have a safe and happy 4th of July weekend!