2nd Cruise, 1st Fracture, "Um" & Alien Confirmed

18 Months, 18 Month & 1 Week, 18 Months & 2 Weeks

It is always hard to get back in the swing of things after being gone on vacation… and getting the first blog out is always tough.  It will be better next week! 

So 3 weeks ago, we spent the majority of our time getting ready to go on our trip!  I really can’t recall anything else or anything major that happened with Tyson.

Onto our vacation… we had a really good time!  We went on a cruise with Heath’s parents and Heath’s cousin, Joel (who had never cruised before).  We did have a few hiccups along the way, but it makes it interesting!  We left for Boston on Friday afternoon and barely made our 9 PM flight.  We had trouble with both of our flights coming and going with our boarding passes not printing out and them not accepting us checking our car seat (at first).  But we made it!  Ty did fairly well overall on the flights.  We did have to do some walking around and some bribing of the munchies (which is his new nickname, by the way… “Munchie”, since he could munch on snacks all day long if he could), but we got through it.  One of the first hiccups was missing our shuttle bus to our hotel at nearly 1 AM.  We eventually got to our hotel to find out that we had smoking rooms.  Long story, but I had booked the rooms with our credit card points and it does not guarantee you non-smoking rooms, basically you get whatever is left… and they were “completely” full.  Well, we were able to finagle one non-smoking room so Tyson didn’t have to breathe in the smoke.  I definitely will never book a hotel with my credit card points again.  Then our hiccups continued when we got up in the AM, ready to get to the cruise ship.  I had called a couple of weeks back and had found the cheapest taxi around, got a quote, and called them for a pick-up.  They told me that they weren’t running in our area that day and couldn’t come.  So we booked another taxi and proceeded to wait for them for 1 hour and 40 minutes.  I am not exaggerating.  We called a couple of times, but they said that they had our reservation and were very busy and never could give us an ETA.  We finally broke down and paid the $11 per person for the shuttle from the hotel, since we were so desperate.  It would have been $15-20 total for two taxis, but what can you do?  It was just ridiculous.

Tyson can't believe that we actually made it on the ship!

First day on the ship with Grammy

Really quick… just the other ridiculous things that happened...first of all, our weather wasn’t great.  Our first stop was in the Bahamas – Princess’ private island.  It was pouring rain and there were 7 foot seas, so they would not release the tender boats to go to the island.  So they cancelled our stop.  That was a bummer.  The worst bummer of the trip was that on Wednesday (the day we arrived in Aruba), Tyson decided that he was Superman and tried to fly off the bed.  I am not joking.  I was sitting on the bed with him, when he flew right over my legs.  I tried to catch him, but I couldn’t, and he fell off the bed, landing on his right shoulder.  After some consoling, he seemed fine, so we went to breakfast.  That’s when we noticed that he wasn’t using his right arm at all.  We brought him into the medical center, where 2 different doctors examined him.  Tyson is so stoic with doctors.  He never cries for his shots.  So he was very quiet and let them do every range of motion test you can do on a person.  They both thought that nothing was broken and that he  just sprained something in his shoulder area.  We brought him back the next day for a recheck, since he was still not using his right arm.  Again, the same thing… nothing seemed broken, so they didn’t recommend an Xray.  It was not until we had gotten off the ship on Saturday, that all of a sudden, Tyson had a big lump over his right collar bone.  It was pretty obvious then that it was broken.  I still don’t totally understand why he had the lump 3 days later.  He didn’t fall and reinjure it, so either there was so much swelling that you couldn’t see or feel the lump or because he sleeps on his stomach… did direct pressure to it cause it to worsen?  Not sure.  But in any case, my poor little man broke a bone.  He was pretty quiet that first day (Ty and I stayed on the ship and rested and didn’t even set foot on Aruba, unfortunately), but otherwise it has not slowed him down in the slightest!  He plays just as hard as he ever does.  He knows where his “booboo” is and points right to it when asked. 

A little subdued on the bed (we regressed quite a bit on this trip with binky unfortunately)

Despite the fracture, Ty had a great time.  He just loved looking at everything and pointing at everything.  He has started to do “Ohhhh…. Ohhhh” when he really thinks something is cool.  He started imitating a few more words when asked, which was good.  We had bubbles in one of our elevators and he said, “bubbles” when we asked him.  We figured out on his trip that he is obsessed with birds.  Basically, anything in the air… because when we came home, he went “Ohhh… ohhh…” and pointed at a black fly!  He tried to imitate some of their sounds and would go “Caw…caw.”  After the cruise, we went to the Everglades for a day and took an airboat ride.  We saw a bunch of peacocks at the Everglades park and Ty just loved them.  He called him “cockcocks!” (=  So cute.  What else happened with him?  We did have a bit of trouble with him falling asleep for bedtime and naps with us in the room with him.  I figured out a plan and kicked Heath out for the falling asleep period.  I would put him down like regular and then pretended I was leaving the room – actually opened and closed the door… and then I went and sat by the bathroom (reading with my headlamp) until he fell asleep.  It worked like a charm!  It just took a bit to figure that out!  Oh, his newest word he uses ALL THE TIME!  We were trying to get him to say, “Yum” – when he ate something that he liked.  He kind of drops the “y” and says, “Um… Um.”  But he will say, “Um, um, um” when he sees something he wants.  It’s pretty cute. 

Loving the pink and purple ATV in the kids area

Playing a little mini-golf!

Getting his feet wet in the kiddie pool (can you believe it said that no diapers "of any form" would be allowed in the pools?  Not even swim diapers!!!  Crazy.)

Enjoying the airboat ride - we got to see 10 alligators!

What do they say about the best laid plans?  We had tried to plan it out perfectly to do “Movies Under the Stars” on that Thursday night on the ship.   It’s a really cool feature that Princess cruises have.  It is a ginormous movie screen on the top deck that plays movies.  So you sit back with the sea breeze blowing through your hair and watch a movie “under the stars.”  It is fun.  Of course Ty is not watching TV officially yet and there is no way it would hold his attention that long anyway… so we first thought we couldn’t do it with him.8  But then we figured that we would go to the late showing at 10:15 PM.  So around 8:30 PM, I headed back to the room and went to put Ty down.  Heath and the rest of the crew would save us seats and once Ty was good and asleep – we would be able to pick him up and just hold him while we watched the movie.  When Ty is asleep, he is out.  You can pick him up and move him and he stays right asleep.  Well, it just happened to be that he had a HORRIBLE time going to sleep that night.  I don’t know what it was.  I tried the trick I had been doing and nothing worked.  He only fell asleep about 15 minutes before we had to go to the movie.  He actually did stay asleep through picking him up and walking all the way to our seats.  Heath made an error in judgment, though.  He tried to make a little “bed” between his legs and lay him down there.  As soon as he laid him down between his legs, a gust of wind came up and woke him right up!!!!  All that planning down the tubes!!!!  So there was Tyson, wide awake, watching “War Horse” with us until 11:30 PM at night!  After an hour he actually did fall asleep again and stayed asleep this time!

We had been on Princess before and had loved it.  We weren’t as impressed this time with the food, but it was OK.  My Dad thinks that we are becoming “cruise snobs” – maybe that is actually the problem!  No, it was just difficult with a vegetarian baby.  They have a kids cruise menu, but it was terrible.  They did not have the usual staples of mac n’ cheese, grilled cheese, or pizza that a vegetarian kid lives on, when they go out to eat.  They only had hamburgers, hot dogs, and spaghetti and meatballs etc.  One night I got desperate and got fish sticks for Ty.  He wouldn’t touch them.  Poor Ty lived on pasta and fruit.  Oh, and bread!  He was so funny – we would get to our table in the dining room and most of the time there would be bread in baskets waiting for us there.  Ty would look for it right away and start going to town!  A couple of times we got to the table and there wasn’t any bread yet.  Ty would point at the empty table and whine.  Funny, but the whining is annoying.  A couple of funny stories about food… one night we asked our waiter (from India, I think) if they would make us a grilled cheese for Tyson.  He looked at me funny, but said that he could do that.  Soon he brought out the grilled cheese.  2 slices of melted cheese on a plate!!!!  And he told me that they couldn’t grill it on the grill, because it would have just stuck to the grill – so they put it in the microwave! (=  I wasn’t going to even make it an issue, but he could tell from the look on my face that it wasn’t what I was expecting.  After an explanation of how to make a grilled cheese, Tyson got it!  But I didn’t try that again.  The last night the menu was doubly bad and I really didn’t want Tyson eating fettucine alfredo again, so I asked our waiter if they could get Ty a piece of cheese pizza.  He said he had to ask the maitre d, but the maitre d said, “No.”  I couldn’t believe it.  So when the waiter told me that, I calmly said that we would go get one ourselves.  So off Heath went, got a piece of pizza, and brought it back into the dining room.  We couldn’t believe that one! 

He is just like Poppy and can't get enough of watermelon!

Happy with another one of his favorites... milk!

I’m sure I’m forgetting a hundred stories, but this blog can’t go on forever.  Last week consisted of us unpacking, doing laundry, and getting back into the swing of work.  Our first order of business was to take Ty to the doctors first thing on Monday to check out his collar bone.  Poor thing had a tough time having the Xray done.  I had forgotten that I wouldn’t be able to hold him because of the pregnancy – so two people had to hold him down as he screamed.  It was terrible, but he calmed right down afterward.  He has to wear this figure 8 brace to hold his shoulders back to keep the collar bone aligned.  He doesn’t fight it at all and has been using his right arm much more now!  He has to wear it for 3 weeks and then will have a recheck done.  The lump still looks pretty bad - I’m afraid it’s always going to be like that.  But we’ll see...

As soon as we had stepped foot into the house on Sunday night, he went right for his ATV!  I think he missed his toys!

His splint

Front view... Heath calls him his "little football player"

Does not slow him down in the slightest!

Putting clothes away

Still smiling though!

One exciting thing that happened last Wednesday is that I went to see my friend in the ultrasound department after my shift.  So I got to see the little bugger!  I was so bummed that I wouldn’t have an ultrasound until 18-20 weeks, so Heath said that I could go ahead without him.  I felt bad, but I was able to take videos of the ultrasound on my phone to show Heath when I got home.  The baby was moving like crazy and we could see that it has 2 arms and 2 legs and it waved at us!  It was so good to see!  The best part is to see the heart beating.  It just makes me feel like everything is going to be OK when I see that!  I had felt so good on our cruise with the nausea, (except during the rough flights on the way back) but then I had two rough days when I got home.  So I don’t think I am out of the woods yet.  But close! 

Our little alien

Just a foot!

I think that is about all.  If I remember something really important, I’ll add it in next week!  It’s good to be back.  I have heard many comments to get this blog back up and running, so I’m glad we were missed!  Have a good week!  A few more random shots...