Raymond Russell Park

We had a blast at the park two weekends ago. Can't wait till the next time.


He loves his swing



Picnic Time!

Our Spread

Tunnels



Since Great-Meemaw and Great-Pawpaw were nearby, we went to be with them as well.



Multi-Tasker

Saying cheese and getting situated on the slide is harder than it looks y'all!

18 months

Dear Andrew,

We have successfully survived the 1st year and a half of your life! Amazing how quickly the time goes by when we are watching, learning and loving you. The last few months have been such a whirlwind! As soon as you figured out how to run, you were gone. And fast! The language that you speak is far from English, more like Klingon, but the way you speak it is so much more advanced than I ever thought an 18 month old would be talking like.  You use so much inflection and emotion with your words it hardly seems real.  Your use of exclamation and question are so right on.  It is truly amazing to hear you talk.  Your "real" words are coming slowly.  You know where everything is and how it works.  Animal noises are a sinch for you.  Just the other day when I was about to talk your picture I just threw out there "Say Cheese"  and you said "Cheese"!  Amazing! 

Say Cheese!

Your favorite thing is the wagon at Mee-Maw and Paw-Paw's house.  You could sit in there and be pulled around all day ... well, with a little bit of swimming added in for good measure.  I swear sometimes we have a fish in our house.  Loves the water, this one. 

loving his wagon

You are so very tall now .. tall enough to reach the doorknobs but not yet wise enough to figure out what they are there for.  Thank goodnes!  You play with each and every one of your toys at least once when you get home from daycare, much to your daddy's and my chagrin.  And you figured out how to climb on and off of things, I mean everything.  Holy moly!  You are my heart attach waiting to happen ... thank goodnes for baby gates.

Everyday is a new adventure with you ... literally.  You make me so very happy little man!

Happy 18 months old!

I love you more than you know,

Momma


My sweet baby boy ... what difference 1 1/2 years makes!



  

Conquering the slide







Water baby



Sunnies

First experience with Mom's sunglasses. Glad the weren't expensive ones. Once I got them back, they were nice and greasy, Gross!

Water Hose

Yesterday since it was 106*, we decided to experiment with the water hose. It was Andrew's first time plaing with it. It took him a little while to become comfortable with the water but once he did, you couldn't take it away.

Mother's Day

Since Andrew had the "poop" incident, he is needing some everyday shoes.  After work today we went over to La Cantera to meet Clay and get some new shoes for little man.  Andrew usually gets fed dinner at 6:00p and we still had about an hour before then to browse and shop.  During that time, Clay thought it would be great to celebrate my Mother's Day while we were out and eat at PF Changs.  YUM!  I did not argue with that decision one bit.  It was not that busy inside so we were seated very quickly.  We sat Andrew down in the highchair like normal and he sat there like the sweet little boy that he is.  I looked over to my right and a little girl maybe a few months older than Andrew was sitting there eating her rice and chicken so calmly and quietly and I was thinking to myself, Andrew is soo good.  He can do that also and more.  I swear he heard what I was thinking because I had just turned to him to give him a kiss and he turned on me.  The sweet little angel that was just sitting there became unhinged.  Rice was flying, you had to duck from the broccoli and he was inches from tumbling out of the highchair. So to alleviate the situation, I opted to take him out of the restaurant to calm him down a bit.  We walked outside for a while and when he had regained his composure, we went back in.   As I tried to set him back in the highchair, all hell broke lose.  He started writhing and screaming.  No food was helping ... that just went on the floor.  We try to respect the other diners and not be "those" parents that have screaming kids in a restaurant, so Clay started getting everything ready for a quick get-away when I kept on telling him that Andrew was fine and he just needed to be talked to in a soothing manner.  I think my delusion of the sweet little girl from across the table kept me from not packing it in right then.  But as if on cue, Andrew threw himself into me, mind you he was already sitting on my lap, and clapped my jaw together. 

That was it.  My patience had reached its threashold.  My brain usually can multi-task when needed but when there is a screaming child involved it zeroes in on that child and that is its sole focus.  So while I am focusing on Andrew, Clay was telling me to take him home.  My brain is not computing this correctly and I am still thinking that we arrived together in one vehicle (which we did not) and in my brain, I am cursing him saying 'Where the f*** would you like me to go? We came in one car.'  He just looks at me crazy and I grab Andrew to take him over to the hostess stand to put him in the stroller.  As I am trying to turn it around to put him him, it starts to tip over becuase we have too much weight at the handle.  OMG!!! I am about to lose it.  I seriously am going to put this child down and start screaming in the middle of PF Changs!  I call Clay over to help me before I do and we are off.  Andrew and I are off to my car and he is golden now.  No crying or wiggling just perfect.  WHERE WAS THIS IN THE RESTAURANT?!  ARRGGH!

We get to the car, I unlock the doors and proceed to take Andrew out of the stroller but as I do, the stroller starts to tip back again because of the weight.  Holy Lord!  I am going to kill something.  I jerk my purse of the handle and it lands with a thud on the road only to spill out everywhere.  Yeah, that just happened.  While I take Andrew out of the stroller and try to pick up my belongings on the road, Andrew starts to wiggle.  Oh, no!  This wiggling does not stop and now he is pushing my face away with his hands.  I didn't realize it until I had everything in hand .. purse and Andrew, that he had wiggled so much it rolled up my blouse almost up to my boobs and my muffin top was fully exposed.  On Full Display!  I am mortified!  I take a few very deep breaths, click him into his car seat, throw the stroller and all of the bags in the car, pull my blouse down and we are leaving.  I have never been this out of control and I didn't like it one bit.  The whole way home I had to take deep breaths just to calm down and not call Clay just to get mad at him. 

By the time we reach the house, I have gained my composure and am about to take Andrew out of the car seat until I notice that he is fast asleep.  Poor Little Lamb ... he was just tired.  How am I supposed to know that?  He usually gives me signs ... rubbing the face, yawning, crying .... there it was.  The crying.  I had completley overlooked it thinking it was him throwing a fit and he was telling me he was tired.  I felt awful! 

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Poop on YOU!

... and we are BACK!  It has been a while since I have caught y'all up on anything going on in the Ochoa household and I figured this particular story was the right one to kick-start us off again.

So, Andrew turned 15 months on the 26th of April and I am not sure if that automatically flips a switch within toddlers brains to go from acting cute and silly to trantrums and squirmy.  But here were are in the full throws of toddler-hood and he is everybit of that and more.  His latest feat is to not be laid down to change his diaper.  Nothing short of a head-lock is keeping this guy from flipping over. 

So on Tuesday morning, after he was bored watching his shows on Baby First TV (sidenote: if you have Direct TV it is Channel 293, awesome station for little ones), he comes to find me in our bedroom as I finish fixing my face and getting the girls (Sophie and Lexi) off the bed.  I see him come in the room as I am on the opposite side of the bed and he wanders in our bathroom for a brief second before I telling him to "come on" time to go to school.  He follows me out and we walk to the spare bedroom to put the girls up.  I try not to let him in the room as Lexi gets a little territorial in her kennel.  I have learned that when you tell a toddler no and try to move them out of the way, a tantrum ensued.  I picked him up, looked at the time (running late, of course) and then I smelt it.  That smell that I always get when I have about 5 minutes to leave the house on time.   Yup, you guessed it, POOP!  Every. Single. Time I am about to leave the house, there it is.  Really?!  Sometimes, I get so lucky to actually get him almost in his seat when I smell it.  I think he does this to spite me.  It is just too coincidental. 

Anyway, I carry him from the spare bedroom to his room, which is right next door, and proceed to lay him on his back to change his diaper.  This does not go well.  He starts to cry and kick me in the stomach as my stomach is perfect height to his feet.  While this is happening and I am trying to calm this child down, I notice that this smell has completly gotten stronger, enough to where I am thinking he just completely poo'd his pants and it is just everywhere.  That would have  been the easy way out.  I look down at his feet and to my utter dismay, his shoes are covered in dog poop!!!   Not just barely stepped in or a little bit, but picture fresh mud .. now step in it.  When it smushes on your shoe it covers your shoe, front back, sides, everywhere.  This is the case with the poop.  How this child managed to do this, I will completely be at a loss.  I remove his shoes, look at the poop (yes, I have to look at it) and this poop has sunflower seeds and what looks like popcorn in it.  WTH!?  I am so confused at this point, but to make it worse, my blouse that I just put on has a perfectly nice smear of poop from where Andrew was kicking me, and from where I was carrying him, it was on my black pants.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?  This has to happen right now?!  Ugh! After about 10 minutes of panting, sweating and crying from both of us, I finally managed to change him, put new pants and shoes on him and send him on his way only to plow into the bathroom and find the closest wash cloth and soap to clean my pants.  I had no time to change the pants, they had to endure my harsh scrubbing in order for me not to smell like a Port-O-Potty, but i was able to slip on a new blouse.   I went searching through the house for the culprit but the only clue I could find were just his little steps leading from the hall to his bedroom.  No big clumps or logs, just steps.  Either way, we were clean, nasty shoes are in the garbage and we are off.   I try to put this whole scenario away in the back of my head until I get to work, and look down at my feet.  I have a huge spot of poop on the cuff of my pant.  OF COURSE!!  I will never win against this thing called POOP!  Great start to Tuesday morning!

Surgery

Yesterday, Andrew had his very first surgery.  Thankfully it wasn't a serious one but nonetheless an important one.  He had been getting ear infections pretty regularly and when I say regularly, we knew that at the beginning of the month every month he had one.  When he first started getting the ear infections, his appetite would start to slow down, slow down enough to where we would become concerned.  After a couple months, we noticed that as soon as he started to get congested and have runny noses, he had an ear infection.  The sad part was that Andrew had become so immune to having the pain in his ears it didn't bother him anymore.  He would just fidget with whichever ear it was that had the infection.  Finally after have ear infections for 3 months straight and getting prescribed antibiotics for it, it was time to see the Ear Nose and Throat doctor.  No offense to our pediatrician, who is really great at what she does, it just seem that we were waiting far too long with no real solution for his ear infections.  We saw the Pedi ENT on Tuesday, by that afternoon we had a surgery scheduled for the next day, Wednesday and he was back in daycare on Thursday.  Whew!!  I had to rest just saying that!   Tuesday's appointment went smoothly, but one look at Andrew and his ENT knew that this kid needed ear tubes and quickly.  Luckily there was a cancelled slot open for that Wednesday and we took it.  I was a jumble of nerves and anxiety-stricken.  Andrew and Clay were as cool as cucumbers.  Both his MeeMaw and Mimi and two Aunts were able to come and be with us as he was having the surgery.  He went in to the OR very strong and without a whimper.  Clay and I were told to wait for him in the recovery area and I kid you not, from the time we were directed to that area and just sat down, he was out of surgery.  It was THAT quick!  We couldn't see him just yet because they had to monitor him for a while but once they let us back there, I was in full fledge Momma-mode.  He was laying on his back with the air-mask barely over his little mouth but once they moved it he started waking up and he was frantic.  He didn't know where he was or what had happened, he only knew that his ears hurt and he felt wierd.  He cried for a good two hours straight with eating little bits of yogurt in between crying fits.  Then as if it was right on cue, he stopped and was back to happy Andrew.  What a day!  But from that day forward, he has been able to walk better, eat better, talk more.  It has been amazing!  He sure did hurt for quite a while before those tubes but we are all the better for it once he got them in.  He is one strong little boy!

A Year ...

Dear Andrew,

One year ago we were on our way to the hospital to meet our sweet baby boy.  One year ago, we never realized what a change you would have on both of our lives.  One year ago, we never knew how much we could love another human being until we met you.  On January 26th, 2011, you came into our lives and into our hearts and we never looked back.  The love that your daddy and I share for you is not easily put into words.  Sometimes trying to put it into words causes us to cry, not from sadness or anger, but from pure love, joy and so much pride it is unexplainable. 

We have seen you open your eyes, smile, sit up, sleep throught the night, recognize our faces and voices, play with your fingers and toes, stand up with assistance and start to babble.  Your new adventure is eating table food.  You are very insistant in doing it all by yourself and get soo angry when we try to help.  So very independent.  Now you are on to milk, Almond milk that is.  Nothing gets you down.  You are the happiest baby I have ever met and that happiness is infectious.  I can't not look at you without smiling or laughing or having a converasation about your day. 

In planning your birthday celebration, your daddy and I went back and forth on either making you a big birthday bash or a low key family dinner.  True, you wouldn't know the difference if the party was for you or for Lexi but I was set on doing it big.  YOU ARE ONE!!!  What a major milestone for both you and us as your parents.  Such an accomplishment that you are happy, healthy and alive.  I had to shout it from the rooftops,  there was no other way.  We invited all your family and some friends to come and play with you, celebrate with you, sing to you and share with you your big day.

We are so incredibly blessed that you chose us to be your Mommy and Daddy!  We love you THIS big!  You have brought out the Mother, I didn't know I could be and have fulfilled every wish in a child I ever had and didn't know I had.

Thank you for being you!

All our love,

Mommy and Daddy