Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas 2010

DiCarlo Family Christmas 2o10
Travis playing with his new car toy.
Nana with both of the kids.
Nicole showing Travis his new toy.
Travis wants nana to get out of the way, so he can ride.
Travis checking out the scene.
Travis showing off his new Xmas shirt. (Daddy doesn't approve, he's a Oklahoma fan)
I love Christmas.
Hey mommy!!! Is there more?
I need to make a phone call.
Weeee!
This thing is really cool.
Mommy and Travis reading his new book.
Travis got some stylin Yo Gabba Gabba shoes.
Travis showing off his new wheels.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Tornado Travis

I am totally changing Travis' name to Tornado DiCarlo.

Today, I had both kids home and I was alone in caring for them. In the span between 8:30-11:00am he managed the following:

*to empty the entire contents of the kitchen drawer that holds all of our dish towels
*to empty the entire contents of the cupboard that houses our tupperware
*to remove all of the magnets from the refrigerator and scatter them around the floor
*to take the magnetic notepad off of the fridge and rip every sheet off and then rip several sheets into pieces
*to splash water from the dogs dish all over the floor and his pajamas
*to remove every last hair clip/accessory from the drawer in the bathroom and scatter them all over the floor
and finally,
*to purposely let his bottle splash all over our bed (and I just washed the comforter yesterday)

As you can see, life with Travis these days is a whirlwind! I love him so much that it totally makes up for his shenanigans! He is so full of life these days. My favorite recent thing is that when you catch his eye and then smile at him he will return it with the most loving and gorgeous smile I have ever seen!! He is SUCH a momma's boy lately. Since Addie has joined the family, he wants me ALL.THE.TIME. At night, he will not go to sleep with daddy's help. He likes me to lay with him and he literally crawls up onto my belly and lays down on top of me to snuggle. It is the cutest thing! Maybe he sees Addie doing that and that is why he has picked up this new habit. Then, after he falls asleep, I will move him onto the mattress and he will want to sleep with his head on my shoulder and his body snuggled in the space between my arm and side. He will grab my arm an hug me. I love this!

Travis is adjusting well to having Addie around. I think he realizes that she is here to stay. Even though we are all in the same room at night, he is now sleeping better and a couple of times he actually slept through the night, WHOOOHOOO! I hope that continues. Roger and I alternate getting up with Addie. I forgot how LONG the feeding routine of a newborn takes (45 mins-1hr). However, our rocking chair faces the street and I really LOVE rocking her and looking out the window at the Christmas lights. It is such a peaceful time!

We had took Travis to his bi-annual pacemaker clinic yesterday. It went well. The doctors downloaded the info from his pacemaker and reported that he is only using it 2% of the time. I think that is about the same as last time. That is good news. His cardiologist examined him and noted that everything looked really good. On of the cardiologist from Children's was also there (the same one that was on duty when he had the horrible reaction to the cath last month). Anyway, he was pleased to see how well he looked. He also made some jokes about me going into labor that day. I told him it was his fault. :) Anyway, the next step for Travis is an echo on January 4th. Then, he will have another heart cath mid-February. During that cath they will try to open up his aorta. Dr. Levy (his cardiologist) is trying to get together with Dr. Lamberti (his surgeon) to make a tentative "plan" for his next surgery. Hopefully, they will be in touch soon.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Adjustments in Progress

My, it really is hard to find time to post these days with a new little muffin in the house. The newest member of Team Travis is fairly easy to handle to date. The tough part has been trying to juggle Travis lately. He is such a little toddler now. He is into EVERYTHING! He loves to throw things and is quite destructive. We are trying to teach him to be "gentle" with his new baby sister. He is very good at giving her kisses but then he wants to touch her. Instead of touching nicely the little guy palms/claws her face. Poor little girl is getting beat up daily. Oh, we will have some therapy bills in our future. Another tough thing has been the sleeping arrangements. Yes, Travis STILL sleeps with us. We just can't figure out how to get him into his own room in a non-traumatic fashion. Anyway, because of this Addison and I (Nicole) slept downstairs for the first week or so to see how she slept. We finally moved upstairs and she sleeps in the bassinet right next to us and Travis is in between us. It is quite cozy but the rough part is that when either is hungry their cries wake the other who then wants to eat. Travis has never slept through the night so nighttime wakings isn't new to us but his waking frequency has definitely increased since Addie's arrival. She, on the other hand, seems to be a pretty good sleeper and I am hopeful she will sleep through the night sometime before she is 20. ;)

Travis also had a rough week or so around Thanksgiving. He is SUPEr cranky and we couldn't figure out why since everything seemed ok.....normal SATs, eating well, etc. Turns out he was getting a tooth and a cold. That, combined with some jealousy of Addie, made for a real rough couple of weeks. Currently, he is still fighting off his cold. His spirits are high and besides a super runny nose you couldn't tell he was feeling bad.

It is definitely hard adjusting to having two babies in the house. When you have one baby you can get a little "break" by handing them of to your spouse. With two babies this isn't often possible as generally they both need something at the same time. I have only spent a little bit of time alone with both of them and I still need to learn to juggle their needs. It is still a little surreal that we have two. Honestly, our life feels like a crazy dream some days :)

Travis is really enjoying all the holiday decorations. He loves to look at the lights around the neighborhood and he really enjoyed the little parade we went to this past weekend. We are looking forward to taking him to the Del Mar Racetracks Light Parade. I am sure he will love it. We are also so looking forward to this holiday season. Last year was a blur as we had just been released from the hospital and we were so full of fear with our new medically fragile newborn. This year we have so much to be thankful for. Although life can often seem so daunting, I want to make sure that we never forget the wonderful blessing that we have in Travis (and Addison too). Travis is a miracle and never ceases to amaze us! I thank God for this holiday season with him and we continue to pray for many more!

We are still waiting to hear on the exact timing of the next cath procedure. We will let everyone know when we get the news. Until then his cardiologist is monitoring him closely.

Oreo face

Travis LOVES his oreos!
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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Some new pics of Travis

Travis smiling big for the camera.
Travis Christmas Pic 2010
Travis was super helpful with putting up the Xmas lights.
Travis and his heart buddies. All of these little miracles have half a heart.

Travis meets Santa

Travis got to meet Santa for the first time and was not too happy. Below is the picture of his terror toward jolly ol' saint nic.