A boy and his toys

How is it that boys intuitively know how to play with cars?  Bax started rolling his toy cars around on the floor by himself recently, and if he doesn't have a vehicle nearby to roll, any old thing will do, be it a package of wipes, a piece of cardboard, or junk mail.  Here he is in the kitchen playing with his firetruck.

I found this toy at one of the children's consignment shops I go to.  It's one of those things where he can push it and walk, or you can convert it so he can sit on it and scoot along.  He doesn't exactly know what to do when he sits on it, so for now it's his little walker that he uses to get from one place to another if he doesn't feel like crawling.

Baxter loves swinging, but unfortunately the neighborhood park only has slides.  We bought this baby swing and hung it up off of the front porch.  He absolutely LOVES it.

Love that smile!

In a few weeks, Little Man Bax will be 10 months old!  Time has flown by so fast!  He's going to ring in his 10 month birthday surrounded by all his extended family in Oceanside, CA.  We'll be taking Hwy 101 down to southern California and stopping at a few places to enjoy the sights.  It will be Baxter's first big road trip and first vacation.  We're all excited to see everyone!

Photo Dump

Baxter is so active these days!  He's crawling everywhere, snacking on whatever he finds on the floor, and bonking his head on every surface.  Everyone who has watched him for a few hours has said how hard he is to keep up with.  Preaching to the choir, people!  The worst thing was that Bax seemed to go into warp speed with learning new things and moving when Mike was watching him after my oral surgery.  He had to admit, watching him day and night for days back to back was "exhausting".  Well spoken, dear husband.

Here is Baxter in his kitchen table "fort".  He's eating puffs while monitoring the landscape guys put in our backyard.

BEFORE: Well-manicured dirt pile.

AFTER: Well-manicured (for now) sod.

We plan on putting in a hedge at the back and getting some fencing installed on the side.  We don't want to completely fence the yard because we like seeing the trees behind the house.  We often see deer, raccoon, rabbits, and wild birds back there.

Speaking of grass, Baxter loves to eat it.  This is a picture of him at the Silverdale Waterfront.  As soon as I put him down on the picnic blanket, he scuttled off to the edge and started grabbing at the grass and stuffing it in his mouth.  When I took the grass out of his hands and mouth and put him back down, he crawled even faster to another edge, then started eating the grass from the ground like a cow. That's my boy!

By popular demand, here is a post-surgery picture of me and my swollen cheeks.  It's been eight days since I had my wisdom teeth taken out and my left cheek is still swollen with a visible healing bruise.  To top it off, I have a socket infection too!  (Yay!)  For the past two days I'd been tasting a mixture of pus and week-old food that got stuck in the sockets.  I now wield the handy dandy socket syringe cleaner so I can flush out all the crud and have a fresher tasting mouth.  I go in next week for another follow-up, but if the antibiotics haven't kicked out the infection, then Dr. La Rosa will have to open up the socket again.

Last month my sister got married and Baxter got to be the ringbearer.  He was so proud to be walking down the aisle with me and his Lola (who ended up holding the ring pillow).  He was high-stepping like a showhorse the whole time and loving all the attention he was getting.

Watching the thrilling rubber duck race at Whaling Days.

Mike's magic diaper changing glasses.  They stopped Bax from wiggling for about two diaper changes, and then Bax realized behind the sunglasses was just Daddy, and not Kanye West.

Liking trains seems to be something that runs in the Balogh blood, and Baxter is no different.  What sets him apart from the rest is that he fancies the shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) instead of the steam engines that Grandpa Choo-Choo enjoys.  Really though, Baxter most likes acting like Godzilla and eating the traintracks.

That's all for now, hope you all are having a fabulous summer!  In a few weeks we'll be taking our first family road trip down Highway 101 to southern California so Bax can meet my aunts, uncles, and cousins in Oceanside.  That should be an adventure!

Not so wise anymore

I had my wisdom teeth extracted yesterday, which my oral surgeon reminded me many times during my pre-surgery exam was about 15 years overdue.  All four of them were impacted, and the only reason why I finally had the surgery was because I was having pain in my left lower molar when I ate, and for about two months I wasn't able to open my jaw all the way.

I have to admit, I was more nervous for having this surgery than I was about giving birth.  I think it had something to do with being knocked out.  They say they used conscious sedation, but I don't remember anything past the time Dr. La Rosa put in my IV.  The whole procedure was supposed to be 45 minutes long, but instead it took about 2.5 hours.  Apparently I'm a lightweight when it comes to narcotics.  They gave me 50 mcg of fentanyl, some ketamine, and a little versed.  I actually had to be reversed with narcan.  Through my grogginess and queasiness, I was laughing at the fact they had to reverse me.  (For those of you not familiar with these drugs, in most cases that I've been involved with, people get 100-200 mcg of fentanyl and wake up on their own about 10-20 minutes after the last dose.  In my case, I got 50 mcg and woke up 2.5 hours later, and still had to be given the reversal agent.)

Yesterday I was still pretty barfy, and today I've been in more pain.  The nurse at the clinic said tomorrow will be worse.  Hooray.  I've been keeping an ice bag to my face and taking my medications as needed.  I try to stay away from the percocet unless it's really hurting.  I figure I can sell the rest of my stash to Bob.  (Ha ha, just kidding.)

My parents were my post-op team yesterday, with my mom taking care of Bax and my dad as my chaperone out of the oral surgeon's office.  They let me crash out on their couch until Mike got off work to pick us up.  Mike has the rest of the week off to watch Baxter and hand me stuff from the couch.  I'm hoping that after tomorrow, my jaw will feel better and I can walk around more, maybe even get out of the house.  Until then, Nurse Ratchet Mike doesn't even want me picking up Baxter that much for fear of causing too much strain in my jaw, or Bax smacking me in the face (which has already happened).  As it is, Bax sometimes looks at me like I'm a hypocrite for having gauze in my mouth when I always chastise him for eating tissue.

Old friend, New friends

My friend Chester Costales, his lovely wife, Jamie, and their two adorable sons, Gabriel and Liam, came to visit us on Tuesday night.  I've known Chester since elementary school, and we were walking partners during our high school graduation.  He and his family live in North Carolina as he attends UNC for some high-falutin' pharmacy-related degree, and I've since made friends with his wife via Facebook since their youngest son was also a NICU baby.  It was great to finally meet her in person and to see their cute little boys.

As soon as they walked in the door, Baxter, Gabriel, and Liam seemed to be comfortable with everyone else.  Baxter crawled next to both Chester and Jamie, even pulling himself up on Chet's shorts like he wanted to be carried by him.  Bax usually gives people he doesn't know a good stare down for a while and doesn't like it when strangers carry him for very long.  He went over to Jamie and grabbed her nose.  He tried to pull himself up on both Gabriel and Liam.  Gabriel walked over to me and handed me toys, and I made Liam laugh a couple of times as well.  It was a great visit, I only wish we were able to get a picture of everyone together!  Oh well, maybe next time.  I hope they decide to move back to Washington after Chet graduates so that our families can hang out more.  (Hint hint -- I know you guys read this!)  They're super nice and hilarious people, and I hope the rest of their trip is fantastic!