Becoming Big.

I don't know when it happened. Stephen is no longer a toddler, but a boy. He likes doing boy things, like wrestling, running, and playing with his trains.

I knew the time was coming when I would look at his face and not see a baby, but a boy. Man, it sure went by quickly.

Back to school, and something to celebrate!

After a week-long absence due to weather, a professional day, and then a particularly nasty cold, Stephen FINALLY got to go back to school yesterday. To say he was happy about this is truly and understatement. Stephen LOVES school! His teacher said that he did really well with his short PT session yesterday (he's getting some PT still to work on stairs and jumping). Stephen also discovered that his classroom had a toy piano in it, and you can probably guess where he could be found during free play... His teacher was interested to hear of Stephen's love for playing the piano, both toy and real, so I suspect this will be incorporated into his therapies. He came home on Thursday, and took a 3 hour nap, since he still wasn't feeling very perky.

Today, he went to Children's Day Out, and his teachers said that they could really see a difference in Stephen's behavior. He wasn't ever poorly behaved before, but they said he was just wonderful today, and very cooperative. He started to feel badly again towards the end of the day, so when I picked him up, I called his doctor, who gave us some samples of a cold medication for him (his first one!). Hopefully he will be able to get some decent sleep tonight without coughing himself awake.

And now for the REALLY good news... On Monday, I took Stephen to see his urologist for his annual exam. For those of you who don't know, Stephen was diagnosed with moderate, bilateral hydronephrosis as a baby, which was probably developed in the womb. At any rate, one doctor wanted to do surgery right away to deal with a blockage, but we wanted a second opinion. The second doctor agreed to wait and see if he would grow out of it, which he started to do. At his last check-up in October 2008, his left kidney was no longer retaining fluid, and his right one was graded at a 3-4 (down from a 4-5 when it was first discovered). When we went back on Monday, it was a 0-1, and the doctor said that it was almost completely "resolved." YAY!! His right kidney will always be slightly damaged, and the left will always do a little more work for the pair, but as of right now, it isn't going to be getting any worse. We will take him back in another year for another renal ultrasound, and if it is still good, we will not have to go back for probably another 3-4 years.

So, except for the cold, it's been a pretty good week for our boy!

Preschool!!!

On Monday, Stephen started preschool. He is attending preschool through our school district, where he will receive help with his speech. He is going 4 mornings a week, and will continue with Children's Day Out on Fridays at our church.

On Monday, we all woke up early, got ready, and Erik and I walked Stephen to his classroom. His teacher helped him hang up his coat and backpack (at a little hook and cubby JUST his size!!), and we talked for a few minutes before leaving. Stephen apparently fussed a bit right after we left, and then was fine.

Stephen seems to really enjoy preschool so far, and he has been taking really good naps after he gets home in the afternoons. He is also more chatty with us, although we don't always know what he is trying to say, and he is imitating both words and speech patterns a lot more. He is answering questions, although usually with something that we don't understand. Right now, we'll take the effort!

He has been out of school the past 2 days due to weather - for whatever reason, the school districts all closed down because of the low temperatures, even though there is no ice or snow. Yesterday, Stephen was fussing at me almost all morning because he wasn't at preschool. I guess he likes it!

We went to Indiana (and Michigan, too)!

The day after Christmas, we woke up super early, and braved the very icy roads to get to the airport for our 7:15am flight to Midway. Since we'd gotten so much snow on the 24th, many of the airport parking lots were closed, but we were able to park off-site and take a shuttle in with 20 other people. We made it to Chicago without incident, and then drove to Granger, IN to Uncle Adam and Aunt Erin's house!

The next day, we went out sledding!

Stephen went down the hill a few times with his Dad and Grandpa Rick!

And then Uncle Adam took him for a run, which he LOVED!

Inside, Stephen and Zachary enjoyed playing with Stephen's laptop.

And Stephen and Uncle Adam bonded over football. No, we didn't plan the outfits, but it is pretty funny!

Stephen and Zachary went out in the sled together on a different day, and Stephen was very patient with his baby cousin squished on to his lap.

We were dressed to support our beloved Wildcats in the Holiday Bowl, but they were woefully outplayed by Nebraska. But we are proud fans anyways!

Great-grandma Heine joined us all for a few days. This was the first time that she had seen Stephen, and the first time that we had all been together since Adam and Erin were married 5 years ago!

In case you can't tell, Stephen LOVES his laptop, and it enabled him to be patient while we were waiting for dinner on New Year's Eve.

Stephen has also discovered a love of taking photos with Mommy's camera. He particularly enjoyed doing it in the car, so we now have dozens of pictures of the left shoulder of whomever was sitting in the passenger seat at the time he was taking them. As you can tell by the angle, he took the photo below.

Adam introduced Erik to the Wii. I played a bit too, and while we both had a good time, we decided to wait until Stephen can play with us too before making an investment.

We went out into the snow to sled for one last time. As you can see, it was snowing and very cold, so it was our last time out in it. We still had a lot of fun, though!

We had a really great trip, and got home on Sunday. Unfortunately, our suitcases did not arrive on our same flight, but it worked out better that way, so that we didn't have to worry about wrangling the luggage, carry-ons, and a non-napping 3 year old! We got back to the house, and got Stephen to bed, to prepare him for his first day of.... PRESCHOOL!! More on that later, though!

Merry Christmas!!!

Another picture post!! It continued to be busy around here, so I'll just share more photos!


Stephen and I made Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies for his teachers at school.
These are the ornaments that he made at school this month...

We went out to Breakfast one morning this week, and Stephen was being quite the goof.

In the interest of sanity, we had decided to spread out the present-opening over several days this year. Stephen got this from his Daddy.

And our Christmas Eve was spent inside the house... This is the largest one-day snowfall on record in Oklahoma City - 14.1"!!!

Stephen got rather bored with being inside all day (it was super windy, as well, which is why it was classified as a blizzard).

This was the view out our dining room window after Stephen went to bed.

But we enjoyed opening presents...

(yes, these were taken on different days, but you get the idea)

Sorry these are out of order, but before the weather got bad, we also spent some time outside playing on the slide, and just having a fun time!

So, good times were had by all. Mom and Dad DID make it to the airport today, although I haven't heard if their flight was going to really go or not. Merry Christmas!!!

We've been busy!

My parents got here a bit before Stephen's birthday, so we have been very busy!

We spent some time opening birthday presents a few days before his birthday...

And then we went to a tree farm to pick out a Christmas tree!!!

On his birthday, Stephen went to OU Children's Outpatient Surgery to have a small, dermoid cyst removed from in front of his right ear. A dermoid cyst is just matter that hasn't been sloughed off naturally. This type of cyst can often grow when someone sweats a lot, which explains why it kept growing whenever he was sick and ran a fever. It was a very simple procedure, and our surgeon was awesome (I actually knew her and her family from when I was working, and trusted her implicitly!). Stephen didn't shed a tear afterwards, and even RAN out of the Outpatient surgery center, and pounded on the elevator doors until we left. He managed with only Ibuprofen for that day, and nothing since then. Now, you can hardly see the wound at all!

Grandma and Stephen had some fun with a big box!

Last Friday, Stephen's Children's Day Out program had a Christmas Program. Stephen's class did really well - they sang "I'm a little pinecone" and danced to "Rock Around the Christmas Tree." While Stephen did not sing or dance, he also did not pick his nose, scream, cry, push anyone off the stage, or in any way misbehave. He stood up there very nicely, and even smiled a bit (but we could tell he was a bit nervous about it all). Only about 4 kids out of 20 in his class ended up singing or dancing, but I thought they all did well, especially considering that none of them napped!!!

The photo below is Stephen again at his program. They gave him a little bow-tie to dress up - some of the kids had bows, and some wore Christmas Trees around their necks. He also brought home 3 ornaments that he made at school, which are now hanging proudly on our tree!

Sleep is elusive these days...

So, once again, we are having some sleep issues here at the Heine house! Stephen is going to bed pretty well now, so that's not the issue. We have taken to sitting with him in the dark a few times to help him settle down before bedtime, and that generally seems to work, and he isn't taking 60-90 minutes to fall asleep any more. We kind of have to FORCE him to just settle down, otherwise he would just keep running around in his room, looking out his blinds, trying to open the closet, dresser drawers, bedroom door, rocking himself in his glider... you can see the issue.

The problem lately has been occurring around 4 am. Yep. There is one of those in the morning, too. Stephen has been waking up to potty at this time for about a week now, and getting him to go back to sleep has just been a nightmare. If I thought I could stand to just let him stay awake then, I would, but then he would want to nap at 9 am, and our whole day would just be ruined. But once he is awake, we have to go through the routine of getting him settled back down again, which most times can take up to 2 hours. Yes, TWO HOURS! So he is just falling back asleep when it is time for our alarm to go off. I attribute this to either the fact that we are having so much fun during the day that he wants to spend more time with us, or he is getting excited about the holidays. We HAVE been talking a lot about Santa and how he brings presents to good boys, and his grandparents are coming today... Regardless of the cause, it's just miserable for the parents. Hopefully this phase will pass soon, but if anyone has any advice, we are more than happy to give it a go!

Speaking of Christmas, we have a Little People Nativity that Stephen likes to play with. He is particularly fond of Baby Jesus, and enjoys that the Manger plays music. He understands that the "baby" goes in the "barn" (we figured Barn is an easier concept than Manger), but he finds it a bit humorous. Oh well. He at least kind of understands a bit of it!