le blog de bloogue

We recently enjoyed Northwest Airlines Tech Ops Family Day over in Building C on October 4th. Now the kids think that there’s always face painting and popcorn at “daddy’s work”. I wish.

Northwest Airlines Family Day 2008, originally uploaded by trypnotic.

Started off this lovely Sunday by dropping Katie and Brandy off at the airport around 8am. They listed themselves for a flight to Duluth to spend a day with Kris and Cliff, get some shopping in and some Red Lobster. Meanwhile, Kieran and I took advantage of the empty Mall of America and walked three laps in there for a nice 1.5mi walk. Kieran pointed out each store that was closed. Even by the third lap, he was still amazed how many stores were closed. After we finished our walk, we took the light rail up to Minnehaha Park and wandered around there for a bit. We haven’t been there before so we figured with the extra time on our hands, never a better time than the present! We continued on, back on the light rail, to downtown Minneapolis. There was clearly a Twins game today as a majority of the people on the train had jerseys on and such. I guess baseball will never be one of those things I’ll ever understand or get excited about. We arrived downtown, and I convinced Kieran he was hungry as it was now around 10am and neither of us had anything to eat yet. After getting off the light rail in the Warehouse District, we took a shot in the dark and headed to Pizza Luce. With some luck, they had JUST opened up for brunch! Kieran nabbed some OJ and a cheese quesadilla while I had some sort of scrambled marinated tofu, peppers, hashbrowns, and tomatoes (I think). My GOD it was GREAT! Due to our train tickets expiring in the next half hour, we decided that we better get back on the train and back to the mall. From there, we headed back to Chaska and nabbed some petunias, a tomato plant, and a few planters from Home Depot. Ok, so it’s probably a little too early for it all but we’ll give it a shot anyway and keep an eye out for low temperatures.

I’d have some photos to share but the Wing got left at work on Friday. I had left early to go with Katie and Brandy to the school district’s early childhood screening. She did a great job and took it very seriously! With that, she scored a 30 — with the requirement for Kindergarten being a score of over 21. She’s still another 1-1.5 years away from that but at least we know where she’s at.

I started going to Lifetime’s Team Weight Loss class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in order to suppliment my Weight Watchers progress. Every Monday, we meet with a nutritionist for a half hour and get chastised if we’re not filling out our food/exercise journal. I’ll likely get regularly yelled at for lack of filling mine out — it’s just so much easier to keep track of my food via Weight Watchers eTools than it is figuring out how many starches, proteins, etc. I’ve ate during the day. The other half of the class, exercise, usually lasts 25-50 minutes per nights. We’re usually on a treadmill with weights and bands and keep our heart rate up in the zone 2-3 range. This will go on for a total of twelve weeks and we just completed our first week so I don’t really have any progress to report. However, I am starting my fourth month of Weight Watchers and have lost a total of 43lbs since mid-January. Earlier last year, I was seriously considering pursuing the idea of getting the lapband — the gastric bypass alternative, to assist me with my weight loss. Then later that year, I started thinking… you know, if I can raise two kids, I should be able to lose this weight on my own. So far, that method of thinking has been working well.

Nothing else to report for now. So far I’m surviving the possible NW/Delta merger, pending congressional approval. Keeping myself as optimistic as possible with Brandy’s assistance. Bye bye.

Celebrating Kieran’s birthday today at Chaska Community Center’s Rainbow Room. Aside from the three mylar balloons that flew away, forgetting the Dairy Queen ice cream cake at home half-way there, and forgetting the soda all together and having to go back home from the Center to go and get it, it went pretty well! We had Papa Johns pizza (note for next time, three large pizzas isn’t quite enough for eight adults and eight children) and again, Dairy Queen ice cream cake in addition to three 2-liter sodas. After we all ate, we tossed the kids into the ballpit and castle playroom. Kieran wasn’t very interested in the ballpit and in fact wasn’t too pleased when he accidently fell in a couple times! He seemed happy enough tossing the balls into the pit and stacking the big plush squares. When the kids seemed to start getting bored with the room, we moved back into the party room and opened some presents. Kieran had a lot of help opening them! He got a lot of cars, a Little People Pirate ship, a Tonka truck, couple shirts, a blanket, Thomas toys, some books, and about $100 – a pretty good haul for a two year old!

… and Kieran. Sorry, I never got around to posting these sooner. This was on Friday of last week. You can imagine me fumbling around with my mobile, real camera, and trying to placate an almost two year old that wanted to be carried most of the morning – I was lucky to get the shots that I did! He shouted “toot-toot!” over and over again so I think he had a good time.They had an entire tent filled with Thomas merchandise. I gave in to peer pressure and bought him a shirt, mini soccer ball, and a plush Thomas which he’s been carrying around everywhere. We arrived around 9am and nabbed a spot only about a block away. Once we got in, there was a carnival-like food stand serving hamburgers, corn dogs, cheese curds, etc and people were eating them… at 9am.

In other Kieran related news:

Kieran was re-tested for the following allergens last week: peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shell fish, eggs, milk, soy, and wheat.

The Not Terrible News
======================
Cow milk tests as a .35 which is a new allergy. The doc said that it’s low enough that he can safely eat foods that have milk in them but probably shouldn’t be given a cup of milk unless it’s soy.

The Good News
======================
Peanuts are now .11
a reading of .10 or less means he’s no longer allergic to them

Eggs are now an 8 as opposed to 49 (off the chart) when he was last tested.

The doctor suspects that Kieran should be food allergy free by the age of 3

Kaitlyn got her long awaited art desk today which was purchased with birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa Johnston! We originally planned on using the money for a big girl bed but that didn’t pan out and we figured she’d get more use out of an art desk now than a real bed – she’s still kinda crib material especially since she’s not really hardcore potty training.

In more kid related news, Kieran is really crawling these days. He started out belly flopping forward similar to a walrus which was fairly effective but now he’s starting to implement arms and legs into the mix. He likes to stick his butt in the air to get his bearings straight and to practice his coordination. His allergies have also been better as he’s starting to get weened off of the boob and is moving on to Gerber 3’s along with some puffs and formula to suppliment. Formula isn’t always the devil as we’ve found out. He’s sleeping a little better at night but still leaves much room for improvement. When his allergies were at their worst, he’d wake up every twenty minutes or so it seemed – now he’s up to around every two hours which seems like a blessing. But, he’s a much happier guy these days – he loves to laugh at his silly sister!

Congrabulations Mister Kieran, you’ve aged six months! Much like fine salami and cheddar made at the time you were born – you’ve been quite the treat to have around.

* Your reflux is 99.8% gone at this point which in your earlier months caused you much discomfort – we even had to medicate you with that awful peppermint medicine. Not even grape could cover up that much awfulness! Alas, that’s over now and you’re a happier kiddo!

* Unfortunately, a couple of months ago, we discovered you had allergies to egg whites and peanuts. Your mommy has been very careful with what she’s been eating so that she doesn’t pass along any of those allergens to you! Eventually you should lose your allergy to egg whites but buddy I’m afraid that those peanut allergies are here to stay :(

* At this time, you have two teeth! You sprouted those puppies about as fast as your sister did. You and her are a lot alike – you’re both advanced for your age in everything that you and her do including your most recent achievement, sitting up – after some assistance from your friends and family of course ;)

* You’ve been making your mom and dad nervous lately with your push ups on your knees! You somehow migrated backwards last night about three feet – I think we’ve underestimated your sneakiness.

We’re proud of our buddy and love you very much! Keep up the good work, mister.

Brandy just called me in with the latest check-in with Mr. Kieran!

Kieran had his 2 month checkup today and all is well. Dr Oster got smiles out of him before his round of shots were administered. He’s weighing in at 14lbs 8oz and is a healthy, chunky baby. He’s 97% percentile for weight, 75% for height, and 50% for head measurements. Dr. Oster mentioned that his eyes have changed permanently from grey to dark blue just like his sister and his daddy’s eyes.

For his reflux, the dosage is to be increased from .9 to 1.2 and maybe around 3-4 months we can start giving it to him only once a day to see if he’s starting to grow out of it. If he’s not accepting the weaning, then he’ll likely grow out of it around 9-12 months. The Zantac has been working fine. He will spit or throw up now and then but it doesn’t seem painful as it did initially before he got on the medication. He was around six weeks old when the Zantac started to kick in.

As far as everything else goes, he’s quite fond of his big sister. She gets overly excited around him sometimes and we have to restrain her to prevent him from getting fallen on, hit, etc. Eventually he’ll just have to tough it out but we do what we can to protect him since he’s still a little guy and until his soft spots are for the most part, gone. She has her share of jealousy tantrums but has never hit or hurt him out of an angry spaz.

He’s been doing cooing a lot which we’ve labeled as a little laugh or giggle. Cousin Amy mentioned that in the Navajo culture, the first laugh marks the child’s birth as a social being. The member of the family or friend of the family who makes the baby laugh must then plan a celebration in honor of the child. Katie better get to work!