The Brown Brick Road

Crayons and Play-Doh

March 23, 2012

I set my little Tiny Tim up at the dining table with enough crayons, coloring books and Play-Doh to entertain for at least 30 minutes.

2 reports about Play-Doh:

1. It still smells exactly like I remembered.

2. Maxwell really wasn’t a fan.

He just didn’t know what to do with it and didn’t like that it kept sticking to his fingers. Oh well. I had fun playing with it and he had fun with the roller and cookie cutters!

We also colored in a coloring book…

and on the table…

and that is why I have that lovely plastic table cloth on there! Stinker!

Of course, coloring in a coloring book isn’t quite as much fun as eating the crayons…

My silly little broken-legged boy! We’re going to have a fun weekend at home figuring out ways to entertain each other. Hope you all have an entertaining weekend too!

We’re taking this broken leg one day at a time – and yesterday was a pretty good day! Maxwell wasn’t too happy when he woke up. Maybe it was just the realization that the darn cast wasn’t coming off! But, he perked up quickly and was his happy, smiling self all day.

A few pics in the trusty green chair to document the blue cast…

You can also see in that picture where his head is scraped up from the fall. He’s so tough!

Of course, Susan came with a special surprise and Maxwell was ALL SMILES!

Susan checked out his cast…

and gave him lots of love.

These two ended up having a big adventure at the zoo. Who needs to be able to walk when you can ride in the stroller to see all the animals and ride the train around the entire zoo – twice?!

Thank you SO much for all of your entertainment suggestions. I took a trip to Wal-Mart yesterday and came home with all sorts of play-doh, crayons, finger-paints and even a Leap Pad! Lots of fun ahead for this little guy!

Injured for real

March 21, 2012

Well, get this – Maxwell has a broken leg. A BROKEN LEG. Are you kidding? My poor, poor buddy. What an ordeal.

When Maxwell woke up yesterday morning, he still wasn’t wanting to walk at all. I called his pediatrician first thing and they said that since he wasn’t putting any weight on the leg, we should take him into the pediatric orthopedist. I really thought he was just going to tell us it was a sprained ankle but, no such luck. At our appointment at 1:00 they took some x-rays of his little leg and, sure enough, he has a fracture in his shin. What bone is that? I’m not even sure. I’m not sure who was crying harder when the doc told us the news – me or Maxwell! They put a little baby blue cast on his leg and he can’t walk for two weeks. Two weeks of no walking at all. Wow. No playing on the playground, no running in the yard, no pushing his lawnmower, and, very sadly, no school. So, so sad. After two weeks, we go back for another x-ray and they will likely put on a walking cast that he will wear for another two weeks. The doctor then said that it will probably take another two weeks after that for everything to go back to normal. So, we’re looking at a 6 week ordeal. Again, my poor, poor buddy.

Trying to look on the bright side – at least this isn’t the middle of the summer. He’ll have it off before pool and sprinkler time is in full force, thank goodness!

Some pictures of his “casting”….

Pitiful…

So pitiful…

Robert was trying to entertain with a Sesame Street video…

All finished and doing a little better…

Maxwell really handled it all like a champ. Especially given that the appointment was smack dab in the middle of his nap time.

Home and happy again…

Full view of his cast…

Don’t you like the baby blue? I picked it so it would match his Easter outfit! 🙂

Giving him a bath last night was interesting. If you see him over the next two weeks and he looks a little dirty – please forgive us!

If any of you have been through this before and have any advice, I’ll gladly take it. Any ideas on activities for an 18 month old that you can do sitting down? Would LOVE those. I’m seeing a lot of Sesame Street videos and coloring in our future for the next 6 weeks!

Life is always an adventure, no?

Injured

March 20, 2012

Not much to report today, except that I thought Maxwell broke his leg yesterday. He was climbing down the stairs outside while trying to pull his lawn mower down with him and managed to fall off the last step and land head first on the bricks. His head is pretty scraped up. I thought that was the worst of it but then we noticed that every time we put him down, he’d cry when he put any weight in his left leg. Poor, poor buddy. After considering a trip to the ER, we decided it’s probably just a sprain or twisted ankle. Hopefully he’ll be running around like normal today. As Robert said, this won’t be the last injury we deal with! I guess I have to get used to life with rambunctious boys!

Today, just a few pictures that were on my camera…

I love Maxwell checking out his reflection in the buffet…

Who is the good looking boy looking back at me?!

Maxwell loves to stand on his tip toes and look out the window. I think he was waiting for Robert to come home this day…

Love the sunshine on his face!

And finally, I think he kinda looks like he’s rocking out on his spatula guitar here…

No?

Cutest little rocker I’ve seen!

ps – like his fish shirt? I made it! Find out how here.

See you tomorrow!

Weekend recap

March 19, 2012

What a great and jam-packed weekend we had! What did we do? Let’s let my iphone walk you through…

Saturday morning Robert went to work a Habitat for Humanity build so Maxwell and I hung out at home in our St. Patty’s Day green…

We then went to Target where he tried on some more silly hats…

After Target we stopped by the park. Maxwell went across the shaky bridge all by himself…

Climbed up the ramp all by himself…

Swung on the newly restored tire swing…

Swung on the swings (of course)…

and played in the play house!

Phew! All the playing made him hungry so we went home where Maxwell fed himself some yogurt…

Lovely. side note – yes, those are mini corn dogs on his tray. Actually they’re Morningstar Farms Veggie Corn Dogs and they’re really good. Maxwell loves them.

Maxwell then went down for a nap and I got out in the yard and pulled weeds, weeds and more weeds in the beds. I was pulling LOTS of clover but never found any four-leafers! Guess the luck of the Irish wasn’t on my side this St. Patrick’s Day!

When Maxwell woke up from his nap we had some special visitors…

Lulu and Granddaddy! Maxwell loved all the attention as usual.

Maxwell took a liking to Lulu’s shiny jewelry and before he could say “earring” he was all decked out!

That evening, Robert, Maxwell and I went to dinner at a new Mexican place in downtown Birmingham. El Barrio. If you haven’t been yet – go. It was SO good. The only problem was that they only had 1 high chair in the whole restaurant (what?!) so we had to make do with a booster seat. I was pretty nervous about Maxwell sitting in a booster seat for an entire meal but he did GREAT! He sat at the head of the table and we all enjoyed every second of our dinner! Maxwell clearly knew he was too cool for school in that booster seat!