Back to life, back to reality

With the grandparents all safely back home, week one of the rest of our lives began.  There were some tricky spots and some beautiful spots, and we all made it through. 

Grady had some really lovely moments with Clara this past week. 

He asks daily to put Clara on his lap.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - he is somewhat obsessed with touching her eyes.

"Touch it, eyes?"

The hardest part of the week was Friday, when Grady went in to Emanuel Hospital for an ultrasound on his kidneys, VCUG, and blood draw.  He had been fasting since the night before because originally I thought he was going to be sedated for the VCUG.  It turns out instead they were offering a memory erasing drug, so instead of being knocked out he just wouldn't remember the procedure.  I opted not to do that.  He was actually okay for the inserting of the catheter, but then just refused to pee for the post-pee bladder image.  For about an hour he cried, obviously in a lot of physical discomfort with a very full bladder ("tummy feels sad").  He finally did pee right when we were just about to give up and go home.  ("I did it!  Peed!")  Clara's ultrasound went much smoother - she slept through all of it.  We won't get the results on either until meeting with the urologist in May.  Grady did get a little construction hat and a number of stickers for his efforts, which he is proudly displaying here, along with the crumbs from several cereal bars.

4 cereal bars later....

The rest of the week was tame in comparison.  Grady had his first swimming lesson with daddy on Friday.  Clara and I observed.  Grady LOVED it.  He had a huge smile on his face almost the whole time.  The highlight was when he put on the arm floaties and was able to swim by himself - he proudly proclaimed to Matt "I'm swimming!"

Grady has been speaking in full, proper sentences lately.  Some of the things that come out of his mouth are hysterical.  He fell asleep late and woke up early this morning.  At breakfast I asked him if he was sleepy since he woke up so early.  He said "No.  I just woke up!" with a little shrug.   His new favorite game is telling us what he likes - "I like school buses!  I like race cars!  A little nervous about race cars - loud."  He has been doing lots of pretending still - most recently pretending his concrete mixer is a dump truck.  He also loves to get dressed to go to the "station."

Clara is doing just fine, and is handling her brother pretty well. She is a doll in the morning, and fussier in the late afternoon and early evening.  She is still eating like a champ and is starting to look a little chubby!

Here we are trying to counteract the chub on Clara's first jog - and on our first sunny day in Portland in weeks!