Bakery Story and More Pics

A warm Texas day- probably 70-something. Of course, day after Christmas it was 18 and snowing

Helping Poppy play speed scrabble

in his Christmas outfit playing the plockie game with g-ma

Dusty, Whit, Me, and Rib

BOGGLE!!! Brendan always stomps everyone

Bakery Story:

So, you know what a "cream horn" is? It's this pastry shaped like a horn that's filled with creamy frosting. Mom likes them, and Whitney and I were in the bakery getting my favorite childhood cookies and thought we'd get mom a cream horn.

Me:"I need a cream horn and..."
Cashier: "What?"

Me:"A cream horn"

Cashier:"HUH?"

Me: "CREAM HORN"

Cashier (with a knowing look) "OH, cream CORN"

Me: "NO. cream HHHHORN."

Whitney and I had to use every last shred of willpower to not completely lose it. I had to finish my order. When she walked away we both lost it. The cashier came back over and Whitney had to run away to the day old rack and become way to interested in a loaf of bread just to be able to keep it together. It was hilarious! So, now we're always saying, Oh, cream CORN. Pretty much my favorite funny experience of the year- almost tops baby sing along.

ALSO, I loathsomely left Uncle Dusty out of my last post. Hanging out with my hilarious brother-in-law has been a highlight of the trip. Watching him and Whit together is so fun especially since last year we were all so busy doing the wedding that we hardly had time to get to know Dustin. He, like Whit, is great with Ezra, and I'm so sad that Ez won't get to spend more time in his young life around his Texan aunt and uncle. If Dustin ends up preaching at a church near you, GO THERE!

Sorry I'm SO LAME

It's been busy! We've been in Texas for just over a week, and we have 2 to go. It has been fabulous. Ezzie can sit on his own now and almost rolls from back to front. He also babbles and squeals like crazy! I LOVE having my family around us, and I'm not looking forward to going home. Although, I do love Seattle, and I miss my church and friends. Still, mom, dad, sister and Skeeter (the dog) are awfully magnetic. Don't worry, I still really can't stand Amarillo ;)

Ezzie and I reading the great book that Whitney wrote, illustrated, and constructed especially for Ezra. Ezzie loves his Aunt Whit and she is GREAT with him

This is the rocking chair my mom used to rock me 25 years ago :)

Gotta love baths in a giant kitchen sink

Being festive

Ezra meets Grammy, his great grandmother

Ezzie and Poppy (my dad)

Ezra looking drunk with his Grandma Debbie

This is how we looked after a nearly 1.5 hour long drive to the airport in the snow, a 5 hour delay at SeaTac, a missed flight to Amarillo, a walk in 20 degree weather to an Albuquerqe hotel at 11pm, a 7 am flight to Dallas, and a miraculous bump to an earlier Amarillo flight which saved us another 4 hour delay at Love Field... I think we look pretty good considering all that!

One last note- Ezra was a GEM throuout our hellacious day(s) of travel. My favorite moment: Flight Attendant- "Aw, he's SO cute. What's his name?" Me- "Ezra" Flight Attendant- "Ezrap?" Me- "No"

I'll have to tell you the bakery story later...

quick info

Ezra's liver checked out fine!!! We are so glad, and I'm relieved to not have that nagging fear in the back of my mind anymore. Every little whine would make me think, "oh no! does your liver hurt?" His white blood cell count is back to normal too. We are thanking God. The prayers now? "Please heal Ezzie's ear infection!"

Ok, I have time, so I'll give you the story on the ear. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we all got sick, all three of us. This was especially alarming for me given Ezra's lack of white blood cells to fight illness. The result: our second page of our health care provider in a week. She said to just keep people's hands and faces off of him. He seemed to be ok anyway. He just was really stuffy and had a little adorable cough that had us saying, "He's got the black lung, Pop!" Sunday, Ez got even more slimy. (Of course, throughout all this, I'm just dying inside thinking that the poor baby is getting so sick because of the lack of anti-body-full breastmilk. I think he's only getting around 6-8 ounces from me a day.) On Monday, Ez was not himself as he seemed a little listless and wouldn't smile at me as much as usual. He also wasn't eating well. That freaked me out given the starving issue and the fact that we still hadn't heard about his liver. By Monday afternoon, Ezra was unable to sleep, unable to eat, and crying in pain. I could get him calmed down, and sweet boy that he is, he would still smile through his little tears at me every now and then. He was crying this shrill, sad cry every time he burbed, coughed, or even looked at a bottle. I immediately suspected that his ears were hurting, although he wasn't tugging at them. Now that I think about it though, he was sort of burrowing that side of his head into me. Poor guy!

OK- here's the really sad part. I had been planning to attempt to join my friend Claudia at her ProRobics advanced aerobics class on Monday nights for probably like 6 weeks or so. That Monday, since Ezzie mostly takes the bottle all the time anyway, I was planning to go; and Brendan was all ready to come home a smidge early from work. Well, I called Claudia to say that I wasn't going to go because Ezzie seemed so miserable. When Brendan came home, he very lovingly convinced me to go to the class since Ez would be sick whether I was there or not. I decided to go, and I had a good time (even though I could only hack it for about 1/2 the class because I'm SO OUT OF SHAPE!). When I got out, I had a text from Brendan that he needed me. I started to panic and called him. I could hear Ezra SCREAMING in the background. Brendan, attempting to sound calm, said that he'd been that way for a while and didn't know what to do. I sped home like a bat out of hell. I almost turned on my emergency flashers. I was crying too! I burst in the door, and Brendan had calmed Ez a bit; he was just whimpering in Brendan's arms. Ezzie saw me and sort of reached out and started crying big again. I just about died! Poor, poor, sweet, sweet baby! Ez continued to shriek. If there was one thing I learned from the whole "starving" episode, it's that when Ezzie complains, something is REALLY wrong. Third page to Leslie in a week. She said that I could take him to Children's if I thought we should. How do I know? That's why I called! (Leslie is WONDERFUL; don't get me wrong.) So, I just prayed, "God, please let me know what to do." Ezra cheered up a bit. He even gave me a couple little smiles. So, I felt like I could wait until the morning to take him to the doctor, especially since I felt that what Ez really needed was a good, comfortable sleep as soon as possible. Ez proceeded to get some food down and then slept for a 5 hour stretch and a 3 hour stretch.

In the morning, we went to Leslie; and sure enough, he had one very red ear. When I asked Leslie if I was abusing my pager privileges, she said, "Oh no! I think you're doing great. You're appropriately anxious right now." Besides, I was right. Something was really wrong with him! I was just relieved that it was a mundane ear infection and not his liver!