Walking and Talking!

Alex is 15 months old! So much has happened over the past 2 months… I am finally beginning to get my head above water and breathe again. I’ll rewind as far as I possibly can.

Walking:
To begin, Alex finally started walking over Independence Day weekend. How ironic, huh? He had been furniture walking for quite sometime, but then he finally took his first steps while we were visiting Nana and Pepaw in Indiana. It was so nice that they were able to experience this milestone with us. I also think it could have been related to the StrideRite shoes that Grandma and Grandpa bought him in June. The shoes are supposed to help kids learn how-to walk, and we all laughed in the store about how funny it would be if he started walking after they bought the shoes. Sure enough!

Talking:
Alex has started to talk as well. He has always babbled ‘ma ma’ and ‘da da’, even though I don’t think he knows what he is saying. He doesn’t actually look at us and say these words. However, I am sure he knows how to say “balloon”. He says “blu”. His nursery farm toy also speaks many colors to him, and when it says “blue”, he will repeat “blu”. His latest word is “Hey……”, and he says it like the Fonz from Happy Days.


Eating:
I am hoping to wean Alex off his bottle and have him drink his milk from sippy cups only. I’d also like to have him eat more of our foods. For the most part, he still eats a lot of jarred foods because he only has 6 teeth. I always plan our meals for each grocery shopping visit, so I need to start thinking “Now, what can Alex eat in this meal?” when I make my grocery lists.

Learning/Games/Music:
Alex really loves turning lights off & on, and opening/closing doors. If he is in the process of one of these activities, he’ll stay entertained for at least 20 minutes at a time.

He has also learned how to throw things across the room, such as Diet Mountain Dew bottles (thanks Pepaw…), coasters, diapers, (thanks again Pepaw…), his green goosh ball from Nana, and anything else he chooses to throw.

He is enjoying his Spidey Car now that he knows how to walk. We bought this toy for his 1-year birthday with the intention that he would ride on the car, but it also has the ability to walk behind and push the car with a handle at Alex’s waist level. Now that we have hardwood floors in the house, he is having a great time pushing this car across the living room and down the hall.

When it’s time to go to sleep, we play the Leg & Belly game. Alex will point to my leg or belly and wait for me to say what they are.

I’m sure that I’ve mentioned it before, but Alex certainly loves the song Hey Soul Sister by Train. In fact, he recently walked over to Mark’s computer and pointed because he knew Mark could play that song on his computer. When this song is played in a commercial on TV, he face lights up and he stops whatever he was doing. He also does the same thing when another song called Pure Imagination in a commercial comes on TV.

Father’s Day:
For Father’s Day this year, we went swimming at the community pool with Mark’s entire family. It was so nice to spend the whole day together. After only about 10 minutes at the pool, Alex fell asleep on Grandma’s shoulder in the water! I couldn’t believe that he could sleep in the water itself. We bought Mark a grill for Father’s Day. He has used it a few times, and I think he is really enjoying it.

The Big Move:
We finally moved out of our apartment! I didn’t think I would ever see the day. We moved into a 3-bedroom brick house in Hudson. Alex finally gets to sleep in his own room again. Because of the air flow in our apartment, we had moved Alex’s crib into our bedroom since it had an air conditioner, and his bedroom basically was taken over with our packed boxes in preparation for the move. He kept going in there wanting to play with his toys, and I felt bad. Now, we plan to rearrange his new bedroom soon to create a play area with his large white rug, bookshelf, and toy box.

Mark and I packed the majority of our entire apartment in one Saturday night in June. The entire move itself went very well, and the day we actually moved was beautiful – no rain and not too hot. The house is still a work in progress as we still have some boxes to go through and curtains/blinds to buy. But we will get there…eventually.

Herby:
My beloved cat, Herby, passed away on July 13th around midnight on the Tuesday after we moved into our new home. I know this blog is supposed to be about Alex, but it is also about our family, and Herby was a huge part of our family. I was extremely distraught when I found him on the floor (and I still am somewhat). His passing was actually quite sudden. Even though he had cancer, I wasn’t expecting that he would pass away in this manner.

We started packing the weekend of June 26 because as I mentioned above, we went to Indiana for July 4th weekend. We were gone for 5 days. While we were gone, it was hot, and our apartment's living room air conditioner had been going in & out for the last month. We didn't leave it on while we were gone, and the pet sitter told us that Herby didn't eat much while we were gone either. He seemed OK the week in-between, but in retrospect, Mark didn’t feel like Herby was himself. He ate his food, but not as much as normal. I think he was stressed out over the looming boxes and the heat.

Then, the big move happened. We moved our bedroom first, and then put Herby in there with his food, water, litter box, & turned the "good" air conditioner on while we finished loading the rest of the apartment. I came back on Saturday evening to pick him up, and he hadn't eaten at all. Then, he never ate on Sunday or Monday either, and Mark said he threw up a white milky substance on Monday afternoon. I called the Vet, and she prescribed an anti-nauseating agent & an appetite stimulant -- thinking he was stressed out from the move. Although, she did say that Giant Eagle was the only place that had the feline equivalent of the meds he needed, so we went there. We made sure we followed her directions, and gave him the meds in conjunction with his daily steroid.

Mark came into the bedroom about midnight on Monday and said Herby was crying out, almost sounding a little loopy from the meds. I agreed with him, and we went to bed. On Tuesday morning about 6:30 am, I found him on the kitchen floor. I screamed and cried, called my Dad, and then called-in to work.

I do have some guilt and unanswered questions. I feel like I should have gotten out of bed when he cried out to see what was wrong; perhaps take him to the animal ER. I feel guilty because for the past 2 years that I was blessed to have him longer than the vets said -- I kept saying to myself: "As soon as [the wedding is over, baby is born, find a new job, etc.], I'm going to maximize my time with him because I know it's limited." Also, my feelings have changed over the past few years, and I would say things to him like "Get out of the way, etc." -- it makes me feel like I neglected him. I feel terrible...I miss him so much. He was a big part of my life for 9 years. It was just me, him, and a Uhaul when I moved to Cleveland.

And I just can't place my finger on what killed him? It must have been some combination of the stress of us moving out of our apartment, lack of eating, and the meds. I even have some concerns that the meds prescription was wrong and that's what killed him.

I wish I could have said goodbye. I promised myself that I would be there for him until the end; holding him when he passed away, but I didn't. This was mostly because I thought we'd have to euthanize him.

Coming Up:
I hate to end this post on a sad note, so I thought I would write a little about our future plans over the next month or two.

We are hoping to enjoy the last month of summer since we have spent so much time planning for this move. I’d like to take Alex swimming a few more times and to the kiddie park where he can play on the equipment now that he is walking.

We are also hoping to have cookouts at our new house, and I know Mark wants to have a cornhole tournament with some of his friends. (That is Alex playing cornhole in the picture above, by the way...)

I’d also like to explore Hudson a little more. A few weeks ago, I went to the Farmer’s market that is held every Saturday on the green in front of main hall, and I would like to take Mark & Alex there soon. I would like to shop for some new clothes at First & Main. There are so many clothing shops (Ann Taylor, Chico’s Talbots, Gap). There are also concerts up there every Friday and Saturday night. We are planning to attend a local church this Sunday, and a co-worker of mine also recommended a Hudson Newcomers group that we could join. Looking forward to exploring a new place!