First Movie!

I was looking forward to this past weekend for a while but it started with a bang when I woke up with Coxsackie virus on Saturday morning. Marino had it a couple weeks ago and I noticed one small blister on my throat earlier this week. Well, but Saturday, my throat, tonsils and the back half of my tongue were covered in them. Those of you whose children haven't had it yet, let me tell you, when they do get it, feed them as many popsicles and italian ices as they want. It hurts so so bad. I have to take Tylenol every 3 hrs or I feel like death. It's pretty awful.

My dad and stepmom came to visit this weekend. Marino was in heaven - he LOVES his PapPap! My Aunt Kerry and cousin Samantha also came over and Marino had an early birthday celebration with all the new toys he got! Check out his new Mater shirt from my dad and Barb...

Perfect for this!

All of us took Marino to see his first movie - Cars 2! Marino LOVES Cars and especially Mater, so he was excited to go to the movie. I was a bit concerned with how he would feel about being in the theater but he was AWESOME! For the first half of the movie, he sat on the edge of his seat, completely engrossed in the movie. At some points he wanted to sit with me or his PapPap, and sometimes he wanted to stand (and dance), but he was really interested the whole time and well behaved. He even remembered to whisper (most of the time). It was really great and he was better behaved than some older children we saw there.

Here's Marino and PapPap playing with his new drum set from Aunt Kerry (he LOVES this thing).

It would have been a perfect weekend, were it not for this plaque!

Summer Fun with Old Friends and Daddy Love!

I'm a week behind here but catching up. The week before last, daycare was closed for a professional day on Friday. Our buddies Audra, Hayden and Jackson came by for a playdate. Hayden and Marino were next door neighbors in the NICU (which was way overcrowded at the time, which meant they were practically on top of each other) and we all still keep in touch. Audra is one of the sweetest women I've ever met and the boys are both adorable. Marino was in heaven having two boys to run around with!

They were digging Marino's play hats! Jackson the cowboy.

Hayden the pirate.

Saturday, our friends The Western's had their annual summer pool party. It was a great day for it - not too hot or too sunny but warm enough. We had a great time.

Marino shooting the breeze with Mr. Western...

Tony's first pool experience. He wasn't sure what to think initially, but he warmed up to the pool in no time.

Marino was pretty terrified of the water, so he looked like this a lot of the afternoon.

Bella is a sweetie!

Marino was in love with Ruby, the Western's dog.

Pool volleyball is always fun!

Marino was loving throwing the ball to Onyx, who also loves to swim!

Marino was much happier on a pool float!

Learning lawn games with Uncle Brian.

This boy is serious about his watermelon.

Marino was fascinated by the Western's bird, Sammy.

Sunday was Father's Day and Daddy spent most of the day fishing with a friend. We took him out for lunch at one of his favorite places, Mi Rancho.

5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week:


5. Last Friday, we had a playdate with Hayden, Jackson and Audra - friends we made when Hayden and Marino were NICU neighbors. Marino had a great time with the boys. Towards the end of the playdate, he put his arm around Hayden and said "We are friends. I love everybody." It was pretty adorable, especially since Marino is not so generous with physical affection.

4. The same day, I tried to put a bib on Marino. "I don't need a bib" he said, "I'm done with spilling things."

3. Marino's swim trunks have a Hawaiian hibiscus print. When we put them on to go swimming last Saturday, he said "These are my swimming flowers."

2. The other day, Marino was watching Diego when he let out a frustrated yelp. "What's wrong?" Evan asked. "I can't slide on my belly!" Marino cried. He was watching penguins slide down a hill on their bellies and assumed he could do it, too.

1. When Marino is tired or doesn't feel well, he always says "I want to go home." Even if we are in his bedroom. Last week we were laying down for a nap in my bed and he said "I want to go home." "We are home," I said. He told me "That's right! We ARE home. This is such a cool house. The big bad wolf cannot blow this house down. He's gotta go away."

I owe you pictures and stories from last weekend, but this week was crazy between my hard drive going bad on my laptop and Marino getting sick AGAIN!! Can you believe it? He has a nasty cough and had a fever on Wednesday. So much for worrying about cold and flu season!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

We love you!

5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week:

5. The other day, Marino saw Sandra, the Baby Room teacher, walk by the preschool room as we were putting his things away. She was pushing a baby in a stroller. Marino ran, grabbed a play stroller and a doll and rushed out there. "I have baby, too!" he said, proudly.

4. During the NBA playoffs last week, one morning Evan made the mistake of turning the channel from Diego to watch Sports Center. Since then, every time Evan comes in the room, Marino announces "I'M NOT watching basketball!"

3. The other day we were watching tv and Marino announced "I need Diego!" "We're watching Diego" I said. "No, I need to get IN the TV with Diego" said Marino.

2. Saturday, we went to a historic train station in Point of Rocks to take family pictures with my friend Gina. There was a pay phone and Marino was fascinated (he hadn't seen one before). He kept picking up the receiver and saying "Hello? Gramma? Grampa Ray? It's Marino."

1. Yesterday morning, Marino woke up crabby (he actually told me he was a crab and made his hands into pinching claws). He is really into the movie "Shrek" right now and is always assigning us roles from the movie for pretend play (I am always Princess Fiona). This morning he decided he wanted to be the dragon and demanded "I NEED FIRE IN MY MOUTH" and threw a tantrum because I wasn't providing him with the desired fire in his mouth ::sigh::

Feels Like Summer

It's definately summer. For those of you not familiar, weather in our area (DC Metro) is HOT and HUMID in the summer. This week is ending with temps near 100 with 70% humidity. Ugh. So how do we cool off?

Saturday, we got to visit with my friend Kristal and Marino's buddy Gabby. There's now a new buddy in the family, Baby Brianna, born in April. This was my first time seeing her, and I got a chance to hold and feed her. What a cutie! She looks just like her mama.

Kristal has this great deck that is completely enclosed (no door). I wouldn't have previously found that appealing, but now that Marino can open doors, I am wanting one of these! Gabby and Marino played with the water table on the deck and had a little dance party. The water table definately helped the kids keep cool...check out how wet Marino is!

Marino's BFF, Sydney, turned 3 on Friday. Sunday was her birthday bash. The kids had a great time in the pool, splashing each other and kicking.

Sydney was absolutely adorable, as always!

The really bizarre thing was that Marino acted fine at the party. As soon as I strapped him in his car seat, he said "I sick. I need to see the doctor." Two hours later, he had a blazing fever. Very strange. But glad we got to go to the party and celebrate with Sydney!

5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week. Some of them are a bit sad, since he was very sick this week, but precious nonetheless.

5. Monday, he told me "I need a Lightning McQueen bandaid [pronounced "banday"]." " Where should I put it? ", I asked. "Um...on my lips [pronounced "yips"]" he said.

4. He threw up on Sunday (everywhere, it was awful) and he was really disturbed by it. "I'm not going to get my drip [drip = throw up] out anymore because Daddy already cleaned it off the floor" he told me.

3. On Monday, he told Evan on the phone "I don't feel so good. I gotta go to the doctor and get all better."

2. One of Marino's favorite stories is "The Three Little Pigs". The other day, we were reading it and one of the scenes shows the completed house of sticks. On that page, there is a small bird in the corner, folded up in his wings and looking sad. Marino pointed to the bird and said "Oh no. Little bird is sad because the pig took away all of his sticks." I was really impressed with his insight there, that he would have put together that the bird needs sticks and was upset that the pig used the sticks he needed for his own house.

1. Sydney's birthday party was Sunday (post coming soon) and Marino was so excited to sing happy birthday. He was loudly singing the whole walk over to the cake (where we were supposed to go to sing). Can't wait for his birthday this year!

To say this was a rough week would be an understatement. Out of nowhere, Marino developed a fever and began vomiting on Sunday afternoon. His fever got up to 104 overnight, which is the highest fever he's had. I took him to see the doctor on Monday and she showed me a blister on his tonsil - evidence of Coxsackie virus. Coxsackie is self-resolving, so she told us just to keep him on a diet of liquids and soft foods and keep up with Ibuprofen. Tuesday, I bought him some Campbell's chicken noodle soup for dinner. Well, as he was eating it, he broke out in hives. Evan checked the can and the soup is made with egg whites!!

Evan gave him the Epipen shot and Bendaryl, then Albuterol and Pulmicort. All seemed to be calming down until he broke out in head to toe hives, and his eyes are ear lobes started swelling! So, off to the ER we went. There, they gave him Pepcid (antihistamine) and steroids and kept us for observation until 2am. He was absolutely miserable. If you had seen him, you would have cringed. His eyes were little slits and he had blotchy red hives over ever inch of his body. It was awful. He improved slightly 3 hours after the medicine was given, so they let us go home.

The next morning, he still had swollen eyes and some hives on his face, but they improved by noon. We are doing Benadryl every 6 hours, round the clock, steroids once a day and Pepcid twice a day for several more days.

5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week (and last week...I missed a week!):

5. Last week, we had a playdate with our buddies Sarah and Claire. The kids climbed into this big hippo. They climbed out and Marino announced "We're freed together, Claire!"

4. Marino loves the Wonder Pets. The other morning, Evan and I overheard him in the living room while watching the show...when they sang "We're Linny, Tuck, and Ming Ming, too", Marino added in "and Marino [last name]".

3. Marino loves making this awful noise that sounds like he's vomiting (it's a boy thing). When he does it, I always tell him "I don't like that sound." This week, when we had this exchange, he would then make a different sound (usually some sort of super hero/action sound) and would say "What about that sound? You like that sound?" Last night he remembered the sound I approved of the night before and switched to that one instead.

2. It's so fun to hear him repeat phrases (well, most of the time..."just shut up" is one we do not find so funny). Last night in the bath, he wrapped up his toy frog in a washcloth. He said "Hey, check this out" and unwrapped the washcloth to show me the frog.

1. The boy is going through a phase where he insists on being called "Marino" and not any nickname or even a term of endearment. Any attempts to call him "Mino" or "sweetheart" are countered immediately with "I not sweetheart! I Mah.ween.ooo." Sharon told me that last week at daycare, one of the other moms said "Later, Alligator" to Marino as she was leaving. "I not the alligator!" he said, "I'm Marino!"

Memorial Day Weekend 2011

We had a fairly low key start to the summer this Memorial Day weekend. It was so brutally hot and Marino's skin has been reacting badly to the pollen, so we were house bound a lot of the weekend (and this week as well).

Friday night, Aunt RiRi, Aunt Chelle, and cousin Sammy came over to visit. Aunt RiRi left on Sunday for Mumbai, where she is doing an internship working on supply chain economics. We are very proud of her, as well as Aunt Chelle, who is moving into her first apartment this week!

Marino was loving on Sammy. He definately thinks "guys" are cool, and Sammy was willing to play dinosaurs with him, so that made him even cooler. These pictures crack me up!

Aunt Chelle and Aunt RiRi - we are so proud of them!

One wired boy and his aunties!

Sammy was such a hit that today after work when I told Marino Aunt Ronnie (Sammy's mom) was in the car when we picked him up from daycare (she and I work in the same department), he announced, "I don't want to go home! I want to see Sammy!!!" Luckily, Sammy was home so we got a chance to say hi when we dropped Ronnie off.

Saturday morning, Marino got up at 5:45am, which meant he was super tired by 10am. We met up with our preemie pals Cameron, Evan and Simon at Wheaton Regional Park, where we all met for the first time two years ago.

Wheaton Regional has a decent playground, but it's closed until September while they build a super awesome playground in it's place. We took the boys on a little nature walk and they had lots of fun chasing butterflies.

Unfortunately, we had to leave a little early, since Marino was really tired from the early morning. After a nap, Marino woke up to Gramma and Grampa Ray visiting. Evan put together their birthday present to Marino - this awesome new train table (Note to moms of toddler boys, get a train table! We could get rid of all our other toys and Marino could care less - he LOVES his train table!).

Marino, Gramma and Grampa Ray spent most of the rest of the weekend in Marino's "train room"! They had a great time together.