Pumpkins...and other stuff

Let me tell you something...we have been up to lots of fun things lately!! Bill was out of town last weekend and I had to take Stephen to CHOP on Monday, so we spent the weekend in Pennsylvania hanging out and spending time with my parents and Stephen's cousins.  I've been dying to take Stephen to a pumpkin patch since he can actually run around and enjoy it this year and have fun, but the weather has been pretty crappy here in Northern Virginia on the weekends and I have a hard time dropping $15 a person just to get into a pumpkin patch!  Being from Pennsylvania, I think it's totally crazy what farms around here charge for stuff like this.  So, while we were up in PA, we took a trip to a really cool pumpkin patch with Mimi, Poppy, Aunt Jess, Norah, and Chloe and had a blast! 

 

Stephen also had his first hay ride and loved every minute of it!  I was a little worried he would panic and want to get off, but he really liked it! He's WAY into trucks, tractors, and cars right now went crazy when he saw the big, old, blue tractor!

 

It continues to amaze me each time we visit my sister and her girls how much Stephen LOVES his cousins!! He's still at the phase where he just wants to be around them all the time and play with them and do whatever it is they are doing. We went out to lunch afterwards, and all three kids just entertained each other and the girls, especially Norah, look out for him and help him so much.  I'm hoping that it continues for many years because it is just so darn cute! And I'm hopeful that when Stephen finally starts preschool, he'll feel that way about other kids at school too (especially with his eating and potty training).

On Monday we made the trek to CHOP with the hopes that it would be our last every two week visit.  Dr. B has told me the last time that as long as Stephen's labs were stable last week and this week, we could go to visits once a month.  Although the lab here in Virginia screwed up last week and only ran the one set of labs instead of two (the doctor has ordered a CBC and metabolic panel and the lab only ran a CBC), what they did get looked good.  So I was very anxious to get the results of Monday's visit!  And everything looked great!  His white blood cell count and ANC were stable (still a little low, but no lower than they were), his creatinine is still a stable 0.3, and his prograf level was perfect!  So we got the go ahead to skip a few weeks!!  Hallelujah!  The drives between Virginia and Philadelphia are really starting to kill me, so I'm so happy to skip a few weeks!

Oh and I learned that both my child AND my dog seem to have adverse reactions to drugs.  Our vet prescribed Mabel some doggie xanax because she has such bad anxiety, especially in the car, but wouldn't you know it, my dog has the 1 in a 1,000,000 occurrence of an adverse reaction to the drug and went C.R.A.Z.Y! She literally went crazy for about 8 hours, including the car ride. It was a super fun trip up to PA! 

But other than that, all is good! I'm still working on the whole preschool thing, but feeling optimistic about my chances of finding a nurse through care.com.  And Stephen is continuing to improve on his food eating skills.  His foods of choice are still chips and pretzels, but he's now added jelly beans, candy corn, Fritos, popcorn, and the occasional cookie to the mix.  But more importantly, he's willing to pickup and try some different foods including a pickled carrot last week while we were out to lunch with his cousins.  Hopefully the trend will continue and by the time Christmas rolls around, he'll be ready to chow down on my Holiday treats!