The boy that was a giant...

When I went into Max's room this morning, I found him like this.



I took a picture and went about getting his food and medicine ready. When I came back, he was even more relaxed...mouth wide open!



It must be a lazy day for him. Here's where he was when I came into the living-room from putting away laundry.





He's so big!!

And just for the fun of it...the beginning of summer-time weather in Colorado means sunset photos from Deana!

This is as bright as it got the other night...but just the beginning.

Oooooowweeeee!

I think you might have to be from some of our lower states to know just how to say that blog title correctly. But either way, that's about all I can say at the end of this day!

We had a full day up at Children's today for back to back appointments. I got there around 9:00am, and finally left at 4:00pm, arriving home at 5:00pm. Max did really well to have been around chaos and noise and poking and prodding and sitting through long conversations between his momma and doctors. He giggled and said "hi" to his nurse. He showed off his new adapted way of talking to his doctor. He puts his hand up to his mouth and moves it around to say "more". I don't know how he can do that but not put his lips together and just say "more"...but it's sweet his way too!

He went right to sleep in his car seat on the way home in traffic. And when we got home, he was happy to be going in. I got him out of his seat and was holding him to get him in the right position. He got as straight as he could, and took his strong arm and hooked it around the back of my neck...looked right at me and smiled. I was so surprised! I said, are you hugging me? He chuckled and squealed YEAH!!! He stayed like that all the way in the house...drooling down my neck all the time. It was his sweetest moment in a long time!

A few pointers from the day:

Monster Max is 41 pounds and 3' 10" tall...did you get that!!??? Nearly 4 ft tall!!

We had to increase his meds and formula calories because he's growing so much.

Talked over schooling...or how we will likely not send him to school in the fall.

And dodged germs left and right!!!!

So glad to be home now. I'm going to re-heat my spaghetti in a bit for dinner, maybe do a little laundry...and get ready for Steve to get home. He's been out all week to a conference. We were supposed to go to an opera performance tomorrow being put on at Children's, but because of the H1N1 flu threat, Children's canceled. Can't say I'm too disappointed. I didn't want to go out there again by myself tomorrow. But seems like a silly decision, considering they weren't really targeting visitors or parents or children walking in with colds. They were EVERYWHERE!!!

Oooooohhhh!!!!! I just heard THUNDER!!!!!!! Lucky day!

With that, I'll leave it for now!

Isn't he lovely?

Now that we have a carseat that stays in the car all the time, we can bring in his Special Tomato chair, which offers him more stability while sitting. I know he looks like his feet won't fit on the foot-rests, but he just likes to stretch out. He is a boy, you know!!

All done...

We got the keys Friday afternoon, and signed the lease. Friday night we started moving the kitchen over. Everything we brought over, we put away immediately. When Max's physical therapist got here today, she said she couldn't believe how it looked like we had been living there a long time!

It feels good to be moved in, and we've already met a few neighbors. I have the project of filling my dresser with all the clothes I took out to move. And to fill the bookshelf this week. I still shake my head at the thought that we moved our entire house in 2 days. After only learning that we needed to move 6 days before that. Go ahead and mark us down as your craziest friends/family!

And if moving wasn't enough to start the week out, Steve left this evening for California for most of the week. AND Wednesday night we'll have out of town guests coming. Good thing it's my cousin and his friend who won't mind that their rooms consist of nothing more than an air mattress!

Here are some pictures of the house before we moved in. And one picture of what we did with Max's room.

Kitchen:


Here's the picture on the ad for the house of the dining room:


Dining room empty:


And what we've done to make it a room for Max:


Our bedroom is directly across from the dining room, which is why we made it Max's room. We are going to put up some drapes to make a bit more private. Our little table fits at the edge of the living room.

Here's the living room, and you can click on any of the pictures to see the rest of the house. I'll get more pictures as we finish rooms up.

Living room empty:


With our chairs...and messy table!



Max is tired from moving!




Oh...and I guess Mother's Day happened in there too. My dear husband bought me flowers for our new patio. They are gorgeous!

And once again...the Watson's move...

I guess I should set a revolving blog entry...We're moving!!

I know I've been a bit vague about it all, but due to their own personal reasons, our landlords had to put our townhome on the market. I don't think any of us thought it would sell so soon, but it sure has! The new buyer came in for an inspection yesterday, and wants to move in asap. That meant for us, we wanted to get into something else as soon as we could for them to have the deal go through. (And so we didn't have to show the house anymore!)

We looked all last weekend, and boy oh boy were we annoyed! Just not a lot of houses out there right now for rent...because so many people can't get loans. We found one a couple of streets over, but they said it was already taken.

We got a call on Tuesday that the people they thought they would rent it fell through, and we set up a showing. We got over there and the guy showing from the property management company welcomed us, and asked how old Max was. The paused after we answered and said, Is he okay, or is he special needs? We answered, special needs, a little nervous if we were going to hear it about the steps in the house, or the stairs walking up to the porch. But instead he smiled and his face lit up. "My grand-son is special needs!!!". And so went the rest of the showing...talking about the similarities and differences in our little guys. Actually a lot more similarities than I expected. He wanted to give his daughter-in-law my info, because she was just saying so few people understand this kind of life!

So that was the little side story to our house hunting experience! We filled out the paper-work and got the final approval this afternoon. It is empty, so we can move in asap. And Steve will be traveling the next couple of weeks, so this weekend seems like the best time to do the moving.



So give us a couple of weeks to get settled...then let's fill up the summer months with visitors!!! We'll have plenty of room, with a guest bedroom!

Box Car Max

With such a special little guy like Max, we have to come up with special ways of playing.

When most people see a diaper delivery box, Steve sees a car for Max to ride around the house in. He took out a few bags and propped Max up to take a ride. He gave him his car steering wheel and it turned into an afternoon game!



I finally got the video out towards the end of his little game, so he wasn't showing off for the camera. But he had been honking the horn to "make the care go".

The boy who loves opera...

If you've been around for a while, you know about Max's unreal love for opera. It's a love he came up with all on his own, because neither his Daddy or I have any knowledge of it. One weekend afternoon, we were flipping channels on the radio hoping to find the magic music to stop the screaming in the back seat, and it landed on The Barber of Seville live at the Met. Not only did Max calm down at the sound of the singing, but he decided to sing along, to all the parts!

From that time, we have filled our house with opera. I contacted Opera Colorado, to ask if there was an opportunity for us to bring Max to a rehearsal. They set up a performance at The Children's Hospital in Denver to perform for Max, and all the little ones who were there. At the time of the performance, we were living in California, and flew in for the performance. Sadly, they had to cancel the performance due to an outbreak of strep throat in the singers. But, they quickly put together a little personalized concert for Max in their rehearsal studio.

They day we arrived home from his g-tube surgery, we got a package from The Metropolitan Opera in NYC, they had heard of our little opera lover, and wanted to send a care package. It was full of DVD's and cd's that we've just about worn out!

On his birthday, we got calls from opera companies around the country singing a very happy 5th birthday song...and it all started with our friends at Opera Colorado.

Today we got to spend a morning with our friends, while Max attended his very first full length opera, Cosi Fan Tutte live.

It was an early morning for Max, so he dozed through a lot of the first half of the opera, but towards the end, wanted to sing along. Luckily we were there with area schools, so he didn't interrupt anyone...hopefully!

It was a funny opera, and we were so thankful to get to let Max enjoy one of his favorite things! It was so special...and I think he knew it!

Max was ready for the show to start! Check out this handsome guy!! He looked so much like a big boy in his new outfit.


We had 2 full boxes reserved for us...another special treat to the day.


And of course, when it was time to "stretch his legs" during intermission, Max chilling out before the second half began.


Thank you to all of our friends at Opera Colorado! We will get to see them all again in a few more weeks, when they get to perform Cinderella for the kids at Children's.