Parker Passed & Brayden Took a Nose Dive!

I don't think I mentioned it before, but Parker did not pass her hearing screen at the hospital. They did it on 2 different days, and she did not pass on the right side both days. I wasn't there for the first test, but I went with her on the 2nd day. The test is set up so that each ear has to get a score of 160 within 15 minutes. She passed on the left pretty quickly, but the right side never got out of the 60s - that was a long 15 minutes of me saying, "come on, come on, come on" in my head. They told us that Cesarean babies can have more fluid in their ears (I guess it gets squeezed out if they go through the birth canal??), so it was probably nothing to worry about and that they would re-test her in a couple of weeks. At first, I did not stress about it . . . but as time went by, the worry started to creep in (doesn't it always?). Around the middle of last week, I was pretty much convinced that she was deaf and that we needed to get to work on our sign language skills immediately!

So yesterday we went back to the hospital for the re-test. The lady explained the test to us again, showed us the monitor and said that each ear needed to get to 160 within 15 minutes. It took baby girl 1 minute and 38 seconds to pass both ears -- Whoo-hoo! Good girl, Parker :) Momma really needed that!

Best seat in the house -- Parker loves to relax in her car seat. I'm thinking about just setting it in her crib at night so that we can get some rest!!!

On to Brayden's nose dive -- I have seen many cute pics of your kiddos playing on playgrounds, and I have been tempted many times to let Brayden try out the play area at the mall. Yesterday, Mom and I took a short trip to the mall to look for some shoes for Bray. He's a big ol' size 4 now, so I thought we would have more options (I was wrong, we found nothing!). There weren't many kids playing and he had been so good -- so, I asked him if he wanted to get out of the stroller and play. He signed play, so I took him out and happily planted him down in the middle of the play area. Little did I know that I was feeding my sweet, innocent boy to the wolves!!! Brayden walked around a little . . . he didn't venture far, and he was really more interested in looking at us than any of the brats, I mean, kids that were playing. After a few minutes, he walked back over to me, and I was asking him if he was ready to go. About that time, a little girl came running by and ran right between us. Then a little boy came chasing her. As he ran between us, he stuck out his arm and clotheslined my sweet Bray-My. The clothesline was pretty rough, so the boy then fell on top of Brayden. Poor Brayden Boy!!! He went face first into the carpet, and it scared him quite a bit. I scooped him up, wiped the dirt and tears from his face, and went into ultra-baby mode. I felt like such an idiot for leaving my poor baby boy out in the open with maniacs, I mean, kids running around! He has carpet-burn on his little nose :( I put some Aquaphor on it last night to soothe it, and it looks better today. . . no more playgrounds for us!!!

On a side note -- yes, I realize that that my son is destined to be a sissy-boy, because I leave him no choice!!! Also, the little boy really didn't mean to hurt Brayden, he was just chasing his sister and got out of control. His grandmother did make him come over and apologize to Brayden, too, so that was nice.

Oh, my nose!!! Can you see the carpet burn??? How about the HUGE molar in his mouth? This boy has the biggest teeth ever!