Catching up - Grandma and Jamie

A few days after the Braughs left, Grandma came to visit and brought a surprise -- the boys' 13-year-old cousin, Jamie. The boys LOVED Jamie. And Grandma loved Jamie's energy to chase after the boys.

Hanging with Jamie

Bedtime story from Grandma

Next up -- our Cayman Island vacation!

Catching up - The twin sleepover

The first weekend of July the boys had a special treat. Evelyn and Audrey Braugh came to visit. Evelyn and Audrey are the twin daughters of my law school roommate, Chrissy, and her husband, Roger (also a friend from law school). The girls are almost exactly two months younger than the boys, and they all really got along famously. They had a sleepover in the boys' room. And the boys have been asking about "Ev-lyn AND Awwww-dry" since they left. We are looking forward to many more good times with our kiddos together.

On Friday, we hosted baby happy hour (our typical Friday night gathering). Here are Charlie, Luke Montgomery, Sam Montgomery, Evelyn Braugh, and Audrey Braugh. Not pictured are Joseph, Carter Hollingsworth, Beck Hollingsworth, and Cate Bennett. No way could I get all nine kids in one picture!


On Saturday morning, we went to Noah's Ark, a great kiddie pool/park in Houston, with the Braughs and the Hollingsworths. Everyone had great fun playing in the water and sliding, as you can see:

Roger with Audrey and Evelyn

Derek with Carter

Cort with Joseph and Charlie

Gratuitous cute shot of Audrey and Joseph riding horses.

Catching up - Gransan and Grandad camp

Due to technical difficulties, the blog is a little behind. There are lots of goings on this summer to cover.

In late June, the boys went to Henrietta to visit Grandad and Gransan. They swam, played in the backyard, went to Grandad's office, ate at the Peach Orchard, and watched "shows" in Grandad's new Escalade. They reportedly didn't miss us at all. We don't believe it.

Both boys had fun playing in the wading pool and sprinklers in Gransan's big back yard.




For some reason there are a lot of pictures with the boys eating a snack outside. I can't imagine why.

Grandad plays a good game of ABCs.

Everyone in the Douthitt household enjoys the leather recliners.

Is this gross or what?

Update on Joseph's finger incident. The tip that was sewn back on did, indeed, die. Turned black as night. But the doctor doesn't think he'll need further surgery after all, which is good. The black part will eventually fall off, revealing the skin that has been regenerating underneath. It'll just be a little short, as predicted. Pretty amazing.

We are beginning to see it coming off, so we thought we should have some pictures for posterity.

Joseph is very proud of his finger and likes to show it off.

Look closely and you can see the stitches. Because they are designed to dissolve in red blood cells, they never dissolved.

The nail is a little funky look and long, but I'm afraid to cut it.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the best Daddy ever!

Love, Charlie and Joseph

Weekend in Galveston

This past weekend, Grandad and GranSan were going to Galveston to help celebrate with family friend David Greer, who received a distinguished alumnus award from UTMB. So we tagged along to spend a weekend at the beach with the boys.

Joseph loved the beach and spent almost all Saturday morning building houses in the sand. He also loved his hat and sunglasses, and called himself a "beach dude." The big blue thing on his arm is an Xerosox (we called it the "flipper") to keep his bum finger dry. It worked pretty well.

Unlike Joseph, Charlie preferred to spend his Saturday morning in the ocean. He loved throwing his balls out into the ocean and letting the waves carry them back. There was a lot of seaweed in the ocean, but Charlie didn't seem to mind.

Saturday afternoon, we took a boat tour of Galveston Harbor. We saw some dolphins, lots of other boats, and lots of seagulls. The boys had a great time. I think it was a historical tour, but we missed the history commentary since we were running after 2-year-olds the whole time.

On Sunday morning before heading back to Houston, we crashed a new resort just opening on the west end of the island called Pointe West. Cort acted like we were interested in buying a place (we're not!), so we were invited to swim. They have a great pool overlooking the ocean and a separate kiddie pool. The boys had a good time "swimming" and jumping off the side. All in all, we had a great weekend.

Joey Four Finger

Well, we have our first really interesting story for our blog. I received a message at the office Thursday from the boys' school that there was an emergency. When I called back, they said that Joseph had gotten his finger caught in a door and someone needed to come. I wasn't overly concerned, especially since I had just talked to Cort and he was on his way to pick up the boys anyway and this seemed like something he could handle. But when I said that Cort should be there soon, the school still seemed concerned. Why, I asked, did they think it was broken? Ms. Karen replied, "Amy, the tip of his finger has been cut off." Oh.

At that moment, Cort walked in the door to the school and saw his son with his entire hand wrapped up in a bloody towel. Luckily, both Cort and I are pretty calm under pressure (although Cort is admittedly squeamish). Since you can't strap a 2-year-old with a bleeding, severed finger into a car seat and leave him alone, Joseph's teacher, Ms. Patricia, sat in the back of the truck holding Joseph's hand while Cort drove to my office to pick me up (the fingertip was in a cup of ice, so it could conveniently sit in the cup holder). I took over for Ms. Patricia, whom we left on a streetcorner downtown, and off we raced to Texas Children's Hospital. Cort even ran a bunch of red lights on the way.

Poor Joseph was screaming during most of the ride to the hospital. But Texas Children's was fabulous--or at least as fabulous as any place that you frequent only because of an emergency can be. We were ushered immediately back to the triage room (our pediatrician had called ahead). They evaluated the finger and took an x-ray to check for broken bones. (This was the first time I had the opportunity to look at it. I have to say that it looked pretty bad, because while it had cleanly cut off the tip, it mysteriously had not cut off the actual fingernail--so you could see exactly how much was missing. And it was just a bloody stump, which made it look worse.) They called for the hand surgeon and the "Child Life" specialist, the latter of whom is a person whose sole job is to comfort and entertain the children with toys, books, etc. Once Joseph got hooked up to the morphine, he had a pretty grand time for awhile.

Eventually, the hand surgeon showed up. I was a little wary when we discovered that his older brother had been a few years below me in law school. Was this guy old enough to be operating on my son? (Apparently so, and an even younger medical student did much of the operation.) The surgeon showed us the severed tip (this was the first time I'd looked at it). There was a bunch of tissue, a little tiny bit of bone, and the nail bed, in addition to the skin. He said that the nail bed won't regenerate and the whole thing could not be sewed back on, but instead he took out the bone and most of the tissue (leaving only enough for cushion) and sewed the skin over the open wound. He said it was 50/50 whether it will live or die. If we get lucky and it lives, then we just have to wait for it to heal. If it dies, he'll have to have another surgery to graft more tissue on it. Either way, he's going to have a short finger.

Joseph did fine with the surgery--since he was knocked out for it--but had a tough time coming out of the sedation. He got sick and generally didn't want to wake up, so he was a pretty miserable kid for a couple of hours. But he perked up when we finally left, and was very anxious to see Charlie.

So where was Charlie, you ask? We had called our friend Mike Bennett, whose daughter Cate is the same age as the boys, and Mike picked Charlie up at school. Apparently Charlie didn't think this was weird at all, and he happily went home with Mike and spent the evening with Mike, Shelley, and Cate. They were nice enough to report in periodically that he had found all the balls in the house, had eaten all his beef burgundy but none of his vegetables, and enjoyed a bath with Cate. He went to sleep over there in a pair of Cate's pajamas (thanks, Shelley, for not giving him pink ones). They luckily had an extra binkie we'd left over there, but he still had to go to sleep without his dog, blankie, and book. He did great. So great, in fact, that he apparently called Shelley and Mike "Mommy" and "Daddy" all night. We were happy you fared so well without us, Charlie, but that's going a little overboard.

We picked Charlie up on our way home with Joseph and got them home and to bed around 11pm. Everyone slept great. Joseph cried for awhile the next morning--not sure if his finger hurt, he still felt sick from the sedation, or was just supertired--but since then he's been back to his old self. He's got a big bandage on his finger, which we usually cover with a sock to keep it clean and keep him from perpetually flipping everyone the bird.

The boys' first trip to the dentist

Cort and I have both been out of town for work, so I'm a little late posting about this, but Tuesday morning was the boys' first trip to the dentist. We took them to a pediatric dentist, Dr. Cammarata. Both boys did really great.

The exam room has a great play area in the center that the boys enjoyed. They also got their pictures taken and got to pick out a new toothbrush. The new toothbrushes are different colors than their old ones, which makes it hard for Mom to remember whose is whose.

They each had their teeth cleaned by the hygienist, who was really great with kids. I hung out with Joseph, who was very reluctant at first. But he loved touching the cleaning apparatus, which tickled, and had picked out his toothpaste on his own (ok, with a little help - he picked orange). The hygienist finally convinced him to let her clean just one tooth, and pretty soon he was opening his mouth on command for her. Charlie went next and Cort hung out with him. He needed a little extra holding on to Daddy, but he also did very well (he picked the cherry toothpaste, for the record).

Both boys then saw Dr. Cammarata, who counted and checked out their teeth (Joseph had 20; Charlie 16). No cavities anywhere! Dr. Cammarata did recommend getting rid of the binkies soon, particularly for Joseph (which is interesting, because Charlie is much more attached to his binkie, but apparently the way Joseph holds his causing more of a problem with his bite). I'm not sure when we will try to kick the habit.

All in all, the visit went very well -- except for the fact that Charlie has had buyer's remorse for 2 days over the slinky he picked as a prize for being a good boy. Apparently he wishes he had picked the bear. He gets very upset every time he sees the slinky. It's going to be a long 6 months until our next dentist visit.

Poo Poo Pah

Ok, no pictures for this one. And I really hope no one but family is reading. We have exciting news to share -- we just found out that Joseph went poo poo pah at school yesterday! Translation for those who don't speak Joseph-ese: he had a bowel movement on the toilet ("poo poo" on the potty). We think he went pee pee pah, too, but aren't sure.

Apparently he woke up early from afternoon nap and Ms. Blanca, one of his teachers, snatched him up before he could wake up the other kids. He told her he had to "poo poo" and she asked him if he wanted to go on the potty. Mind you, we do this all the time at home and it has never been productive. It's just an opportunity for him to crawl around on the bathroom fixtures unconfined by his diaper and play with himself. Ms. Blanca didn't really expect him to do anything either. But he did! Apparently he was pretty amazed with his work product once she showed it to him.

Joseph seemed very proud of himself when Ms. Blanca told me, and again when I told Daddy. Charlie even got in on the praise for Joseph, which I think made him really proud.

We went to the zoo, zoo, zoo

This morning we went to the zoo. The boys wanted to show GranSan and Grandad, who are in town for the weekend, the "e-phants." We saw the elephants, as well as the giraffes, the lions, the tigers, the bears, the koala bears, and much, much more.

The trek through the zoo tired us all out, so we had to stop for a watermelon break. The Houston Zoo sells all sorts of fruits for only $1, and luckily Grandad had some money. These are some pictures of Charlie enjoying the watermelon break with his grandparents:

No great pictures of the "e-phants," but here's a really cute one of the boys at the elephant statute:

Heading home after a fun trip.