Okay! I get it! I'm a very bad blogger!

At the state fair in Minnesota:

In the butterfly "house" The butterflies were told to disrobe and get ready for the "showers". Thomas "Eichmann" Allen was responsible for mutilating at least three innocent butterflies.
Drinking grape juice weraing Dad's hat...
I can still see you!
Me and Nut. (sporting the Maddox Jolie-Pitt 'do)

So to make up for it, I will post a whole bunch of pictures. Thomas is currently sick and miserable. I think he has a cold/allergies/teething and no poop all at the same time. Poor little pumkin head. This morning (1/18) Leah came over to watch him and all he did was cry for over 2 hours. When I finally got home, he was all smiles cuz mom came back for baby. Already the manipulation starts.

Last weekend I got to go to St. Croix and See Jess, Adam and the girls. It was great because I hadn't seen them at all since Addie's 3rd birthday! Addie and Thomas seemed to have a bit of a crush on each other, but Lily wasn't buying the "Thomas is a baby" bit. Lily is a bit taller than Thomas, but not by much. I was the biggest kid in my kindergarten class, so the height now means nothing. This may be his one and only growth spurt....

Still busy with work, trying to talk Eugene into anoher baby, and getting home improvement/Eugene Improvement projects done. House: new screen doors on front and back, new rook, new gabled entry over the back door. Eugene: tooth surgery, dentist and hernia surgery. Note to the readers...fixer uppers may be charming and quirky, but they will cost you an arm and a leg...

Also, I am currently trying to organize a rally/protest of some sort because there is a 2 month old baby that was beaten severly by her parents here in Rapids....22 fractures. I am trying to get national coverage, so you may yet hear that I am on the news or in jail....

On to the photos!

He's a very happy eater, although Jess noticed his nose was a bit orange due to his love of carrots and sweet potatoes.

Thomas and Addie....an eerie premonition of their engagment picture 26 years from now...


Lily refused to wear her pajamas...she wanted to wear Thomas' shirt instead...


Lily, Thomas and Addie... not sure what was so funny, but the girls absolutely wore Thomas out. He slept like a rock. But balancing two women would wear a fellow out. I guess he won't be much of a fundie after all....

He army crawled in reverse and got stuck. Similar to Zoolander, but he can't go forward...

Picture Heavy

Enjoying a biter biscuit in the comfort of the tub...eat it, don't wear it....
Helping mom with the laundry...most of which is Thomas' creation.
Thomas and his world Famous "Blue Steel" pose....
Ike taking in "Blue Steel"...

This is the three of us on our 1st wedding anniversary. One year already! On the plus side, although we are all a few pounds heavier, I think we are looking pretty good, given the roller coaster ride of the past year!
Thomas loves to hide under the furry blanket. All we have to do is throw the thing over him and he laughs for at least 1/2 hour. He also growls when he is under there. Something is wrong with the kid.
The best part is when Daddy or I peek underneath and Thomas scares us! That's freaking hilarious!
Hi all you people out there!
He is standing ALL THE TIME now. No crawling, won't roll over (unless he accidentally does it) but Thomas is all about holding on to things and standing up in the bouncy seat. Normally, we try to stay away from the "develope your kid's brain" stuff (it's a gimmick) but this was the only standing contraption that could accomodate his height.

We recently took Thomas to the zoo...there is a small petting zoo and he loved the cows and sheep. He also likes to go and feed the ducks because they come right up to you. As usual, everyone comments on how unbelievably good Thomas is. At times it scares me to think about having another baby, becasue I think we got really lucky with Thomas...he's such a laid back kid.

Over all things have been busy. I just recieved a $1500 grant for the Reach Out and Read program which will provide board books to all the children who are patients at the Nekoosa Clinic. I spoke with South Central Administration and hopefully, a pediatrition/librarian (yup...both) and I will be able to collaborate and develope a program for a future Library Conference about the success of the program in urban and rural areas. If it goes well at WLA, then I might get to present at ALA (oh...Wisconsin Library Association and American Library Association) So that's pretty exciting. Also, it's nice because finally, all the things I have wanted to do professionally over the years are finally being realized. What difference supportive administration makes!

Oh, and if anyone is looking for an addictive and quick read, try the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer...it's really good!

Circulation at the library has gone from 3000 a month to 5300...which is fantastic. No more bad teen problems (if I hear swearing, you are out for a week.)

Otherwise, there is nothing new on the horizon...I want another baby, but....there may be some seduction involved.

Old Man Slippers

These are the wonderfully soft old man slippers that Auntie Jess made for me. I love them! Mom puts them on me when we go for walks at night, because these are the only things I CAN"T get off.



Here I am on my furry blanket playing with them. Mom said something about Jessica and her "not so subtle hints"... ;)
I like to chew on them...but these days I like to chew on almost anything. Last night (Monday) I was playing with my pacifier and I like to put it in the wrong way. Then I rolled over on my belly and was lifting myself up, but I got tired, so I fell. The pacifier got wedged in my mouth, and I was crying and choking. Mom had to work really hard to get the darn thing out, and I ended up getting the top of my mouth all cut up. Later, she was telling dad and she said something about putting the ER on speed dial


I love to play peekaboo. I like to hide so mom and dad can't find me. They look EVERYWHERE calling "Thomas" but I like to hide a long time to scare them.


I am doing "this little piggie" all by myself.


Me doing my "Uncle Adam" impression again. Next week, I think I will blacken a cork and give myself a moustache...
Whew!!!! I am tired! It's hard work being adorable.

What can I say? Mom's a bad photographer. She purposely takes pictures that make me look dopey.

Me in my big boy shirt before Ben's graduation. I am practicing my lizard tongue to show Ben. When mom watched him as a baby, his favorite look was "lizard tongue."

Here is my Uncle Tom on the left and my cousin Benjamin Thomas on the right. Uncle Tom and I are 49 years and 51 weeks apart. Both of them think I was named after them. Ben is going to go to the same school mom went to!

Here I am in the new gym. Even though it has A/C, no one turned it on! I was the best behaved baby there. I never cried or screamed or nothing. There was a mean mom who kept spanking her little boy and mom and her got into it, but my cousin Andrew stepped in and got my mom to be quiet. But not before she shot back to the mean mom "If you're overwhlemed call a hotline, or better yet, put him up for adoption."

When Ben was walking up to get his diploma, he even stopped to say hi to me! All the senior girls were totally checking me out and telling me how cute I am. I was the hit of the party!

I am now 31" loong and weigh 21 pounds. I wear 12-18 month pants and 18 m - 24 month shirts.

To Addie: It is not fair that your mom says you have a big head. I have a big head. My mom says it's because we have a lot of brains in there. Oh, and alot of grooves for all the smart alecs out there!

Lily: I'm sorry you had to get your appendix out! I know how much foot IVs hurt. But it looks like you were very brave and even walking on it! Wow! You are the girl of steel. Or maybe more like fiberglass. Or fiber optic cable. What I am trying to say is that you are small and wiry, but amazingly strong!

Signing off

T$

Thomas C. Sweet Potato Artiste

Mom was feeding me my "sweet taters uh-huh" (said in "Slingblade" voice) and I knocked some out of her hand and they landed in my tray. So I started to play with them...
Mom thought "Hey, why don't I just let him play with the sweet potatoes?" She knew I would play with them...but.....she didn't know I would take both hands, screech and then proceed to flail away, splattering sweet potatoes everywhere! When I was done, it looked as though there had been a sweet potato massacre!
The sweet potatoes had put up a noble fight, but I, Thomas Cash walked away from the melee a victor!
This was me two weeks ago when I first started to enjoy eating real food. I'm also sporting my stylish do the "Ryan Cabrerra".
Grandpa came over to visit the other night. I like to make him feed me. This is my favorite way to get my bottle. Daddy makes me hold the bottle myself, and then I cry. On the otherhand, I do have mom and Grandma and Grandpa E. trained well. When there is 2 ounces or less left, I drink REEALLLL SLLOOOWWW. I like to see how long I can make it last. Usually, about 14 minutes into the "operation" the person holding me starts to wimper. I like to go all "limp noodle" on them and see if they can keep holding me. Fron what I hear, it's hard work holding a 20 pound kid who is dead weight and stretched out.

By the way....did anyone notice I am almost as tall as Grandpa? heee heee heee!

Thomas' 2 week checkup

He is a complete goon. This is his "normal" personality.
This is my boy and his "winning" smile. As you can see, he looks almost nothing like me anymore :( .
Lizard tongue! He has also discovered the art of the raspberry...
In the new and improved neglectomatic that Daddy bought for him.

So we went to see Thomas' pediatrician/gastroenterologist at Marshfield today. Many of you are familiar with my feelings toward that place. However, his dr. is wonderful. I'm talking neck in neck with the family doctor wonderful. First of all, he is very good about explaining everything and making sure you are comfortable and you don't feel rushed. Plus, you can tell he really likes working with kids. Thomas was just showing off. And, perhaps as a nod to the parents, he commented on how alert and inquisitive Thomas is. (He really is....he has much more patience than I do....)

So, the dr. gave him a once over (he's 99% for height) and gave us the test results. It does not seem as though Thomas has a milk allergy, but there might be some lactose issues. The biopsy results indicate the kid has some acid issues. Apparently, most babies don't really start producing much stomach acid until they are about a year old. Thomas is already there. He has some mild erosion issues in the stomach and irritation in the esophagus, which really surprised the dr. He said usually there are more symptoms, crankiness, etc. So, Thomas gets to continue his Prevacid for at least another 3 months and then we see how things are going. He does seem to be doing much better, not as much spit up, and he finally sleeps through the night. Poor baby, he had a sour stomach and heartburn for months. I think of how miserable I was when I was pregnant, and feel bad for little nut.

You know, when I was little my doctors had first names like John and William and Andrew. Thomas has doctors named Craig and Daryl and Floyd. I'm not kidding. If you told me those were the doctor's names before I met them, I might have passed. But they are all excellent. BTW, Floyd was the dr. who did the c-section.

Thomas Cash, Drama Queen

What can I say? The kid will put me in an early grave! I went to work on Wednesday and was planning to come home at 2:30 to watch Thomas. Eugene and I had a slight disagreement that morning. I was planning on coming home, and he had called his mom to babysit. I am not real keen on that, but I will explain more about that in a second. So I went to work, expecting to come home to a house with just T and me home.

I get a text message at noon saying his mom and niece are at the house. SIGH!!! I go home about 2:15 and Thomas wakes up. He was talking and babbling in his crib. Eugene's 6 year old neice goes into the bedroom and is real quiet. I go and check on her and she had gotten Thomas out of his crib (How? I don't know....) I told her she was too little and she said that Grandma lets her carry Thomas around (YIKES!!!) To expand on that...his mom does not pick Thomas up, or talk to him, or interact with him at all. Mostly, she watches TV and drinks soda. And eat the center block of brownies I had just made.

I was home all of 5 minutes and all of a sudden Thomas spits/pukes up. But it's not white it is reddish brown. And rusty smelling. It looks like blood and I am kind of freaking out. What happened when I was gone? Did Thomas get dropped? THIS IS WHY I DON"T WANT HER WATCHING HIM!!!!!!

Eugene's mom comments "It's not anything I would worry about". HUH???? (What if I had come home at 5? Would she have even said anything?) He spit up twice, the first time, his bib had about 6 spots the size of quarters on it. I got the bib off, and he spit up again and the entire front of his shirt was bloody (about baby fist sized.) I immediately called the Dr. and he told me to take Thomas to Urgent Care. I get there and they are asking questions and telling me it's probably not blood. Then they test the bib I brought along and sure enough, it's blood.

In about 2 minutes there were 10 people in the room trying to get an IV in and arrangements were being made to transport both of us to St. Joeseph's in Marshfield. Let me tell you an IV in a baby is very bad. The arm vein blew, the foot vein blew, and they finally got in in the right foot. There was lots of screaming and crying (although, surprisingly, not from me). Then we were in the ambulance going to Marshfield. I got to stay in the back. The crew told me they usually put the parent up front because they are basketcases...but I seemed pretty calm. {My basketcaseness is usually confined to my head. I was thinking...."this kid is going to die..."} Throughout this whole drama, Eugene is stuck at work.

We get to Marshfield and a whole bunch of Drs. are waiting for us. The are concerned that he is bleeding internally, but they comment that overall, he is still smiley. T is just smiley...it has no bearing on how he is feeling.

The pediatric gastroenterologist comes in and asks me how I knew it was blood. {It smelled rusty/copper pennyish) Then he asked what I was most concerned about. I told him "Something rupturing at home at 2am and we live 20 minutes from the nearest hospital which is not equipped to deal with babies. Or he has bowel intussusception. (When intussusception occurs, part of the intestine collapses into itself. It folds into itself like a collapsible tube--like an antenna folding up--with one part slipping inside another part. This makes the intestines not work properly. Intussusception occurs most commonly in babies between 5 and 12 months of age. Boy babies are affected twice as often as girl babies. )

He then asked if I was a nurse. I looked at him and said, "No, it's much worse. I am a librarian. I have free time, and I watch the Discovery Health Channel. I realize I am paranoid, but there is something not right with my baby." He laughed and told me that Thomas fit the profile, but he didn't think that was it. He was worried that if he was bleeding and something happened at home, we were too far away for anything to be done if it were serious. So we decided that the best way to make sure nothing was wrong was to scope and ultrasound him. Both tests came back fine. So we still have no idea why he spit up the blood. I am more at ease knowing nothing major is wrong.

Anyways, T wants to give a shout out and a happy birthday to his lactose intolerant homie, Lily. Woo Hoo Lily! Happy 2nd birthday! Present is in da mail....

Here are some newer pictures of Mr. Mischief... The first three he is playing hide and seek...
The bottom one? The kid literally devours books....

New and Improved! 3x bigger than the average baby...

So, for those of you that remembered Thomas as a little sickly baby (early January) I am pleased to announce our new and improved baby. Stronger! Happier! 3 x larger!

Yes. Thomas is what is now being referred to within the family circle as "the monster baby". He wears 12 month shirts and 6-9 month pants. He has a melon head so I call him sputnik. The kid is growing by leaps and bounds! I just bought 9 month ones for him about 2 weeks ago, and they are so last week.

We even broke down and bought the next car seat...the Britax marathon. It is supposed to last until he reached 4 ft. or 65 pounds. Which, at this rate, might take him to the age of two.

He was been rolling over, but isn't "on a roll" yet. He hates tummy time (he whimpers and sucks his hand).

At his 3 month pictures in early Feb he was 15 pounds. So I am guesstimating his weight is now between 16 and 17 pounds. He is 27 1/2 inches long.

He is not yet 4 months old.

I am all for another baby as Thomas already looks like a toddler to me. Eugene wants to hold off as he is fearful we might have another boy and then when they are teenagers, we will have to declare bankruptcy just to feed them.

Thomas kicked of a trend in our family (well, extended family, some of whom I prefer not to be around) There was Thomas (10/29) Joseph (12/29), a cousin's little girl (1/29) my cousin Tommy's little boy (1-30) another cousin had a girl (2-19) and her younger sister who is still in high school is due in July. 6 babies 9 months....

Here are some pictures of Thomas playing undercover detective...

Uncle Adam! Look! I got a fatcap just like you! You know....Gene Hackman was in a movie called "The Package..."

And then, I kid you not, I found the burnt monkey right next to the fire extinguisher.... OR "So you saw the dead deer on the side of the road and felt it needed loving? Is that correct sir? What led you to make that assumption?

I find it out that neither of my parents look like Adam, yet I do...perhaps they really aren't my parents....I need to conceal my identity.

Thomas likes to suck his thumb and wave...he's a multitakser....

Time for another drink! Hey Lily, how can you resist this face? (he does have my "eyebrow" thing still) What say, me, you and a bottle of milk-free formula? Know what I'm sayin?

New Job

So, things are going SOOO MUCH better! I am excited to go to work again, and I haven't felt that way in oh, about 4 years. My last day at the old job was...whats the word... "ehh". I had to get up super early so we could go to breakfast at 8am (did anyone remember I had a baby?) My $4 breakfast was generously paid for, and then i was given a gift of office supplies (and when I say that, I mean they went to the storeroom and got extra office supplies.) Paperclips, rubberbands, a ruler, some liefsavers (PEPPERMINT!!!), a pack of post-its. It was a "Director's Bag".

I did not get an exit interview as I wanted, but I still have to fill out my "exit interview questions. So I will be answering thoroughly.

Anyways, the new job. There is lots to be done, but I'm loving it. I have been cleaning and organizing, getting a feel for things, and meeting the patrons. Which is actually quite easy as about 75% were at the family reunion this summer :)

I find it odd that Nekoosa has 2500 people, yet they have a library director, who is paid decently (not as well as my job at the other place, but still pretty well). We also have a new library. The other place had 5 times the population, a library about 1/3 the size, and less staff. Go figure.

The Library Board director is just an amazing wonderful woman. She's been so a joy to work with. In fact the whole library Board is younger people who want to get things done. It's just so much fun to go into work!

Stretch Armstrong, Superhero

Thomas is the stretchiest baby I have even seen. I knew when I was pregnant that he was stretchy, but no one believed me. Finally, I have proof!

Sinners! I absolve you!

We tried to get a picture of him smiling. As soon as he sees the camera, he stops. Just like his father....
See? The stretching? I swear, he was doing this the entire last month of the pregnancy!!!
His beefcake photo

Here is is again, eating the hand sandwich....

Thomas with his 2nd cousin Nathaniel. Nathaniel weighs 9 pound 1 oz in the picture and is 21 inches long, so he is the exact size Thomas was at birth, jsut for a reference point...

Nathaniel is crying and Thomas is going to his happy place. Thomas almost never cries now. He's one of the happiest babies I know. When Meredith and I went to Madison, Joseph would cry, but Thomas is a mellow little fellow...