So, I promised that a catch up post was soon to come—so without much further ado-I give you the summer of 2010. My how the time has flown by!
MayKien's First Surgery
So, from January to May of this year, Kien had FIVE diagnosed ear infections. Needless to say, it was miserable for him and for Jess and I because he wouldn't sleep very well, he was irritable, and he would get really high fevers that would spike around 103 in the middle of the night.
So, finally after a lot of thought, we decided it was time to get P/E tubes placed in Kien's ears to help with infections. We took him to the surgical center on May 27th where they gave us all name tags that said "Kien", "Kien's Mom" and "Kien's Dad." They even gave Kien a little stuffed lion toy with a t-shirt that said "I Ain't 'Lyin' I Had Surgery at Central Utah Surgical Center."
All the nurses in the surgical pre-op ward thought he was hilarious. He was so thrilled and excited with all the fun sights and sounds around him and thought it was just awesome to wear his little blue surgical cap and yellow baby hospital gown.
He came through like a champ and 5 months later has not had a single ear infection since!
June
The Klampets (errr…I mean, the Grovers) go to Hawaii
These definitely aren't the best pictures from the trip and I will do another post with some better ones.
On June 3rd, a week after Kien's ear surgery, the whole Grover family (2 parents, 7 kids and kids-in-law, 3 grandkids, 2 aunts, and 1 uncle hopped a plane to Honolulu.
We wanted to do a big family trip before Brett left on his mission so Hawaii it was!! We spent 4.5 days on Oahu taking in sights like Hanauma Bay, Waikiki, The Polynesian Cultural Center, the Cheesecake Factory (oh...sorry-is that not a sight??), etc...
Then we headed to Jesse and I's favorite place EVER. The island of Kauai. We had rented an awesome house in Princeville near Hanalei Bay. If you've never been there, it is the most beautiful place ever. It's where movies like South Pacific, Jurassic Park, parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more were filmed.
Kien’s FIRST Birthday!! -June 21, 2010
Shortly after returning from Hawaii, Kien turned one year old! I can't believe my baby is ONE!
Enjoying his very own piece of birthday cake--what a disaster!!!
Opening presents-at this point, Kien loves anything Elmo and got several Elmo toys
Daddy and Kien-smiling like goobers at Grandma and Grandpa Grover's b-day party for him
The personally made cupcake cake that Aunt Ashley made for him with Curious George! It was so cute!
The four Tilt rugrats celebrating in style-an inflatable pool + popsicles = delightful fun
I couldn't have pried that popsicle away from Kien if I'd tried!
Brett Says Bon Voyage!-June 30, 2010
On June 30, Jesse's baby brother, Brett left on his mission to the Oklahoma City Oklahoma Spanish speaking mission.
We love you and miss you Brett! We are happy to say after 5 months though that he is doing fantastic and enjoying himself very much. He's currently serving the Lord faithfully in Stillwater, Oklahoma on the campus of OSU.
July
Independence Day
On the 4th of July, Kien and his cousins were part of the Sandy Children's parade near Little Cottonwood Canyon. We spent all night on July 3rd decorating wagons, bikes, etc... so that they could parade in style.
Kien’s first (and I hope-I really hope-last) broken bone
On July 21st, Jesse and I both noticed that Kien was really whiny and wouldn't put any weight on his right leg or try to stand up. It was really worrying us and we thought maybe he sprained an ankle or something like that.
So the next morning I took him over to the pediatrician to get it looked at. They sent him to the hospital next door to get x-rays and lo and behold Kien had a broken tibia in his right leg.
Needless to say, I was an emotional wreck because neither Jesse nor I could pinpoint exactly how it had happened.
Because of his age and the type of fracture, the pediatrician (which was not our regular pediatrician I might add but just the dr. on duty that day) sent us to Primary Children's hospital to get a full body x-ray scan on Kien. Basically, they wanted to rule out child abuse as the cause of the break.
Jesse and I were distraught. We couldn't figure out how the break had happened and just the mention of "child abuse" is enough to send any parents into hysterics.
Obviously the full skeletal scan came back with no evidence of abuse (Well, DUH!).
Anyway, my bro-in-law is a PA that has a specialty in orthopedics and broken bones etc.... We talked to him that evening after all of the hoops we'd had to jump through and he told us more research about Kien's fracture that reassured us a bit.
A spiral fracture of the tibia in a child of Kien's age is commonly referred to as a "toddler's fracture." It is the most common break a toddler can have and occurs usually when a child who is learning to walk twists his foot while falling down or something similar.
So, Kien got a gigantic camouflage cast for 4 weeks through July and August. He still managed to get around really well and get into everything in spite of the cast.
The only bummer about this is that having a cast during that time has delayed Kien starting to walk on his own. :(
August
Kien's First HairCut-
Kien is very lucky to have a daddy and a grandpa who are both career barbers. So, when the time came for him to have his very first haircut, we headed to Brad's Barber Shop where his Daddy cut his hair.
He was so thrilled because he had been to visit Dad at the barber shop countless times but had never had the chance to be the one in the barber chair.
He was wiggly obviously, but overall he was really good.
Yes that is me and Aunt Ashley grinning and acting like goobers in the mirror. This is pre-haircut.
This milestone makes Jesse a little emotional because it reminds him of pictures of himself as a baby in the barber chair receiving his first haircut from his own father.
So, in a way its like watching time come full-circle for him and every time he talks about it Jesse expresses how much he loves our little Kien and how much he loves his own father and the chance to spend every working day right next to him in the barber shop.
