Father's Day Pictures

Derrik and I flew home from Cincinnati today... we got home, unpacked, and gave each other that "What do we do now?!" look. The surgery is over and now it's just lots and lots of rehab to get back to the baseball field where we want to be. It's a LONG road ahead that we need to take one day at a time. I know before we know it we will wonder where the time went and feel like it flew past, but for right now it seems like it's going to be an eternity! On a more positive note... I got the Father's Day pictures up :)

Ryder drinking his morning bottle with his Da-Da Ryder excited to give Daddy his present!
Ryder's and my attempt at a bag with his handprints

Happy 1st Father's Day Da-Da!

Ryder watching his Daddy read his card.

Us crazy parents trying to get pictures with our baby before he left us to go stay at his grandparents for a week... we miss you little man!!!

Happy 10 Months Little Man!

Today is Ryder's ten month birthday, and i'm so sad we aren't with him. It's insane how much you can miss someone so much! He is getting to be such a big boy and is just so much fun now. Ten months was a big month for us. Crawling was our biggest achievement. Mommy is very ready for walking. This crawling stuff isn't fun. He's still fast and can get anywhere, but is always getting so yucky and dirty in the process. I'd rather just have his little feet touching the ground. Our other big transition is that he is really just eating anything now. I think he eats more people food now then he does baby food. If he sees other food around he will seal his lips tight and shake his head no to his food. No problem as far as i'm concerned. It's way cheaper just to feed him off my place, and also makes me make an effort to have veggies and fruit on my plate. Plus for Mommy!

Ryder hanging with Auntie Ally in the lawn this afternoon

Ryder is quite the ladies man... hangin' with Auntie Ally and her friend Christina

Pooped Out!

In the morning Derrik and I head back down to Sarasota. He is doing great with everything and starting tomorrow we just have a long road to recovery ahead of us. Sometime next week I will be flying up to Cape Cod to get Ryder and to celebrate the 4th up there. I can't wait to see him, but really wish Derrik could be with us up there. That's all for now.... HAPPY 10 MONTHS LITTLE MAN!!

A Much Better Day...

Today has been a much better day for us. Derrik woke up doing much better and hasn't been in much pain thank God! Obviously he is sore and in pain, but is bearable and we're making it through. His biggest complaint (as long as the other two guys that had the same surgery) is that they feel like they have done the hardest upper body workout ever and are so sore. I keep trying to explain to them that they were knocked out and had gas pumping their lungs for about an hour yesterday and that's what it is... but they just think their dying :) I'll let ya know if that happens! Today we went into the rehab facilities and got to check everything out. Derrik's incision sites look amazing. Almost no swelling and the incisions look like they are healing great already. The therapy today including making sure he had feeling everywhere in his arm, making a fist, having his thumb touch his other fingers on his hand, moving his wrist back and forth and side to side, and moving his arm with his elbow in and out. They said his range of motion for the day after surgery is great. They ended by bandaging him back up, put on stuff over the incisions so he could take a shower when he got home, and iced. We took some pictures of his arm for those that are curious... if you don't do that sort of thing just scroll down through the next three pictures (there are cuter ones after that... promise!)

Derrik all bandaged up

The top incision site is where the "Tommy John" was done and the lower two down by his wrist are where they went in to get his tendon

A close up of his elbow

So with all this craziness going on in our lives you probably wonder what happened to the little man! Thanks to amazing technology these days we have LOTS of pictures of our little man :) Here are a few....

Hi Mommy and Daddy

Grandpa's already putting him to work

Drinking his bottle during the morning conference call

Hangin' with some of his favorite people are Larry's P.X.

Bath Time... Loves it!

At his first Chatham Angers game... for those of you that don't know the Chatham A's had to rename the team

Update on My Little Patient

Sorry for the lack in updates... Things got a little crazy there again for a second, but I think we're okay now :)

Well I was going to do a Father's Day update first, but I realized I forgot to download my pictures before we left (once again lack of time) so I guess those will be done later. So where do I begin our crazy last couple of days... Saturday I guess. On Saturday afternoon my momma flew down to Fort Myers. Derrik and I packed up and headed down for the night. I went out with my momma and some of her friends while Derrik and Ryder headed out for their first night at the dog track together. I think it was a really nice night for both of us. I needed a girls night desperately and I think Derrik truly enjoyed doing something with his son that he really truly enjoys! Win-Win situation I guess :) On this trip to Fort Myers we also brought Chloe down to stay at a friends house. She has two little girls who I am very sure are giving Chloe more attention then she has seen in a long time! On Sunday morning we woke up and did our Father's Day presents (like I said.. pictures to come later), grabbed a quick bite to eat a Micky D's for breakfast, and then headed to pick up my mom at her friends house to head to the airport. She flew back up to Cape Cod with the little man and it was very hard to say good-bye. I held back my tears until I got to the car. I thought I was going to hold it together, but Derrik kept talking to me and the tears just came flooding out. He said he kept talking to me to get my mind off of it, but it didn't work. Once back in Sarasota we got ourselves packed for Cincinnati and then headed off for a little date night/Father's Day celebration. We treated our selves to a movie and then dinner since we hadn't been to the movie theatre in forever! Very early Monday morning we flew out of Sarasota up to Cincinnati with two of Derrik's other teammates for surgery. Yesterday consisted of lots of time in the doctors office with lots of decisions to be made. This morning we once again had to get up early (notice all this getting up early stuff when I have no baby?!? I planned this all wrong!) and we headed into the doctors office. The doctor doing the surgery is the doctor of the Cincinnati Reds and let me tell you what... If anything ever happens to him financially he has enough memorabilia to sell to make it through! The surgical center is actually in the doctors office too which was nice so we didn't have to bother with the actual hospital. We got there at about 6:30 am and did lots of waiting around. At about 9:45 they brought my very nervous husband back to the O.R. I was allowed to watch the surgery! I was very unsure of this because I don't do blood, hospitals, sickness... none of it! I did really good though. Through the glass wall I could see the whole O.R. and then on a television screen I could see the surgery up close. They had a nurse in there explaining the whole surgery too which was really nice. After the surgery was over they brought me back to the hospital room and said the doctor would be in soon to talk to me. About fifteen minutes later the doc came in told me that everything went great. The tear in his UCL that we thought happened recently over one pitch was actually something they feel happened over a long period of time (explains the problems in college) and said that it was very frayed. It made me feel good knowing that surgery was definately our best option. They said they got the new tendon (which they took from his wrist) in really tight and that he should come back stronger then ever. After that they said Derrik should be back in in about thirty minutes... So I watch The View... one hour... watched some baby story... thirty minutes... read my book... read... read... read... no Derrik. I start to really get nervous that something is seriously wrong. About three hours after I left him in the O.R. Derrik gets brought back into the room looking awful. It made me so sad to see him that way. Unfortunately Derrik had a really hard time waking up from the anesthesia. Seeing him like this is when I really started to have a hard time. I felt so nauscious but luckily had a soda close by! We made it through. He is still very very groggy, but thanks to another teammates parents bringing us some food back Derrik got a chicken sandwhich and fries into his system and is sleeping like a baby at the moment. He is complaining of pain, but the nurses said it is a very painful surgery and the pain meds can only manage the pain and will definately not make it go away. Tomorrow we go in for therapy at noon with four of the other players. We found out this afternoon a fourth player also had surgery... not a good month for the Reds! Sorry for this big long rambling paragraph, but there was a lot to explain! Meanwhile... our little man is enjoying his time with his Grandpa, Grammy, Auntie Ally, and Auntie Hailey. I am so thankful he has a place he can go and be loved so much while I take this time to take care of my husband.... family is the best!

My Hunny and I waiting for his surgery

Happy Father's Day

Happy 1st Father's Day Da-Da!

Love You Biggest Fan,
Ryder

Derrik and I would also like to wish our father's a very Happy Father's Day!!! Dad, Ronnie, and Tom we all hope you guys are having an amazing day! Wish we could celebrate it with all of you.

Our Little Trouble Maker... Showin' Off That New Tooth

So this evening as I am playing on the computer from the kitchen counter I think to myself how nice it is that I can see the bathtub from the kitchen in our new place. Makes it so much nicer so i'm not trapped in the bathroom. Right after that thought I look over to check on my little one to see him STANDING in his seat! So much for thinking I wasn't trapped next to him at every second. I went in quick to avoid him falling and called Daddy in with the camera to snap a few pictures...
We noticed during the photo shoot that you could see Ryder's tooth in some of the pictures! Double click on this picture and it should blow it up for you. You should be able to see his tooth on the bottom!

Believe it or not Ryder has never has juice before. At nine and a half months old I've just never bothered. The pediatricians we've seen have never really told me to push it, and I just thought it was weird to put juice into a bottle. I wanted him to learn to drink it at his meals from a sippy cup. Well he's just not really getting the sippy cup. He holds it like he should and puts it in his mouth, but then he just bites it. The other day he sucked up from my straw, but couldn't get it all the way. The next day I went out and bought little juice boxes with short straws and he loves them!!!
And Ryder now eats ANYTHING we eat! He chows it down! He hates the stage 3 baby food that is basically the food we eat in packaged containers for baby. I'm not sure if it's the packaged taste or what, but he eats the food I offer him from our plates. Oh well... I guess that's what he needs in the long run. Luckily he still eats the stage 2 baby food.

Ryder chowing down

And We Have a Tooth!

So in the midst of all of this moving, I've almost forgotten to tell everyone that Ryder's first tooth came through!!! We first noticed it the day after our drive. It's hard to see since he's not a fan of opening his mouth up for us, but you can definately feel it. So without the pictures you'll just have to take my word for it :)

Since there are no tooth pictures, I thought you might enjoy some pictures from Ryder's bath last night... Enjoy!

All Settled In

We're all settled... minus a few piles of clothes. It doesn't take too long to move in when you live out of two packed cars. It's perfect though. It's a blessing in disguise with Ryder to have no furniture. The whole living room is just a big playroom for him. Ryan brought up an extra bed he had laying around for us last night. It's so comfy and we slept great! Sometime this week he is also bringing up an extra couch from my grandparents house for us. It feels great to be settled! Thanks so much to my grandparents for letting us stay at there house and also to Ryan who helped us get the bed up here! It's great to have such amazing family that's always willing to lend a helping hand!

Today we are just hanging out in the lull of this craziness we are going through. I did quite a bit of work this morning which actually felt good. It felt good to get some normalcy. When Ryder wakes up from his nap we are off to get some groceries and some stuff for the place. Below I have some pictures from my camera I found from recently and from my grandparents house.

The car headed down south

The night after Ryder learned how to crawl... I knew I was in trouble when I saw this!
The night I was packing I didn't know what to do with Ryder... so I put him in the his tub seat with a cookie. Figured he could make a mess and i'd just rinse him off. Chloe wanted his cookie SO bad!

Ryder playing at Mimi and Papa's house

Hanging with his Papa

Mimi loving on Ryder

Actually got a picture of myself with the little man

Ryder's favorite toy he found at their house.... some ribbon

Some of Ryder's funniest picture are when he's trying to grab my camera

Hangin' with dada while the girls clear the table from dinner

This baseball life is making us CrAzY!!!