The Kentucky Thalman's

If you have the chance to do swimming lessons or time in the pool with your baby do it! It has been so fun with Jackson.  We started in March and Jackson is a natural.  The instructor every time is so impressed with his skills and always says, he is a natural water baby. We have been doing the class with Jackson's girlfriend Sophia and her mom and my friend Cari.  Those 2 are cute and have seen each other naked too many times already! Our instructor used to teach for the Parks and Rec department and would teach BABIES how to float or get to the side on their own if they fall into water.  Have you seen  THIS VIDEO?  But now she is at the YMCA and they don't do that so much.  In the class we have been working on getting them to come into the pool (count to 3 so they get that they can't go in without a count), learning how to kick once you get in the water, holding onto the side of the pool,  laying on their back with their ears in th...

Monday Jackson had his 4th surgery/procedure of his short life and hopefully his last for a VERY long time! happy at 6 am Jackson had his hypospadia repair and circumcision. So awkward to talk about or even tell people about or even go to the doctor for.  Every appointment, a penis is drawn on the paper on the exam tables.  So weird. Also, this is your little boy who you want the absolute best for, including a normal sex life when the time comes (don't want to think about it). Hypospadia:  is a male birth defect in which the opening of the tube that carries urine from the body (urethra) develops abnormally, usually on the underside of the penis. The opening can occur anywhere from just below the end of the penis to the scrotum. First degree hypospadias are primarily a cosmetic defect and have little effect on function except for direction of the urinary stream (he would probably have to sit down to pee, which for a little boy might be a huge social problem). If...

He loves finishing my apples with the 2 teeth he has on the bottom! My 9 month old boy weighs 20 pounds and is 27 inches tall.  Both put him in the 25th percentile.  But I bet he eats more than your baby.  This kid eats  Breakfast: 2, 4 oz jars of fruit with 3 oz of 2% greek yogurt with a grain Lunch: 1 jar meat with 2 jars of green vegetables with an occasional "textures" jar Dinner: 3, 4 oz jars of a dinner or 2, 6 oz 3rd food dinners (chunky) Add in nursing 3 times a day and some Cheerio's or puffs while getting his food ready. What a chunk that isn't that chunky.  Kid has abs!   Teething biscuit I made awhile ago.  It kind of fell apart when he would suck on it for a while so probably not recommended for younger babies w/o experience with chewing He has only recently started to like chunky foods.  He used to start gagging the minute anything chunky touched his tongue.  Literally, he would act like ...

This week I decided be a hardcore "homemaker. I mean hardcore for me.  I have done a couple of things around the house that have needed to be done for a LONG time such as Cleaning the oven. I didn't clean it when we moved in last October.  Does that really matter? My food never touches the actual oven so I didn't think it was a big deal.  Well it hasn't been, except for the cumulation of food overflowing, splattering, and dripping.  This has now caused our oven to smoke every time we use it.  It is most likely caused from the carrots I was cooking in foil packets and didn't know the foil had a hole in the bottom. This caused the butter to drip all over the oven floor. Don't buy cheap foil. Also, don't do this if you did a heavy deltoid workout the day before.  Ow. So I took to Pinterest to find an easy way to clean the oven without using the self cleaner and having to buy expensive cleaners.  I found one with baking soda, vinegar, and dawn dish s...

The way your eyebrows express so much.  I'm pretty sure your right one has a mind of it's own. When I'm coming down the stairs in the morning (if daddy has gotten up with you) and you see me, you get a HUGE grin and crawl over to the stairs to see me while screaming for joy! Your giggle.  I love knowing the little things that make you laugh.  Peak a Boo.  You get so scared and you jump so high in the air and just laugh away. How you can put a smile on ANYONES face.  You have a killer grin and the biggest cheeks that seem like they are going to pop! When I go in to check on you before I go to bed you are in a completely different position! Sometimes  stuck in the corner, sometimes with limbs sticking out the crib bars. When I'm holding you and patting your back, you lay your head down on my shoulder and start patting my back. When we lay you down to go to sleep (at night or a nap) you reach back for the blanket an...

Updated Pictures of my handsome 4 year old! The most noticeable part is the scars is above his ears on either side. This spreading of the scar doesn't always happen but he seemed to have a lot of swelling after surgery in this area which stretched out the scars. The scares are most noticeable after a hair cut (which is during this). You can kind of see in this picture his squiggle scar that goes across his head from ear to ear. It's not super noticeable. I often get asked about Jackson's scar on his head.  Although his hair has grown A LOT since his surgery, it is still pretty obvious I think.  People are so funny about it though.  We usually get double takes or triple takes and only some people are bold enough to ask. WHICH IS FINE!  I don't know why people are so scared to ask.  Maybe because they think they will offend me? I don't know.  But some do ask and I reply he had Metopic Craniosynostosis. Metopic cranio whata wha?...

"Beautiful Aorta Arch" is something we hear all the time now.  Every ultrasound/echo Jackson gets they say that.  Hopefully, it's not like the dentist when they say "you have beautiful teeth" when in fact you know you don't... almost 8 months old.. Happy Valentine's Day! Unfortunately, the arch was not the only thing that was repaired.  They also closed 2 holes in his heart.  Jackson being such a strong and growing boy, healed "too much" causing excess scaring in his right pulmonary artery.  We first learned of this after his 6 week post operation ultrasound.  Dr. McCanta (Jackson's cardiologist after surgery in Colorado) said he couldn't be more pleased about his arch repair and it that Dr. Jagger's did a beautiful job.  He was however, concerned about narrowing in his pulmonary artery.  Narrowing that they didn't really know he was born with or not.  At the time, he seemed pretty concerned about it, especially because ...