Thomas! Thomas! Thomas!

Day of Life: 46

I left for the hospital early so that I could give Tera her 8:30 bottle. Josh, Mary, Kyle, Mandy and the boys - Colt and Luke - were meeting us at the hospital to see Tera, then head to Calera for a day with Thomas.

I mentioned yesterday the importance of quality over quantity when Tera drinks her bottles. Today, she tried to prove that both were possible. The first half of her feeding went great. She took her time and worked hard on her sucking, swallowing, then breathing technique. The second half . . . not quite as great. She sucked and sucked and sucked. I assume she swallowed because none spilled out of her mouth, but she definitely wasn't breathing. Her sats dropped dramatically on more than one occasion. I had to forcefully pull the bottle out of her mouth so that I could get the blow-by to her quickly. She would bring her oxygen saturation up quickly, then take the bottle again and suck and suck and suck, apparent swallow, no breathing. Yank bottle out. Force oxygen in. Try again.

She did drink the whole bottle, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed in the overall session. I am glad that she was so eager to eat from the bottle (some babies show no interest), but I also feel like she has taken a step back in this new challenge. Maybe that's just the kind of person she is going to be. Taking on new challenges with zeal, then slowing down to make sure she's doing them right, not just getting them done. I know she'll get this whole bottle-feeding thing eventually, probably even faster than most babies her age. But setbacks are always disheartening.

Our friends made it to the hospital soon after she finished eating. While the men kept the children in the lobby, Mary and Mandy came back to meet Tera. They were proud of her for making it back up to 4 pounds today. She had gained 50 more grams and was now up to 1822. Of course, they agree she is just as cute as I had convinced them that she is. What has made this visit extra exciting is the fact that Mary just found out that she will be having a girl in September! Mandy is also having a girl in June. So, we're all working on changing our nursery themes from blues and browns to pinks and greens. Kyle and Josh also made it back to meet Tera for a few minutes before it was time to leave for Calera.

We carpooled to Calera - the girls and Canon in one car, the guys with Luke and Colt in the other. I learned of Colt's burn story from last night. They had stopped at East Chase Mall in Montgomery to get ice cream. While walking down the sidewalks, Colt reached down and touched one of the spotlights. The light was unprotected and about a foot off the ground. Colt just walked right over and laid his hand down on it. It was only there for a second, but it left blisters on three of his fingers, and he cried for over an hour before finally passing out asleep in the car.

We were glad he was feeling better today and ready to join his friends to meet Thomas. When we arrived in Calera, we took a minute to coat everyone down with sunscreen before walking toward the festivities. We were all eager to see the boys' expressions when they saw Thomas for the first time. Here is Canon's:

And a video to get the full effect.

This was my best effort at a group shot. These boys are growing up way too fast.

And they all love their daddies.

Once we arrived, we headed to the Will Call station to get our tickets to ride the train. We had about an hour to kill, so we explored the other activities.

Canon found the train tracks pretty quickly and spent some time tripping over them.

While we waited, Thomas headed off, taking another group of passengers to an unknown destination.

Canon yelled out angrily "Thomas, Thomas" and Luke cried. Once they were both assured that Thomas was coming back, they found some other trains to climb on.

One of these is Deisel. I think it's the one that both Luke and Canon are on. If you really want to know, Luke can tell you. He's a bit of a Thomas & Friends expert.

Our next stop was Gift Shop. Basically, this event took place in a really big parking lot with a couple of buildings and trailers. All of the vendors and Thomas activities took place under white tents spread out across the parking lot. The Gift Shop was under one such tent and proved to be an exciting place for the boys. Canon made his way around the tent, piling up toys in Barry's arms while Barry secretly put them back when Canon wasn't looking.

Once outside the tent, Barry and I realized that we were the only parents in our small group that didn't buy their child some Thomas gear. Both of the other boys got t-shirts, and Luke even got a hat and a new train for his track. Sorry, Canon. We're teaching you budgeting way too early in life. Your mom is spending all of the money going out to eat these days.

After walking around a bit more - even catching a glimpse of Sir Thopham Hat - it was finally time to ride Thomas.

All aboard!

Can you tell it's past our usual nap time?

That unknown destination I mentioned earlier was a little less exciting than expected for the parents, but the children could not have been happier. Basically, Thomas backed us up for about 15 minutes, then stopped and retracked our tracks back to where we started. Like I said, the boys didn't care. They hung on to the rails and watched everything go by.

Eventually, they made things even more fun by starting a Jumping Game.

Just a couple of other cute pics from the train.

On the return trip, everyone got a Junior Engineer certificate. Canon could not have been more pleased with his. He refused to put it down and took advantage of every opportunity to get some alone time to look at it.

Once the boys got really hot and tired, they started leaning more on their Mommies.

After grabbing some lunch and playing the drums and maracas at a music station, we finally found the Imagination Station, the place we should have been the whole time. This tent had about a dozen tables set up with different tracks and engines. There were also fake tattooes being offered. Luke and Colt both got one, but Canon absolutely refused.

He absolutely loved the train tables, only reaffirming my need to get him one of his own. We haven't done it yet because we were afraid he would just throw the pieces everywhere or bang them around. He has a small track that he loves to play with, and he did really good with the tracks set up here. Canon's biggest issue is wanting to steal trains from the other children. He gets really upset when someone else has something he wants, but we're working on it. I think he's getting better.

This was definitely the favorite place to be.

The thing about bringing a two-year-old to an event like this is that I never really know if it was "fun." Canon loved riding the train, playing with the musical instruments at lunch, and playing in the Imagination Station. Not surprisingly, however, he was frustrated and cried everytime we had to leave any of these places. Though he did much better than I expected, we had to put out some fires everytime we left a new tent, especially when we left the station for good.

It's not his fault it's 87 degrees outside and well past nap time.

Once back at the cars, we were all sweaty and tired but very happy about how much fun we and the boys had had. Barry, Canon, and I said good-bye to Josh, Mary, Colt, Kyle, Mandy, and Luke before heading back to Lydia's house. As you can imagine, Canon did not stay awake for too much longer.

During the drive, Mandy, Mary and I texted each other pictures of the boys (we were all in different cars). Luke held out the longest. . .

. . . but eventually fell asleep.

Maybe in a couple of years we can all bring our little girls to the Polar Express event in December.

I also took a short nap once we got back to Lydia's. Nonna and Poppa came over later in the afternoon to pick up Canon. They are graciously going to keep him with them for the next few days so that I will be more available to come to the hospital to give Tera her night-time bottle. Canon was so comfortable just jumping in the car with them. He never fussed or anything, even when he said bye to his daddy - that usually rouses a few tears. I love that he is so comfortable with all of his grandparents and loves spending time with them. Barry and I left then to go celebrate Alicia's birthday. She is 26 now - what a young 'n! Happy Birthday, Alicia!