Spring break

Perusing his favorite book.

St. Patricks Day.  He has his Irish t-shirt on we got at the Irish Festival.  

This is probably the reaction to our offering him some of our fish and chips.

Cade, just being Cade.  I told him he looked like a deranged monk.

Good buddies.  Gabriel worships the ground he walks on.

Get up, stand up!   Stand up for your rights!

Gabriel has had a heck of a Spring break week!  

Monday was our first visit with the speech therapist in the morning, then our regular afternoon backyard time.  Tuesday he went to the park with his Tia Sandie and Jav's parents.  They were there for over two hours, then went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.  He was so tired by the time they brought him back home to me he couldn't walk or talk.  He was zonked for the rest of the day.  Wednesday they took him to a different park to feed the ducks, and that's where the miracle occurred.  There were firemen there working on training exercises.  With the fire truck.  Sandra said he started doing his crazy happy arms and little jumps that he does when he's so excited he doesn't have anywhere for all the energy to go.  He got to sit in it, and the firemen all high-fived him afterwards.  I'm supposed to be getting pictures soon.  Then once again, he was zonked all afternoon and seemed to only have energy for Wow Wow Wubzy episodes.

Thursday we drove over to pick up Cade to spend the night.  We went to the Farmers Market and did some grocery shopping (and I spoiled my nephew rotten, of course!).  Then we ate lunch and hung out while Gabriel napped.  We all went to the park, but I noticed Gabriel was dragging a little, and chalked it up to the fact that he was still tired from the previous two days.  We played even more in the backyard before I camped them in front of the TV while I made dinner.  When Jav got home, we ate outside (something we've done 4 times this week - a new record!), and the boys played even more as it was getting dark.  It was such a special day I didn't want it to end.  Cade is a wonderful boy.  He's always willing to help and curious about everything.  He's just a joy to have around.  

Unfortunately, our good week took a bit of a turn when Gabriel woke up at 3 in the morning with 103 degree fever.  He's never had fever that high before, so Jav and I were the typical panicky parents about whether to call the doctor.  After starting him on Tylenol, I decided to wait an hour and check on him to see if he felt cooler, and he did.  But he was really fussy and woke up every hour or so, which eventually woke up Cade (and Molly), so we all had a pretty early morning.  I decided to ask my parents to take Cade for the day, which really disappointed me.  But I knew Gabriel needed to go to the doctor, and I didn't want Cade to have to tag along with us - no fun at all!  It turns out he just had a 24-hour virus, and was feeling better by the time he went to bed last night.  But because he was still so sad and droopy yesterday afternoon, I took him to Target and purchased our first full-length kid movie:  Cars.  I picked this because he has some of the Cars and and a Cars book, so I figured he'd be familiar with the characters.  Jav was with work buddies last night watching the basketball, so Gabriel and I ate pizza and watched the movie.  He only made it through about half of it before he got bored.  We turned it back on this morning, but after about 15 minutes he left to go play in his room and Jav and I watched almost the rest of it.  Pretty cute movie.  Love Doc (voiced by Paul Newman, which made me cry when I figured out who it was).

And today, he's spent almost every waking second with his Daddy.  He's starting to really miss him during the week, and clings to him like crazy on the weekends now.  It gave me some time to work on my flower beds and walk Molly.  We went to Mass this afternoon and Gabriel ran up to our priest (Father Paul, who's been with us since August) and gave him a huge hug, which was just so sweet.  We ate dinner outside again tonight (the weather just dictates that you CAN'T eat inside!), and I haven't decided what adventures await us tomorrow before things get back to normal.