Patrick is the middle son. He has also given us the most "scares". He is a preemie and was really insistant on picking his own birthdate. He wasn't due to be born until November 4th. We had EVERYTHING planned - that should have told me right away,
. I went into labor three times with him and despite lots of bedrest and medication, my water broke at 4:30 am on October 5th and Patrick pushed his way out and was born at exactly 11:59:59 (how's that for crazy?) and was immediatley whisked away to the NICU where he would remain on various degress of ventilators and machines for the next nine days.
Thankfully, he recovered and was able to come home and meet his big brother. He was released from the hospital on my husband's birthday.
! Which was very cool! I was very excited to have him home - the hospital was a good 45 minute drive from our house, and I was still recovering from emergency surgery.
The first year proved tough - he had RSV 3 times, had pneumonia twice and was not gaining weight or growing like he should (he had a flat growth curve). He also didn't like to sleep unless the room was brightly lit and noisy. Finally, just after his first birthday (he weighed in at 13 pounds) we learned he had a severe milk protein allergy. Two weeks after removing dairy from his diet, he started sleeping
and slowly gained weight.
He is also an extremely vocal child. He told his preschool teacher on the first day that he was advanced because "apparantly I'm the only one who knows how to read"
Thankfully she has a good sense of humor! He taught himself how to read by listening to his big brother. He can also did simple addition and subtraction (numbers up to ten). He loves everything big brother does and wants to be just like him. He defintely does not like nicknames - Father Jim came into his room to wish him a happy birthday and made the mistake of calling him "Pat". Patrick put his hand on his hip, wagged his finger and said "PaTRICK, my name is PATRICK, not Pat!"
Father Jim makes sure to use his full name now.
He's also extremely patient with his youngest brother. This past weekend, rather than running off with his friends at the playground, he choose to stick by Cullen and help him feel comfortable climbing up to the "rain slide" (the slide sounds like rain sticks).
He weighs in now at 28 pounds and is just over 36 inches. Unfortunately, his younger brother is about the same size. They get called twins a lot which can really urk him to no end.
Currently, his favorite shows are The Octonauts and Jake and the Never Land Pirates. He also likes Star Wars - really enjoys light saver battles with big brother and wants to grow up to be Hans Solo - just not frozen like Hans gets
He was 2 1/2 on our first trip and he remembers Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh and Buzz. He also remembers getting a "ticket" from a CM on the Speedway after almost running him over
.