3 boyz...1 tired mommy

Feeling very humbled!

2011-08-22T22:13:00.000-04:00

We arrived at Give Kids The World around 10:30am. Twelve hours later, we are completely exhausted and happy as can be! This place is amazing! While fun and beauty surround us, there also are constant reminders that many kids come here in their final days. And that is absolutely heart breaking.

I watch Connor running around and I wonder how it is that WE are here, why did some foundation see fit to give US this once-in-a-lifetime trip?? Maybe it's hard to wrap my head around it because Connor's always been this way, he didn't go from being healthy to being sick, he was born sick. We've had years to come to terms with it, this is "normal" Connor. Maybe it's because I've seen Connor at his worst, and I know he's at his best right now. Either way, I am so thankful for how healthy he really is, even though his best is still unimaginable for so many.

I can't figure out how to upload pictures from my iPad to this blog, so you'll have to check out my Facebook page or wait till we get home. Right now, I need to get some sleep!

Catching up...on the eve of a BIG day!

2011-08-21T20:20:00.000-04:00

T minus 9 hours, that's the countdown. 'Til what, you ask? Until Connor's Wish comes true!! In 9 hours, a limousine will pull up to our driveway and whisk the whole family off to the airport, where a SWAT team (Special Wish Airport Team) will greet us, check us in, and load us onto a direct flight to Orlando! There another Airport Team will greet us, pack us into a rental car, and we'll be off to Give Kids The World!

All of this courtesy of A Special Wish Foundation. Similar to Make A Wish, A Special Wish grants "wishes" to children with life threatening conditions. Nobody panic, Connor is still doing very well, but he officially does have a life threatening illness, and always will.

Our plan is to spend a week in Orlando at the Give Kids The World Wish Village (www.gktw.org) and while there we are visiting Kennedy Space Center (where we get lunch with an astronaut!!), Sea World (where we get a special treat with the dolphins!), Universal (where we get a line hopper pass and access to all the VIP lounges!), and of course the Disney Parks (where we get a line hopper pass, access to the VIP lounges, and possibly even get to be in the parade!) In addition, we plan to go to a Medieval Times dinner, and we have free tickets for an aero tour of Orlando! It will no doubt be a whirlwind week packed with fun and magic, and hopefully will create special memories to last a lifetime!

So...I apologize for being absent from this blog for a while (Facebook is quicker and easier!), but this seemed like the perfect time to revive it. I will be live-updating Facebook with notes and pictures while on the trip, and hopefully will find some time to post some pictures on here as well. Right now I have to somehow corral my excited children into their beds!

June has been busy!

2010-06-23T15:39:00.000-04:00

June started with the end of the school year for both Ian and Connor. As I said in my last post, Ian graduated preschool (sniff, sniff!) and is off to Kindergarten in the fall. Connor finished his first three months of public school preschool and did well. We had no goals for him except that he transition as smoothly as possible from therapy and play based early-intervention preschool that he was in, to the integrated public school preschool. As I talked about before, the transition process was HIGHLY frustrating, the team at the new school was difficult to work with at times, and I actually had to contact a lawyer to find out what my rights are. No doubt this will continue to be an issue, the school will learn eventually that I am a hands-on mom that is used to controlling things ;) But all that aside, Connor did well in preschool.

Right after school let out, Jim, Ian, and Connor headed north to Michigan for a quick weekend trip to celebrate his brother's high school graduation! The boys had a lot of fun! I stayed home with Gavin. Mr Gavin does not travel well, so I didn't want to put all of us through that stress for such a short trip. We enjoyed a quiet weekend together, rested, and cleaned the house top to bottom!

The boys only got a week of downtime at home before we all packed up and headed north to Michigan again. Jim's sister Stefanie was getting married, and we made it into a mini-vacation for us! We stayed at Jim's Grandparents' cottage on Lake Michigan, and it was great! We only got one good day in the water, but it was a great day! I put some pictures up on Facebook, and I'll put some on here soon, I'm not on my home computer right now.

The wedding was fantastic, Stefanie looked beautiful, the reception was a BLAST, and the boys were great even though the whole trip was exhausting for all of us.

Now me, Jim, and Gavin are back in Dayton, but Ian and Connor got to stay up in Michigan! My mom took them again, she is keeping them until Jim and I go back up there for 4th of July weekend. A cousin of mine is graduating highschool (a big achievement for her!) and the whole extended family is getting together to celebrate it. So the boys are up there now, helping my mom get ready for the big party, and enjoying a real summer vacation, complete with aces of land to run on, a pool, a trampoline, and horses! None of which they'd get down here :)

My house is strangely quiet. I don't know what to do with myself at night! I've been spending a lot of time with Gavin, playing with him, snuggling him, staring into his beautiful eyes! I'm so happy that I'm getting this time with just Gavin. Third babies don't get that one-on-one mama time, so I'm thankful that my mom is helping me get that! Gavin will surely benefit :)

SO...July starts with the family gathering in West Branch, Michigan. Then we have no more trips to Michigan firmed up! There might be one or two trips in August, maybe one to celebrate Jim's Grandma's 90th birthday, and maybe one for Ian and Connor to go camping with my mom. But both are tentative right now, and most likely neither one will involve me. I will be handling some work issues that are projected to hit in mid-August that will keep me quite busy for a while! Bummer that I have to miss out on the fun :(

As soon as the wedding pictures are available, I'll place a link to them on here for all of you! I can't wait to see them! All three boys were cooperative, so I think the photographer got great shots of them!

Hey look, a picture!

2010-06-02T18:29:00.000-04:00

My first thought was "oh man, look at the ugly background, Daisy snuck her head in there, Gavin is looking goofy, Connor is almost blinking..." etc etc etc but then I realized...this is MY LIFE!!! This picture is real, no set-up, no posing, just daddy snapping a picture of me and the three boys. It's as real as it gets :) And I love it!!!

Happy Memorial Day!

2010-05-31T17:03:00.000-04:00

Ian and Connor spent the long weekend up in Michigan with my mom at "horse camp". My grandfather is a board member of the Michigan Trail Riders Association, and every Memorial Day weekend my whole family and a bunch of friends camp at the same campground and have a "work bee" weekend getting that section of the horse trail cleared and ready for the riding season. Ian has joined my mom for this camping trip twice before, but this was Connor's first year. They are on their way back to Ohio as I type this, and I"m very anxious to see them!! This has been Connor's first trip away from me :(

Meanwhile, Jim and I stayed here in Ohio with just Gavin, and enjoyed having only one child! Wow, it's so EASY to have just one!! Especially one that isn't yet mobile :)

We did some yard work this weekend, and I got some cute pictures of Gavin:

Here's this year's garden!! It's off to a really good start, and my mouth is already watering waiting for the first picking of the year! I'm also anxious to get a taste of the stuff my mom planted this year, she has a HUGE garden of all kinds of vegetables and fruits. We're visiting her in early July, hopefully some of will be ready by then!!

My flowers bloomed early this year, here are my irises already bloomed and dead. They were beautiful though! And about a dozen of them have seed pods, so if anyone wants some pods, just ask me!

Ian has BIG new to share with everyone...he is officially a PRESCHOOL GRADUATE!!! My baby is off to Kindergarten in the fall (excuse me while I wipe away my tears!). He had so much FUN in preschool, and has come a LONG way socially and in maturity. My beautiful wonderful little boy, so dang smart, so loving, so sensitive...he's off to Kindergarten at the end of the summer :) I'm not sure I"m ready for this!!

He is definitely ready. Academically he's between a 1st and 2nd grade level in most subjects, particularly his reading and spelling. His concept of numbers is coming along really well too! He still amazes me with his memory capacity, and his ability to use logic to think through novel situations. He is an awesome kid, and I'm SO PROUD of him!!! This first picture is all three boys visiting Ian's class and taking part in circle time. Look at little Gavin sitting there like a big boy!!

Darn it I wish I could edit this picture! It's a cell phone picture, so I'm not sure how to edit it without importing it into a program. It was the first bath that all three boys took together, look at my little monkeys!!

That's all for now. I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend, remembered the reason for the holiday, and was safe. Until next time...

You should all just friend me on Facebook!

2010-05-24T15:05:00.000-04:00

I stayed away from Facebook for the longest time, at least a full year (probably two!) after my friends had gotten hooked on it, but finally I gave in and created an account.

And now I'm hooked.

It's just so convenient to post a sentence or two a few times a day, and when I work in front of a computer all day long, it's quick and easy to do (literally takes 30 seconds, and 20 of those seconds are signing in!). Then, when I'm at home, I'm often sitting feeding a baby, so it's easy (and fun!) to sit and read Facebook.

The downside of this? I haven't been updating this blog. It's been over 2 months! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll try to not let it slip again :) I also had some issues with "stalkers" on this blog, people who apparently have nothing better to do with their time than read my blog and judge me, then for some reason feel justified in spreading that judgement. Must be nice to think you're perfect, but hate to break it to you, you're not. The only difference between you and me, dear stalkers, is politeness, civility, and maturity. I'd like to think that I have some, and you apparently lack all three. I thought about ending my blogging entirely, but let's be honest, stupid people are everywhere, and I'm not going to give them the joy of seeing me succumb to their immaturity.

So, what's been going on? A LOT!! (as always) Ian and Connor turned 5 and 3 in March, which we celebrated with a joint birthday at an indoor arcade/jumpy castle place. It was a good turnout, and a lot of fun! I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that they're so old already :)

Here are some birthday pictures!!!

Now that Connor is 3, he has officially graduated from Early Intervention and is now attending public school on an IEP (Individualized Education Plan). The process of transitioning has been long and painful, not the least helped by the members of the IEP team. The IEP team is comprised of a bunch of experts and specialists at the school that are supposed to determine, collectively, what Connor needs and how to give it to him. I am a member of the team, as is any person that I ask to be (any of his private therapists, for example). I am welcome to submit any letters or tests or evaluations from his private therapists and doctors so the team is able to make the best decision regarding his education services. That's how it's supposed to work. Instead, it's been me banging my head against the wall repeatedly, trying to get the team to understand Connor.

Two good things...he has the same teacher as Ian (although he goes in the mornings and Ian goes in the afternoon) AND the school did recognize his language limitations and is providing him with an ASL interpreter. He loves his teacher and his interpreter, and so do we. They work really well with him, and we're seeing some progress in his communication (although I think we could be seeing more progress if the IEP team agreed to do things my way, but hey, why listen to the mom?)

In medical news, we are back to the hearing aid debate for Connor. His hearing is so frustrating, it fluctuates pretty significantly from normal hearing to a moderate loss. That constant fluctuation is no doubt hindering his language attempts (at the very least it's limiting his articulation). His school speech therapist has been working with a personal FM system, and he's responding really well to it, so we're heading back to his ENT and audiologist to discuss our options. His private speech therapist is more convinced than ever that he has undiagnosed hearing loss at specific frequencies, based on his inability to make certain speech sounds that she's been drilling into him for months now. He is so cooperative at speech therapy, he will sit at the table and try over and over, learning the cues and lip/mouth/tongue movements, but there are some sounds he just can't make. She thinks he truly doesn't hear them, or at least that he doesn't hear them consistently enough to make the right neurological and motor connections to mimic them. This is such a frustrating journey.

In Ian news...he is now reading!!! He does such a fantastic job with reading, he is reading everything in sight, books, cards, street signs, the packaging on food and drink, everything!! He's still very slow and deliberate, taking the time to sound out each letter and remember the rules ("if it ends in 'e' the vowel says its name") He also has a much better concept of time now, at least days/weeks/months/years, not clock-time yet (although I want to teach it to him soon, because it's highly annoying when he asks me how many seconds are in 10 minutes!)

I'm not sure if I've talked about this on here yet, but in January we made the big step to cut gluten from Ian's diet. We did it because his tantrums, anger, volatile behavior, etc were still very prevalent and getting harder and harder to deal with (especially since the arrival of Gavin). Also, he started showing some signs of issues at school. Ian has always been a gross-motor-oriented kid, but it was becoming obvious that he didn't just dislike fine motor activities, he actually was rather behind in them. He was having a lot of trouble when it was time to sit down and complete a worksheet, or even just sit and color. He was always the last done, and always required a lot of redirection. He appeared to have a very short attention span, was constantly getting up from his chair, etc.

I've always said that I wasn't overly concerned with his behaviors because they primarily effected us at home only. But once they started effecting him at school, I had to do something. I was afraid that the school might try to jump straight to an ADD/ADHD label and encourage me to medicate him. I did not think that was his issue at all. Yes, he's an active busy little boy, but he is capable of sitting and focussing. So I sought out other causes of his behavior. I had a meeting with his teacher and the school's Occupational Therapist, and we talked about all of Ian's "quirks" from infancy on. We discovered, after laying it all out, that much of his behavior stems from seeking out deep pressure sensory input. Basically, he's a sensory seeker, and if he doesn't get the right amount and type of sensory input, his brain goes haywire. He gets zero deep pressure sensory input from a fine motor task, which explained why he had such trouble completing them.

Anyway...after a lot of research and talking to various specialists, I decided to do a trial of a gluten-free diet for Ian. The results have been AMAZING!! It's like we have a new kid! His anger, temper, and tantrums are gone. Completely...gone! (in their place is a highly emotional child, but we're working on that). And more importantly, he now can sit down and do fine motor work with little to no reminders. His handwriting has improved remarkedly, he now enjoys coloring, mazes, word searches, etc.

Interestingly, he also lost a few pounds right after we cut the gluten, and has only recently (5 months later) gained the weight back. I am now positive that his body was digesting and metabolizing gluten differently. He has a referral now to a pediatric gastroenterologist to discuss testing for Celiac Disease. To my knowledge, no one in the family has Celiac, and it tends to be hereditary, but it's certainly possible that he's the first. Unfortunately the test for Celiac involves a biopsy, so it's not something we're taking lightly. We'll see what the dr says. Either way, Ian's days of eating gluten are over!! Thankfully there are a lot of gluten-free products on the market, so Ian has plenty of bread and pasta replacement options.

To end this long catch-up post, here are some cute pictures of all three of them!

Random pictures!

2010-03-05T15:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm stuck on certer justify again. I think I need to email blogspot tech support to find out why! But I'm not going to let it annoy me, I'm in too good a mood!

Spring is just around the corner, and it's amazing how much better my mood is! My daffodils are even poking through the ground already, I'm so excited that my flowers are going to be blooming soon!! I can't wait to get my vegetables started, I plan to start the seedlings inside and transplant them outside in early May, hopefully that gives us an extended growing season.

SO...here are some random pictures of the three boys! Enjoy!

Here all three boys are wrestling on the bed. Sure, Gavin is only 5 months old, but he's got two very active older brothers, so he's got to learn sometime how to keep up with them! Notice him grabbing at Ian already? I think that life is about to get a whole lot more fun as soon as Gavin is mobile!

High flying Connor! Daddy throws Connor up into the air. This reminds me of another picture...if you look back at my blog posts from October 2008, you'll see a similar picture (but it was outside, not inside). Hmm...I might go find that picture!

Here Connor shows us the sign for "jump". We were at an indoor jumpy-castle place where he and Ian (and mommy!) had a BLAST jumping all over the place! What fun!!

Mommy and Gavin!! Look how big he is!! 5 months old now :( Can you believe how fast time flies?

Here's one of my favorite pictures of Gavin...he recently discovered his toes and thinks they're tasty treats! Yummy...toe jam!

Mommy and Ian!! Man I love this kid, my first baby is becoming a big boy, and I'm so proud of him!

Here Ian gets up close and personal to a red tailed boa! He loves snakes, and wants to hold them at every opportunity. We told him that when he's bigger maybe we'll get him a snake.

Hmm...look at that, now the text is left justified. Go figure!

It's March, which of course means BIRTHDAY MONTH!! Connor turned 3 on March 3rd, and Ian will be 5 on March 17th. I can NOT believe how much time has passed! I know, every mom says it, I've said every year, but seriously...how is it possible that 5 years have passed since Ian was born?

The two boys have their party on March 12th at an indoor arcade and indoor jumpy castle place (the same place that some of the above pictures were taken at). They're ridiculously excited about the whole thing :)

Now that Connor is 3, he has "aged out" of Early Intervention, which means that the public school system has taken over his therapies and education. He had been attending a preschool for special needs kids, but now is attending a preschool at public school (the same program Ian has been in, except that Ian is a "typical" kid, not special needs). I haven't written about this yet, but in the last 3 weeks I've been in a battle with the school district to allow Connor to attend an out-of-district school that has other children who are hearing impaired and who use sign language. The short story is that the local school is refusing, and I have contacted a lawyer for assistance.

I have been doing oodles of research into the law regarding children with disabilities and special education services. Connor has a "right" to have opportunities for direct communication with peers and professional personnel in his language (ASL) and communication mode. Currently the school is providing him with an interpreter, however that means that he has to talk "through" his interpreter if he wants to talk to his classmates and his teachers. I'm not happy with this arrangement, and I am willing to fight it tooth and nail. If not for Connor, at least for any hearing impaired child that comes along after him. The school bullied me into accepting their IEP (Individualized Education Plan) and placing Connor in the school in our district (there's a long story behind why I had to accept the IEP) but I'm not going down without fighting. I'm going to make sure that the school knows that they're dealing with a mama who cares enough about her child to put up the fight.

In other Connor news, he saw a new specialist in Cincinnati. He was evaluated by the head of Speech Pathology at Cincinnati Children's and was officially diagnosed with Apraxia. http://www.apraxia-kids.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=chKMI0PIIsE&b=839037&ct=837215 There is great disagreement in the medical community about whether the speech issues related to Connor's genetic syndrome are Apraxia or a different speech issue (usually compensatory glottal stops or velopharyngeal insufficiency). Connor has been difficult to figure out, his speech progression has been atypical for kids with his syndrome, hence why we took him to see an uber-specialist. She was pretty sure that he does in fact have Apraxia. So what does this mean? Well we are already doing the most important thing for treating Apraxia, and that's utilizing sign language. But it means that he needs more intensive speech therapy to help him overcome it. So now we get to fight with the insurance company to try to get him more therapy.

That's all for now, be on the lookout for pictures from Ian and Connor's birthday party soon!!

A few snow pictures

2010-02-19T11:05:00.000-05:00

Gah...Blogspot is annoying me!

2010-02-12T10:24:00.002-05:00

orry to have such a title, but suddenly everything has changed and I can't format my blogs the way I used to! Even though there's a left justify button right above where I'm typing right now, it won't let me click it, so my text is "stuck" on center justify. How annoying. AND, I can't upload a few more pictures that I was trying to put on here, they keep showing up as just blank spaces. I realize that might be my computer's problem and not Blogspot's problem, but I'm stil highly annoyed.

SO...let's look at a cute baby picture to try to put me in a better mood: HOLY FRICK I CAN'T GET THE PICTURES TO MOVE!!! Why did they change the format of blogger anyway????????

Whew, okay, here's a cute baby picture.

We got the saucer out a few weeks ago and put Gavin in it. At first he wasn't sure about it, he needed some help to sit in it, and he had no idea what to do with the toys! But it didn't take long and now he can sit in it with no "propping" and he is learning how to manipulate the toys! He has two favorites, of course the two that are the loudest, LOL! He also sat in a jumpy seat at a friend's house and seemed to really like that, but unless I find one second-hand somewhere, I'm not going to buy him one, they're too expensive!

Okay, since blogger is driving me crazy, I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures now :)

Here's Ian with his big beautiful eyes, his wonderful smile, and his daddy's uni-brow, LOL!

Here daddy and Gavin enjoy a moment playing together...I definitely think Gavin looks like his daddy!! They are so cute together, too!

Here's the three boys together...it took like two dozen pictures before I got one of all three with their eyes open, no one poking someone else, no one crying or puking, etc. This photo deserves an award or something I think!!

I LOVE this picture!!! Gavin makes the funniest faces! He is a very expressive baby, and now he's also found his voice and is having a lot of fun imitating a velociraptor, a dolphin, and a baby mouse :) How do I know what a velociraptor sounds like? I don't know, I just do! And Gavin sounds like it!

Look at his big blue eyes!!!! And he's already practicing his innocent face...sorry kiddo, you're the third, mommy doesn't fall for it anymore!

This picture is hilarious...no, the cat is not attacking Connor, they were playing in the blinds and I must have caught the cat in a yawn or something. But it sure looks like we have a ferocious cat!

Awww...brotherly love! Actually, they were wrestling, and I snapped this just before Ian threw Connor down and sat on top of him! They know the rules, though, if they choose to wrestle, they are not allowed to bleed on anything that isn't easily washable! ;)

Dayton finally got some snow, we had two storms with a few days in between. The first storm brought about 4-6 inches, and the second storm brought another 4-6. The boys were sick during the first storm, we all had colds, and Ian and daddy ended up getting Strep (although Connor, Gavin, and I had just colds). So there wasn't much outside play. But they were feeling better during the second storm! I have some pictures, but they are on the other computer, so you'll have to wait for me to upload those.

It's been a while...

2010-01-31T16:46:00.003-05:00

I seem to be able to find time to update facebook (which only takes a few minutes) more frequently than this blog...but I have so much to tell!

First, here's picture proof of how nothing in this house is out of reach of our middle child the monkey:

This is a child who had a gross-motor delay at 18 months old...I'd say that he has made up for lost time in that area!

I recently took Connor back to his Infectious Disease specialist, who is the dr managing his Primary Immune Deficiency. His lab work showed very similar results as the last times we've checked his immune function, he still has a t-cell deficit which puts him at increased risk of viran and fungal infections (and secondary bacterial infections). But the good news is, his t-cell function appears normal. So basically he doesn't have enough of an immune system, but what he does have, works like it's supposed to. This type of immune deficiency allows him to "learn", in other words, most kids need to be exposed to an illness once or twice and they'll develop immunity to it. Connor has to be exposed numerous times, but he does eventually develop proper immunity. So although he will always have a t-cell deficit, he will appear to "grow out of" his immune deficiency as he ages.

His labs did show an IgM deficiency that has never been there before, for now we're assuming that it was a one time test anomaly, but we'll be watching to see what it does.

Connor ages out of Early Intervention on March 3rd when he turns 3 years old, and he transfers to public schools and will receive services and therapies through an IEP (Individualized Education Plan). We have started the transition process (which includes a lot of testing and gathering of records, etc). Our local school can not handle Connor's needs, but we found a school in a neighboring distric that has a full time sign language interpreter in the classroom, as well as 4 other hearing impaired kids. I visited the school and was VERY impressed with the program! Connor will get full time verbal and full time sign in this classroom! He will be with kids just like him, who are trying to learn to be verbal, but for now rely on sign. I have no doubt that it is the best environment for him, that in any other environment he will have more delays, not just in his speech development, but more important in his social/emotional development. My number one goal for him in preschool is for it to be a positive experience for him so he learns to like school. If he is effected by the learning disabilities that are so prevalent in his syndrome, then I want to set the stage now. I want to set him up for success, rather than failure.

We'll find out all the details over the next few weeks about sending him to this out of district school. Wish us luck!!

I have more to talk about...but currently have two children sitting in my lap, which is rather challenging to type!!! I'll be back later with more pictures, too!

3, 7, and 2010

2010-01-04T13:17:00.004-05:00

It's all about the numbers, and the stories behind them.

3...Gavin is 3 months old now. He has really turned a corner and proven that the "4th trimester" really does exist for some babies. These last 3 months he's challenged us in ways that his brothers didn't, he was what some people would consider a "high needs" baby, one that resisted being put down, one that resisted sleeping unless being held, one that seemed to have "colicky" episodes even. I've always heard of babies like this, but had never experienced it. Ian and Connor were rather easy to care for, their needs were obvious and easy to meet, they were pleasant to be around, they fell into their own routines and preferences smoothly.

Gavin, not so much. While he's undeniably a CUTE baby, he's also been difficult. But that is all changing, and rather suddenly! He now is a much more laid-back, easy-going baby, content to be put down to look at a toy or watch his brothers play. He'll even sit in a swing for short periods! I'm a believer that babies NEED to be held, need to be in their mommy's or daddy's arms much of the time, need the comfort and security. It's not fair to a baby for them to be evicted from their uterine home and suddenly expected to self-soothe. HOWEVER, reality is that this is a busy family, I have two other children, a house to clean, meals to cook, etc. So on occasion, I need to be able to put Gavin down. Thankfully, he now lets me!

Gavin even is tolerating his carseat now! We are an on-the-go family, often going places not just for fun but out of necessity. Connor has many dr appts and therapies, Ian has many activities, mommy and daddy have errands to run. So Gavin disliking his carseat was very trying to us!! But he recently has concluded that it's not that bad after all, and will even play with a toy or take a nap when we're out and about. So life is good, as it always has been and hopefully always will be! Each day brings its new challenges, and we're continuing to do our best to trudge through them.

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7...Jim and I celebrated 7 years of marriage on Jan 3rd! What a ride it's been, just like our vows "for better or for worse." In 7 years we've gone from being college students to living overseas, to becoming parents--times 3!--and everything in between. We've experienced thrills and successes; and near debilitating pain. Through it all, the constant has been our love.

For us, and I'd hazard to say for all couples, love is not enough for a couple to last. I love Jim because we have a relationship built from mutual respect, understanding, and selflessness. We're not perfect, but we accept each other's faults. Marriage takes WORK, and for 7 years, we've been putting in the work.

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2010...Happy New Year!!! We spent a week in Michigan for Christmas, and the trip went rather smoothly! All three boys were well behaved, there were very few fits or tantrums, very few tears, and lots of laughs!! Here's the boys on Christmas Eve night, in their matching Christmas jammies. Only Ian understands who Santa is and was truly excited to go to bed that night. Connor and Gavin were pretty oblivious to it all! One thing Connor was NOT oblivious to was the snow!! Although he could hardly move in his snowsuit, he really liked playing outside! As did Ian...and at nearly 5 years old, he is now old enough to really have fun outside, digging in the snow, making snow angels, sledding, throwing snowballs. He even jumped on my mom's trampoline in his snow boots! Look at the fun they had ruding on a toboggon behind the 4-wheeler!!
Connor learned the sign for "snow" and was very sad to get back to Ohio to see no snow here. I think Ian understands that it WILL snow here, he just has to wait a while longer.

So another year has passed, and although it had its fill of surprises, it was a very good one!! I'm excited to see the boys grow, explore, and experience life this coming year. I'm excited to see what life might have in store for me and Jim. I'm excited to just...live life!!!

2 months

2009-12-04T14:53:00.003-05:00

Gavin is 2 months old. I can hardly remember when Ian was 2 months old, it seems like a lifetime has passed since then. And in essence, I am a completely different person than I was then. When I compare my life 5 years ago to my life today, I realize how far we've come, how far we have yet to go, and how incredibly, wonderfully blessed we truly are.

Things have been busy, as always it seems, the last two months. Gavin was born, we celebrated Halloween, celebrated Thanksgiving, and now I'm back to work and we're getting ready for Christmas. I never realized until I was an adult how little time there is between those three holidays!! It seems like we had barely bought pumpkins when it was time to buy a turkey, and then suddenly we're putting up our Christmas tree. I always thought that Tuesday came after Monday, yet lately it seems that I blink an eye and it's already Sunday night again. I have to find a way to slow down more, enjoy life more, enjoy my KIDS more!! I've been making a point of having quiet time with the two bigger boys more frequently, whether we're just cuddling, or reading a book, or talking about their days. My kids amaze me, they truly do.

Some of you may have heard already, but I have signed up to participate in Team In Training, which is part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Go to www.teamintraining.org for more information. Basically, I have commited to fundraise $1700 in the next 5 months while I train to run a marathon in support of cancer research. Team in Training provides coaches, mentors, hotel the night before the race, meals the day before and day of, and an entire team of other runners and supporters while I train and raise money for their cause. I chose to run the half marathon in Cincinnati called The Flying Pig www.flyingpigmarathon.com on May 2nd. I'm doing this because I want/need to lose my baby weight and get in shape, and because I wanted to do it with a team and for a cause. I have a webpage set up, if you are interested in donating or tracking my progress, please visit! http://pages.teamintraining.org/soh/flypig10/sblock Every dollar helps, not just me, but the people who are effected by cancer. Maybe you know someone and you want to donate in their honor. Please tell me and I'll add their name to my jersey on race day.

In other news...we are looking forward to a trip to Michigan for Christmas this year. I'm trying to stay optimistic about travelling with that far with 3 boys udner age 5 in the middle of winter!! Ian has been GREAT lately, really blossoming into a wonderful little boy. Connor, though, has entered his version of the "terrible twos", which while nothing like Ian's were, are still challenging in their own right. Please please please, anyone that we're coming to visit, brush up on a little bit of ASL www.aslpro.com Connor understands a lot of verbal speech, but still relies on ASL for his expressive speech. In other words, he might understand you, but you won't understand him. It will likely be this way for several more years, so visit that webpage once in a while and challenge yourself to learn a few more signs!

That's all the news for now, everyone stay safe as winter weather starts to hit!!

A preview of our family pictures!

2009-11-22T21:26:00.001-05:00

Here are just a few of our family pictures taken today, more to come I promise!

Baby smiles, priceless!

2009-11-15T19:26:00.003-05:00

I love the newborn smiles, they're so goofy and so beautiful! I was laughing at how awkward Gavin is at times, and Jim put it perfectly, he said "You take something as complex as the human body and try to figure out how to work it in only 6 weeks!" Yep, he's right! Gavin is learning how to use his body, and we're getting some cute pictures while he experiments :)

Big grins...

Found his tongue!

Laughing at daddy!

The world is a hilarious place to a 6 week old!
Here he's looking at one of the dogs who was standing just out of the camera's view.

He was laughing at Ian here!

He can't figure out his eyes yet, he tries to focus on something, then they cross, and they often get "stuck" like this! Jim says he's tempted to smack the side of his head to "unstuck" his eyes (joking, people, of course we won't hit our baby!!)

Darn those eyes!!

We are scheduling family pictures soon, either this weekend or the weekend after Thanksgiving. We're going through a private photographer this time, hopefully with the extra time and one-on-one attention (vs the mall where you're ushered in and out in 15 minutes whether your baby is crying or not!) we're hoping to get some good shots of ALL of us together! We'll see how it goes :)

In a complete circle...

2009-11-11T19:06:00.003-05:00

SO, here we go again, back to where we started. Well, sort of. Connor went back to the cleft palate team today, and he was diagnosed with exactly the thing that I suspected which is why we got referred to that team in the first place!!! 2 years ago I was told that Connor did NOT have a submucous cleft palate, today we discovered that he likely does.

I ran across the term Submucous Cleft Palate when I was researching the feeding issues Connor had as an infant. I mentioned my research to his pulmonologist (who just happened to be the next dr we saw after I had researched) and he referred us to the cleft team. The surgeon on the team completely brushed us off at that first appt, saying "Connor can't possibly have a submucous cleft palate because he doesn't have a bifid uvula."

Today at Connor's appt, while looking in Connor's mouth, he said to a med student who was with him, "see that bifid uvula? That's the first sign you look for in a submucous cleft." Huh??

So here comes a lesson in submucous clefts and bifid uvulas, and an explanation of what's likely going on with Connor.

Here's a picture of a normal palate with the anatomy labeled (although this person's tonsils are rather large!) With your tongue you can feel the roof of your mouth (your hard palate) and if you reach back far enough (hoe you're not tongue-tied!) you can feel where the bone ends and the soft palate begins. Connor's hard palate is structurally normal, although is rather narrow and very high/arched. His soft palate, though, has never functioned correctly. We've known this since he was 4 weeks old and had his first swallow study.

If the soft palate does not form correctly, the uvula can have a bifid appearance like this one:And here's a drawing illustrating it:The bifid uvula is not a problem in and of itself, it's just a possible sign of a larger problem. Connor's uvula has always appeared normal, but today he was crying when they were looking in his mouth, and every time he inhaled, his uvula took on a slight bifid appearance. Here's why him crying was significant...here's a picture of the anatomy in the mouth (side view):See how behind the soft palate is the back wall of the throat, and where it connects to the nasal passageways? When you inhale through your nose, the soft palate is relaxed to allow air to pass through your nose into your lungs. When you inhale through your mouth (or exhale through your mouth, as pictured here) the soft palate is supposed to close the back of the throat so the air goes only down (or up), and not also out your nose. The same thing is supposed to happen when you swallow (so food doesn't come out of your nose) and when you speak. Here's an illustration of that, the first picture shows the soft palate closing correctly so speech sounds only come out of the mouth, the second picture shows the soft palate closing incorrectly so sounds are coming out of both the nose and the mouth (see the arrows?):So the bifid uvula is a sign of a muscular problem in the soft palate, and Connor's speech progression is also indicative of a soft palate problem (there are certain consonant and vowel sounds he ca'nt make before they require him to move his soft palate. For example, make the long E sound, can you feel your palate move? The same with the hard G and hard C or K sounds.)

So what does this all mean (besides the fact that I'm highly annoyed that doctors STILL aren't listening to me when I've proven again and again that I know how to research my kid and I often diagnose him long before they do!!) For now it doesn't mean anything, if he has a submucous cleft, he's too young to have it corrected anyway. The dysfunction of the soft palate is called Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (VPI), and that also can be corrected but he is too young and too small. Besides, some kids with submucous clefts and VPI are able to compensate and never need the corrective surgery. So for now we keep doing what we've been doing, which is heavy speech therapy and assistive communication (in our case we chose sign language in place of assistive communication devices). There is a specialty clinic in Cincinnati that specializes in these kinds of palate problems, and I will definitely take Connor there for any repair that he may need, especially since I really don't like the head of this team here in Dayton (mostly because he's brushed me off so many times!)

Thus ends this cleft palate lesson!

Me and the boys...picture attempt #1

2009-11-08T18:23:00.003-05:00

I remember now why we PAY someone to take our pictures!!! It's hard work to get just two little boys looking in the same direction--and maybe even smiling!--but now to get three?? It might be impossible for a while :) I had Jim try today, though, and here's the results:

Take 1...Ian wasn't looking, Connor was crying.

Take 2...Ian was blinking, I was kind of hunched over, Connor was still unhappy.

Take 3...Ian was looking, but making a weird face, I was caught in half-blink (or something!), and Gavin was trying to latch onto Connor's face!!

We'll keep trying!! Someone asked for an upclose picture of me and Gavin's face to compare to the last post's picture of Jim and Gavin's faces. I'll see what I can do tonight...he usually has a happy time right before bed, maybe I'll try then. I think Gavin looks more like Jim than either of the other boys did. He definitely has my chin and his eyes are more similar to mine than Jim's, but they're not exactly like mine either. And since he kept his dark hair, he just looks like Jim I think!! I dreamed several times when I was pregnant that we'd get a red-haired baby, but it looks like I was wrong, maybe he'll be a brown-haired kid!!

Daddy and Son

2009-11-05T08:39:00.003-05:00

And the winner is...CONNOR!!

2009-11-03T20:03:00.004-05:00

The winner of the "who gets stitches first" game, that is! I knew it was coming, there's no stopping my boys, and frankly I don't WANT to stop them, they are naturally fearless, very curious, and very strong in gross motor skills (both of them are weak in fine motor skills, probably because all of their energy goes into gross motor!)

Anyway, Connor is officially the first to have an owie bad enough to need stitches, and boy, was it bad!! He cut his eyeLID on a hook on the closet door. Not his eyeBROW, his eyeLID. At first it didn't look that bad, didn't bleed much really, just looked like a scratch. But when I looked closer, I saw that it was a gaping gash across his whole lid.

So to the hospital we went where poor Connor braved it through quite the ordeal getting it stitched (it's not easy to numb an eyelid, and also not easy to stitch it...you know, since the eyeBALL is so close to it!!) It's an experience I don't care to repeat anytime soon!!!

SO...here come the pictures now...and beware, they're somewhat graphic!

This is right before we left for the hospital. See how it's hardly bleeding? At first glance it didn't seem that bad. This is what he looked like 12 hours later, the cut stitched and significant swelling setting in. About 24 hours later, bruising starting, swelling still pretty bad. Two days later, bruising getting darker. An up-close on day 2.

Never a dull moment in our house, I tell you!!!

It's Halloween!

2009-10-31T21:45:00.006-04:00

Happy Halloween! There's one major problem with it being Halloween already...that means Gavin is FOUR WEEKS OLD ALREADY!!! HOW did that HAPPEN?? My goodness I need to catch up on a bunch of stuff (like posting my birth story! and finishing packing away my maternity clothes, and I don't know, a whole bunch of other stuff!)

Anyway, it's Halloween, and we had a good time. Somehow I managed to FORGET to take pictures of the boys in their costumes though, I might try to re-dress them tomorrow and take pictures, but honestly I'm afraid that Connor will think he can walk up to stranger's doors and get more candy!!!

We did our short walk around the block and the boys went inside to examine their loot, costumes were shed, and I completely missed my opportunity to take pictures. I did go back out later and take pictures of our decorations, though! This is Ian's pumpkin: This was our candy bowl. We had the "enter if you dare" tape strung along our drive way leading to the bowl of candy that was surrounded by orange lights and our decorated pumpkins. Every year I say that I want to do more to decorate for next year, then I never do. It's always too expensive to buy stuff, or Halloween sneaks up on me and I just plain forget. These were window hangings I bought this year, they're 4 feet tall! (we have windows in the front of our house that are very tall) I think they're cool! Here's the pumpkin daddy carved.Ian went to Fulton Farms near us for a school fieldtrip yesterday. Here's how he "measures up".And here he is overwhelmed in the pumpkin patch. He was allowed to pick one pumpkin to bring home, and had a hard time choosing one!!Here he is lost in the corn maze.And here Daddy gives Gavin his first bottle!! Gavin had some trouble getting a good latch on the bottle and never did finish the ounce or so that was in it. We might have to experiment with different bottles to find one that he likes. Or maybe he just wasn't hungry enough! I go back to work in three weeks though, so he has to figure it out soon!

It's Halloween1

2009-10-31T21:45:00.001-04:00

Gavin's first bath!

2009-10-25T21:09:00.002-04:00

Third babies get so short-changed! Ian got baths every night as soon as his umbilical stump fell off, then he got changed into clean jammies, daddy read him a book, and mommy nursed him to sleep. Connor didn't get as many baths, but mostly that was because he hated them (now we know it was probably because of his ear issues causing severe equilibrium problems, I bet baths were really disorienting to him until he could sit up). Gavin, on the other hand, is only now getting his first bath at 3 weeks old!!! Oh well, just part and parcel of having older siblings!

He has not lost his baby hair yet!! Ian lost all of his baby hair by 4 weeks old, and Connor lost a good bit, but Gavin hasn't lost any! He still has quite the mullet, too :)

He loved just laying there in the water, listening to the sound of the bubbles popping around him. He kept turning his head side to side, listening to everything...taking it all in. When I lifted him out of the bath, he SCREAMED!! I think he would have stayed in there for quite a while :)

Play time!

2009-10-22T10:09:00.003-04:00

Gavin is a feeding MACHINE!! He is in a stage right now where he wants to be in my arms feeding all. the. time. Seriously, I can't put him down for 20 minutes to shower! He'll sometimes take a pacifier for short periods, but he gets angry quickly! He sleeps well...in my arms!

But today he had an awake/alert/happy period for about an hour, and I got a few pictures of him and Ian together (Connor is at school). He will sometimes nap with Daddy, which is very cute :) And Daddy likes it...he gets a nap out of it! Both boys and Mommy got sick with a full-blown flu-like bug. Daddy started it and just as he was getting over it, the rest of us got sick. We all had high fevers, a cough, and body aches that left us limp and with no energy. We didn't go to the dr, so we don't know if it was a cold or a flu or some other virus, but we're all on the mend now. Our house was definitely "down and out" for several days though!!! It's very rare to see Ian and Connor just laying around like this!

Just a typical Sunday morning

2009-10-18T14:20:00.003-04:00

Our house is fighting off a cold/flu-type bug. Jim started it, probably thanks to his student teaching this semester, and he's been sick for 2 weeks now (started feeling sick the day after Gavin was born). It started as a cold, lots of congestion, sinus pressure, etc. Slowly it turned to a bit of body aches, then a low fever. It's not bad at all, even after 2 weeks it's staying mild, so we're not concerned, just another joy of fall/winter!

Connor got sick next, of course, but his is also staying a cold...lots of runny nose, some cough, and a raspy voice. He stayed home from school for two days. Officially I could have sent him, he hasn't had a fever, but might as well let him rest at home.

Now this morning I'm starting to feel it. A bit of body aches, an overall feeling of "yuckiness", and a bit of a cough. Again, nothing too bad at all. So far Ian is doing fine.

Despite feeling "down", things still need to get done! I've been letting the boys "help" with chores, and taught them how to sort the laundry and load the washing machine. It's something they're excited about helping with (we'll see how long that lasts!). Connor can't even see the top of the washing machine, but he has pretty good aim when tossing things in!Then we moved on to the floors. With two dogs and two cats, sweeping the floors is a constant chore! The boys aren't really any "help" with this, but they think they are! I have to sneak behind them and do the actual sweeping when they're not looking ;) Daisy, the Great Dane, was completely uninterested in the goings-on, and backed her butt up to the couch then plopped herself down. She was on guard for broom handles swinging around and smacking her! (as was I!) Gavin also was completely uninterested, he just laid in the swing and took a nap!

And this picture is actually from Saturday night, but it's so cute that I just had to post it! Daddy built a fire and Gavin lounged in his swing enjoying the warmth for quite a while! Then Daddy and Gavin laid together on the couch and fell asleep. So cute!

I caught a smile!

2009-10-16T19:28:00.002-04:00

I know, I know, it's not a "real" smile, it's involuntary, probably gas or something, but WHO CARES!!! It's BEAUTIFUL! And...do I see dimples maybe? Ian has one dimple, and I LOVE IT, but I thought it was a fluke, I never expected to have another baby with dimples! I wonder...

Having a baby after a special needs baby...

2009-10-14T19:08:00.003-04:00

Gavin is almost 2 weeks old now...and I'm finding myself feeling two emotions I didn't expect...first is deeper sadness for Connor as I realize just how "abnormal" he was as a baby, and second is more healing for me.

Gavin had his second weight check today at the ped and gained a POUND and an INCH in just one week!! I was so nervous going to this appt...by all accounts he's a healthy thriving NORMAL baby, but weight gain and feeding issues were some of the earliest noted problems with Connor, and something we still struggle with today. So to lay Gavin on that scale and see him weighing 10lbs and 10oz already was just so...healing is all I can think of to describe it! I CAN do it, my body CAN nourish a child, I DO know what I'm doing. So many drs have placed so much doubt in my ability to raise and nourish Connor throughout these last 2.5 years, I hadn't realized how much of that doubt and self-blame had remained. I mean, I KNOW that he has a chromosomal deletion that is causing all his medical problems, but that didn't erase all of the mommy guilt apparently. I was still harboring feelings of my body failing him, of my ability to parent him.

In these past 11 days since Gavin was born, I've come to realize even more how abnormal Connor was as an infant...at the time we were just so caught up in everything going on, it was so easy to miss the little things...like the fact that Connor slept SO MUCH, or he NEVER startled, he NEVER cried (when he did, it sounded like a kitten mewing)...those things weren't normal!! Gavin does them all, and every time he cries (screams!! this kid has lungs!) it makes me HAPPY to hear him cry! Is that weird?!

Anyway...there's really no point to this...just that having Gavin is wonderful and amazing, and emotional. I love Connor to death, he and I have been through so much...to sit down and tandem nurse Connor and Gavin, to look from one to the other...to remember the struggles--god the struggles!--we went through with Connor, to see him doing so well now, and then to see his little brother right next to him...

I'm a lucky woman.

More pictures...again!!

2009-10-12T14:59:00.003-04:00

Because you can't ever have enough pictures!!!!!

Here Gavin sits with mommy while his big brothers enjoy a bath. Here's Ian and Gavin...my biggest boy and my littlest boy :) It'll be a while I think before I manage to get a picture of all three of them together! But I'm trying...

Whoa, what's up with Ian's eyes??? He's a zombie or something! LOL!

Connor's funky after-bath-hair!! Daddy spiked it and Connor thought he was all that.

Here daddy proves that men CAN multi task!! It was about 9pm and I wanted to go to bed...alone...so I gave Gavin to daddy and he put him in the sling and played the Wii! Mommy got some alone time, Gavin got some daddy bonding time, and daddy got some game time! Win, win, win! And doesn't he look manly wearing a baby sling?

Is Gavin trying to smile??

Check out his mullet!!

Daddy and son...I just love that he's such an involved daddy. He pulls his weight equally, doing everything with all three boys...except breastfeed (and if there was a way, I'd see that he did that too!) This definitely one daddy who does it all :)

Connor thought he was "hiding" from me!!

Just pictures

2009-10-11T10:41:00.002-04:00

I'll upload more soon!

He's here!!!!

2009-10-10T14:49:00.003-04:00

Gavin Augustus Block was born at 12:17am Oct 3, 2009!! He weighed 9lbs 13oz and was 21 inches long! His birth went great, I managed through back labor to deliver my beautiful baby with NO drugs!! I had a wonderful team to support me, my husband and two doulas who somehow got me through it even when at one point, realizing it was too late for an epidural, I asked for general anesthesia! (It was a half joke, I knew I couldn't have it, but it lightened the mood a little!)

I'm working on writing up my birth story now, I'll post it soon. Here's a few pictures!

My due date...I never thought I'd say that.

2009-09-24T20:46:00.003-04:00

My due date is in 3 hours. I don't know whether to cuss or cry at still being pregnant. I know that a normal pregnancy can go 2 weeks or more past the estimated due date, but my other two pregnancies both ended about 2 weeks BEFORE my due date, so I expected this one to, too. Apparently I have not had enough opportunities to learn patience in my life, so I'm being given an opportunity to learn it again.

Yay.

Oh, and yes, I'm wearing the same shirt I was wearing in my 37 week picture. It's basically one of only 3 shirts I have left that actually cover my belly. SIGH.

Here's the 40 week picture in full size:

Ian vs the Skateboard...2 days later

2009-09-22T11:00:00.000-04:00

Here's my tough boy 2 days after his skateboard crash:I think he's rather proud of himself :) I asked him how it feels, and he said "um, not too bad, I can handle it." LOL!!! You know that if any of us adults had a face like that, we'd be very ginger about it, especially about eating, but he doesn't appear bothered by it at all!!And Connor wouldn't let me get away with only taking pictures of his brother, so of course I had to snap a few of him, too :)

I don't know the sign for "blood", so Connor has been signing all about brother's "red owie", which is pretty cute! He apparently told his teacher all about brother falling of the skateboard and getting a red owie. But he told her it all in sign, and she was a little lost...I think he's teaching his teacher new signs every day!

Ian and the skateboard...the pavement won!!

2009-09-21T15:19:00.000-04:00

Those of you who know Ian know that almost nothing scares this kid! He's pretty fearless, and he excels at gross motor skills (fine motor is another story!!). When he was younger he seemed to not feel pain normally, so he never learned a healthy appreciation for caution, either.

This weekend he was outside playing with the "big boys" (neighbors that range in age from 10-12). He was on a skateboard, and doing really well too! He was able to stand on it with one foot and propel himself with his other foot, impressive balance for a 4 year old! For a while he was content with doing that on the flat sidewalk. Then he apparently got bored and decided to instead ride the skateboard down the neighbor's driveway. Only problem is, the driveway is somewhat slanted and dumps out onto the road. He had built up some pretty decent speed, was approaching the road, knew he couldn't go out into the road, and couldn't figure out how to stop himself. Suddenly he's face first on the ground, crying.

I witnessed this whole thing, sitting on a lawn chair about 20 feet away. I didn't think he was that badly hurt, so I said to him "Ian, get up, stop crying, come here, I can't help you from over there." He didn't get up. One of the neighbor boys went to help him up and said "uh, he's bleeding a lot." So I got up and walked over to Ian, expecting to see a scrape or something, instead, this is what I find!!!! (and actually, this picture is taken after I cleaned up most of the blood, it was literally dripping off him when I got to him initially!) Poor kid! So I took him over to the chair I had been sitting in and went inside to get papertowels. Somehow in this family we have managed to avoid stitches and broken bones, although with two fearless and very active little boys, I'm not quite sure how to be honest! As I was getting the papertowels, the thought crossed my mind that maybe our luck had run out, his lower lip looked like maybe it would need some medical attention.

But as I cleaned him up, I saw that his lip was just chewed up, not split open or anything, and that he was fine. He did cry, but not for long, especially since the neighbor boys started comparing various bumps, bruises, and scars with him. He felt like one of the big kids for having his own war wound to show off!!!

He still insisted on going to Pizza Hut for dinner that night, he had been named Player of the Game at soccer that morning, and had a free pizza coupon and wanted to cash it in! I kept having to wipe some oozing blood off his lip and chin throughout the night, but he ate his dinner just fine. I did give him a dose of Tylenol before bed just to ward off a big of the pain overnight.

The next morning he woke up looking like this:

(he was playing the Wii when I took this picture, that's what the cord is you see) His lower lip and chin obviously took the brunt of it, and the area between his nose and upper lip has a bit of road rash on it, too. His upper lip is just a bit chewed up, not bad though. And since he's already missing one tooth from a fall earlier this summer, I carefully checked the rest of his teeth. I think they're okay :) Poor kid...between his swollen mouth and his missing tooth, he was having some issues talking this weekend!!!

Yet again the Block household escapes serious injury :)

I've never been this pregnant

2009-09-18T19:49:00.005-04:00

I'm 39 weeks now, which is officially longer than I've ever been pregnant before. Ian and Connor were born in my 38th week. It is VERY hard to stay patient and remember to trust my body and my baby. I believe in the incredible design of the human body, I believe in the natural process of pregnancy and childbirth, I believe that my baby will tell my body when he's ready to be born, and no matter what I do (short of medical intervention), my baby won't come before he's ready. There's a reason I'm still pregnant, and while it's not obvious to me, I have to trust in it.

Now that we have the "official" stuff out of the way...THIS SUCKS!!! My logical mind knows and truly believes everything I wrote above, yet my physical body WANTS THIS BABY OUT OF ME! I hate waking up every morning still tired, dragging myself to work where I have no real work to do (since I could go on leave any day), then coming home exhausted and trying to take care of the boys. Then I go to bed with contractions wondering if it's the night.

I saw my OB today and everything is still going great. My blood pressure is behaving very nicely this pregnancy, even though I'm managing to gain a LOT of weight yet again. Right now the baby has his shoulder lodged up against my left pelvis, and that HURTS and might actually be part of the reason why he hasn't been born yet. I've been having a lot of contractions yet none of them are "real" labor contractions. I think my body is trying to adjust the position of the baby so he will be born easier. All the more reason to not intervene and just let my body do what it needs to do. I have been spending some time each day in various yoga positions trying to encourage the baby to move into a better position, hopefully that's helping and he'll be born anytime now!!!

Jim, as always, is being absolutely wonderful and is taking care of what he can, and putting up with my mood admirably well. I'm sure it's not easy having a wife who just complains all the time!

Anyway...here's my 38 week and 39 week pictures. This first one is me with a friend who is 33 weeks pregnant...And here's me today at 39 weeks. A few posts down is my picture from 37 weeks if you want to compare. The boys, meanwhile, are doing well. Connor missed two days of school this week because he suddenly spiked a fever that lasted about 36 hours. He had no other symptoms at all, just a fever and lethargy. He didn't sleep well while he was feverish, but otherwise no cough, no runny nose, nothing. It was very odd. But, he's better now, back to his old toddler self! The boys are getting much better at playing together, which is wonderful because it actually allows Jim and I to get things done from time to time!! It used to be that one or both boys were constantly under foot, but now once in a while they'll disappear together, and this is how we'll find them:

Soon a third little boy will be added to this picture, and I'm very excited about that!!

Almost 38 weeks, and still pregnant

2009-09-09T13:42:00.002-04:00

I'll be 38 weeks on Friday, and BabyBoy3 is still comfy all squished up in my uterus. I keep telling him that he'll have lots more room when he comes out, and that his mommy really wants to hold him and snuggle him. But he's not taking it to heart yet. He's decided he's perfectly happy where he is.

I know I shouldn't complain, I'm only 37+5, but I tend to grow big babies and birth them a little early, so I'm anxious! Four of my local friends have had their babies in the last 8 weeks, and it makes me excited and VERY nervous at the same time! I was with two of those friends during parts of their labors, and while it was wonderful and empowering to see a woman in the middle of a natural childbirth, it also was a reminder for me of what's to come. One had a beautiful home birth, one had an uncomplicated hospital birth. (the other two, whose births I wasn't part of, also had wonderful home births, including one who woke up in hard labor in the middle of the night and had a baby less than an hour later!! No one made it to that birth, no midwife, no doula, nobody but her husband, who expertly 'caught' the baby! How's THAT for a great birth??)

So here I sit, wondering with every twinge if it's the beginning of the "real thing". No doubt I'll know when it is "real", but until then I just sit and wait.

Connor is getting over another ear infection. He started coughing last week, and I anxiously watched him, wondering if it was just the change in weather (it's been cooler lately) or if he was getting sick. Sure enough, Friday morning his ear started draining. Poor kid! He hasn't had an ear infection since January, and hasn't been sick at all since mid-March, so this has been a great stretch for him!!! His Infectious Disease doctor is continually amazed at how overall healthy he is despite his immune deficiency. I'm afraid that with him in school four mornings a week now, things may be worse, but we can't NOT put him in school, he needs these therapies if he's going to be mainstreamed by Kindergarten (still on an IEP, and maybe with an aide, but in a regular room). His Inf Dis dr and I have dicussed the possibility of prophylactic antibiotics before, but it's always something I've been hesitant about. While it may help him fight off secondary bacterial infections, it won't help againt any virus, and there are side effects. Connor is a very yeasty kid, which most people are that have his particular immune deficiency; plus we up his chances of developing antibiotic resistance, which is NOT a good thing obviously. But on the flip side, he has to be healthy to attend school to get benefits from the therapies. It's a spiral, must attend school to reap the benefits, but by attending school he gets sick, which keeps him out of school...around and around we go. Maybe I should just quickly get a degree in Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Early Childhood Education and homeschool him full time :)

We had a great weekend over Labor Day, took the boys to the Air Force Museum where they had a giant scale remote control Air Show. It was awesome! The boys loved watching the planes fly, and loved walking around to see the various exhibits. Some of the sounds were a little overwhelming to Connor sometimes, he's very sound-sensitive, and with an ear infection, I imagine things sound/feel different, so he was kind of clingy. But he still enjoyed watching them all, and was signing up a storm, telling me all about it the rest of the weekend (yes Connor, I was there, I saw it too!!) Other than that we met up with some friends for a few play dates, and we spent some time at a neighbor's cookout. It was a great weekend! I'll upload pictures of the air show soon.

Please everyone send me some easy labor vibes!! I'll be sure to report as soon as this little bugger makes his grand appearance!

I'm full term!!

2009-09-04T18:24:00.005-04:00

A full term pregnancy is considered anything between 37-42 weeks, before that is pre-term, after that is post-term. Today marks my 37 week mark! Ian was born at 38 weeks on the nose, Connor was born at 38 weeks 5 days. I'm *really* ready for this baby, so anytime now is good for me :)

Here's what I look like 37 weeks pregnant, and plus 38 pounds:

I actually think I look pretty good! I had a huge amount of swelling with Ian's pregnancy, so I looked pretty horrible at the end (I also gained over 50 pounds!) Here's what I looked like the day I went into labor with him (he was born 2 days later):

And here I am 38 weeks pregnant with Connor (he was born 5 days later). I only gained 30 pounds with his pregnancy. Sorry the picture is small, all I could find was the collage I had of his whole pregnancy, I couldn't find the individual pictures.

I'm barely hanging in there...

2009-08-29T20:50:00.007-04:00

There's a good reason that we had basically decided Connor was our last baby (biologically, at least). I don't handle pregnancy well. Especially not the end of it.

And now here I am, 36 weeks pregnant, and again finding it very hard to function. I know I'm being hormonal and snappy, I'm hot, I'm huge, I hurt, I have heartburn, I'm not sleeping more than an hour at a time, I still have to go to work every day, and I still have to parent two little boys. My house has gone to the wayside, everytime I try to clean something I end up not being able to walk soon after.

Sigh.

The poor boys...they thrive from outside time, time around other kids, time out of the house. Yet this summer they haven't gotten nearly enough of that. We went to the zoo once, the baseball game twice, we haven't been to any museums, we haven't been to the dog park much, or even just a regular play ground park very often. When we go outside, I sit in a chair and watch them, I don't play with them. Poor kids!!!

Poor dogs, even, our 4-legged family members have been neglected all summer long, hardly getting any walks. This is how you'll usually find them...in a doggy depression.
As an aside...Daisy the Great Dane continues to grow TALLER!! She's now over 33 inches tall at the shoulders, but still pretty darn skinny weighing in at only about 100 pounds. She's much taller than the breed standard, but needs to gain about 20 pounds.

Summer is almost over, and the new school year has begun. Both boys are in half-day school this year. Ian is in his second year of preschool at the public school, and Connor started in a program for special needs kids at a nearby MR/DD school (mentally retarded/developmentally disabled). For Ian it's old hat, he has the same teacher he had last year, and several of the kids are the same classmates he had. He fell right into the routine no problem. Here's some pictures of his first day:

For Connor the transition is of course a harder one. I still can't believe that my tiny 23 pound 2.5 year old gets on a school bus and goes away!!!!! The attached mother side of me screams that this is wrong, but the logical intelligent side of me knows this is what's right for him. At this school he gets intensive therapy from an early intervention specialist, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, and a speech therapist while in a social setting with kids his own age. He had another developmental assessment done recently, and he is now testing "within range" in gross motor, cognitive, and self-help. He's testing in the "caution" range in fine motor and social skills. And he's testing well "below range" in communication (when tested orally/verbally). He'll attend this class 4 mornings a week from now until March when he turns 3, then he'll transition to the public school's special needs preschool program.

There's debate right now about where to put him when he turns 3. I recently took him to see a new specialist in Cincinnati to discuss his overall development, particularly his speech. He is making huge progress in his verbal expressive speech, but is still WAY behind. He's making substantial gains in his sign language, though, at last count he has over 160 signs and he's capable of putting them together into short sentences. With his variable hearing loss and the structural malformations in his palate, it's hard to tell if he also has a neurological issue effecting his ability to speak verbally (called Apraxia). We probably won't know for another year or so exactly what his potential will be for oral speech, so we're focussing heavily on sign language. I worry that public school won't be able to provide the intensive verbal AND sign environment he needs. There's a School for the Deaf in Cincinnati that has a "sign and say" program for kids just like Connor, but that school is over an hour away. I'm wishing right now we could pull up and move closer, but that would be very difficult.

For now, sign language is here to stay, if we get what we want, Connor will have a full time interpreter with him at school starting in March.

Check out these two cute pictures of Connor...this next one is him lounging on the couch watching a movie, sorry it's so dark, I wanted to snap the picture without him moving! This one is him standing by the back door watching a movie...I just thought the lighting made for a really cute picture of him! For being so darn tiny, he sure does look like a "big boy"!

Our schedule with the boys in school is hectic. Two boys, two different schools, two different bus routes. Connor goes in the mornings, the bus picks him up at 8:30am and drops him off at 12:30pm. Ian goes in the afternoons, the bus picks him up at 1pm and drops him off at 4:30pm. (Connor's school is further away, that's why he's gone longer). Between when Connor gets off the bus and Ian gets on, they both have to eat lunch. Then Ian gets on the bus and Connor goes down for his nap. In the afternoons, Ian gets off the bus and they get a little bit of outside play time, then it's time for dinner, baths, and bed! It's a long busy day for these two little boys!!

Ian enjoyed a week of camping with my mom up in Michigan to cap off his summer, and Jim went up to pick Ian up. He stopped by to see his side of the family and got some fresh garden veggies from an uncle, including some brocolli. Once home, he put the brocolli in a pot to boil. When it was done, I took the lid off and the first thing I saw was this:

Do you see the inch worm/caterpillar thing??!! LOL! It got boiled in with the brocolli :) No big deal, I picked it out, threw it away, and we enjoyed the brocolli. Bugs don't bother us in this family, adds a bit of protein to the food, right?!

In pregnancy news, besides being grumpy and uncomfortable, I'm doing well. Baby finally flipped to head-down, and has been pretty LOW for a while now. I've had lots of contractions, every evening I have several hours of them. If this is like Ian and Connor's pregnancies, it'll be like this for a few weeks before I go into "real" labor. Joyous.

I am showing a lot, but I have a feeling this baby isn't quite as big as Ian and Connor were. Let's hope at least!! He feels long to me, though, although I was sure Connor was a lot longer than Ian, and he was only about an inch longer. So we'll see I guess. I finished all my paperwork for the birth center near us, if all goes well, I'll have a water birth there and leave as soon as I want to leave (although I'll probably choose to stay 24 hours just to get the newborn screening done, and to get a bilirubin check done since Jim and I have an Rh incompatibility and an ABO incompatibility which led to Ian and Connor both having jaundice). The first backup plan is in case my labor is another fast one like Connor's, then I'll just stay home and I have a homebirth team that will meet me here. We have a good 30 minute drive to the hospital, and I will NOT make that drive while in transition, so it's good to have a homebirth team as backup. The second back up plan, if anything goes wrong, is to of course go to the main hospital. But we're not expecting a thing to go wrong at all.

Now I just have to survive the last few weeks of this pregnancy and everything will be fine :)

Baseball, best friends, and baby update!

2009-08-05T19:10:00.003-04:00

I've been having trouble uploading pictures, so this might be kind of choppy, but it'll get the point across :) For some reason I can't re-arrange the pictures on here, so I'll talk about them in the order they appear, sorry if it doesn't flow as well!

We've been busy...yet also enjoying lazy summer days. It's been a wonderful summer, comparatively cool, not much rain, and we've all been HEALTHY (knock on wood, please!!) We did have a good thunderstorm the other day, so the boys were couped up in the house all day. That night while I cooked dinner, Connor decided to let out his frustrations by emptying my plastic ware!!! I've been talking about our very successful small veggie garden this year. Here's one of our monster cucumbers...I've never seen cucumbers this FAT, and they taste *really* good, very crisp, very flavorful, not too seedy. Our tomatoes are finally ripe, too, we made a really good chili this weekend using peppers I got from coworkers and tomatoes from our garden. It was SO good!!

We went to another Dragon's Game (a minor league baseball team in Dayton) and had a blast. The boys did really well, and the Dragons even won!! Here's a picture of me and Connor walking back to the car...check out his Devil Eyes!!!! LOL! It's a little freaky honestly!

Here's Connor at the game, being goofy and high on junk food :)

Here's Ian...

We have finally named our new kitten...his name is Rumble! He got his name from his ridiculously loud purr, and it just seems to fit him :) Rumble and Daisy the Great Dane are continuing to be good friends, we often find them cuddling together. Daisy keeps trying to "bathe" Rumble, but she's not always the gentlest! Rumble tolerates it well, though. Annie, our mutt, is still only tolerating Rumble, and Ying Yang our cat is still showing his obvious dislike. At least Rumble has Daisy as a friend!!!

Aren't they CUTE together!!!!!

BabyBoy3 is growing like a weed! I've gained 31 pounds now at almost 33 weeks (eek!!). He's by far my most active baby still, seems like he's always rolling, kicking, and jabbing in there! We think he's still breech, if we still suspect that at my next appt (at 36 weeks) then my OB will do a quick ultrasound to check. My OB will do external versions, he also recommends chiropractic to turn a baby. He'll do a breech delivery, so it doesn't automatically mean c-section (which is one of my biggest fears, c-sections are done WAY too often in this country, I've only personally met two people whose c-sections were truly medically necessary). Hopefully the little bugger will turn on his own anyway!!

A new family member!

2009-07-21T16:33:00.008-04:00

In all my anxiousness waiting for BabyBoy3 to join our family, we decided to get a new kitten to add to our menagerie of animals and keep my hormones at bay!!

Meet Mr Kitty (no, that's not his real name, we just haven't decided on a name yet!)

Mr Kitty transitioned well into our home, he came from a really good home where he was well socialized, so he knew how to hold his ground while being introduced to our dogs. Daisy gave him a good tongue bath when she first met him:

Annie, always the slightly more aggressive dog, behaved herself because I told her she had to, but she very obviously WANTED to chase/eat Mr Kitty (thank goodness for good training! We have never regretted the time we put into training her as a puppy!)

Ying Yang, our cat, was not so thrilled, however, he made some terrible noises, then escaped outside as quickly as he could :)

He is making himself at home already, learning his way around, finding good hiding places to pounce out of, and he has proven already that he really likes being a shoulder kitty and prefers to get rides around that way!!

In pregnancy news...I'm 30 weeks 4 days now, BabyBoy3 recently flipped from transverse to breech, which is making me feel much more comfortable (much less pressure on my hips!). He continues to be my most active baby yet, in near constant motion. It's rare that he's not moving. He's got a foot lodged against my pelvis on my right side and man he likes to kick me there! OUCH!

I bought some new material so I can make two new slings for him, when I get those done I'll be sure to post pictures of them.

Speaking of slings...I was babysitting for a friend's kids recently, and my brother (who is staying with us for the summer) was carrying around the 11 month old. I asked him if he wanted to try on a sling, and he said sure, so I helped him get her into a sling, where she sat rather happily on his hip for quite a while! Don't tell him I'm putting this picture up, he's in that awkward teenage stage where he hates his picture being taken (and hair cuts!).

Baseball game!

2009-07-03T16:29:00.002-04:00

I got free tickets to a Dragons Baseball game from a coworker (who is a beer conniseur and realized she had bought tickets the same day as a beer tasting downtown, heaven forbid!!) So I surprised Jim and the boys, didn't even tell them where we were going until we got there! We love Dragons games, it's a minor league team so the show is great, the players play hard, there are a lot of freebies, there are silly games/stunts at the end of every inning, etc. Even the food isn't quite as over-priced as most large events like this. So, here are some pictures!!

Here's Connor flirting with the people sitting behind us:

Here's daddy and Ian, enjoying the game!

Here's what you get when you try to get two little boys to pose for a picture:

Here's Connor being silly with a balloon:

Here's Connor sitting on top of a bat outside the park (shh...don't tell Chayton that I took a picture of him! He thinks I zoomed in and only got Connor...he's incredibly camera shy!)

Here's Ian sitting on a baseball outside the stadium:

Here's daddy and Connor, all excited as we're walking to the park!!

It was a great night, we did have some grumpy people sitting in front of us that got snippy at us because of Ian and Connor being active little boys at a baseball game. Apparently they either don't have children or forgot what it's like to have children. And also forgot that it's a MINOR LEAGUE ball game, an extremely family-friendly event, and they also apparently couldn't see the open seats near us that they could have moved to. Ian and Connor weren't being bad, they were being active (who can expect two little boys to sit in their seat for hours?) and they were making noise (of course they were, it's a ball game!) and the people probably got bumped into a few times (can't help that, the seats are packed together, you get bumped into all the time at places like that!). The boys were just cheering, enjoying all the junk food, and fully enjoying all the activity around them. The people in front of us never left their seats and hardly made a noise, so tell me who was enjoying the game the most?? They left at the bottom of the 8th anyway.

We have tickets to another game July 31st, but this time it's with the Deaf Community Resource Center. The DCRC bought out the Dragon's Lair, which is a section in the outfield, and sold tickets as a fundraiser. All the kids get a baseball, a hat, and get to go out on the field before the game to meet the players. The boys don't know about it yet, but they're going to be THRILLED!!!

These games go awfully late, though, Ian fell asleep in my lap in the 9th inning, and Connor was struggling by the end, too. It's worth a little exhaustion, though, because it's so darn fun!!!

Today's controversial topic...BREASTFEEDING!

2009-06-30T21:34:00.004-04:00

I recently was involved in a "discussion" on a friend's Facebook page about who is publically judged more harshly: women who choose to breastfeed, or women who choose to formula feed. Every breastfeeding mom will tell you that she has encountered barriers, from the easy to navigate to the impenetrable ones that end a breastfeeding relationship prematurely. Some formula feeding moms will tell you that they feel harshly judged by the breastfeeding moms for choosing to feed their children in a method deemed to be "sub par".

Let me go on record: I am a lactivist, I believe that every baby should be breastfed until mutual weaning occurs. I believe that every woman should be equipped with the knowledge and support necessary to successfully breastfeed her children. I believe it is the one and only way nature intended, I believe we will be a healthier human race because of it. HOWEVER, I acknowledge that there are circumstances that make it difficult or even impossible (maternal chronic illness, an adopted child, a special needs child). I also recognize that some women choose to formula feed even when they're perfectly capable of breastfeeding...that is their right to make that decision, and although I disagree with the decision, it's not my place to judge.

Now for my "stats": Ian breastfed for 20 months, then weaned during the third trimester of my second pregnancy, began nursing again at 25 months, and nursed until he was 3 years 4 months old. Connor is 2 years 3 months and still breastfeeding. I am 27 weeks pregnant with my third child. I have all intentions of breastfeeding Connor and this new baby until they self-wean.

I believe that Breastmilk is the superior method of feeding a child. All medical evidence has proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I don't see anything perverse or disgusting about nourishing my child in the way nature intended. My uterus and placenta nourished my child until birth, my breasts nourish my child after birth. It's called being a mammal. I refuse to substitute another mammal's breastmilk (cow milk) for mine when I have perfectly good (better!) milk at my disposal.

My choice to breastfeed was an easy one to make, in my opinion anybody who is educated and reads the pros/cons would be hard-pressed to defend choosing NOT to breastfeed. But my experience in carrying out that choice has been riddled with difficulty. You see, western medicine and culture create so many road blocks, everything from pregnancy and birth interventions that interfere with breastfeeding, to non-supportive workplaces for mothers who work. I have experienced both. My first birth was complicated by what I now know was a typical "cascade of interventions", ending with a baby in the NICU and me feeling run over by a truck. We suffered through reflux, mastitis, plugged ducts, thrush, me returning to work, etc. My second birth was uneventful, but my baby was born with special needs that made any form of feeding extremely difficult. Every single dr he's seen suggested I just wean him at one point or another. Not because it's what's best for him, but because other forms of feeding are easier for them to manage. Breastfeeding literally saved Connor's life...I have no doubt that he wouldn't be alive today if he weren't breastfed from birth. If you want more details about that, I'll gladly share them with you.

Since when did parenting become more about what's convenient for the PARENTS and not what's best for the child? Here I stand a hypocrite, though, having typed that last sentence yet choosing to put my children in disposable diapers instead of cloth diapers. Certainly the chemicals in disposable diapers are potential concern, as is the huge impact to the landfills. Here also I stand a hypocrite because I do not full-time co-sleep with my children, not even as young babies. We partially co-sleep, but as a working mom I sometimes need my rest and will gladly put my baby down in his own bed. It doesn't mean I'm not attending to their needs, just that I'm allowing myself some space from time to time.

With so many parenting decisions to be made...vaccines, feeding, sleeping, circumcision, diapering, etc...most mothers are just doing the best they can. And as long as you are making your decisions fully educated and not just accepting the mainstream, then you should feel confident that you are doing right by your children. But if you refuse to pick up a finger and research, if you refuse to see the pros/cons of the other side of any issue, if you bow down to societal pressures and expectations without thinking twice...then I'm not sure you are doing all you can. Only you can tell which kind of mom you are...hence why I'll continue to not judge.

All I ask is that everyone else afford me the same respect...don't judge the parenting choices I have made. The next time you see a mom breastfeeding in public, don't crinkle your face, don't stare in disapproval, don't snicker behind her back. Applaud her for making the decision she knows is best for her and her baby, then applaud her for having the courage to live her life outside of seclusion.

Just another summer day!

2009-06-26T21:57:00.008-04:00

It's already the end of June...not sure how, but the calendar doesn't lie, so it must be!! We've been getting outside a LOT lately, getting the boys lots of good natural Vit D exposure, plus LOTS of good exercise and social skills practice :)

As promised from my last blog, here are pictures of our new van:
It's a 2009 Toyota Sienna, and we LOVE it!! The boys love having their "own" seats, they like the space, they like the power sliding doors, and since we have the back seats folded down right now, they basically think the back is a jungle gym for climbing around in! (of course, not when we're driving!)

Also as promised, here are some pictures of my vegetable garden. First, here's what it looked like 3 weeks ago...
And here's tonight! HOLY COW!! Like I said before, this was my first attempt at growing anything edible, and obviously I underestimated how much it would grow and spread out!

But I must be doing something right, because here are little veggie buds!!!!

Here's also a lilly, we have a whole row of them in front of the house that are really beautiful:
And here's a hasta!! None of my lillies or hastas bloomed last year because they were transplants, but this year they are, and they're beautiful!!
So tonight we visited a water park near us and had a blast! The boys played for about an hour, then Connor's lips started turning blue, so we figured it was time to go :)
Here's Connor:Ian under the "mushroom":Ian getting a shower courtesy of daddy:Connor grinning at me:Daddy threatening to throw Connor in!

And, to finish this post...a new belly shot at 27 weeks!

Baby progress, Connor's talking! and Ian's big news

2009-06-24T22:38:00.004-04:00

Well, a few weeks have passed...it's just so hard to get time to update this blog when the sun doesn't set until so late at night, I turn into a pregnant pumpkin at like 9pm, and sleep just sounds so much better than pretty much anything else most nights!!

In baby news...BabyBoy3 has now gestated nearly 27 weeks!! I'm in a Due Date Club online, it's a group of gals all due in September, and our DDC just had it's first baby born, a little boy born at 28.5 weeks but weighing a whopping 3lbs 14oz!! The baby is doing well, mom is doing well, all is as good as it could be, but I really hope that MY baby gestates for at least 37 weeks!! Here's a picture of my belly that Ian took tonight...not the best photography since it's courtesy of a 4 year old :) I've gained 20 pounds already, yikes!! But, I've lost it twice before, I'll lose it again I have no doubt. I'll try to get a better picture of myself soon!

My nausea is pretty much completely gone now, there are moments where I don't feel well, but it's not morning sickness anymore. The exhaustion isn't too bad...at least not if I'm sitting on my butt at work, if I'm out with the boys all day long, then I'm *really* dragging! My back, hips, and pelvis are causing me lots of problems. I have symphasis pubis diastasis which means that my pubic bone has separated (more than is normal for a pregnancy). It happened at the end of Connor's pregnancy, and although I did all the rehab, physical therapy, and strengthening that is supposed to help, that kind of injury doesn't heal fully really. It started hurting me almost immeidately this pregnancy. My entire pelvis is just unstable, popping and cracking often, feels "stuck" other times, and is constantly in pain. That is by far the hardest part of this pregnancy so far.

I've started having lots of contractions, usually I can stop them by super-hydrating or resting, but once this week I couldn't get them to stop, so I went in to Labor and Delivery to make sure I didn't have a UTI or other infection causing the contractions. I didn't, I just have an "irritable uterus" which I had with Ian and somewhat with Connor. Fun times! BabyBoy3 is still laying transverse, and is moving a TON!! It's very rare that he's not moving in fact! He's really getting interactive, too, I can play games with him now even :)

Connor has been working really hard on speech, and is finally making some real progress! A year ago he was a completely silent child, hardly even crying (I mean it, too, his cry has been like a cat's meow since he was born, there just was no strength behind it, and because of his larynx defect, the sound it made was not quite normal). Slowly he's started making some sounds (mostly "uh" with a point) but in the last month or two he's really making word attempts!!! He has several consistent word approximations: mama, dada, ball, bye-bye, and uh-oh. He also imitates the appropriate number of syllables when he's copying something we say, so although it doesn't sound anything like the word, he will grunt the right number of syllables. This is HUGE progress for him!! His sign count is well over 100 now, and I'm starting to insist that he form full sentences with his signs (instead of just signing "outside", for example, I make him sign "want, go, outside, play, please") For the most part he's cooperative with this, but he is two after all ;)

And now for Ian's big news...look what he has to show off, or rather, DOESN'T have!!

He looks so old now!!! My BABY!!

He fell two weeks ago (says Connor pushed him, but Connor weighs all of 22 pounds, so tell me how Connor could have pushed him over?) and hit his tooth pretty hard. Slowly over the next two weeks, the tooth next to it turned gray. At first I wasn't going to take him in, after all it's a baby tooth that he's going to lose in a few years anyway. But it was nagging at me, so I finally called the dentist. Good thing I did, the x-ray showed that there was a pocket between the baby tooth's root and his adult tooth, which is an increased risk for abscess, and damage to the adult tooth. In fact, the dentist said that he fears there may already be damage to the adult tooth, if there is it will show up as a discolored spot on his adult tooth, and will be prone to decay as well as being a cosmetic issue. He said pulling the baby tooth would lessen the chances of abscess, but that the damage to the adult tooth can't be determined or fixed until it erupts. So I let him pull the tooth. Ian was GREAT!! He behaved really well, didn't fuss at all, just a bit of protest when the dentist numbed him. He proudly wore his baby tooth in a special necklace most of the day today, and is now in bed waiting for the tooth fairy to come :)

Another post will be following shortly with some other big news...we bought a new van!! We can't fit three kids in either of our current cars, so with great sadness we sold our Subaru Forester, the car we bought right before we got married. I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the new van before it got dark tonight, so that'll have to wait.

I also want to post new pictures of my garden, because it's gotten RIDICULOUSLY huge!! Oh yeah, and I have a Poison Control story to share, our first experience with having to call them actually (which isn't bad considering Ian is 4!!). More to come soon...

Finally, a belly picture!

2009-06-06T20:32:00.005-04:00

I've been really bad about taking belly pictures this pregnancy...but I finally got one tonight. It's not the best picture, it was after a long day at the zoo, but it's a picture at least!

First, here's me in July (it was the best full-body shot I could find recently...I'm usually the one behind the camera, so there aren't many pictures of me!)

And here's me today, at 24 weeks, and plus about 20 pounds (eek!):Now, just for comparison...Here's a picture of me pregnant with Ian. The date of the picture is Dec 12th, and he was born Mar 17th at 38 weeks. So...I was about 25 weeks or so??

I looked for a picture of me pregnant with Connor, but I can only find one at 19 weeks and 30 weeks...I must have skipped belly pictures in between!

Yeah...I've got a big belly on me!!! But, looking at that July picture makes me feel good...I proved that I can have two kids in two years and look darn good afterwards, so I can do it again!

A trip to the zoo!

2009-06-06T18:40:00.006-04:00

We went to the zoo again, it's one of our favorite places to go :) It was a beautiful day, warm but not hot, sunny, busy but not overcrowded. The boys both behaved really well, which is always a plus! Here's a couple pictures:

Mommy's favorite animal, the koala!! Sleeping, of course :) This picture highlights the different personalities of the boys...Ian is sticking his finger in the Gorilla statue's nose while Connor is giving him a kiss.

This little monkey was interested in us through the glass...makes you wonder who's viewing whom?! Here's Connor with some pizza crust...poor kid can't eat anything except the crust of pizza because of his allergies, but he should be happy he turned out to be negative for Celiac, because then he wouldn't be able to eat the pizza crust either! Excuse the hat hair...he wouldn't leave his hat on today for some reason!

Check out this MONSTER souvenir cup we got! It was part of a family meal deal, and to refill it is only $0.99!!! We filled it once with Sprite and once with Lemonade. Yummy!

It was a great day, and we all came home happy but extremely tired. The boys are actually over at a friend's house now, we trade off babysitting, and she's watching the boys tonight, will drop them off tomorrow around lunch time! Jim and I have no plans for tonight, we might go watch a late movie, or we might just stay home in peace and quiet. I can tell you what I WON'T be doing...cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. Nope, not tonight. This is a FREE night!!

In other news...here's some pictures of our garden this year, which is doing wonderfully, despite my not being able to get out there to weed it very often:

Here's our rose bush...I cut it WAY back this spring, before the buds, and tried to weave it into the trelice you can barely see behind it, yet it's grown so much! It's beautiful, the roses are in full bloom and many more than last year. We're discussing building a trelice instead of buying one, because this one is already 6 ft tall and the bush is still overgrowing it! Here's my small vegetable garden, which was my mother's day present! Jim built the box and then we planted green beans, sweet peas, peppers, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. Everything is sprouting and looks good! I might have a green thumb after all! Well, semi-green :)
And here are my lillies in front of the house! They were transplanted last year from my mom's house in Michingan, so they didn't bloom. But this year they are and I can't wait! See the buds sticking way up! I must be doing something right! Also blooming beautifully this year are my many hastas, and my irises (which also did not bloom last year because they were transplants, but three of them bloomed this year with beautiful purple flowers).

To end this post, here are pictures of the boys sleeping :) Connor fell asleep holding an art project...a butterfly on a stick, don't ask me why! But he wouldn't go to bed unless I let him have it, so I let him have it! He woke up around midnight that night wanting to nurse and was still holding it :)

And for those of you tracking my pregnancy...I'm 24 weeks now!! To think that we could have a baby only 12 weeks from now (14 weeks from now, if I follow my trend of delivering in my 38th week)...makes it seem so quick, yet so far away still!

23 weeks? How did THAT happen??

2009-06-02T21:10:00.002-04:00

So somehow, inexplicably, I'm 23 weeks pregnant already!! It's not that I've "breezed" through this pregnancy, not at all, it's been very uncomfortable and still overall an experience I dislike, but I can say that time has flown!

I'm now feeling BabyBoy3 move frequently, and I think I can tell exactly how he's laying in there (right now it's transverse with his head to my lower left sorta, and the rest of him stretched out over to my right side. But something is frequently kicking me in my upper left, too, so I wonder if he has one leg kind of tucked up in that direction? He had been transverse with his head to my right side until last week when he flipped on me. Just wanted a change in scenery I guess :)

SO...what's been happening since I last posted?? Ian went up to Michigan Memorial Day weekend for what we call "horse camp" with my side of the family. It's a work bee weekend to get the horse trails ready for trail riding season (my grandfather is on the board of the Michigan Trail Rider's Association). Ian had a blast, behaved VERY well, and made his mommy proud with his big boy ears and big boy polite words. Even as some of his cousins were..ahem...not quite as good.

While he was gone, Jim and I enjoyed a long weekend with just Connor and it was really nice!! The two boys feed off of each other, so when I get to experience them one at a time, I really enjoy that time. Connor didn't seem to miss his brother, or even really notice that he was gone! And my mom reports that Ian didn't ask about me a single time...should that make me happy that he's mature and independent enough to leave me, or incredibly sad that he's grown up so much???

We've been doing a lot of outside activities lately, but because our camera was on the fritz, we don't have any pictures. We've done lots of outside play, work in our new vegetable garden, swimming in the backyard kiddy-pool, visiting a colonial farm near us, walking in the woods, taking the dogs to the bark park... Let's just say that the boys are getting nice healthy doses of Vit D!!! Now that the camera seems to be working again, I'll take a bunch of pictures and catch up with all that :)

In work news, it's official now, my program has been cancelled. There will be a follow on program of some sort, but the details are still being worked out, and they're being worked at a level higher than me, so I'm not very privy to them yet. I've been doing a lot of fishing around, looking for a new program to work, and have also been exploring changing my status from a support contractor to a civil service employee. I had been planning on waiting until after the baby was born because of maternity leave issues, but after talking to some human resources type people, it may be possible to make the transition before September. We'll see how it all shakes out, I'm trying to stay very low key about it all.

In baby news...I changed my next OB appt so it's with a different provider within the same office. This provider is the whole reason I chose the practice to begin with, yet I haven't been able to see him yet! I want to ask him some very specific questions, and I'm very interested in his opinion, not the book answer. I know the book answer...I can read and have read pages upon pages of research online and in books. You all know that I tend to be wary of any over-arching recommendations from large medical communities, my reasoning is because medicine should not be a "one size fits all" practice, so if the evidence-based research says that a particular sub group of people is susceptible to something, then that sub group should take extra precautions. But if you're not in the sub group, then why take the precautions? Not all precautions are harmless...despite what the medical community tells you. Let's look at the Hepatitis B vaccine given to babies at birth. WHY would I vaccinate my baby against a disease that is primarily sexually transmitted??? I realize it can also transmit via other bodily fluids, so if someone in the immediate family were positive, then I would consider the vaccine. I did consider it more strongly for Connor because of his medical issues and the amount of time he spends around medical facilities and the possibility he could need a blood transfusion with one of his surgeries. But a newborn, born to an uneffected mother (and I KNOW I'm uneffected), born into a family where no one is positive, breastfed...what are the risks of him contracting Hep B? Very, very low. So then I have to look at the risks of the vaccine, and while the small amount of research done makes it appear that the risks are slight, there isn't very much non-biased research available. So my choice, because we do not meet any of the risk factors for Hep B, is to forego the vaccine.

There are SO MANY issues like that surrounding parenting, and each one has to be weighed individually taking into account our circumstances. Some of them are very easy decisions to make...EVERYTHING proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that breastmilk is superior to formula, so that decision was easy. Just a bit of research into circumcision proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is WRONG and something I would NEVER submit my children to. But what about the Vit K shot given at birth? Or what about the antibiotic eye ointment? Both of those seem to be another case where there have been a few serious issues from brain bleeds and serious eye infections in babies, so the American medical community has made over-arching recommendations. Obviously a brain bleed is a bad thing, but my gut is telling me that there's something biological going on that I don't yet understand.

See, Vit K is given at birth because an infant does not start making their own Vit K until about 8 days old. In that interim, the baby is susceptible to bleeds resulting from his body's inability to clot. Sounds serious, right? Except, humans have survived like this for THOUSANDS of years...how? Why? Were we designed this way? What about other mammals? Is there some purpose to it? SHOULD I be messing with it by giving my baby artificial Vit K by injection? And the amount of Vit K in the injection worries me, I forget the number, but it's a very high dose. There have been some isolated studies linking Vit K to childhood Leukemia, but they're a bit conspiratorial for my liking. However, all the research citing the safety of Vit K injection, if you trace the money behind the research, you find yourself looking right at the vaccine manufacturer. And I'm supposed to believe them?? So instead I try to focus on pure numbers...how many babies have bleeds that are serious? How many had bleeds before the introduction of Vit K? What do other countries do? For example, nearly every woman in this country is tested for Group B Strep at the end of her pregnancy, but in Europe, the test isn't done. And their babies aren't dying off at an alarming rate, in fact the US has an embarassingly high infant mortality rate!!!

Anyway...that's the kinds of things that have been consuming me lately. I spend a whole lot of time researching, gathering data, trying to sort facts from money-based-semi-facts. With each pregnancy and each stage of parenthood I find myself questioning more and more. I didn't bat an eye at the Vit K injection for Ian and Connor, but I am this time. And it's not that we had a bad experience with it, it's just that it ocurred to me to research it. Makes me wonder what I'm doing with this pregnancy, that given the opportunity, I would do different in my next pregnancy.

Speaking of opportunity and next pregnancy...Jim and I have decided that we are DONE with biological children, and he has a consultation appt on Monday with a urologist!!!!! I've never liked hormonal birth control, the concept behind it makes me very uneasy, I don't want to mess with my body's natural cycles, I'm not convinced it's a safe or prudent thing to do. Barrier methods obviously aren't reliable enough (hence this third baby!). I've researched the copper IUD and I'm not comfortable with where that sits in my mind concerning creation of life. The copper is supposed to poison the sperm so they can't make the trek up my fallopian tubes, but if they manage to get through and fertilize an egg, the copper also makes the lining of my uterus toxic which will prevent implantation. I don't know that I like that. It seems kind of gray area to me...there's a possibility I could be killing what I consider to be a baby, a fertilized egg that has begun the process of dividing. I'm also not convinced of the safety of literally poisoning my uterus with copper!!! Even in small doses, how can that be safe???

So, taking all that into account, and knowing that we are truly DONE, we are choosing a more permanent route of birth control :) I'll let you all know how the consultation goes!

Block Boys...compared in utero!

2009-05-13T17:39:00.002-04:00

I pulled out Ian and Connor's ultrasound pictures just for a fun comparison. Do you see any resemblance?

It's funny looking back...at the time of Connor's ultrasound, I thought he looked exactly like Ian, I mean it was almost freaky how similar they looked, the only difference being that Connor had longer legs (we never could get a good picture of Ian's legs in utero, and his femur length was rather short). THIS baby, though, I thought looked completely different, but when I put the three together, they just look like...babies! LOL!

Pregnant hormones will do weird things to you I guess! :)

Block Boys come in threes

2009-05-12T22:17:00.007-04:00

Had the big 20 week ultrasound on Monday, everything looks real good, another big healthy baby cooking. But we have to get a girl some other way, because we only make boys here. Very happy to have a healthy boy, but we're all a little bummed it's not a girl. Oh well.

The little bugger was being stubborn, so we don't have a proof shot, but we did see boy parts a few times. Three boys means better toys for Daddy though, time to buy stock in Nerf and Legos.

Random ramblings

2009-05-03T19:10:00.005-04:00

We've been alternating between crazy busy and embarassingly lazy recently. I'd like to blame it on the weather, which still is oscillating between warm sun and cold rain, but it's more likely just me trying to cope with two active boys, pregnancy, and working. That's my excuse, anyway! At least the morning sickness is past, now it's just pure exhaustion!

So I'll keep the narrative short and just put up some pictures to whet everyone's palate :)

Here are some pictures from a new park that Connor's ASL teacher told us about. It's a bit of a drive from us, but the boys sure enjoyed it!!

Daddy spinning Ian around...he was a fraction of a second away from flying off in this picture...it's sand, a pretty soft landing!

Here's Connor hamming it up...he is really getting into parks and playgrounds, but he's fearless and gives his poor mama a heart attack! I really try to not react and just calmly remind him to be careful, sit down, hold the handrail, etc, but I think he's on to me! I think he secretly likes watching my heart jump up into my throat! I've never been a super reactive mom, I figure that they're boys, they're going to fall, they're going to get hurt, it's just part of growing up. But man...

Here he is in the swing...I don't know if Connor has ever been on a swing before!?

Even though Easter has passed, we used the egg hunt as an outdoor activity to occupy the boys for several weeks after. They thought it was great fun, and it was a cheap and easy activity to plan!

In baby news, my pregnancy is progressing. I'm just shy of 20 weeks now, so half way! Ian and Connor were both born at 38 weeks, which sounds just fine to me this time, too! I really need to get Jim to take a picture of my belly, because it's surprisingly big!! If we hadn't already had an ultrasound at 12 weeks (because OB couldn't find a heartbeat on doppler) then we'd still be suspicious of twins. But there was just one there at 12 weeks, I assume there's still just one there now :)

I finally broke down today and bought some baby clothes. My ultrasound is Monday, so I didn't have long to wait, but I just couldn't stand it anymore!! Baby clothes were calling to me from everywhere! So I let Ian help me pick out one boy and one girl outfit. I took a picture of them, but the camera isn't downloading for some reason...you might have to wait until the next blog to see the outfits (and by then we might know the gender anyway!)

Spring has sprung! Or has it...

2009-04-21T18:46:00.006-04:00

Well, Ohio can't seem to make up its mind. It'll be warm and sunny one day, then near freezing the next. MAKE A DECISION ALREADY! It makes it hard to plan any activities, and just when the boys get a taste of outside play, they're forced back inside for a rainy day.

BUT, we have managed to get out a little bit. We headed down to Cincinnati Museum complex because there was a Dinosaur exhibit in town. Here are the boys outside the museum in front of a huge statue!
Here they are inside the museum...Ian wasn't so sure at first, every dinosaur was animatronic, the lighting was dark, the atmosphere a little eery... But he came around quickly enough and really enjoyed learning about the different dinosaurs! He even got to hold a dinosaur egg!

We also visited the Ohio History Museum where we learned all about how Ohio was formed. Here, Daddy shows the boys a huge model of Cincinnati downtown. There was an electric train that went throughout the city that both boys were quite fascinated with!
Connor shows off another sign...this is the sign for "helicopter", he saw airplanes at a model of an airport and wanted to know where the helicopters were! I think the kid has an obsession!

Daddy thought this was hilarious...Ian standing next to a display of old beer brands!
I just HAD to post this picture...Ian and his beautiful eyes!!! Checkout those lashes!

Here the boys enjoy a sunny day by playing outside in our front yard. Ian has been doing really well on his bike, we've been talking to him about taking the training wheels off, but he keeps saying that he can't balance yet. Maybe this summer we'll try. They're already so loose!

We also visited Carriage Hill, which is a colonial style farm near us where the kids can be hands on and learn about how things were done before electricity and automobiles. Here the boys enjoy some licorice from the country store.

Here's Ian peeking out from inside...something! A hay holder of some sort maybe? A feeder?

Connor thought it was great fun to chase the chickens! Which was fine until he found the Big Daddy Chicken and we had to stop him from chasing it!!

Here I found a very friendly young lamb who was happy for some attention! My maternal instincts were telling me to pick it up, stuff it in my jacket, and run home!! LOL!

In other news, I took Connor to a new gastroenterologist hoping to find out once and for all if there is anything WRONG with him that might explain why he's SO tiny. Low weight and small stature are common in kids with his syndrome, but he's small even on his syndrome charts, and although he has recurrent illnesses, he does not have any chronic medical issues like a cardiac defect. So we went to see her, and the appt went bad quickly. The implication was that I was starving my child, he was definitely chronic Failure To Thrive, and by "allowing this to continue for so long", I was potentially causing permanent neurological damage.

Now, those of you who know us know that Connor DOES eat, he eats a wide variety of foods, we've been TRYING to get more calories into him by offering him more high fat and high nutrient foods, he's developing very well all things considered, and certainly nothing has been "ignored" in his medical treatment. The kid spends more time at various doctor appts than most people do in a lifetime!! I was very offended by this dr, honestly. I left the appt pretty sure that she was going to recommend tube feeding for him, something I've been VERY against from day one, and have worked my TAIL off to get him to eat safely by mouth and be healthy as possible. I got pretty defensive about it all, but she also managed to stir up my pregnancy hormones and make me start doubting myself at the same time, I spent a good hour in the shower that night crying, worried that I HAD been missing something, that maybe I HADN'T been doing enough, that maybe he WAS suffering because of inaction on my part.

BUT, the good news is that I was able to contact Dr Shprintzen, the renowned expert in Connor's syndrome and ran Connor's numbers by him. He responded immediately, saying that Connor's growth and development were very typical of 22q kids, and that he's against any intervention that "medicalizes" children. YAY!!! Finally a dr who thinks like I think!!! A g-tube would take away a lot of stress, sure, we'd be sure he's getting enough calories, we'd probably get him through illnesses a little quicker...but it's also WRONG!! It's not NORMAL. And just because my child is missing a piece of a chromosome does not mean that I have to medicalize him. I'm not interested in g-tubes, trachs, oxygen, etc FOR HIM because he DOES NOT NEED IT. It takes a lot more work on my part, yes, and it's a constant battle, and a constant worry, but I'm willing to do it.

The better news is that the gastro ran a TON of new labs on him to check for things like malabsorption, allergies, autoimmune disorders, metabolic disorders, etc and ALL of them were normal. There were no signs in his blood work that he's starving, no signs of any nutrient deprivation, no signs of anemia, no signs of allergies, no signs of malabsorption...NOTHING! So it just means that he's a small kid, and we all need to reset our paradigms and just ACCEPT it. That's not an easy thing to do, logic tells me that a 2 year old that has barely broken the 20 pound mark (and who started at nearly 8.5 pounds at birth!) isn't normal, but for him, it is.

Whew! So it's been an up and down last month, but as always, we've survived it all!

In pregnancy news...I'm approaching 18 weeks now, and like my previous pregnancies, showing a lot and measuring large. My appt at 16 weeks went well, and was all of about 5 minutes! Weight is up almost 6 pounds, blood pressure was low, baby's heartbeat was 150s. My ultrasound is scheduled for May 11th at the Perinatologist's office. We decided to have it there versus at the OBs office because we are looking specifically for soft markers of 22q. I refused all the prenatal genetic testing, so this ultrasound is the only chance we have to look for signs that this baby is effected. If there are no signs, then we can proceed with our plans to have a natural birth at the birth center. If there are signs, then we change plans and deliver at the hospital with the Regional NICU just in case we encounter problems similar to what Connor experienced at birth. And of course, we're looking forward to learning the gender of this surprise third baby!

Our newest family member!

2009-03-20T20:44:00.003-04:00

I had my first OB appt on Monday, I was about 12.5 weeks. The dr was pressing on my abdomen and said "your uterus feels bigger than 12 weeks" which didn't surprise me at all, I explained to her that both Ian and Connor were large babies born early, that I show very early, and that I measure large. She seemed to accept that, then pulled out the doppler to find the heart beat. 10 minutes later, she gave up. No heart beat to be found. She said "don't panic, you could just be not quite as far along as you think you are" which I knew to not be true, AND she had just said my uterus was large!

So she sent me down to ultrasound, where I had to wait a little bit (since I had no appt). Surprisingly I was quite calm about it, this entire pregnancy has felt different to me, but in a good way, less nausea, much less vomiting, less exhaustion, etc. Yet, I still "feel" pregnant, and I certainly LOOK pregnant! LOL! And something is sure making my uterus large!

So I go into the ultrasound room and the tech puts the probe on my abdomen and on the screen appears a tiny baby who was literally doing somersaults!! The little bugger would somersault from one side of my uterus to the other, then log roll back again, over and over and over! Even on ultrasound she could only get a few seconds of heart beat (which was perfectly fine at about 160). We figure that's why the OB couldn't find the heart beat, I have one active little bean in there!

I did have to stop the tech, since I"m about 12 weeks, it's the time that most women do what's called a First Trimester Screen, which consists of blood work and specific ultrasound measurements of the Nuchal Fold (the skin on the back of the baby's neck). It screens for genetic birth defects like Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18, and Trisomy 13. I'm not interested in any genetic screening at all, not even for 22q (which is the syndrome Connor has). I feel very strongly about this...I was the one that risked getting pregnant by not being celibate (the only true way to avoid pregnancy) or at least by not sterilizine one or both of us, so I feel it's my responsibility to live with the consequences of that decision. We hope and pray that the consequences will be only positive, a healthy baby, but if we end up with another special needs baby, so be it. We'll deal with it just like we are right now.

I do recognize that knowing before birth could be helpful, but I don't want to deal with any pressure to terminate (a word I find to be despicable in almost all cases), and it's very likely that the 20 week ultrasound will find any markers of severe problems that would effect birth. I also feel like I would be doing Connor a disservice by testing this pregnancy with the intent of choosing whether to terminate, it's as if I'm saying I don't want Connor to be alive. This is extremely personal to me, now especially that I have a special needs child. I have been there, done that, I know what it can do to a family, to the child himself, yet I would do it again. In a heartbeat. This child is already mine, I already love it.

Now, if Jim or I had turned out to be the cause of Connor's syndrome, we had agreed to sterilize and not have any more biological children. There is a moral aspect to that...I don't know that I could morally, intentionally, bring another special needs child into this world, so if we had found out that we had a 50% chance of it happening again, we would not have tempted fate. Since we know that we only have a 1-2% chance of it happening again (which is approximately equal to the risk of any birth defect for parents our age) we felt safe having more biological children. I recognize that Connor costs this community a lot of money, that's not something I take lightly. Tax payers are paying for all of his therapies, all of his medical expenses, his future education.

But if my unborn child is found to have a genetic defect, I would absolutely, without a doubt, carry the child to term and do my best to raise it. I would never dream of ending a child's life only because of that child's special needs. I don't know if there are any circumstances where I would terminate, but I can tell you right now that the genetic syndromes the dr has offered me testing for do not fit whatever criteria I have.

Whew, enough of the heavy stuff!! Like I said, I stopped the tech from doing those measurements, so the ultrasound was just a quicky. We saw two hands and counted 10 fingers, saw two feet but couldn't count toes (they never held still for long enough!) The profile looks different than Ian's or Connor's did, both of them had an overbite already, Connor's turned into Pierre Robin Sequence, which led to his lip and palate malformation, Ian's just will be some orthodontists' new yacht in about 12 years, lol! But this baby did not have any overbite, which is good to see!! Maybe this one will have daddy's jaw! We did get a good look between the legs, and there was nothing there, but it's a bit early to get excited about that. There was a chance, if it was a boy, and IF he wanted to show off, we could have seen something. But not seeing anything doesn't mean it's a girl. I'll have to wait another 2 months or so to find that out :)

Anyway, without further ado...here's our beautiful baby!!! I'll try to explain them to you, they didn't scan very large.

In this first one, it's a profile, the baby's head is in the center, facing to the right. You can easily see the nose and both upper and lower jaws. Then is the chest/abdomen. The white spot above the chest is a hand. The lighter spots at the far right are legs. In the second picture here is kind of a freaky face shot, looking at the face from above, you can see the eye sockets on the left side, the neck/spine, and the chest/abdomen. We call it our "alien shot" LOL! The bright lines on either side are the edges of the rib cage.

This next one is my favorite, it's another profile, but you can see both hands and all ten fingers up by the mouth! The last one you can also see both hands, just not as clearly. So this is the newest Baby Block! We are hopeful that she's a girl, it'll be a nice change after two boys! But we recognize that it'll be easier to have another boy, so if it is a boy, that's fine too! Ian wants a sister he says, I think he just doesn't want to share more of his toys! We haven't really broached the topic of the baby to Connor, he's just not intellectually ready for that yet. I'm not sure when or how we'll introduce him to it...he shows a lot of jealousy towards any baby I am around, so this could get interesting!!!

I'm alone on a Friday morning

2009-03-20T08:19:00.004-04:00

It's 8am on Friday morning, and I'm sitting here at home, in my jammies, ALONE! Well, Jim is here, but he's still sleeping. Where are my children, you ask? MICHIGAN!!! My mom has the boys for a few days, which a few weeks ago sounded absolutely HEAVENLY, but wouldn't you know it, I'm sick. Very sick. So I'm not enjoying this break like I thought I would, I don't feel well, but I can't sleep, I even went out to dinner with Jim last night which should have been great, but I can't taste any of my food because of this darn sinus cold! I'm waiting for my OBs office to open so I can go in and get some meds, sudafed just isn't cutting it.

Anyway, to continue our saga of bad luck, this cold/flu bug has circulated through our entire house over the past two weeks. Ian started it with a 104 fever for a few days with a bad cough. I took him in to the dr on day 4 where he tested negative for strep and influenza A and B. The dr said it must just be a crud. Jim was sick with the same thing, just not as high a fever. Connor and I watched and waited. Connor spiked a fever, of course on a Sunday, and was coughing badly, so in to Children's I go with him, where a few hours later we learn he has pneumonia!! Poor kid! So he gets a shot and some good antibiotics and is sent home (thankfully not admitted, I don't know if I can deal with another week-long admission so soon after our last!) Unfortunately the timing of this most recent illness meant that the boys' birthday party had to be cancelled, luckily they're both still too young to really realize that.

So that was Sunday. Monday I started to feel it, I was really dragging at work by the afternoon. Tuesday I dragged myself to work and stayed only long enough to make sure all my work was passed off to someone else, then I headed home. I stayed home on Wednesday also. Thursday was a big day at work, so I went in, only to be sent home a few hours later. No one wants to be near me! It's like I've got the Plague! So here it is Friday, the boys are gone, and I'm still home sick. Life just sucks sometimes.

We did have a week or so between the last round of illnesses and this one where we were all healthy and happy, and we took advantage of that week! I arranged with a coworker to take the boys on a surprise trip to the F-16 maintenance hanger on a near by training base. Ian has been saying for a while that he wants to be a pilot when he grows up, so this was the perfect treat for him!!! Here are some pictures of my future fighter pilot:

Ian sitting in the cockpit with Matt, my coworker's husband who is a maintainer:And Connor, who was not too sure about this whole thing.

One weekend recently we all woke up early and on a whim decided to go somewhere. It was a warm day, for once, so we asked Ian where he wanted to go and he said "The zoo!" So, we packed up and headed to Columbus. It was a great day!! The weather was cool, but not cold, it wasn't crowded, and a lot of the animals were out enjoying the change in weather, too. The boys behaved very well, and we all enjoyed the fresh air.

Daddy wrangling two little boys into the jogger! Where are we going to put a third kid??

Connor signing "bird" in front of the Bald Eagle enclosure.

Ian climbing around on the Manatee statue.Connor signing "Cat" as the big tiger walks by!! Look how close he was!It looks like Daddy is actually petting the tiger! I think it was feeding time, this big male tiger was pacing back and forth around the perimeter of the upper lever of his enclosure, and would pass by the glass every few minutes. The kids all loved it! Except Ian, who is nowhere to be seen in this picture, he was a little intimidated I think!So my beautiful boys are now officially 2 and 4, which just blows me away! We've really enjoyed the last 4 years, even when we go through periods like this last one where it seems everything goes wrong. Somehow we always pull through and better times are just around the corner!! Maybe if I keep saying that, it'll come true! Please!!

No title...just pictures :)

2009-03-13T17:54:00.003-04:00

I'll be back to write an actual post soon, but I wanted to get these pictures online real quick!

Here are the pictures we took of the boys for their birthdays! Connor turned 2 last week, and Ian will be 4 next week!!! The pictures turned out great, even though Connor was being a bit of a pill (hence the sucker!!!)

Enjoy everyone!

The only good pose of the two of them together.
Showing off Ian's inch-long eye lashes!!!

Mr Ian Block, starring on Broadway, or modeling, or something!!! This kid has a future!

Ian with ATTITUDE.

Do you see mommy's hand trying to take the sucker away so we could get a good picture?

This is my favorite when blown up, I am in LOVE with his eyes!!!

This one is typical Connor...shy grin

Sometime it seems like the world is just out to get us

2009-03-01T19:04:00.008-05:00

So it's been a month since I posted last, which should give you all a clue that things are either so good that we've been too busy to post, or so bad that we've been too busy to post. Unfortunately, it's the latter.

Yep, we're in one of those phases right now where it seems like every time we turn around, something goes wrong. Just when we're pulling ourselves up for air and starting to recover from the latest bad luck, lightening strikes again. It has to end soon, right?

If you remember, January started with Connor sick with an umbilical infection. It was relatively minor, and a quick round of topical antibiotics cured it right up. Not long after that, a nasty nasty double ear infection knocked him right on his butt, and quickly turned into RSV. He was pretty sick for a while, and the bloody puss ear drainage didn't stop until literally the last day of his course of double-strength antibiotics. I was worried that we were headed down the road to another PICC line, but thankfully he suddenly got better!

Connor with RSV and a double ear infection. I never seem to be able to get a good picture of his ear drainage, imagine the worst green snotty nose you've ever seen from a toddler, then add blood to it...that's what his poor ears look like.

Just as we were regrouping from that, another typical childhood illness hit Connor HARD...rotavirus this time. It started on a Saturday overnight, uncontrollable vomit and diarrhea that left him so weak, come Monday he couldn't even hold his head up. Off to the hospital we went, where we were quickly admitted for what we thought would be a short stay to get rehydrated then sent home. Unfortunately, Connor had other ideas. Having lost over 10% of his body weight very quickly, he was just too weak to eat or drink, so we ended up staying at Children's Hospital for 4 days, and even then they released us reluctantly and only because there were so many sick kids there, they were worried that Connor's immune deficiency would mean he picked up a different bug. Meanwhile at home, Ian came down with a much less extreme case of rota, he got sent home from school after throwing up there, and spent a few days on the couch with daddy, never far from a trash can or the toilet! Jim missed some school, not able to pawn Ian off on any of our friends, since none of them wanted rota to visit their households!! I missed nearly a week of work, but thankfully have a wonderful boss who not only didn't bat an eye at me being gone, but even granted me special leave for it (which basically means free time off, it didn't get charged against my regular vacation days).

See how you can just see in his eyes that he's sick? He has very expressive eyes, and I can always tell that he's coming down with something just by looking at them.
Here we are on day 4, jello and apple juice in front of him, IV still on constant drip, trying to get him to eat something--anything--so we can just go home!!! I even took him down to the hospital's gift shop and let him pick out whatever candy he can safely eat, but he wouldn't even eat that!

Those 4 days really sucked for mommy, I didn't leave the hospital a single time, and Connor basically wanted to be in my arms at all times. He was breastfeeding a lot, thank god I breastfeed!!! But it was so draining to me...he hasn't nursed constantly around the clock like that since he was a newborn. And you all know how hospitals are, no one gets any rest.

Even once Connor was released from the hospital, it was another week almost before he was looking and acting like himself. He's still down about a pound from where he was early January, at his lowest, he dropped below 20 pounds during these back-to-back illnesses!! Poor kid! Then we had about a week of relative health, followed by a much shorter-lived puking bug that hit Connor one night, Ian the next, then mommy two days later. It consisted of about 12 hours of constant stomach emptying followed by about 12 hours of "ran over by a Mac truck" feeling, but thankfully was over quickly.

Add into all this fun the fact that morning sickness has hit, and I have been one unhappy mama! Yep, unfortunately this pregnancy is rather similar to my others, and food has been my best friend and my worst enemy for about 4 weeks now. I am controlling the actual vomiting much better than I did with Ian or Connor, but am still definitely not feeling well. I LOOK much more pregnant than the about 10.5 weeks that I am, I contribute that to the fact that it's my third baby (fourth pregnancy), I'm very short torsoed, and I've been controlling the morning sickness by allowing myself to literally eat anything that sounds good at that very moment. I went through a week where Chinese was the food of choice. Then, I hesitate to admit to, Wendy's Baconators were absolutely delicious!! (yep, those burgers that are about 1000 calories by themselves!!!) Last week I was on a pasta kick, anything creamy and cheesy...alfredo, yum!!! This weekend I was recovering from my bout with the stomach bug, so I haven't been eating as much, but we'll see what next week's cravings bring!! I've proven twice before that I can lose the pregnancy weight, so I say, bring on the food!!!! If it means I control the morning sickness, I'll eat almost anything :)

So, between being very sick, the boys have managed to still be the destructive children we've come to love! Here's an example of the shenanigans they've gotten into... That's baby powder spread all over their room! Ian swears that Connor was the one who got the baby powder down (from much higher than he can reach), Ian says "it was magic mommy." Yep, I was born yesterday Ian!!

And here's my ghost child, aka Connor :)

So it's March now, which means Birthday Month!!! I am shocked to say that Connor will be 2, and Ian will be 4. How it happened, I don't know. I feel like we've kind of just survived these last 4 years, time has passed only because the sun rises and falls each day, not because we're actually accomplishing anything, you know? I know that's not true, our life and relationship and family has come a long way since July 2004 when we found out we were pregnant with Ian. But we've sure been through more than our fair share of bumps along the road it seems!!!

Here's hoping for a smooth, boring Spring!!!!!!!!!!! Please!

Here's a nice picture of Ian to end this post with. Isn't he beautiful?!!

Soccer, hockey, and first belly picture

2009-02-02T20:27:00.004-05:00

We've been a busy family!!! Expecting (but praying not!) morning sickness to hit soon (in fact, I wasn't a happy camper at the gym this morning, way too many smells around me!), we've been busy doing as many fun activities as we can squeeze in before mommy spends most of her time with a bucket near her :)

Ian is playing indoor soccer, and LOVING it! He has a friend on the team he knew from before, which is both good and bad...good that he has a friend, but bad becuase the two of them tend to get silly attacks and forget they're supposed to be playing soccer! Here are some pictures of Ian playing at a game...he's wearing jeans because he fell asleep in the car and then refused to change into his shorts, strange kid!

There was an incident at last weekend's game that is both humerous and perhaps somewhat foretelling...Ian had control of the ball, an open court ahead of him, running towards the goal with everyone cheering him on. From out of nowhere a kid from the other team came up to Ian and smashed into him--HARD--and sent Ian flying into the base boards that line the court. The refs all blew their whistles, stopped play, went to Ian to see if he ws okay. Ian got up and without making a sound (or a tear) walked straight up to the other kid and got right up into his face!!!!! I was worried for a second that he was going to hit him or push him or something, but he didn't. His coach told me later that Ian was telling the kid "you can't do that, you have to follow the RULES!" and she separated them before it could escalate more than that. Yikes! My 3 year old nearly getting into a fight on the soccer field!!!

Now, this was less than 24 hours after we had taken Ian and Connor to their first hockey game. Dayton has a minor league team called the Bombers, and we all had a blast at the game! During second period intermission, they have a game called "Chuck the Puck" where you buy a rubber puck for a dollar and chuck it out onto the ice towards a bullseye they put out there. If parents sign a waiver before the game, kids from the audience can go out on the ice to help clean up the pucks. So I bought Connor and Daddy a puck to chuck, and signed a waiver for Ian. What fun!!! I was, however, somewhat worried that Ian's behavior at soccer was influenced by watching the hockey, and I said to Jim "Maybe we shouldn't take him back to hockey games." But Jim answered "heck, if he can skate, we're signing him up for hockey, because he apparently has the right attitude!" LOL! Here are pictures:

Here Ian gets an up-close-and-personal view of the ice as we wait for intermission:

Waiting with the rest of the kids while all the spectators chuck their pucks!

Counting down with the announcer-guy...5, 4, 3, 2, 1!!!All the pucks are out on the ice!!! That's our mascot, a flying squirrel named Buckey who's out there with the accouncer choosing the winning puck. See the hundreds of pucks the kids have to pick up!Ian doing his share of the clean up, luckily the ice was good and scratched up from all the hockey players, so it wasn't slick at all really.

Ian giving a "High Five" after the clean up is done!
Back in the stands, enjoying cotton candy while Connor looks on in a "it's-way-too-late" stupor!Ian, Connor, and Daddy!!!

And finally, after all the hard work I've put into getting a decent body back after having two kids, it appears that I'll be re-doing all that work in about 9 months :) So, bid farewell to my tummy as it is today (or was two weeks ago, it's already kinda poochy today!!) I have my first pre-natal appt on Wednesday where we'll try to determine my due date without an ultrasound, because come to find out, my insurance only covers one ultrasound for the pregnancy unless there are extenuating circumstances. I don't think that irregular cycles equal extenuating circumstances, so we'll be making an educated guess and adjusting as needed I guess!

Yep, that's right...say "bye bye" to my hard earned six pack!!!! Hopefully I'll see it again someday :)

Good news, bad news, and SHOCKING news!

2009-01-21T18:30:00.004-05:00

Good news first...my boss at work finally got around to doing an all-hands call yesterday, and it's been a while since we've had one, so he had a bit of catching up to do. Turns out that I won three awards this year! One was Support Contractor of the quarter, one was Team of the Quarter, and was Team of the Year!! The team award is for my work on the Quality Control team, which let me tell you, has been a LOT of work!!! I immediately took the awards over to my company to add to my personnel file, hopefully it will be taken into account the next time they do bonuses :)

Now the bad news...Connor is sick. Poor guy! It started with a croupy cough, then runny nose, then a fever, now a horrid wet thick cough, a nose running so badly it's raw, and finally-the last straw-ear drainage :( Took him to the dr, he has an ear infection and also likely has RSV. Poor guy! Last winter he received RSV immunoglobulin injections once a month all winter long, yet still got RSV in March. This year he didn't qualify for the immunoglobulins, and so now here we are in January with RSV. He's doing okay right now, we're just watching him closely to make sure his breathing stays okay.

And now for the SHOCKING news....something that surprised both me and Jim...

Yep, that's a POSITIVE pregnancy test!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, before anyone can ask, no this wasn't planned, yes we DO know what causes this, yes we are happy, no we haven't thought through any further details yet!!!!!!! I did go talk to both of my bosses, of course, and they were completely supportive. It turns out that I DO get paid maternity leave, which is obviously wonderful (and nearly unheard of in civilian companies!) and both of my bosses (at the base and at my home office) assured me that anything I need will be worked out. I warned them that I got significant morning sickness both previous pregnancies, but I didn't miss work because of it, I was just miserable! Let's pray that doesn't happen this time! I have very little clue how far along I am, I'm guessing somewhere between 5-9 weeks, due sometime in September. Ugh...a September baby...that means I'll be hugely pregnant in the hottest part of the summer...I really liked having March babies before! Oh well...this proves that we don't control as much as we think we control!!!

So...go ahead, spread the news, tell the world...because if it's anything like with Ian and Connor's pregnancies, I won't be able to hide it long anyway! Oh, and think pink, will ya? :)

A toddler mess and some developmental progress?

2009-01-17T14:09:00.005-05:00

Two main issues in this entry...the first having to do with this picture:Mommy was in the shower, Daddy and Ian were in the kitchen working on making breakfast, and this is where Daddy found Connor when he realized Connor wasn't also in the kitchen. Connor had discovered Mommy's bag of skittles (those of you who know me well, know that skittles are a huge comfort food for me, my absolute favorite candy of all time, it's rare that we don't have some on hand). Connor proceeded to dump the whole bag and was going to town! Here's what his hand looked like:

I tell you, life with toddlers is NEVER boring!!! I definitely learned my lesson and will keep my skittles out of the Connor zone, if for no other reason than to ensure that I, and only I, get to eat them!!!

Connor has other news to share with people...he recently learned the signs for "potty" and "pee" and had been very interested in watching us go potty. This morning he signed pee and pointed to his diaper, so I ran him into the bathroom and plopped him on the potty chair.

Here he is signing "potty" (his thumb is supposed to be between his first two fingers making a letter "t", but he can't quite do that yet)Here's Ian "helping" by keeping Connor entertained so he would sit on the potty longer.

And here's Connor signing "sit" ("sit" is supposed to be two fingers on top of two fingers, but he's close enough)

Connor never actually was successful at using the potty, but this is a great start for a 22 month old! I have read that potty training is often rather delayed in 22q kids, so I wasn't even planning on starting with him until age 3, but if he's showing signs now, who am I to stop him? We'll see what comes of this...

In Ian news...he starts winter indoor soccer tonight, so we'll have pictures of that soon. He's on the same team as a friend of his, so he's really looking forward to it! In school news...his teacher sent home a note that said: "Just wanted to let you know he continues to academically make progress. He likes to talk, but because we are language oriented, I try not to discourage that except when it is time to listen to me." I wrote back to his teacher, asking if she intended for us to "read between the lines" regarding Ian's verbal abilities (i.e. he is having issues with talking during class) but she responded "his excess talking has not earned him a yellow card yet, so don't be alarmed." Regardless, his daddy and I are taking this to mean that we need to work on teaching him when it is appropriate to talk, and when he needs to learn to sit and listen. He already knows that he needs to say "excuse me" when adults are talking (unfortunately he thinks that he just has to say "excuse me" over and over louder and louder until we answer him!) but we're starting to remind him of when he needs to practice being quiet. This may be a challenging issue for him!

Dayton has gotten some snow fall recently...Ian has been able to get out a little bit to play, here's a picture of him being silly in the front yard:

6 years of marriage...and a whole lifetime has seemingly passed!

2009-01-04T14:13:00.008-05:00

6 years ago, Jan 3 2003, Jim and I were married. It was a beautiful wedding which capped off my very first dating relationship. I met Jim in August of 1999, my freshman year in college. He was my first everything...and now nine and a half years later, he's been my partner in this crazy journey of adult life!

In these 6 years, we've been through more than some people experience in a lifetime. I graduated college, commissioned as an officer in the Air Force, got sent overseas for THREE YEARS! (that wasn't planned!) We had Ian, moved to Ohio, had Connor, bought a house, discovered Connor is special needs with a lifelong genetic syndrome that will effect him continuously, I separated from the military and accepted a civilian job, Jim has been continuing school at nights when he can, and he stays home with the boys. That's the short version :) Some of these times tested our relationship, all of them made us stronger.

Not every day of the past 6 years has been pleasant, but I can honestly say that I've never been unhappy about where my life has taken me. I love my husband, I love my boys, I love my life!

Unfortunately, we spent our anniversary with a sick kiddo, so the babysitter was cancelled and our plans amended to include Red Lobster take-out by the fire while watching the Colts lose to the Chargers :( Our dinner was scrumptious, the fire was cozy...other details will not be shared on this public blog ;)

Connor is sick with some sort of bug that is causing a high fever. When it peaks, he's really sick, vomits, very lethargic, like a limp doll. But when his fever is down, he's much more normal, able to eat some and drink plenty. So we were letting him ride it out, watching closely for signs of illness (ear drainage, cough, etc) Friday night I discovered during a diaper change that his belly button was very red. I cleaned it out with some peroxide water and put neosporin on it. Connor has an umbilical hernia and diastasis recti, aka a "true outie", so I found it odd that it would be infected. But it appeared to be. Saturday morning he woke up day three of his fever and his belly still red, so I took him in to the dr. The dr didn't think it was too serious, thinks the fever is likely unrelated and is just a virus. Here's his belly button after three days of ointment and peroxide. He's getting better now...in fact, only a low-grade fever today.

Since the boys are the product of this marriage that matters most in the world, here's some recent pictures of them to share with you all :)Ian being silly doing a head stand on the couch :)See how tall Daisy is now!!!! She is now taller than Connor again! He's about 30 inches, she's about 30.5 inches at the shoulders, well over the breed standard for a female great dane!As I was getting the boys ready for bed, Connor got into the closet and climbed up onto the tupperware drawers I have in the boys' closet. Although I was on guard for him to pull all the clothes down off the hangers, I quickly ran to get the camera so I could capture the moment!Ian, not to be left out of a photo op, climbed up and joined him! Such cute boys!!!

Here mommy caught the boys getting into the stash of cookies we made for New Years! Notice the dogs nearby to catch any crumbs that drop on the floor :)Here's to a happy 6 more years of marriage and parenting!!!!! I love you, boys!

Christmas...and New Years!

2009-01-01T14:22:00.008-05:00

Well, since we were out of town, I didn't get to update the blog for Christmas, so this will be a combo Christmas and New Years entry :) Buckle your seat belts, this post is a doozy!

We traveled over 1200 miles total for Christmas this year, which is challenging when dealing with a 3 year old prone to extreme behaviors who was off his schedule and routine, a 22 month old who is non-verbal and prone to car sickness, two big dogs, and a car that barely fits us all! We survived it all, although just barely at times!

Let me back up to the week leading up to Christmas. As I wrote in my last entry, Ian has been having some behavior issues recently. The cold weather has forced us inside which is not something Ian deals with well. The build up to Christmas pushed him over the edge, and we have seen a resurgence of the extreme tantrums he experienced as a two year old. The kind of tantrums that last an hour or more, include trashing rooms, and even occassionally lead to self-injury. I really thought these behaviors were a thing of the past, and that our creative discipline, parenting, and some maturity on his part had pulled him through the stage. Turns out that it's been barely under the surface, and unfortunately he reached his max and overflowed. Here's an example of a relatively minor incident...

I can't even remember now what started it, but events led to Ian being taken to his room so he and mommy both could have a "time out" (because sometimes mommies need them as much as 3 year old boys). After a few minutes, I returned to his room intending to talk logically and calmly to him, but this is what I found:

Which led to this: (he's on his top bunk in this picture, not in some cage :) )

Meanwhile, Connor, who is usually a very easy-going, low-key kind of guy, took advantage of the situation and this is what I found:Which led to this:

Right about this time, mommy wanted to lock herself in HER room, or at least a good tantrum myself, but of course parents don't get that luxury, so I had to suck it up and find some patience somewhere deep in my core. Or, at least PRETEND to find patience long enough to get two over-tired little boys in bed. Then I proceeded to self-medicate with copious amounts of peanut butter cup ice cream :)

Fast forward to Christmas Eve-Eve (Dec 23rd). We decided to have Christmas on Christmas Eve since we were driving up to Michigan, so we prepared for Santa's early arrival (Ian accepted the explanation that Santa visits some kids early). So we put the Reindeer food on the lawn:Then set out the Milk and Cookies (Daisy was very interested in the cookies, seemingly unaware that chocolate is not good for puppies!)And hung our stockings by the fire place (after explaining to Ian that we could not build a fire that night because we didn't want Santa to get burned!)One last picture in front of the Christmas tree before heading off to bed...visions of sugar plums dancing and all that...(by the way, you'll notice that there are precious few ornaments on our tree, and that they are all approximately 30 inches off the ground...not coincidentally, Connor is 30 inches tall!) (and some of you may notice the angel on the top of the tree...the same angel that topped our wedding cake nearly 6 years ago!)Christmas Eve morning we wake up to Ian at the foot of our bed saying "It happened mommy, it really happened!! The milk and cookies are all gone and there's PRESENTS!!!" Aww, the innocence of childhood...I love re-living it through my beautiful children! There is nothing greater in life than seeing my children growing up happy! (don't mind me while I wipe the tears off my keyboard real quick!)

(for those of you who are learning ASL with us, Connor is doing his approximation of "open" in this picture!!) Then it was time to get in the car for the long drive north, complicated by lots of rain in Ohio and Southern Michigan, tons of snow in mid-Michigan, and one stop to clean up puke courtesy of Connor's poor tummy. (note to self: always remember to carry a change of clothes for both boys IN the car, not in the suit case on the roof rack of the car, particularly when it is raining cats and dogs and you're on the side of the highway with no cover to facilitate the retrieval of clean clothes from said roof rack) (thankfully, our Thule soft carrier lived up to its claim of being water proof!)

Once up in Michigan, we travelled to numerous family member's houses and enjoyed yet more present opening, spoiling, not near enough sleep, way too much junk food, and often crowded quarters. Here, my mom and my youngest sister get Connor ready for bed Christmas Eve night.Ian and Mommy share a giggle and a wrestle.

Ian successfully escapes from mommy's arms as he gets ready to go outside to play in the snow.

The Block family...from left to right is Casey (Stef's boyfriend), Ian, Stef (Jim's sister) holding Connor, and Jim's dad.Ian and Annie the dog share a quiet moment resting after a long day of playing.

Connor and Jim's mom share a moment at the Christmas tree.

The trip back to Ohio was delayed a day due to icy roads, but we enjoyed an extra day at my mom's house and were able to do all our laundry before packing the car back up. The drive back down was fairly uneventful, plenty of whining on behalf of the boys, but that's to be expected to a degree.

Back in Ohio, we spent New Years Eve with a group of friends at her very kid-friendly house. There were 4 kids under age 2, and another 4 children between ages 3 and 6. But everyone behaved, and surprisingly a good many of the kids made it till midnight before settling down. We enjoyed the company (and the women kicked the pants off the men at Catcfh Phrase not once but twice!) and enjoyed the food (wow, the food...I really need to get back into my gym routine!!)

Now we have the challenge of getting Ian settled back into a schedule and working him through his behaviors until we find a happy medium. Ian and Connor both start school/therapy (respectively) next week again which will help everyone settle down again.

Plans for 2009...gosh, I don't know!! I'll have to get back to you all on that one, I need a few hours of sleep first!!!!!!!

Connor's "new ears"

2008-12-14T18:36:00.004-05:00

Since it appears that Connor is not a good candidate for a hearing aid, we went back to the drawing board to try to come up with a way to get speech sounds transmitted to Connor's middle ear better. His Regional Infant Hearing Program teacher ran across a personal listening device at a store and called me on the spot to ask if she could buy it for Connor to try. I told her yes, and that we would pay her back. The basic idea of the system is that it picks up sounds within a small radius of the receiver, but not sounds any further away, which allows Connor to hear only the sounds closest to him without having to filter out environmental sounds. We can set the volume so that it ranges from hardly any amplification to rather loud. Because of the worry about damaging his hearing more, we are not amplifying him, we are just using this as a tool during one-on-one quiet times to get our speech sounds more easily heard. Right now we're working on getting him comfortable wearing it, eventually we'll put it on him at meal time, story time, during speech therapy, etc...basically any time where it's otherwise quiet and he can really focus on our spoken words.

One major problem with the system is that it came with ear buds, and obviously Connor can't wear those. We had another pair of head phones that wrap around your head, but they are rather big on Connor. I went to the store today and bought a pair that clip behind his ear, but he doesn't have enough cartilage to keep them on (his ears literally folded over like a dog's!) So for now he's stuck wearing oversized headphones, and I'm sure that's not helping any in our attempts to get him to keep them on!! I'll keep looking to find a pair that he can wear that are more comfortable.

Ian has been having trouble with behavior recently. He's gotten a few yellow cards at school, he's having trouble with transitions, and he's been having many more tantrums than usual. I'm not quite sure what brought on this change in behavior, but we're going to work really hard on schedule and structure to see if that helps. Quite possibly this stems from the cold weather which has forced us inside all day long, and if you know Ian, you know that he HATES not being able to go outside! As soon as there's real snow on the ground, he can go outside to play in it, but right now it's just wet, cold, and dreary outside. Even the dogs are getting antzy!

And yes, he's half naked in this picture! This melt down ensued when Daddy had the gall to tell Ian to take his night time pull up off and put underwear on. How dare he!! It wasn't even 9am yet, and Ian was melting down. That's when you know it's going to be a fun day :)

Merry Christmas 2008!

2008-12-13T11:07:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas Everybody! We got our family pictures, and although the photo session itself was a bit stressful, the pictures were a success :) I do wish that Connor was more animated, he's just barely smirking, but that's okay, you've all seen his "real" smiles in my other posts.

This picture was a free sheet, I normally wouldn't pay for this kind of upgrade, but with a coupon, sure! It's also the best smile Connor gave. Mommy and her two boys!! Do you think they look like me?

Daddy and his two boys! I love pictures of all three of my boys together!

And here's the whole family! Quite good looking, if I do say so myself :)

Cold weather, cold bugs

2008-12-08T20:34:00.004-05:00

Well, cold weather has settled in on Dayton, Ohio. Brr!! A cold bug has also settled in...poor Connor's nose is raw from running so much, mommy and daddy have been fighting off sore throats, and Ian keeps saying his tummy hurts (but it may be sympathy pain, because he shows no other signs of not feeling well!)

Not ones to let little things keep us down, we've still been busy! Since Thanksgiving we've done a lot of shopping (of course!), attended two Christmas parties, had some dr appts for Connor, trashed and then cleaned our house several times (well, the trashing may be more thorough than the cleaning!!!), and mommy put in over 30 hours of overtime in one week! Yikes! Oh, and we also had family pictures, they turned out pretty decent, I'll post them as soon as I pick them up. I got Smiles By Wire, so I'll also post the link to the webpage where you can all view them at your leisure.

One of the Christmas parties was "Signing Santa" which was hosted by the Deaf Community Resource Center. It was a huge gathering of Deaf families for a pancake breakfast and of course...SANTA!!! We provided gift requests ahead of time and each kid got a gift and a stocking. The whole event was crazy, and fun, and exhausting :) I struck up some really good conversations with several of the other parents about various medical issues (comparing drs, tips for fighting with insurance companies, how to get services at schools, etc) so that alone was helpful. Ian and Connor behaved very nicely, and they both slept for quite a while once they got home :)

Ian didn't want to cooperate for a picture with Santa, maybe next year!

Work is exhausting for me right now...we're in the middle of a big push, and I put in 24 hours of overtime in just one weekend!! Yikes! AND, I didn't have a sitter for the first half of the day on Sunday, so I had to manage with the kids at work with me! Luckily another coworker brought his teenage daughter along, and she did kid-duty while we suffered through a meeting at 8am on Sunday. Ugh. But, the overtime check will sure be nice when it comes :)

Connor is continuing to throw us for a loop with his hearing. We had two appointments last week, one to get another hearing test, and one to meet with the dr to discuss hearing aids for him. The short version is that Connor has definite hearing loss at two frequencies, and that he responds nicely to a bone conductive aid. But, whether we should aid him or not is a huge debate right now. I thought I knew the answer, until we met with another audiologist who gave me new information. It's a confusing situation that doesn't have a straightforward obvious answer. He's not your typical kid with congenital hearing loss. What we need to figure out is: 1. How/if his hearing loss effecting his development? 2. If we choose to aid, what form of aid? 3. What are the drawbacks (cost, hassle of keeping an aid on a 21 month old, the potential of damaging his hearing more, etc) and 4. Are the costs worth the potential benefits? We're working on making our way through those questions, but it's not as easy as I thought it would be. Stay tuned for more information LOL!

And now, here are just a few cute pictures to pass on to brighten your day :)

Here, Ian and Connor find new uses for our shoe baskets near our front door. I saw them emptying the shoes out and climbing around, but figured that it was an easy mess to clean up and was keeping them nicely occupied, so instead of having them stop, I grabbed the camera!

Here Ian is being goofy in a neighbor's drive way. That's Connor to the left with the dinosaur hat on :)

Happy Turkey Day! and, more about being Deaf

2008-11-28T20:17:00.004-05:00

First of all, Happy Turkey Day everyone!! We had a really scrumptious meal, my mom and youngest sister joined us and we had a nice lazy day of cooking with no schedule of when food needed to be done, no other guests to stress us out, no where to drive to, no one expecting us, no need to dress up...in other words it was WONDERFUL!!! Here's a picture of the Thanksgiving table, from left is my mom, Connor, Haidee, and Ian. I'm taking the picture, and you can just see Jim's arm and leg on the far left.

Here's also pictures of the boys from the last few days, they are tired from having their Aunt Haidee over to play with, and really enjoying having a doting grandma around!

Here's a picture of how Ian fell asleep the night before Grandma came...he was anxious for her to come, and wouldn't calm down enough to go to bed, so this is how he ended up!! So cute!

Now, on to the second reason of this post. As you read in my last entry, Connor is Deaf. Yes, he can hear, he does have some hearing loss, but as of today anyway, it isn't enough to require a hearing aid. He has two appointments next week to retest his hearing and see the specialist to discuss whether he needs hearing aids now or not. But, his hearing is good enough that he can hear sounds around him, he seems to be able to differentiate some speech sounds, even out of context (i.e. he was playing near me today and he heard me say the word "cat" when I was talking to my mom and he suddenly started making his attempt at a "meow" sound while signing "cat". I wasn't even aware that he was listening to me!)

So, why are we signing with him then? Connor has structural defects of the following craniofacial areas: upper lip, hard palate, soft palate (velum), tongue, lower jaw, and larynx. Basically his entire oral cavity. None of it is grossly deformed, he "looks" pretty normal really, but it's all just enough of a malformation that he is right now incapable of making speech sounds. He can make the vowel sound "ahh" and the consonant sound "d" and sometimes "b" (although "b" is very inconsistent and he forms his mouth incorrectly when making the sound) He's been attempting an "m" sound, but he hasn't quite figured that out. He has no other vowel sounds or consonant sounds.

Plus, his hearing loss is conductive (meaning structural) and variable, meaning that sometimes it is mild, sometimes it is moderate. It can change, including changing for the worse. Another little boy I know locally with the same syndrome as Connor had similar hearing loss as a toddler, but his hearing was "normal" around age 2. Recently, at age 5, suddenly his hearing on his left side has a moderate-severe loss and he was fitted for a hearing aid. There is a chance that his loss is progressive, although more testing is necessary to determine that.

Connor will one day be able to speak. It may not be quite "normal" speech, and it will take years of speech therapy before he even begins to speak. We made the decision around his first birthday that we didn't want to struggle through the toddler years without having a means of communicating with him. Sure, he may be able to hear us fairly well, but he CAN'T TALK to us, and we didn't want to deal with the inevitable tantrums and frustration that would ensue. So we began introducing ASL to him. It's working! He has an age-appropriate sign vocabulary now, he is able to make his basic wants/needs known through signs. We are going to continue to sign with him, even after he begins speaking. Remember the little boy I told you about above whose hearing was "normal" and now three years later he's nearly deaf in one ear? That could be Connor. We view ASL as a tool, not a crutch; as a means of equipping him with language when structurally and cognitively he would otherwise not be able to talk.

My point in sharing all of this is to explain it and encourage all our friends and family to learn to sign!!! If you ever want to talk to Connor, or to know what he is saying to you anytime in the next 3 years, you HAVE to learn sign. At least basic signs like eat, drink, bathroom, etc. Here is a webpage where you can begin your sign language study: http://www.aslpro.com/ It has a dictionary of common signs with video clips of each sign being done. I can send you a list of all the signs Connor currently knows if you ask me.

ASL is our son's language, it is the least we can do to learn to speak it with him.

Connor is Deaf, but not deaf

2008-11-24T21:08:00.003-05:00

As I learn more and more about the Deaf culture, I'm discovering a world that is so beautiful and welcoming and understanding, and it is SUCH a relief to experience it!!

Connor has hearing loss associated with his genetic syndrome, and we rely on sign language to communicate due to structural defects and cognitive delays that prevent him from speaking. I discovered the Deaf Community Resource Center in our town and have started attending every event that they host in order to expose Connor to as many people who use sign as possible. We attended a football game party on Saturday, and I got this email from Connor's teacher (who was there) after I got home:

"I don't know if you caught this on Sat., but Connor was labeled as Deaf. This was not meant in a bad way or in any way an indication of the medical diagnosis of his hearing loss. It was an indication that the Deaf community has embraced Connor and taken him in. It is a huge compliment to your willingness to be a part of this wonderful community. It is also a compliment to your loving mother attributes that you would exposure Connor to this wonderfulness."

I wrote back to her that I've found myself more and more telling people that Connor is deaf, because it's easier than explaining why we choose to sign with him. I asked her if it was considered rude by those who are truly deaf for me to call my hard of hearing child deaf, and this is what she said:

"Since members of the Deaf community have labeled Connor Deaf (which is a huge compliment) I feel it is acceptable for you to do so also. The label of (D)eaf is different than (d)eaf. Small d is the medical diagnosis and capital D is the cultural label. All the people you met on Sat are both. Being included in the Deaf community is only partially dependent on one's hearing ability."

I think I'm beginning to "get" it!! And I have to say, it warms my heart to know that he is accepted there, no matter what his hearing status is!!!! This special needs parenting journey is NOT an easy one, but it is also peppered with moments like this where I find myself surrounded by people who truly care, people I otherwise would not have met, people who are making my life a better one.

So what do you do with two active boys and winter time in Ohio?

2008-11-22T20:17:00.006-05:00

You have a lot of indoor wrestling matches :)

Ian and Connor both THRIVE off of lots of outside time...23 hours a day is what they'd LOVE to have, obviously they can't, but in the summer we get them outside a LOT. Now that it's COLD outside, mommy and daddy are trying to find ways to keep them busy, run out their energy, and basically make it through a day without losing our minds. These children were not meant for a cold climate!!!

So most nights, after they're in jammies, we head to their bedroom for some play time. We sometimes bring the cushions from the love seat in with us to provide some softer landings :) Connor is a little tyrant, let me tell you! He'll come right at you, not afraid of anything! Ian recently learned how to squeal, I'm thinking he must have learned it at school, and we're still trying to get him to remember that it's not appropriate to do inside the house.

It doesn't take long, 15 minutes maybe, and they're both tuckered out. A quick story from daddy, Connor has one last nursing, and they're both in bed. Happy. Tired.

This is going to be a long winter I'm afraid.

This week has been a long one, and I"m looking forward to Thanksgiving!! I had several LONG meetings at work this week...the kind of meetings where it doesn't matter if a meal time comes and passes, the meeting trudges on. Ugh. At least I'm not still having to pump every couple hours, I have a coworker who has a 4 month old baby, and she either suffers through these long meetings, or sneaks out for 20 minutes and hopes she doesn't miss anything. There's only one more long meeting left to suffer through before Thanksgiving.

Thursday last week was one of those days when it felt like it would never end. I had an early morning meeting, so I had to leave the house at 6:30am. The meeting lasted over 5 hours, going right through lunch. There was another meeting shortly after that thankfully was shorter at only about 2 hours. Then I left work and headed to meet Jim and the boys. Jim had his last final exam for this term that night, and wouldn't you know it, I had a dinner meeting (not work related) to go to, so we met to switch off the kids so I could take them to a sitter. Then I rushed off to my meeting. Jim finished his exam, picked up the boys, took them home, got them in bed, all before my dinner meeting was done. I didn't get home until nearly 10pm. That was one LONG day!!! Needless to say, I skipped going to the gym the next morning :)

My mom, in all her wonderfulness, is coming down next week. But not only is she coming down for Thanksgiving, she's actually coming down Tuesday night after work, driving late at night, so she can be here for two of Connor's therapies on Wednesday. He has speech therapy at 11am and his ASL class at 1pm. Mom had planned on coming down sometime on Wednesday, but after learning of Connor's appointments, decided to come down early. It's great to have a parent who is so involved like this, I realize that not many mamas of special needs children have that kind of support. Since we're not close to any family, we've had to do everything on our own, which is hard with even a typical child, let alone a special needs child. We're very thankful that she puts forth this kind of effort when she can!!! It's not easy on her as a single mom of three kids living nearly 6 hours away from us and on a very tight budget! Thanks mom :)

2 little boys and 1 huge puppy!

2008-11-17T20:29:00.005-05:00

Ian is 3 years 8 months old. Connor is 1 year 8 months old. Daisy the Great Dane puppy is 8 months old. Crazy? Yep. But a whole lot of fun!!!

When we got Daisy she thought she and Ian were litter mates, she roughed him up pretty good for a while, but now she's best friends with him. She's only recently started "playing" with Connor a little, she still treads lightly around him. Well, "treads lightly" is a rather relative term I guess, because at 90 pounds and 30 inches at the shoulders, she doesn't do anything lightly! I

had always read that this breed is nothing but a big couch potato, and it appears to be true! Don't get me wrong, she has her periods where she's playing hard with Annie or the neighbor dog, and she definitely enjoys her walks, but the rest of time this is how you'll find her:

The boys both adore her! Even if just as their personal heating blanket :)

So now here are a few pictures of the boys just playing. It's getting harder and harder to get the two of them together in one picture, someone is always looking away, squinting, blinking, picking his nose, drooling, or crying!!! I've got to get us in for family pictures soon...then it'll be the photographer's problem to get the boys to cooperate!!

By the way, we had our first official snow fall here today! Just enough to dust the grass and roofs, not enough to stick on roadways at all. My computer tells me it's 30 degrees right now...brrr! I guess winter had to come eventually, right?! Poor Connor has woken up the last three mornings with a bloody nose and blood spots on his crib sheet because of the change in the air. Jim's going to set up the humidifier in his room to see if that helps him any. His little airway is just so sensitive! Poor kid.

Just some random pictures

2008-11-08T20:13:00.003-05:00

There's no new exciting news to report, which is in and of itself EXCITING!! We're enjoying a nice weekend, mommy and daddy ran a 5k race this morning (and mommy took 3rd place in her age group!!), then we went to two different Fall Harvest Parties today. Tomorrow there's a birthday party and mommy has a LaLeche League Leader Applicant meeting to go to, but otherwise the weekend is free! Sunday morning no one has to be awake early for anything, we won't be rushing to get anywhere, we even have plenty of food in the house so we can just hunker down and RELAX!!

Meanwhile, here are some recent pictures for everyone's enjoyment:

Here's Connor "helping" mommy do the dishes...and oh so helpful he is, too! When I was working on cleaning the kitchen (notice the floor that desperately needs mopping!) Annie suddenly started making a weird noise. Turns out she had her snout stuck in Connor's Trick or Treat pumpkin!!! And what's even more funny is that she did it AGAIN less than a minute later! There must have been some candy residue on the bottom that she wanted to get to. It was worth a good laugh!

Here's Ian and Daisy relaxing on the couch watching cartoons. When we first got Daisy, she pretty much ignored Connor, but she immediately started rough housing and biting Ian. Poor Ian bore the brunt of Daisy's puppiness, we think that she saw Ian as a litter mate! Now that she's 8 months old, she's calming down a lot, and I see her snuggling up to Ian often. I think she and Ian will be best friends :)

Here's Daddy, Ian, and Connor reading a book together before heading off to bed. I love seeing my three boys together like this!

Here's Connor being goofy while wrestling with daddy! The three of them really get going sometimes! no one has gotten hurt wrestling yet!!

Here's Ian heading up his ladder to bed...signing "I love you" to me on his way up!!

Really, how can life get any better than this???!!

Happy Fall, Everyone!

I'm not big on politics...

2008-11-06T21:27:00.002-05:00

But can I just say that I'm very frustrated. I voted for Obama, so obviously I'm happy he won. But I'm frustrated by the response from many McCain supporters around me. Without getting into any of the campaign issues or platforms, here's a few things that frustrate me:

1. "You're not a Christian if you voted for Obama." So, by that logic every Christian is a Republican? Nope. Personally, our family is more on the conservative side, but politically I"m quite liberal. We choose to be a heterosexual family, for example, but I have absolutely no qualms at all about those families who choose different orientations. Just one example of how I can follow Christian ways, but vote Democratic.

2. "He's MUSLIM!" So what if he is? Have you studied much about that religion? There are a small percentage of extremists who give the religion a very bad name, and that's unfortunate. I have several Muslim friends, and trust me, they're not dangerous. Look into the history of Christianity, it has some very dark chapters. Catholicism is even worse.

3. "He had previous ties with known terrorists." The man has been in the public eye for over two years, trust me, the Feds have checked him out. Any previous or current ties he has have been discovered and investigated fully. No need to worry.

4. "So many black people voted for him just because he's black, and really had no idea what the issues were." How many white people voted for McCain just because he's NOT black? How many Republicans voted Republican just because they're Republican, without even caring what the issues are? Do you think there was a disparate number of people who blindly voted for Obama than voted for McCain? I doubt it. There will always be a certain percentage of the population who vote for the wrong reasons, and that's not something the candidate can control. So why blame him? Obama won, and some people are saying it's only because he's black and he had the backing of the black community. Last I checked, there are more whites than blacks in this country.

I'm not a die-hard Obama supporter by any means, nor am I a Democrat. I do tend to be more liberal in my political following, so I suppose that steers me more Democratic, but I have voted Republican before, and I will again if it makes sense at the time. I try my darndest to do unbiased research from MANY sources before forming an opinion. I don't follow just one news network, I don't let one news or radio commentator form my opinions.

Having said that, Obama has his work cut out for him, and I don't envy him this position. He will be scrutinized more than any other president ever has been. Is that fair? No. But will it happen? Yes. And I fear that the future of black leaders in our country rides on his shoulders. Nevermind that we've had plenty of crummy WHITE presidents and no one used that as the basis to determine that white leaders can't cut it. Unfortunately that's the dichotomy of our country...freedom for all, as long as you believe what I believe. Remember also that no one person truly runs this country, no one person is to blame for anything, nor should one person take credit for anything. This entire administration is starting with a disadvantage more than any other president has, not only does the administration have to reinstill faith in Americans due to the recent economic downturn, but they have to convince many of the die-hard Republicans that a black Democrat CAN lead us. I am excited for the next 4 years!

I promise that this will be the one and only political entry in this blog. :)

2008-11-04T17:58:00.000-05:00

"Life is messy and dirty and passionate. Even nature is imperfect, and that in no way lessens the fantastic, wonderful chaos that it often is."

This is going to be my new motto. Please remind me of it when I'm having a bad day.

What having a Special Needs child means to us day to day

2008-11-02T20:29:00.003-05:00

I was talking with some friends online recently (hi MDCers!) and decided that I need to work on better explaining what having a special needs child really means to us day-to-day. To most of our friends, neighbors, and family, we appear pretty normal. But that's because our reality is just that, reality, and we've adjusted to it. Things run smoothly in our house because we've had 20 months to acclimate to this new world we've entered. I don't know if writing in a blog is the best way to convey it, but here goes.

The following is a list of specialists Connor sees regularly, along with what condition they treat/monitor:

Pulmonologist--Laryngo/tracheo/broncho malacia, aspiration
Infectious Disease--Primary Immune Deficiency
Otolaryngologist--Canal atresia, ear drum and eustacian tube malformation, conductive hearing loss, oral dysphagia w/aspiration, nasopharyngeal backflow
Audiologist--Congenital conductive hearing loss
Velopharyngeal Insufficiency Team--VPI/Palatal dysfunction
Cleft Lip/Cleft Palate Team--Palate malformation/dysfunction, lip repair, orthodontic consult
Nutritionist--Failure to Thrive (previous diagnosis we now know to be incorrect, but we can't get it removed from his chart) Small Stature (relative to general population)
Geneticist--Overarching care of the root diagnosis of 22q deletion
Gastroenterologist--Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, gastric immotility, constipation, food allergies (I actually "fired" two GI drs and haven't found another one that I'm comfortable working with, so I guess we don't see them regularly!)

The following is a list of therapists Connor works with regularly, along with what condition they treat/monitor:

Speech Therapist--Profound communication delay, Connor actually has two speech therapists, one provided by the State and one at a private therapy location.
Physical Therapist--Gross motor delay
Occupational Therapist--Fine motor delay, independent skills delay
American Sign Language Instructor--Hearing loss and speech delay

In addition there's:

Lactation Consultants locally and that I contact via email
The Distance Care Program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Dr Shprintzen's Distance Care Team from Syracuse
Connor's regular Pediatrician
Connor's regular Dentist

Connor has three regularly scheduled therapies a week, every week, in addition to the appointments he has with each of those specialists. He also has an Early Intervention Specialist Case Worker and a Public Health Nurse assigned to him. We have a Parent Mentor assigned to us through Help Me Grow (the early intervention services in our county) and frequently attend classes and workshops through them.

I work full time, Jim goes to school full time in the evenings, and of course we also have Ian to take care of and all his preschool activities.

So those of you locally who may be reading this, you'll excuse me then if my floor needs to be mopped! Those of you out of town, you'll understand if we can't commit to something because of Connor's schedule! Those of you who are "stalking" me from MDC :), I know you commiserate!

If you are a frequent visitor to my blog, you'll see that we still very much enjoy our life! We are always on the go, always doing something new and exciting. We've learned how to integrate Connor's needs into our lifestyle, and frankly we can hardly remember what it was like to have just one non-special-needs child! Back when I used to watch TV shows and cook real meals :) Or back when I used to actually sleep at night!!!!

So that's a glimpse into our life...it's not always rosey, but it's our reality, and we love it!!!

A Connor picture thread

2008-11-02T16:56:00.003-05:00

This is all Connor pictures because Ian has spent the entire afternoon playing at a friend's house :) So, spotlight on Connor!

Connor and daddy taking a break from playing outside.
Connor's sly little grin...
Connor and daddy off for another adventure...

Another grin from Connor!

Mommy and Connor...

Daddy tossing Connor up in the air...where's Connor's head??

Ah, there's his head!

Happy November everyone!

Halloween 2008!

2008-10-30T21:28:00.003-04:00

For some reason that I can't seem to get a good explanation for...Trick or Treating is NOT on Halloween night in Dayton, Ohio. I've asked everyone I can think of, I sometimes get an answer that doesn't make any sense, but usually I'm just told "I don't know, it's just never been." So anyway...we Trick or Treated tonight! Here are some pictures:

Here are the boys ready to head out! Trick or Treating started at 6pm, which is still light out, which seems a little odd to me, it was always at night fall when I was a kid!

Here's the pumpkin daddy carved...VERY scary!

Here's the pumpkin that daddy carved "with" Ian...

Here's the pumpkin mommy carved...

Here's what Ms. Daisy thinks about all Halloween nonsense... :)

The boys got quite a good haul! They both sampled a few pieces of candy before heading into the bath, and they were both in bed by 9pm. It actually was a very good night! Now at only 9:30pm, mommy and daddy are finding ourselves alone, so we're going to go enjoy it!

Happy Halloween everyone!

A few more pictures...

2008-10-27T21:21:00.003-04:00

Just because I know I drove you all crazy going so long without posting any :) Unfortunately, all I have still is first day of school and pumpkin pictures! But they're still cute, so here they are.

Connor is really starting to lose the "Charlie Brown" face that he had...both boys had big round faces/heads when infants. Ian's face is still roundish, but Connor's is starting to get longish. A long face with hooded eyelids and wide spaced eyes is very common in VCFS...looks like he's starting to take on those features. I think he's adorable!!

I don't remember what Ian was pointing at...maybe the camera!! Crazy kid...

Connor likes to ride his bike, he even does the sign for "bike" very well. But he prefers to ride Ian's bike...which is a BIG BOY bike! Connor can climb onto Ian's bike by himself, and he can just barely reach one pedal, but he expects me to push him, which of course kills my back! I try to give him one good ride down the sidewalk, then "encourage" him to ride his own bike for a while! Ian gets all squinty eyed sometimes when he's being goofy...I think he does it on purpose! After all, he WAS born in Japan!Look how TALL Daisy has gotten! Connor is about 29.5-30 inches tall, and I think Daisy is officially taller than him now! Well, maybe just at the same height. It's hard to tell in this picture because they were both moving and I'm standing above them, and in real life it's hard to tell because they're both moving and I'm standing above them!!!! We got Daisy on the scale about 2-3 weeks ago and she was about 85 pounds...at only 7 months old!! Her adult weight will probably be about 120 is our guess. Man.

Pictures again!

2008-10-26T21:19:00.005-04:00

We are working (well, Jim is working) slowly on finding all the old pictures and bringing them from back up to our newly refreshed hard drive (or something like that...the point it, he's finding them slowly) In the meantime, I can download new pictures again! Here are some to whet your appetites a bit :)

The boys went to a Halloween Party with the Deaf Community Resource Center's Deaf Teen Kid's Club. So here's a sneak peak of their costumes for this year. Ian is "Black Spider Man":

Connor is "Red Spider Man" (and not being too cooperative about having his picture taken, hence why Mommy is holding him up!)Ian really gets "into character" and shoots webs all over the place!!
Ian has very exciting news to share with everyone! He goes to school now! On a school bus and everything! We decided to enroll him in the pre-school program at the public elementary school. The program is an integrated classroom with up to 8 special needs children and 8 typical children. Ian is one of the typicals in his room. This is the classroom that Connor will attend, as one of the special needs children, in 2 years (is it really only two years away????) Here's Ian geting on the bus his first day:
Here's Connor waiting with Mommy for the bus to come drop Ian off at the end of the day. He's looking so grown up!
And here's the Big Boy!!! The first day went off without a hitch!
Speaking of growing up, Daddy decided to try putting Connor at Ian's Big Boy table instead of in his high chair. Connor has become a climbing expert and was attempting to escape from his high chair. Connor is doing well at the Big Boy table, he needs lots of reminders to stay sitting while he's eating, and of course he's messy, but he looks so cute sititng with his big brother! Ian is having to be very careful to guard his food because often Ian is eating food that is not appropriate for Connor (either something he's allergic to, or not cut up small enough) I don't have a baby anymore!!!!!! (bawl!)
Here are the boys with our pumpkins! We've had beautiful fall weather lately, just cool enough for jackets or sweaters, still plenty of sunshine to play around in.

An up close of Connor...by the way, he's coming up on 20 months old, recently hit the 20 pound mark, and is about 30 inches tall :) Ounce by ounce he's gaining...just ever so slowly.

And here Ian shows off an election sign in our front yard. Our school distric is trying to pass a millage for new schools. If it passes, hopefully the schools will be built by the time Ian is ready to attend them! 2 years until Kindergarten, then 12 more years after that... It sounds like such a long time, yet preschool crept up on us so quickly!!!

Just another day...

2008-10-22T20:54:00.002-04:00

First off...still no pictures :( Jim is slowly finding more and more files that we backed up before reloading our computer, but we don't have many pictures yet.

I decided to make this post a narrative of a typical evening in the Block household. So, enjoy!

4:30pm Jim calls me to remind me that he has class tonight and to be home by 5pm. I leave work. On the way home I call a lactation consultant that is very familiar with Connor's case and discuss with her our appointment with his pulmonologist yesterday. Then I call a friend and discuss swapping off some babysitting time so we can both enjoy date nights. I call Children's Hospital to try to change Connor's upcoming Swallow Study appointment to a sooner date so the results are in before his next Cleft Palate team appointment. Sometimes a 20 minute drive home is a very good thing!!!

5pm Ian and Connor meet me at the door with big hugs and kisses. Man I miss these kids during the day! Jim is on the phone with the insurance company when I walk in the door, we had damage during a recent storm. He is walking out the door nearly as soon as I walk in. We are like ships passing in the night so frequently...we often talk more over text message than in person. Yet we have a strong marriage, thank god for that!

5:30pm Jim had put a roast in the crock pot this morning, so I set about finishing it and making plates for the boys. Connor willingly sits down at the table. When did he become such a big boy? Ian has to be asked several times to stop playing his game to come sit and eat. Oh the attention span of a 3 year old!!! We discuss Ian's day at school. "Connor, sit down! Connor, please keep your fork on your own plate. Ian keep your milk away from Connor! Connor stop feeding the dog." Somewhere in there I manage to eat my meal. It's a wonder I never get heartburn!

6pm Ian's friend knocks on the door, he wants to go outside to play. I remind him that there's no dinner later, no food until his before-bedtime snack. He agrees as he runs out the door, leaving his hardly touched plate behind. I see him grab his bike and helmet as he heads to the neighbor's house. The innocence of childhood...I have such fond memories of playing outside in the California sunshine every day after school. No play grounds, just a quiet neighborhood and friends everywhere. I love that Ian has neighborhood friends like this, watching him run out the door is bittersweet though!

6:30pm Connor and I set about cleaning the kitchen. Empty clean dishes from dishwasher. Wait, this fork is dirty. Thank you for helping Connor, let me get the clean dishes out first please. Start loading dirty dishes. Spoons in here, forks in here, plates go--put fork back--serving spoons and plastic bowls on the top--fish spoon out from bottom of washer--take apart sippy cups and place on top rack--put fork back again--run soapy water to wash crock pot--trip on dirty spoon that is now inexplicably on the floor in front of the sink. "I love toddlers and will look back fondly on this stage, I love toddlers and will look back..." Put fork back one more time then close dishwasher quickly!!!

7pm Ian runs in having to go potty, somehow manages to pee on his hand, his underwear, and the toilet seat. I wonder how much actually made it into the potty? Change Ian. Why is Connor carrying a small trash can around? Wait, where are the contents of said trash can? Take dirty diaper away from Daisy the Great Dane who discovered a great new chew toy. Ian asks for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I calmly remind him what I said earlier about not eating his dinner. Weather a near-melt-down. Actually, that one wasn't so bad! It's the end of the day and he's hungry, that could have gone very badly! Decide on a compromise...put pajamas on, go for our evening walk, have before-bedtime-snack, then go to bed. Sounds good. That was too easy, I'm on edge looking for melt-down signs. He surprises me with his maturity, I don't give him enough credit sometimes.

7:45pm The walk is a success. The boys both looked cute in their jammies, hats, and wrapped in a blanket sitting in the jogger. I have to be one of the luckiest women in the world...two adorable little boys! The boys sit down for their before-bedtime-snack. They share a fruit cup. When did Connor get so big? Ian is still hungry. I feel guilty for not giving him more food, can I really send him to bed hungry? How will I ever get him to sit down for an entire meal if I allow him to eat later?

8:15pm Brush teeth, take Ian to bed. Discover Jim didn't change his bedsheet after a leaky pull-up incident the night before. Ian cheers for a 5-minute reprieve while I change his sheets and febreeze his mattress.

8:45pm Connor falls asleep nursing. He's so beautiful laying in my arms asleep. The face of an angel. I am thankful again that I chose to be a breastfeeding mom.

9pm Finish cleaning kitchen. Find Ian's backpack and read all the notes from the school and teacher. Write a note to Ian's teacher. Update our calendar. Hear a radio ad about a Halloween party for kids this weekend at the grocery store. Update calendar again. Step on a toddler fork near the shoe basket. How did that get there?? Find gym bag, pack workout clothes for spinning class tomorrow. Jim calls, he's on his way home. You mean I might get a couple hours with my husband and no children awake?

Thus ends the blog ;) I'm going to go enjoy quality time with my husband!

THIS IS A PLACEHOLDER POST!!

2008-10-15T21:02:00.002-04:00

Wow, okay, so over a month has gone by without me posting. Why, you ask? Well, here's a quick run down. Consider this a "placeholder" post until I can get caught up!!!

In the middle of me writing a rather large post (with lots of pictures) about our happenings the weekend of Sept 13th, blogspot crashed and I lost half the post. THe other half is saved in drafts, so there's that at least.

When I came back to try to update the post, Ohio was hit with a freak storm. Hurricane Ike ventured this far north and we experienced hurricane-force winds that damaged our house, our shed, and we lost parts of a very large tree in our back yard. We also lost internet for about a week.

Then, because of the power surges from the storm, our computer was on the fritz and it took us a while to figure out what was wrong, order a fix-it disc, and reload windows. In the meantime, we did a back up of all our files, but now we havne't figured out how to access our backed-up files. INcluding all our pictures!!

In that time we also have experienced the following:

1. I ran in the Air Force Marathon and had an absolutely wonderful experience! A few days later I discovered my "sore" ankle was actually BROKEN :)

2. Work has been crazy for me, an equal mix of painfully boring days and painfully long and stressful days.

3. THe boys attended their first Halloween party.

4. Ian started public preschool!!! He rides on a school bus and everything!

5. I took a few weeks off of running to heal my ankle and am now preparing for a short fun race in November.

6. Connor had another ear infection, this time a double staph infection, but we had major issues with the lab and the culture results which complicated things. Luckily it looks like this time we got off easy and one round of oral antibiotics was enough to get him over it. Whew! He has several appointments coming up this month and next and then we'll hang on for dear life to make it through the fall/winter seasons.

I can't remember if that's everything or not...as soon as we figure out how to access the backed-up files, I'll try to catch up, one post at a time :)

How is it SEPTEMBER already?

2008-09-04T21:16:00.005-04:00

It feels like it was just a few weeks ago that I sent Ian up to my mom's for Memorial Day weekend to go to horse camp. And somehow Labor Day has passed already! Our summer has been jam-packed with activities, so I guess the passage of time was just blurred.

For Labor Day we headed up to the West side of Michigan where Jim's family has a cottage on Lake Michigan. Overall it was a good trip, there were of course the usual hassles revolving around travelling with two small children (these poor boys have logged more miles on the road and in the air than some people travel their entire lives!!). But this was by far the best trip so far for their behavior. Not in the car, that is still a struggle sometimes (although this one was decent, no unnecessary stops due to tantrums). But both of them were on their best behavior around family. Ian was an angel all weekend, sure he talked everyone's ear off, and I'm sure he drove his Uncle Chris crazy by touching all his toys, but that's what 3 year olds are supposed to do. Ian gave us no trouble at night sleeping in a strange bed, he ate well, he followed the rules at the cottage about the water and the steps down to the water, he played very nicely with his cousins, he even went fishing with daddy and sat (mostly) quietly in the boat while daddy caught 3 fish! Connor slept...okay...and also was on very good behavior for everyone. He was all smiles, he showed off a bunch of his signs, he played nicely with cousins. In that respect, the trip was a good one.

It was great to get out in the water (which was colder than I had hoped!). Ian and I went way far out until the water was over my head. We had our eyes on a sand bar a ways out, and since I'm a strong swimmer, I was sure I'd have no problems swimming Ian out to it. We were doing fine until some wake from jet skis started splashing Ian in the face, then he wasn't so happy, so we headed back to shallower water (about neck deep for me). It was great to play with him like that, and to see that he's still not very afraid of water. Connor didn't go in the water, and unfortunately the water level was very high this year, so there was almost no beach for him to play on. But he was happy enough regardless.

It's just the long drive, the time off work, and the fact that we have two toddlers off their schedules and in a strange house that doesn't have some essentials (like play pen or crib, high chair, etc) We bring with us what we can, and the toddler stage won't last long, a few more years I guess. Maybe we've just done too much this summer and I'm tired :) (gee, I don't know why?)

Connor is becoming a mischievous little devil. Here's what happens when you leave him alone for 30 seconds:

Or perhaps this:

The kid thinks he's indestructable, and it's easy to be fooled by his small size and easy-going personality. Yet beneath that facade is a child who is always thinking a few steps ahead. Scheming what he can get into next! Ah, my son.

Another member of our family has been making LARGE strides recently. Here's Ms Daisy at 6 months old:

She's getting HUGE!

Connor had two appointments this week, one with his ENT and one for another speech eval (we're STILL waiting to get him into private speech therapy, we've been waiting since May). His ENT was pleasantly surprised to see how well he's doing! His left ear canal is still *tiny*, in fact the dr coudln't see his tube at all. The right canal is larger, but still very small, he could see about half of Connor's ear drum in that ear. Connor didn't quite cooperate for the hearing test, but the audiologists did the best they could by using the sound field instead of the head phones and/or probes. He passed with "functional hearing", showing about a 30dB loss, but with the sound field they can't tell which ear he heard it in (in the past his right ear has been at about 25 dB and his left as bad as 60) The ENT said that functional hearing is good enough for now, and since there hasn't been a relapse of the terrible infections he had in the winter/spring, for now we're just in a holding pattern waiting for his canals to either grow, or for him to get big enough for surgery to open them. That surgery typically isn't done until age 4 at least, some doctors prefer to wait until 6 if they can. We're still hoping he won't need it anyway.

Next week Connor has his 18 month "well baby" (I put that in quotes because he sees so many specialists that it seems odd to take him to a well baby appt) I'm expecting a long discussion about his diet and weight gain, again, and I'll probably get another lecture about vaccines. I've become a stronger mother and person since Connor was born. There are a few things I absolutely WILL NOT be pushed around about, because I made a very educated decision that made the most sense for MY child at THAT time. I constantly re-evaluate every decision I make and if new evidence presents itself, then I'll take that into account.

I will NOT discuss weaning Connor or in any way decreasing or limiting his breastmilk intake. I fully believe that the only reason Connor dodged serious medical intervention as a newborn/infant is because I refused to stop breastfeeding him. He would likely be a tube fed baby on elemental formula with more severe reflux, more allergies, increased infections, and even more speech problems if I hadn't breastfed him. Frankly I worked too damn hard to teach him to breastfeed, I won't be weaning him anytime soon.

I will NOT discuss circumcision of him, Ian, or any other little boy who is too young to make that decision himself. Foreskins are not a defect, I don't believe that any parent has the right to amputate a part of their child's body for no good reason (and I've yet to hear a good reason, do your research people...it's not cleaner, healthier, or easier to care for; I'm not a member of a religion that requires it, and frankly if I were, I would re-evaluate my faith in that religion)

I also will NOT be bullied into vaccinating my special needs immunocompromised child, especially against so many diseases that are so very minor or very rare. I already have to worry about his developmental delays, his much higher chance of autoimmune disease, he has existing allergies to dairy soy and latex, his immune system isn't developed enough to handle live virus vaccines anyway. Nope, sorry, I won't be introducing more for his little body to filter out.

Now I'm not argumentative about these issues, I'm very capable of presenting my side and listening to an opposing side. And like I said, I constantly re-evaluate. I only ask for credit for the intelligent person that I am. And remember, I'm the mother. It's ultimately my choice. (well, and Jim's, but he usually accepts the research I do and goes along with my decisions)

Okay, enough ranting!!!

Camping!!

2008-08-20T19:41:00.006-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted, with the Olympics going on, I've been spending my online time watching replays and reading articles, not blogging! :)

So it was time for my brother to head home from his summer of being our under-paid-but-so-much-appreciated-live-in-babysitter. Daddy had to stay home because his summer term isn't over yet, so mommy and the boys braved the drive up to mid-Michigan (which took 8 hours after including an hour stop at a McDonald's Play Place and an hour in traffic just north of Dundee). We were headed to West Branch and the Ogemaw County Fair where my mom was camping for the week. What a week it was!! Here come a bunch of pictures, so those of you with dial-up, you might want to go make a cup of coffee while you wait for this page to load!!

I usually do these blogs in story form, but I think I'll just post pictures and describe them (I'm feeling a little lazy after a long week of camping with two little boys!!)

One of Ian's favorite activities was the horse-drawn wagon. Here is Tom (on the left) and Charlie (on the right) taking us (and about a dozen other people) for a ride through the fairgrounds and attached camp grounds. The driver was very good with kids, teaching them the verbal commands for the huge draft horses and letting the kids "stear" with the end of the long reins.
Here Ian enjoys a view from atop a large farm tractor (Grandpa Hallack would be so proud!) There were many static-displays of various farming equipment for the kids to climb around on. Connor, who has recently entered a climbing stage, would not hold still for me to step back a few feet and take a picture of him sitting on the tractor, sorry!
"I Milked a Cow" is a favorite activity of all kids at the fair. Each of the kids gets a quick lesson in milking, then gets a chance to try it first hand. After wards they all get a free piece of string cheese and a scoop of icecream.
Connor walked right up and tried to put his mouth on the cow's udder!!! So he was given some "help" (remember he has an allergy to dairy to begin with!!) He couldn't have the string cheese, of course, but they did have some sorbet for him instead of ice cream.
Here's Ian, Connor, and my youngest sister Haidee posing for a picture after milking their cows.
Ian took part in a Pedal Tractor Pull, which was a really cute event. They had a kid-sized pedal tractor and a wagon. All the kids "weighed in" and were placed in weight classes. Each weight class had a specified number of pounds placed in the wagon and the kids had to try to pull it the farthest. There were 5 ribbons given in each weight class, and all the kids got a free kid cone at one of the ice cream stands. Ian weighed in at 38 pounds, so was in the 36-45 pound weight class. He was by far the youngest in the class, so at a bit of a disadvantage coordination and strength wise. But he tried his hardest!! He did not get a ribbon, but he thought the ice cream was the better award anyway! His Aunt Haidee (my youngest sister in the above picture) got 5th place in her weight class and has a really nice green ribbon to show for it!
Here's Connor back at camp, he managed to fold up one of the chairs and I caught him "resting" on it. When I grabbed the camera he jumped up as if to say "I wasn't sleeping mom, really!"
I was pretty lax about what the boys ate, after all-we were camping! I did watch Connor's dairy intake of course, but I loosened up on my usually strict limitation of sweets. After discovering that Oreo Cookies do not have dairy in them, I let Connor have one. He had some trouble with the cookie getting all mushy and getting stuck in his palate. When that happened he started drooling was looked like Hershey's Syrup!!! This has happened before with similar consistency foods, like bread. We've learned to avoid consistencies that he can't transfer from his lips to his throat without it getting stuck in his palate. Usually he'll let me finger-sweep his palate for him to clear the food out of there (because otherwise he chokes and gags) but this time he liked the taste of the cookie so much that he was willing to let it stay right where it was! Eventually it dissolved enough that he got it unstuck himself, but it sure made a mess in the mean time!

Here's Haidee, Connor, and Ian on Kid's Day when the ride bracelets were cheap and lasted from noon to 11pm. My mom had bought them all matching shirts and they were anxious to go get their ride bands and hit the midway (except Connor who didn't know what it was all about and was too little to ride rides anyway).
Here's Ian and Haidee on the spinning bear (which they didn't really have the strength to get spinning too fast)
Here they are on a little kid roller coaster. Ian showed no fear of any of the rides, and wsa in fact disappointed to find that he wsa too short for some of them he wanted to try!
This is one he was just tall enough for, but went awfully high! Yes, my three year old is way up there! It was a pretty tame ride, just went up and down and around, but it was so high!! Haidee preferred not to go on this ride :)
A really good time was had by all. There were very few issues (a few threatened behavioral issues with Ian, but nothing unexpected from a three year old being overwhelmed with a fair). Except sleeping. Ian did great...he slept in a tent with Haidee and Chayton all week and except for one night when he got stuck between the wall of the tent and the ground, he didn't make a peep from the time he went to sleep till sometime the next morning. Connor, on the other hand, had a lot of trouble sleeping. He spent every night attached to me nursing. It made for long sleepless nights for me, but I managed to nap most days thanks to my wonderful mom and her ability and willingness to take the boys off and keep them happy. She truly is amazing...she taught me all the creative parenting tricks I employ with Ian, she knows everything about Connor's syndrome and the specifics of his medical care and is completely comfortable taking care of both of them. If only she lived closer so we could abuse --err, I mean, utilize-- her more :)

Mommy's new body, pet update, immune issues, and a trip to DC?

2008-07-31T20:52:00.006-04:00

First, let me start this post with a picture of me. I've been working out really hard lately, burning a LOT of calories during 6am workouts three times a week, then making it a point to spend time outside playing with the boys as often as possible. And while I wouldn't say that I've put myself on a "diet", I have been trying to be more aware of what I'm eating and drinking. The numbers on the scale don't show much, a few pounds maybe, but I'm really seeing it in my clothes lately! This is me after work today:

I'm getting there! It's a long process to get back in shape, I feel like I'm making great progress on my strength training, I can do more pushups every week for example, but it's regaining endurance that really sucks. I used to be a decent distance runner, and a state medallist and collegiate sprinter. Now, though, the farthest I've run is 2.5 miles, it took me 21 minutes, and I was pretty much dying (or so I thought at the time!) Little by little, right?

Look at this beetle that Jim and Ian found:

They found it at a park when we met one of Connor's therapists for a session. It's huge and exotic looking for an Ohio beetle, so we decided to keep him. We named him "Ringo", took him to a petstore to ask what he eats (greens) and then took him home and put him in our bug house. Ringo lived with us for about a week and a half before we decided it was time to set him free. Ian and Chayton (my brother) took him into the woods, set him free, then went about finding a new critter for our bug house. They came back with a frog and several roly-polies and daddy-long-leg spiders. We are obviously an animal-friendly family :)

Now on to Connor's immune system, yet again. He had chicken pox a few weeks ago, and I thought he was done with them. Yesterday he was having a cranky day, so I laid down with him to get him to take a nap. I ran my hand through his hair and discovered a scab on his head, I looked closer and saw that it was a crusty/scabby spot JUST like the chicken pox he had a few weeks ago. A quick body check showed three more spots. He just happened to have an appt with his Pulmonologist today, so I showed the spots to him. The dr said that it definitely looks like chicken pox, and he called the Infectious Disease dr on the spot to discuss a treatment plan. We're going to start him on the anti-virals again to see if that boosts his immune response just enough.

Then the Pulmonologist and I got into a discussion about Connor's immune system. As you all know, if you've been reading this blog all along, I have not allowed Connor to get any vaccines yet, except for Synagis over the winter months (an RSV immunoglobulin that is only available for high-risk babies). I have been met with a lot of resistance from doctors about that, but I've stuck to my guns. At first my reasons were purely because something was obviously wrong with him, and no one could tell me what. Then he was so sick so often, he literally was never healthy enough to receive a vaccine. Then he started developing some weird allergies including food and latex. Then he finally received the diagnosis of a genetic syndrome and soon after was diagnosed with a primary immune deficiency. His overall health has always been compromised, his growth and development has been delayed, and there is so much about him that we just don't know. It didn't make any sense to me to inject toxins, viruses, and bacteria into his body not knowing how he would react to them. As I started researching vaccines more, I discovered that most of the vaccines "protect" against diseases which are minor and/or there is almost NO chance that Connor will be exposed to them. Hepatitis, tetanus, polio, diptheria, HiB...either not dangerous, or extremely rare. As I started researching immune responses more, I learned of the blood-brain barrier, the natural course of exposure to a disease and the body's first line of defense (mucous membranes), the development of an infant's immune system (did you know, for example, that if you start the hepatitis series or the DTaP series at age one, you need fewer doses of the vaccine than if you start at age 2 months? That's because an infant's immune system is not capable of "keeping" immunity for very long because it is so under-developed. Breastfeeding provides very good protection against several diseases, taking the place of some of the earlier doses of the vaccines) Of course nothing is 100%, could Connor still get HiB (haemophilus influenzae type B)? Sure. Is that vaccine effective against preventing it? Actually, it's one of the most effective vaccines out there. But a majority of cases of HiB do not cause serious complications and breastfeeding has been proven to provide a certain amount of immunity.

In Connor's case, he has proven again and again that his body does not react appropriately to viral or bacterial infections. He had a non-typeable haemophilus influenzae infection that FIVE rounds of oral antibiotics did not kill, puzzling even the infectious disease dr. It finally took a PICC line and 4 weeks of intravenous antibiotics before he was rid of that infection. He caught the same puking bug 4 or 5 times over the winter that the rest of the family only got once and for a single day; Connor puked for 8 days straight. He got sick for a few days after every RSV injection over the winter (presumably because his immune system was "distracted" while trying to deal with the injection) and at the end of winter caught RSV anyway. He now has chicken pox that has either lasted a month, or he caught them again within a month. Those are just a few examples. His immune system does not work the way it should.

I talked to the dr about all of this today, we were specifically discussion the flu shot. Connor has a malformed airway that is very reactive to the slightest inflamation. If he were to catch the flu, it could be very dangerous for him. I understand this. However, given his history, I am not convinced that the flu shot is safe for him, nor do I think that his body will mount an appropriate immune response. The pulmonologist agreed with me, saying that even if I were to give him a flu shot, he would still recommend that we keep a prescription of TamiFlu on hand and give it to Connor at the first sign of illness.

The infectious disease dr has told me before that Connor's particular immune deficiency means he will likely have to "catch" the same bug many times before his body learns to recognize it and mount an appropriate response. I suspect that the same will happen with a vaccine...one or two doses won't be enough, and it is not safe for him to receive multiple doses of multiple vaccines.

So the end result of that discussion just verifies what I had concluded previously. Connor is NOT going to be receiving any vaccines any time soon. We will continue to take common sense steps to avoid him being exposed, including keeping him out of daycare, continuing breastfeeding, encouraging a healthy natural diet, and avoiding large crowds during high illness times. If he were to be knowingly exposed to an illness, we will be proactive about treatment. If he comes down with symptoms of an illness, we will be aggressive about treating it. I will continue my never-ending research and above all, continue to listen to my mommy instinct--it hasn't been wrong with him yet.

Okay...off my high horse about that! The last topic of this post is a possible trip for mommy! I was pulled away from my regular duties today at work and temporarily moved to a different team to backfill for some people who are out of the office. Part of my duties during this temporary move are to help prepare for a trip the Washington, D.C. next week! I'm very excited about the potential to go on this trip...ever since I started work on this program, I've been wanting to be a "fly on the wall" for these big-wig meetings that management is always going to. They head out to the Pentagon to give program updates, to get approval to enter different phases of the program development, to discuss major issues that arise, and of course occassionally to get their butts chewed for various other issues :) (just kidding!) The Air Force has a new Secretary, so last week a few people got to go meet him and inbrief him. Well, next week is another meeting, and it looks like I'm going to get to go!!! I won't have a part in the briefing, just in the prep work. I will be the keeper of "The Brain", which is an external hard drive that houses all the program information needed for trips like this. I'll be the one providing back up documents when needed, doing last minute tweaks to briefings, and also the one taking notes at the meeting so we can better prepare for the next meeting. This is a huge learning opportunity for me, it may seem like the tasks I'm doing are merely secretarial, and in a way they are, but this kind of "dirty" work will give me the insight I need to learn how programs as big as mine run "in the background". This program is $15-30 BILLION dollars of the Defense budget, there's a lot of oversight that goes on when that much money is involved! It's the number two acquisition in the Department of Defense, so there's a lot at stake here. It's easy for junior members of the team to get caught up in day-to-day source selection activities and forget that management is trying to get a program up and running! I'm really looking forward to this trip. Unfortunately, trips like this have a habit of last minute cancellation or rescheduling, and I will be out of town the second week of August, so if it gets bumped back to that week, I don't get to go. If it happens, great, if it doesn't, hopefully there will be another opportunity.

If I do go, it will be the first time that I'll leave Connor. I went on a trip to Denver when Connor was 5 months old, but I was able to arrange to take him with me. Since then there hasn't been a reason to leave him (I was asked to go to Virginia and Florida December, but Connor was really sick then and I asked to be allowed to stay home, which my boss was perfectly okay with). Cross your fingers that I get to go and that Connor does fine at home with daddy!

Okay, here's a picture of the boys (and Daisy!) to end this LONG post with :) Until next time!

The Baseball Outing--Take 2!

2008-07-27T00:43:00.006-04:00

Well folks, we tried again, the trip to the Dayton Dragons Baseball Game! This time I made sure it was the correct day :) Here's the official account...Take 2.

The day was cloudy and a bit cooler than Take 1 was. And I found myself having to work late!! I convinced a coworker to finish my job for me so I could leave in time for the game, so this time we didn't have time to go downtown first. We drove straight to the park and found parking a few blocks away (the lot that we parked in for Take 1 was now a $5 lot! We don't mind walking, so we parked in an alley a few blocks away) We got in, and our first stop was the gift shop where we got t-shirts and hats (have to have the right apparel!!). Then we found our seats and the boys and I got settled while Daddy went to get the first round of junk food.

Now, before I get into the details of the game, you need to know what happened the night before...while playing the same team the previous night, there was a huge fight that broke out, the end being an hour and a half delay of the game, 16 players and both managers being kicked out of the game, and one fan taken to the hospital (the other team's pitcher threw a ball at the Dragon's dugout, missed, and hit a fan...that pitcher is still in jail last I heard) When all was said and done, the Dragons won that game, but it wasn't the usual family-friendly light-hearted atmosphere of a Dragons game!! Since they were playing the same team again, I was a little weary of how things would go (one of my coworkers who went to that game said it was like watching a hockey match on a baseball field!)

Both teams were on their best behavior for Friday's game, though. The game was a good one, and the Dragons won again, but with two little boys who have no clue about baseball, the fun for us was really in the stands, not on the field. Connor got his first taste of pure sugar when I let him have some cotton candy!! Holy cow the kid went nuts! When I would turn to give Ian a piece, Connor would reach over and snatch a handful from me!

He also ate several nachos with salsa (then put his fingers straight into the salsa and licked them clean!), some chicken fingers, a hotdog, and then capped it all off with some chunks of oreos from my Dippin Dots icecream! I have never seen this kid eat so much or get so messy!

He seemed vaguely aware of what was going on around him...once in a while clapping his hands or pointing at something. But for the most part he focussed on his food.

Ian had his "finger" that we bought for him last year and he was getting into the happenings on the field a little more.

He understands that the players hit the ball and then run around the bases, but he didn't understand when to clap or cheer. He basically followed the lead of the people around us. He ate some food, but not as much as Connor.

The game ended around 9:30 and we headed out of the field.

Two little boys were awfully tired, but Connor got a second wind not long after we got home and proceeded to run around the house babbling for a good hour! I finally got him calmed down and in bed around 11pm. He slept well, only getting up once then sleeping in until 9 something the next morning.

I definitely think that more Dragons games are in our future! These are the kinds of family outings that I hope the boys grow up remembering.