we're all just seeds

Time for the next surgery...

2012-02-06T23:41:00.000-06:00

Norah went to see the eye doctor today...leading us to plan for Norah's 5th surgery.

The pressure caused in Norah's brain had lead to damage on some of her cranial nerves leaving her with strabismus. Exotropia is the specific type that Norah has, meaning her eye turns outward. We don't see it all the time, but it is most noticeable when Norah is tired. I see it often on days when her balance is off. In the last six months we haven't seen any improvement.

The goal for the surgery is to correct the misalignment of Norah's eyes before she loses any more vision in her right eye. This will be done by tightening the muscles of her right eye. Norah's doctor said he would usually wait until a child is closer to 4 years old but feels that if we wait too much longer her vision will get much worse. While Norah has strabismus seen in both eyes, the right is worse and so that is the eye we are going to correct. The thought is that the way her left eye deviates is actually helping to protect her right eye, and once the right eye is corrected it will correct itself. I pray that is the case and that her beautiful blue eyes are protected from any further harm.

First Tooth

2012-02-06T22:42:00.000-06:00

Mason is slowly sprouting his first tooth! It officially broke through last week on January 29th. This week it has continued to come in, oh so slowly, leaving us with a miserable baby boy.

Sleepless nights have come to be the norm the last few weeks as we have come into this new milestone. I sit in the glider at night dreaming that of those wondering full nights of sleep will return soon.

Drooling is abundant, leaving puddles on the floor or on shirts, at times making Mason look like he's ready for a wet tshirt contest. Mason is put anything and everything into his mouth to try and bring comfort to those sore gums. Teething drops provide little relief, at least ibuprofen cuts the edge when it gets really bad.

Mason you have been a trooper, I hope those teeth hurry and break through, giving you some relief (and me too...I could really use a full night of sleep).

Marble Maze

2012-01-17T09:39:00.000-06:00

One of Grant's Christmas presents was a giant marble maze. Jason and I have put together a this contraption together a few times now. We have both said that it crazy how bad the directions are to put it together. I think you should a honorary engineering degree if you can get it together. On this day instruction were tossed aside, Grant and I kept putting pieces together until we ended with this. Don't look to close, you'll see structures that are not straight, they're more like the leaning tower of Pisa. BUT it did it's job and provided about an hour of fun, until Grant lost his balance and fell into it. While rebuilding efforts were made, I couldn't get it figured out again. Grant found something else to play with leaving the maze behind.

Christmas 2011 - Pajamas

2012-01-10T16:01:00.000-06:00

It started with Grant, buying him a pair of pajamas for his first Christmas and has continued on since then. This year it nearly didn't happen, December 22nd and I still hadn't purchased any seasonal pajamas. The Christmas season was flying by, unexpected medical bills (thank you insurance company for denying the appeals), extra shifts at work for both Jason and me, while out on shopping trips priorities were made to find those perfect gifts for family and friends, and I let the pajamas fall to the bottom. I wasn't worried about this tradiation happening, if it did great, if not the day would go by with probably only me noticing that there were no special Christmas pajamas. Then it came to just a couple days before Christmas and I went to finish up some last minute shopping and found a deal, the Christmas pajama tradition continues. I am a fan of tradition, especially one that includes family. I hold onto those memories of doing something time and time again. While I was willing to let go of it, I was glad it came together in the end.

Christmas 2011 - Presents

2012-01-10T16:00:00.003-06:00

Since I had to work on Christmas Eve and we had plans to spend Christmas Day at Jason's parents home, we decide Friday we would open our gifts with the kids. I love the excitement that Grant and Norah shared, wonerding what they would find hidden under the Christmas wrapping.

This is the look of excitement of getting something you really want!!
Who knew - a microwave?!?!

Mason may not love eating baby food
but he thinks Christmas paper is the best!

Norah loved her Minnie Mouse!

Yup, Mason still liked the paper best of all!

Grant had fun with the glasses straw.

Playing with all those new fun toys!!!

Christmas 2011 - Cookies

2012-01-10T15:59:00.000-06:00

Grant loves to help me bake. He jumps up on the chair next to the mixer and helps facilitate all that goes in the bowl. It’s his perch, he doesn’t like when Norah tries to come and help, he pushes her to the side. Or will stand with a board base to make it extra hard to try and gain footing on his spot.

The only time of year I make sugar cookies is Christmastime. Sugar cookies, something I have yet to perfect. This year I made a step in the right direction, I found a new recipe that I love with an unexpected ingredient – sour cream. Who knew?

Grant helped me roll out the dough and cut stars out. I tried to keep thing simple so my little helper could do as much as possible, meaning only one shape to cut and only one color frosting for the cookies. Grant looked over the bottle of food coloring, quickly eliminating green and red, guess he’s seen enough of it through the Christmas season. Then he decided upon blue. Blue stars it is!

Jason and Norah joined in for the decorating, sprinkles where sprinkled….maybe poured onto the top of the frosting, Sprinkles also found there way everywhere else around the kitchen, leaving a big mess. Totally worth it in the end, the cookies turned out delicious.

Christmas 2011 - Making Paper Garland

2012-01-10T15:58:00.000-06:00

I keep seeing paper garland on etsy and pinterest thinking they are so cute. My tree was beckoning for an extra touch. While popcorn garland sounds classic, I could just see Grant and Norah eating it right off the tree. I went down to my crafting corner in the laundry room and dug up some Christmas paper and some paper punches and came up with a pattern. Grant loved helping punch out the paper. Then we glued the squared and stars together. The last step was sewing together all those squares.

I love how it turned out, it was so easy and fun to make.

Christmas 2011 - Deck the Tree

2012-01-10T15:55:00.000-06:00

While this year with three little ones under foot and the need to reduce clutter beckoning, I keep the Christmas decorating to a minimum. Instead of decking the halls, we just stuck to the tree.

I love how Grant clustered all the ornaments in the same spot, one that he could easily reach.

Norah enjoyed being goofy while we decorated. I believe she was going to do a somersault in this picture, while means assuming this position then falling over to the side.

Mason kept an eye on all the decorating action.

Grant admiring his work.

Our tree!

Christmas 2011 - Ornaments

2012-01-10T15:37:00.001-06:00

Each year Jason and I pick out a Christmas ornament that reflects something from our year. This year I had trouble picking out just one fun ornament so I found one for everyone.

Jason discovered Sushi this year, and he loves his rolls.

I have a kayak that I love. My hope for this year is that we are able to find some more time to get on the water.

ok laugh at this picture, it's ok. i must have become distracted by a little one at my feet or getting into ,ischief because this is the best picture of my kayak, oh well...

Grant has always been our peanut. Peanut Pie, Peanut Butter. Peanut Butter Pie. Snuggly Peanut. While we have several variations he will always be our Peanut.

Norah has several names we call her. Jason starting calling her, his Sweetie Pie back in the NICU and it has always stuck. This year Grant has taken to calling Norah Sweetie Pie as well. It's so cute in therapy to her Grant encouraging her. "You can do it Sweetie Pie." It melts my heart everytime. And blueberries are her favorite berry.

Mason's birth year. I look at several first baby's Christmas ornaments but none of them were "it." In my wondering I found a beautiful glass ball ornament in the perfect color for a baby boy - blue.

Christmas 2011 - Lights

2012-01-10T13:44:00.001-06:00

We always wait a day after we get our Christmas tree to let it open up. So in the afternoon Jason took Grant and Norah out shopping for awhile so Mason and I could get a nap in. Mason has not been a very good sleeping since mid November. Well Mason had no interest in taking a nap so we took on my favorite task of decorating a Christmas tree - stringing the lights. Mason was an excellent helper, he loved the lights. Grant and Norah were very excited to return home to the sparkling tree.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-23T23:22:00.000-06:00

Yes we are still here...post have been hard to accomplish lately. I must say with I feel life with 3 kids has kept me busy lately. I feel that as soon as I have 2 kids set with an activity there 3 needs some extra attention. Mason had hit a new stage, one that wants to be in Mommy's arms ALL.THE.TIME. I will post all the fun things we have been doing next week (I'm working 3 out the next 4 days).

Christmas this year has been beautiful. My goal was to teach the kids the Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. So today when I asked Grant whose birthday do we celebrate this weekend, he quickly answered "Jesus'" It made my day. Now if only I could find the baby Jesus for our Nativity. He went missing into Grant's room last week, I hope we can get him back into the nativity scene for his birthday. Grant is by far the most excited about Christmas. Today he was asking if we could go buy more presents to give to family and friends.

Christmas Eve, I will spend the day working in the ER. While I love being a nurse, being a staff nurse in a unit leaves you to work on holidays. While I would love to be sitting in Christmas Eve services, singing The First Noel (a favorite since my middle name is Noelle), I will be spending 12 hours caring for patients whom I believe would most likely not want to be in the ER as well.

Tonight I was blessed with a greatest gift, watching Norah take more steps closer to walking independently. She was able to raise a foot up high enough to step over a toy in her way. Tears of joy came as I thought back to last Christmas, she has come so far this year. Jason put it best - she is not normal, she's exceptional.

I hope that every one's Christmas wishes come true, and may it be happy, safe and healthy (if not you can come find me in the ER, I'll be happy to take care of you).

Our 2011 Family Christmas Verse-

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13

Silly Missy Muffin

2011-12-13T20:55:00.000-06:00

Norah is a bit of a goof ball, easily making me smile and laugh.

Norah says she was taking a picture of me when I snapped this picture of her looking more like Mason.

Last week, as I was cleaning the kitchen she pushed a chair over to the sink. As she was about to crawl onto it, Grant quickly jumped up on it. I have a firm only one kid on a chair at a time policy. So she looks up at him and tells him to get off. He ignores her, she continues requesting nicely to have her chair. Then, "Grant get off the chair you stinker." Yup she's persistent.

While playing in her room the other day I checked in see what she was up to. I found her nursing her baby doll. Yes she sees her mommy nursing her little brother often and has begun to nurse her own dolls now. Yes, she burps them too.

Then came time to change her diaper today. As we finished and she was sitting up on the changing table, she looked me straight in the eye and said, "Mommy I need to have a conversation with you." I inquired about what, her response, "Your pimple." Yes mommy's skin does seem to be breaking out these days, thanks Norah for noticing. I glad the conversation wasn't anything more serious.

Norah tantrums are increasing in frequency these days. While we try to ignore them, I do get a good laugh when we tell her to stop it, and from the mist of tears, she'll immediately stops and says OK with a chipper voice then moves on.

So much love I have for this little girl.

Nap

2011-12-09T21:52:00.000-06:00

Grant is nearing the end of daily naps, I see it coming.Grant has always been a good napper. I noticed that the days where he just doesn't want to take a nap are increasing. I always insist upon quiet time, and try to make that happen in his room. Often quiet time has turned into nap time once sitting in bed reading books. This week Grant kept insisting he didn't need a nap and he was quietly watching Caillou on TV, so I was happy to let him continue on. Well I went about me afternoon activities, cleaning up, starting dinner, checking out the world of Facebook when I noticed quiet time was even more quiet. The TV was silent, Caillou was done. I looked towards Grant to see him sound asleep. He looked like a big boy yet at the same time still my baby all snuggled into the new couch.

It was fun to see Norah climb up on the couch and try to wake him up when she woke up not to long after I took these pictures. Grant was asleep, she even tried to pry his eyes upon. So cute listening to her say "Grant William wake up." He opened his eyes turned away and went back to napping. I told Norah to snuggle in, which she did for about a minute before she was off to see if Mason would let her play with him. She did successfully wake him up.

Next Steps

2011-12-05T21:07:00.008-06:00

A month ago Norah got her new walker, a Nurmi Neo. It took nearly six months to get this walker for her, but after a lot of research I felt like this was the walker that was a right fit for Norah. Norah took off running with this walker as soon as we let her go. This walker rolled over the cracks in the sidewalk not slowing her down at all. It was much lighter than the previous walker she had. The way the walker is designed she has to stand up in the walker, she also can't rest along the back of it like she use to do. We were able to get a different set of hand grips that can be turned in so her hand alingment is closer to her body. Norah has such a small frame she previously walked with her arms out, away from a natural position. The antireverse brakes on the walker can easily be turned off making Norah work a little harder to maintain her balance. Oh so many things about this walker I love.

We went to the Mall of America the weekend before Thanksgiving where Norah shopped with me for three hours using her walker the whole time, running in the open areas of the mall and enjoying the freedom the her walker allows.

The this last week came, Jason and I noticed, as well as Norah's PT. Something is clicking in Norah's brain and her ability to walk and maintain balance. Today I can tell you is the first time I have seen Norah make an attempt to walk places within the house instead of crawling. If I saw her start crawling, all it took was a little prompt, saying Norah why don't you walk? This would have her immediately standing upright and off to her destination. Just looking at her, you can easily see how proud she is that she is able to accomplish this task. I, too, am very proud to be her mom and share this moment.

Norah is still using her walker while we are out and about running our errands, but I am so happy she is able to walk about the house independently.

Mason ~ 6 months

2011-12-05T20:50:00.000-06:00

Where has the time gone, my precious baby boy. It seems like yesterday we came home from the hospital. You were a snugly bundle of joy. So content and peaceful, willing to go with the flow. So much of the is still true, but you have had some big changes as well.

You are 19 pounds already, just a pound and half shy of weighing the same as you sister. You have the most magnificent smile, light up the room and melting my heart. We went through a rough patch the last couple of months, you decided to no longer sleep though the night. This was tough on Mommy who needs her sleep to keep up with your brother and sister during the day. This last week things have been better now that you have recovered from Roseola and a cold, so let's just keep that up.

We have been working on eating food for a few weeks. It has been a rough start, cereal isn't your thing, carrot and squash get 2 thumbs up while you can't find anything sweet about sweet peas.

Tummy time has become tolerated, you are becoming better at propping yourself up on your arms. We have seen you roll over a few times, but nothing consistent so far. You are also getting closer to becoming an independent sitter, while you do great with supportive sitting.

Toys are becoming more entertaining, right now you prefer your taggie blanket best. You will sit and chew on it until it is covered with drool. You love to watch your brother and sister play, but your are not as tolerant as you used to be when they kiss you extra hard or try to touch repeatedly.

So much love you have given us and that we have for you. Happy 1/2 Birthday, Mason Randall!

Christmas Is Coming!

2011-12-01T22:36:00.000-06:00

The Christmas season is upon us, and I love the Spirit of Christmas. No Scrooge's are allow in my house. So. . . . . . Let the decorating for Christmas begin!

Step 1: the spiral trees in the front of the house (We need snow to cover the planters or I will be sending Jason to the store for another strand of lights for the tree on the right).

Step 2: plant the deer in the front yard (Thank you Jason!)

This weekend decking the halls continues inside!

Mason's First Food

2011-11-30T21:30:00.001-06:00

Next week Mason will be 6 months old....a 1/2 of a year gone by so quickly. It is the time to start eating cereal and baby food. I have been patiently waiting for signs that he is ready. The last couple of weeks Mason appetite has increased, and he has been nursing so often, he has made my supply noticeably increase. He is also beginning to put things in his mouth. Both signs that he is ready, or is he? For the last week we have been giving baby rice cereal and oatmeal, both were major fails, lots of spitting out of foods, swift turning of his head, oh and that the look of betrayal. Its that look that breaks my heart, I am doing this to help you grow little one, not to make you miserable, I promise.

Yep, this looks like some who is not found of baby cereal. So instead of continuing on with cereal which he definitely not a fan of we will move onto squash, carrots, and sweet potatoes. I hope he likes those a bit more.

Tea Party

2011-11-29T13:48:00.000-06:00

The other morning I heard Norah playing in her room, it sounded like she was having a tea party. When I walked into the room and saw this.....

....what kind tea party is this spunky little 2 year old having?

She gave me a look, older than her years, saying "Mom, leave me alone!"

She continued on talking to her friends on her phone. With all that money on the table, I wonder if she placing some bets, like Wisconsin will return to the Rose Bowl and the Packers will be making another Superbowl appearance :)

She poured herself some tea, then decide to have a bit more.

Then offered an invitation to sit down and have some tea with her. I was honored and couldn't refuse.

I had to sit down with my little lady and find out all the current gossip, after all I had just worked all weekend. I hope years from now we are still having our fun little tea parties.

One Size Fits All

2011-11-22T12:17:00.005-06:00

It's official Mason is in Size 3 diapers, which happens to be the same size Norah wears. Now that we only have to buy one size I feel like we are saving money, but I know that is not the case. It just means that Norah is safe from being put in a size 2 diaper. I found myself often putting a size 2 diaper on Norah, sometimes not realizing that I had done it until the next diaper change.

Now the race is on to see who hits size 4 first.....

Long Shorts

2011-11-11T13:54:00.001-06:00

As the first snowflakes of the fall came down, Grant came into the living room carrying his corduroy pants.

"Mommy I'm going to wear these long shorts today." ~Grant

Return of the Paci

2011-11-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

A month ago while we were in St. Louis, Norah threw her pacifier in the garbage. We had been working with her, encouraging her that when she was ready to get rid of her paci and be a big girl.She could give them to Mason or throw them away. She was aware of the decision she made, she told us she was a big girl and didn't want to share her paci with Mason. She's a smart one.

Well we went with it. No paci led to screaming and tears with naps and bedtime. It also took away full nights of sleep, with Norah waking up in the middle of the night, yelling out "all done sleeping." She would look at Mason's paci longingly, often stealing it and caught throwing his paci away a few times. Jason and I stood firm, we were not going to cave.

Here we are a month later, sleep deprived and watching Norah developing terrible sleeping habits. What we decided the weekend when Norah was put to bed at 8pm, awake from 10:30pm to midnight and then up at 4am, was that it's just a pacifier. If this is what she needs for know to help her cope she can have it.

It was like reuniting her with her best friend, she was happy, oh so happy to have her paci back and sleep has returned, Thank Goodness!

The new paci rules are that Norah only gets her paci in her bed with naps and bedtime. She can't steal Mason's paci during the day otherwise she gets a time out. Let's hope sleeping through the night has returned.

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

Grant was a Rocketship! He would BlastOff (count down and sound effects included) and run to the next house.

Our little Norah Bug! She used her walker to get to the end of the block and then preferred to be carried after that and had the cutest Thank you as people would drop candy into her pumpkin.

Mason was our little Fireman! A few weeks ago, a friend gave us the perfect accessory for his costume, just checkout his pacifier.

Jason joined in the fun wearing his fun new hat and beard. The kids love getting "mustache kisses" from their daddy when he's wearing this hat.

We walked down to the end of the block and back up the other side of the street, but the kids just wanted to go home and pass out the candy. So we turned on the porch light and sat on the front stairs passing out lots of treats, by far Grant's favorite part of the evening.

Fall Photos

2011-10-28T15:46:00.000-05:00

As promised, I have some fall photos to share. There's a whole lot of cuteness coming your way right now.

Now off to go get ready for our Halloween Fun tonight!

Dino-riffic!

2011-10-24T13:34:00.000-05:00

A new hat for Grant, made with love by his mommy!

Yes, I straightened the curtain after I took the first picture and realized that it was all wonky (We were busy watching the street sweeper pick up leaves this morning). Then Grant being a spunky 3 year old is really into sitting still for pictures these days, so these two pictures is what he gave me. He does love his hat already, he told me so. :)

Norah Picks Her Outfit

2011-10-24T13:16:00.000-05:00

This morning as I was nursing Mason, I sent Grant to his room to get dressed, then I asked Norah to go pick out some clothes for the day. I didn't fully expect her to do it, but it was worth a shot to see what happened, right? So off she crawls to her room smiling and saying "all right mommy." I smile listening to her, she moved the step stool to her dresser. I hear the drawer open, I can imagine her peering into her drawer from the side. A couple minutes pass, I am now making smiley face with Mason, he's happy now, a full tummy will do that. Norah emerges from her room, this time scooting forward on her "bootie" and carrying a skirt and a cardigan. I smile in the success of this and praise her. Then I tell her she needs to find a shirt to wear under her cardigan. She leaves the clothes on the floor and quickly turns and crawls back into her bedroom. I begin to wonder what shirt she'll bring, knowing that the shirt that goes with her skirt is in the hamper. Again I listen to the sounds of her hunt for a shirt. I remind her she needs to find a shirt, the I hear "Probably, probably. . . . . . .this one!" Out from her room she comes quickly, I smile she did find a shirt. I helped Norah get dressed and told her she really needed to find a pair of tights to finish her look. We walked back into the bedroom one last time and opened her drawer, she immediately grabbed her purple tights. Perfect, don't you agree.

It inspired a fall phote shoot in our back yard . . . . . . . . . . more pictures from that later this week.

Happy Birthday, Jason!

2011-10-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

Monday we celebrated Jason's birthday.

Yes there was a cake.

Follow by a gift I found for Jason on Etsy, what do you think? I can't wait for the first snow fall and see Jason going down the sidewalk sporting this hat.

Then the kids gave there Daddy a gift they worked on all week. Grant loved helping paint the canvas' and Norah kept trying to peek at them. Look at the corner of Norah's you can see a faint hand print that Norah left after checking on them after finishing one of the layers of paint. Then there is Mason's hand print, let's just say I am redoing his again to see if we can get it to look like and actually hand.

Happy Birthday, Jason! I am so thankful to have you as my husband & love getting to celebrate you.

Corn Maze

2011-10-18T01:51:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we welcomed fall by visiting a corn maze. I love going through corn mazes, and could have spent all day getting lost. However, this time the practical mommy in me said that I must keep us on the route to finish because you never know when Grant will have to go to the bathroom or Mason will demand to eat. So in order to navigate the maze the best, there were also "cornumdrums" to answer, it added some fun and learning to our outing.

It is always a hard decision to leave Norah's walker behind because she loves her independence with it. With the uneven terrain of the corn maze, we decided to leave it this time. She asked to walk and happily grabbed onto Jason's hand to walk with him down the path. My heart melted as the went down the path hand in hand.

We had so much fun navigating our way through the maze. Also, there was no shortage of painted plywood scenes to take you picture in.

Happy Fall!

72 hours later!

2011-10-08T20:45:00.000-05:00

This morning at 9:30 am Norah and I had a date to remove all that EEG stuff.

Let's just say it was easier to keep her happy when the electrodes were being placed than when I was taking them out. If I believed in karma I would say this is payback for all the patients I have left EKG patches on in the past. I dislike taking them off my patients, it causes them pain and I don't like to inflict pain on my patients.So while the pictures depict a happy little girl, let me tell you it was noisy in our house, because on top of Norah letting me know she dislikes the removing of the EEG, Mason was reminding me it was time for him to eat.

Norah did great with her EEG, there was just a couple times very she showed signs that she wanted to take it off. She liked to show off her backpack she had to wear (I might just have to go find her a cute little backpack now). While I think it's great she didn't have any of her episodes, if she is going to have them it would be nice to have one while wearing the get up. So here we are with everything packed up and ready to drop off on Monday to have it read.

Too Young For Facial Hair?

2011-10-06T22:13:00.000-05:00

Jason recently added the GEICO BroStache App to his phone, let's just say the kids, especially Grant, love playing with it.

Continuous EEG

2011-10-05T22:17:00.000-05:00

For the next 72 hours, this is the look Norah is sporting.

A little fuzzy I know, but that smile melts my heart.

Norah is undergoing a continuous EEG to see if there is abnormal brain activity that may be causing some of her episodes (remember those ones that we started experiencing about 9 months ago with the tired days, head frequently on the ground, followed by vomiting, irritability and a sleepy girl). I am frustrated with the medical system that is so far behind. We had to find a new neurologist, because our old one left. The hospital was treating Norah as a new patient thus delaying her care. Had we been able to have this done back in April and May when Norah's symptoms were at their peak, it may have proved to be more helpful. Lately, Norah's "off" days seem to be further apart between episodes and for that I am thankful.

Hiding under her scarf are 20 electrodes that are hookup to the recorder in her backpack.
Thankful we are able to do this from home instead of at the hospital.

If I had to go with my gut I think Norah either has slit ventricle syndrome (SVS) or is experiencing migraines. Getting a doctor to diagnosis SVS is difficult, and treatment for migraines is someone as young as Norah is giving her a daily medication to see if we see a change. There are two options for medications, the first is an antihistamine and the other a beta blocker. I vote for no medications at this point, or seeking out an alternative therapy. Hmm, lots of thoughts swimming around, so will stop there tonight. Hopefully, I will find Norah with all her electrodes still attached in the morning.

Day 6 ~ City Museum

2011-10-05T14:08:00.000-05:00

Our last day.

Jason spent the morning taking his Microtik certifications while the kids "helped" me pack up our hotel room. Once we were packed up, I took the kids to Sonic for lunch and slushies while Jason was finishing his last test. Grant had been wanting to go to the City Museum. He had seen a brochure for it earlier in the week and kept asking everyday if he could go jump in the balls. By the pictures I knew this was not a place I could go navigate by myself (I was right). Jason and I decided we would spend the afternoon there before we headed home. It would mean a late night, but I was looking forward to including Jason in one of our outings especially after the previous night at the sculpture park.

The City Museum is a fun place to go explore and I would recommend it to anyone going to St. Louis. However, it could drive you nuts, a definite conversation about stranger danger and who to ask if you lose mom or dad is necessary. I would have loved to go with just Jason and have fun being a kid again without responsibilities. This place has tunnels, hidden passageways through the entire building - so cool! Slides are abundant and no shortage of things to spark your imagination.

Time to hit the road and head home.

Day 5 ~ Art Museum/Forest Park/Sculpture Park

2011-10-04T14:25:00.000-05:00

So today was an interesting-ly loooong day. After five days of being on the go, Grant and Norah are tired, Mason has developed a new habit of waking up once (or twice) in the middle of the night to nurse, and I am running low on some important good mommy attributes like upbeat energy and patience.

Grant and Norah slept in a little later so I looked at our choices of things to do then choose the art museum and a walk in forest park. A little culture then fun walking on the trail. The art museum is free to visit so if the kids didn't like it no money lost.

Well I have a feeling not many parent bring kids to the art museum because I witnessed a few employees near panic just watching me enter the museum. Grant and Norah were enjoying looking at the contemporary and modern paintings with me when we were told to step back from the painting, mind you we were already behind the line. Not to mention the unsolicited comments I received from other visitors of the museum. Including, your crazy, my kids are grown and I still would never let them in here, three young kids are not going to enjoy anything here. My favorite I must say was the employee who had asked me if we had been to the zoo yet. It was just down the hill and had free admission as well. This statement was filled with undertones of I think you should go now. So I walked around one more time just to drive them crazy. If my gut feeling was my kids could handle being in an art museum, I would not have come, trust me.

Grant and Norah were not interested in looking at the camera for a picture at all.

We headed out into Forest Park and let Grant roll down the hill in front of the museum while I pushed the stroller down, we meandered through the park and back around to the car.

Jason was back a little early so we headed over to the sculpture park for some more running around before we headed to dinner.

I found it appropriate that Norah was picking her nose while standing in a nose. Once again Mason enjoyed sneaking in a nap while we explored. It was nice to have Jason along as well, despite being with him on his business trip it felt like we barely saw him.

A Case of the Mondays

2011-10-03T14:03:00.000-05:00

The vacation post are being interrupted by a case of the Mondays.

“But he said to me, `My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

I tried to keep up with vacation posts. But blogger didn't agree with me Friday morning. Then a super fun day (more on that later this week) turned into a long drive home - 2am Saturday morning long. I was up by 5:15am, and working by 7am. I enjoyed being supermom last week, having it all together, being called a hero a couple times, often hearing I was insane or crazy by the random people we met during our adventure.

Now the house is a mess, there is at least five loads of laundry to tackle, dishes to do, meal planning and grocery shopping is beckoning.

Mason is 4 months today, celebrating by being incredibly fussy, which is very usually for my happy baby.

Norah is morning the loss of her paci, she threw it away in St. Louis. I intend to hold strong and not give it back, but trust me right now, I feel like walking back into her room and giving it back.

Grant thinks that everyday should now include a big outing like everyday held for him last week. Now I am trying to remind him the pleasure of enjoying our beautiful backyard on a spectacular fall day holds an adventure for him.

I want to get our house painted yesterday, but the painters I have contacted are less that helpful at returning phone calls and wanting money from us to do this job. If the house isn't painted this fall then we won't put the house on the market until next May at the earliest, I don't know if I can be patient for that.

Jason's job is wonderful for flexibility but it is also a newer business which brings and often comes with stress that we feel. I pray that it works itself out.

For me, I want to curl up on the coach, shut the outside world out for the day, catch up the happenings of the weekend by looking at FB, reading the news and watching the highlights of all the great Wisconsin sports I missed this weekend while taking care of patients. And while I love being a nurse, my job has been less than desirable recently.

Now to be me, I need to end this on a positive note, that I why my husband married me, or so he tells me. I am ultimately an optimists, I have to believe in the good of people. While often my job leaves me questioning this, I do believe things could just be so much worse, and am happy where I'm at right now. So I will now try and push my case of the Mondays aside and get to it. Hopefully the week will end with my parent visiting which will be wonderful. Now time to snuggle with my baby, this time is precious and fleeting.

This smile knows how to chase the Mondays away!

Day 4 ~ Zoo

2011-09-29T23:19:00.000-05:00

With all the things to choose to do I hesitated on the idea of heading to the zoo in St. Louis. We have a membership to the zoo in Milwaukee, so we often go to the zoo. But I also know Grant and Norah love the zoo, and Mason is happy to tag along anywhere, and with our zoo membership in Milwaukee there were perks to be had at the St. Louis zoo. So the zoo it was.

I did get a little lost on the was to the zoo, and I may have run a red light in my disorientation, but we made to the zoo safely. And as for the red light, we'll see if I get a ticket in the mail to prove it.

Once we arrived at the zoo, I found out the free admission is realative to if you can find somewhere nearby to park. But I happily paid to park near the zoo rather that walk a mile to park for free.

Our first stop inside the zoo was the children's area. A special area set aside with animals that you could pet, playground, and a building with activities for my little ones. I sure they would have been happy to spend most of our day in this area, but there was a big zoo to explore, so I made them move on.

We then found an elephant foutain. Grant was fasinated with the money in the water, so I dug out some coins. Then, all of us threw in our coin while making a wish.

We wondered through the zoo, until Grant had had enought, he loves trains and did not want to wait any longer to have to ride the ChooChoo. I was nervous, I had Mason fast asleep and I was worried moving him from the stroller to the train would wake him. Also we couldn't all sit together in one seat which meant I had to trust Norah and Grant to sit together in front of me. They did great, and the train ride was excellent.

Once we were done riding, we were off to find the elephants, along the way we found the hippos (best hippo habitat I've ever seen) and some other animals. Norah couldn't decide whether to walk to ride, so back and forth about ten times between her walker and the stroller I was nearing the end of my patients. So I bribed her with some juice and goldfish and she found that she was content to stay in the stroller for awhile. We were able to finally find those elephants, we even saw a baby elephant.

We moved onto the penguins. Grant declared the building was too cold and wanted outside. Hmm, does he know winter is on its' way and it will soon be that cold every day.

Norah and Mason decide it was time to nap again. Mason has been of like a bird in a cage all week. Sitting in the stroller I throw a blanket over him and he sleeps peacefully. As soon as the blanket is removed, he begins to squak.

Grant and I used naptime to finish explore the zoo and have some fun time for just the two of us.

We headed back to the hotel and Grant and Norah played some Angry Birds until Jason was done with work.

Day 3 ~ Magic House

2011-09-29T11:58:00.000-05:00

Well last night Grant stayed awake until 11pm. Eeeks, I was seriously concerned about what the day would hold with a kiddo that lost out on precious sleep. That is the drawback of staying in a hotel, too much excitement for a little one to sleep.

We were off to the Magic House, a children's museum, to play for the afternoon. I must say if I had to write a review for this place as a parent, it would not be good. If Grant was given the opportunity to review it he would say it was excellent, and demand to go there everyday. I had some of my first moments of frustration with what is considered accessible. Norah's walker was unable to get to many places, I even saw her get upset over not being able to get through a door with her walker. I was also told a few times that my kids were to young to play with an exhibit. A children's museum with age restrictions, seriously?

Review over, on to the good times of the day.

First up, a sand table, which Norah loved.

While Norah was busy with sand, Grant was busy pumping gas, climbing through netting and going down a slide.

Then there were small spaces to climb through.

A water table, my nightmare. Wet clothes, Norah drinking dirty water, potential falls from slipping on wet floors. Thankfully Norah attempted to drink the water after being warned which brought the water table fun to an end. I know, I'm no fun.

Then into the pretend play area. Grant and Norah loved this spot the most. Dress up and pretending to fix cars, go fishing, play house, make pizza, work in the nursery of the hospital...who wouldn't love this (again, accessibility was an issue here as well.

Then things got electrifying! Good thing we were done with the water.

Well let's see what else we can find...

...an adventure in Wonderland.

Then Big. Musical. Toys. This is just one of them; drop the balls at the top and listen to the music they make as they roll down.

We ended our day in the play area outside.

Off to Sonic for the slushies that were promised for behaving and listening to mom.

Day 2 ~ Botanical Gardens

2011-09-28T09:38:00.000-05:00

We are here to explore, and fall is one of my favorite seasons to be outdoors, despite my allergies trying to prevent it, so today we went to Missouri Botanical Gardens.
We started in a dome that Grant and Norah loved walking through, peeking over the bridge railings and trying to get into the waterfalls.

It lead to a tree house exhibit and a green screen to stand in front of and play. I was nervous about letting Norah stand on the box, so Grant being the helpful big brother he is held on to her...by her neck. If you look close you can see that he is trying hard to keep her up.

Outside we found an area that was especially for kids, but it had a separate entrance fee. We had only begun to scratch the surface so we skipped it this time (with kids of napping ages, time can be a limiting factor. Next time we come back we will definitely take time to check it out. Grant and Norah didn't realize they were missing anything, they were busy playing in a covered wagon and open carriage.

It was nearing snack time, so we found a great spot in the Chinese garden to read the book we brought, The Five Chinese Brothers.

Then we were off. Grant enjoyed all the drinking fountains around the gardens, and even perfected how to drink the water while we were there.

Norah was took a break from walking and found a spot on the stroller with Mason. Our stroller is definitely a big stroller, but what is necessary to keep three little ones together.

Norah found her second wind after awhile and was off and running with her walker. She was getting silly, at times walking on her tip toes, sometimes running, and sneaking in some duck walking occasionally.

We ended by the pools and it was time to find some lunch and find our hotel for some naps before daddy get done with his day.

Day 1 ~ The Arch

2011-09-27T17:25:00.001-05:00

After meeting a new friends, what's the next thing to do in St. Louis? The Gateway Arch, of coarse. It's what St. Louis is known for, right?

Jason and I headed down to the river front and the check out the Arch. Jason and I had stopped at the arch once before. It was six weeks after I had delivered Grant. My grandmother in Arkansas had passed away and we were driving down for her funeral. It was early spring, but it was a good spot to stop, stretch our legs and feed a hungry baby. Fast forward three and a half years, we've got two more kids in tow.

Playing on the stairs up to the arch. It made me nervous especially when you look over and find your son laying on the edge. So I did what any good mom would do - not panic, grab a quick picture of him, then quickly get over to him and tell him not to do that again.

Great start to our mini vacation.

IRL Hydro Friends ~ Tyler & Diane

2011-09-27T11:21:00.000-05:00

I love the Internet for the simple idea of people being able to share information and experiences. That is why I write this blog - for our family to know what we are up to so far away and to share our experience of raising kids in particular Norah who has hydrocephalus.

When we first learned that Norah had hydrocephalus we dove into the deep end of the pool researching as much as possible about what the future would hold for Norah. Well a lot of the medical sites shared the same general information. Then I came to the Fetal Hydrocephalus website, it was exactly what we needed. Real life information put together by a mom whose son was also living with hydrocephalus. On her website other families are allow to share their stories. A wonderful thing when there is such a wide range of how hydrocephalus could affect a person. Stories and experiences were read and I continue to follow many of the blogs that gave me hope in those first gloomy weeks. That is also where I met Tyler and his family, through Tyler's Trip.

When I decide we were traveling with Jason to St. Louis I dropped Diane a note asking her if they would have time to meet us at all this week. Diane is very busy these days on top of being Tyler's mom and keeping up with his busy schedule, she works full-time, is nearing the finish of building a new house to move into and is 8 months pregnant! I thought about not saying anything because I know how busy they are but after having the chance to meet other families this summer, I just couldn't let the oppertunity pass.

On Sunday, Diane and Tyler drove 2 hours to meet us and I couldn't be more grateful. Tyler has an infectious smile that makes you instantly fall in love with him, and Diane is completely genuine. Grant, Mason and Norah welcomed Tyler right away. Grant wanted to know where Tyler's bounce house was (he remembered seeing pictures from Tyler's birthday party this summer) and Norah got right in his face showing what it is going to be like having a little sister around. Mason even chimed in at times crying, letting Tyler know what having a baby around will be like.

We headed to Tilles Park which is completely accessible. Norah was able to take her walker everywhere with her, and Tyler was right behind in his chair. Or a few times Norah bumping into them trying to start a game of bumper cars. Norah and Tyler has fun swinging, in all of the pictures I took, Norah is not taking her eyes off Tyler. I think she thought it was pretty cool to see Tyler IRL instead of just on the computer screen. She was so comfortable with her new friends when she was done swinging, she grabbed Diane's hand and they took off walking. That's OK it gave me some prime time swinging with Tyler and playing catch with his famous football.

After grabbing some lunch, Diane came back with us to the hotel. I had a couple kids that still like to nap and were in need of sleep. Jason took the kids back to the room and Diane, Tyler, Mason and I sat in the hotel lobby and talked for couple more hours. I felt so comfortable talking with Diane and sharing our experiences. I felt like I was talking to a friend I hadn't seen in a while and we were catching up.

I do have to give a shout out to my husband, Jason. Thank you for taking the reigns of the kids so Diane and I could visit with Diane as much as possible. And a big thanks to Diane's husband, Travis, for loaning you family to us for the day. I hope you got lots of work done on the house, but next time we won't let you use that excuse :)

Turning Daddy's Business Trip Into a Mini Vacation

2011-09-26T17:37:00.000-05:00

This week Jason's work brought him to St. Louis. I started pondering the thought of staying at home with our three little ones. Well I love being home with our kids, I enjoy the part of the day when Jason is done with work and home to play with all of us. I started looking at what St. Louis has to offer, then I knew we were going with to explore. I figure that if we tagged along with him to St. Louis it would be a fun adventure for me and the kiddos, and not as lonely for Jason.

Here we are in St. Louis. I will try and share our adventure as it happens we'll the kids nap each day.

Well 2 out of 3 napping isn't bad, especially when Mason is giving the best smiles ever.

P.S Today we were featured on another blog - All Things. Julie is a mom of a lovely little girl who also has hydrocephalus, like Norah. To celebrate Hydrocephalus Awareness Month, she has been featuring stories of other families who has a child diagnosed with hydrocephalus. Click here to read all about it.

Walk-y, Walk-y, Walk-y (as Norah says)

2011-09-22T16:18:00.000-05:00

Post have been sporadic lately. Life is busy with three kids, 3 years and younger!! But a time out was called today, for today was momentous! Today Norah was walking in therapy. That's right, better yet I had the camera with us to record some of this real walking.

But this was a one time event today, she did it a second time.

And if that wasn't enough for you (it wasn't for me!!) here is Norah doing that walking thing again!!!

That's Emily in the vidoes with Norah, she's Norah's PT. Emily can get Norah to move, and we are thankful for her. While Norah isn't yet walking independently, after months of a plateau in gross motor skill development, the last two weeks she has made huge strides. Norah has been doing great the last few weeks, no off days, and we can see some great development taking place. I guess Mom knows best, the developmental team said to take a break, we pushed on and God is good!

A Walk to the Park

2011-09-16T15:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday while we were enjoying the nice fall weather, we headed out to the park. Norah asked to take her walk instead of go in the stroller. I have been reluctant to let Norah walk to the park with her walker for various reasons. The park is just over two blocks away and Norah's 2, even a typical two year old may not be able to walk that far, let alone with gross motor delays and a walker. If she couldn't make it that would leave me to carry her, push a stroller with Mason in it, and have to carry back her walker. All while trying to keep Grant with us too. Not really the situation I would like. BUT yesterday Jason was working at home, I was excited that Norah wanted to walk, so I thought I'd see how things would go. Jason was a quick phone call away for reinforcement if I needed help. Grant was just as excited for Norah to walk to the park as well, so he left his trike at home and walked with her. I'm so glad she has a big brother.

We made it to the park. And we had fun, chasing each other on the playground equipments, going up and down the slides, a game or two of tic tac toe, and swinging. Grant and Norah kept me busy on the swings. Grant would demand a push, while Norah was telling me to sit right here next to her and in circles I went keeping the both happy.

Mason slept through it all. I do love this park' besides the nice archways, it has a fun tree sculpture, you can frequently find people throwing a party for their dog their in the summer, and the yoga studio down the street holds class there in the summer.

I love how Grant likes to help Norah navigate with her walker. Everytime she hit a crack in the sidewalk he was there to help her out, so sweet.

A Hair Raising Experience

2011-09-15T22:33:00.000-05:00

Today was another fun Thursday morning at physical therapy. We ended the day with Norah and Grant going down the slide a playing in the ball pit.

Can you tell the weather changed this week? Back to dry air and static.

Mason ~ 3 Months

2011-09-13T15:33:00.000-05:00

I can't believe Mason is already 3 months old (OK, so it was officially last week, but life is even busier with three kids). I can't believe how much Mason has changed in just 3 months.

When Mason was born, Jason and I both remarked at how Mason didn't have eyelashes. Grant and Norah have beautiful eyelashes, they get compliments on them frequently. I thought oh bummer for Mason not to get to share in those beautiful lashes. Well, Mason has been busy growing some long eyelashes catching up to his siblings.

Mason's middle name is Randall, after my dad. We didn't realize how quickly he was going to take after him, but he has decided that bald look is in. All the beautiful brown hair he was born with has been falling out this last month. He does have one spot on the top of the back of his head the remains leaving him with a cute rooster tail.

Mason is growing so fast. The bouncer has already been put away. I have continued to put away those infant sizes and brought out 3 to 6 month clothes. Just look at how much more space he takes up in the swing. The first picture is from mid-July, and the second picture was taken just last week.

Mason is smiling. He loves to smile for his big brother and sister. Big happy smiles that make you fall in love with him. Mason has just begun to coo over the last couple weeks, and gave us his first giggles just a couple nights ago. We are happy to indulge him with lots of attention to get as many smiles and giggles as we can get.

Other things Mason is up to:

Tummy time is tolerated, sometimes by Mason just falling asleep on his tummy.
He is getting closer to rolling over. Jason and I have both been telling each other how far he gets to going over.
Mason has found his hands. He has banged toys that are hanging down near him, but no reaching for things yet. He biggest find is that fingers are great to suck on, he prefers his index and pointer, but really any he can get into he mouth are great. I have even woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of him chomping on his hand, then thought to myself maybe I should feed him before he really does eat those fingers.
I moved Mason from his cradle to a pack-n-play in our room. He seemed to fill up the cradle, and would get restless, but I wasn't ready to set up a crib for him away from us yet. In our bedroom he will stay for now.

Appointment Marathon

2011-09-09T22:17:00.000-05:00

Norah picking her ears with her toes, she's a silly girl!

Well we made it through Norah's marathon of appointments. Norah has been doing great the last couple of weeks so to go to all these appointments led to some frustrations. I wish these appointments actually happened when she was symptomatic but with specialist it takes time to get appointments and gives problems time to get worse or better. I'm glad Norah decided to go with the better. Here's a quick update on our little lady.

Tuesday - Developmental Appointment:

Norah is now excelling in all areas except for gross motor skills, impressing everyone at the appointment. Norah's language skills are most impressive, she's currently scored at 33 months for her expressive language and 26 months for her receptive language. Norah's cognitive and fine motor skills were skill between 24-26 months, just above her adjusted age of 24 months. That leaves her gross motor skill...set at 14 months. I'm OK with that number because I see Norah take steps in the right direction and she has a lot stacked against her with regards to her gross motor skills. Besides missing her corpus callosum and septum pellucidum, she also has a Chiari malformation, all that effect balance and coordination. Her team made great recommendations for ideas to help improving the areas she is excelling in but when it came to PT and helping her gross motor skills they said to take a break (really? take a break on the area that she's most behind in). This made me upset and frustrated, it was like they were giving up on Norah making improvements.This just doesn't make any sense to me. So we are going with my recommendation to continue PT and get Norah walking.

Wednesday - Orthodics Appointment

Since getting her SureSteps, Norah's feet have grown a full size (up until she got her braces she was wearing a size 3 what a 3-6 month old would wear) and made some changes. Her braces were starting to rub the insides of her feet and she was taking them off every chance she had, so adjusted they were. It was a quick appointment. The orthotist thinks she need a new pair by December so we made our next appointment for then, but we may be back before then.

Thursday - Neurology

Back in May, when Norah's episodes of vomiting and being off were peaking, neurosurgery referred us to see our neurologist. Well, our neurologist had left the hospital, we went unassigned and were told we would have to start again as a new patient. OK appointments were made and cancelled several times, so Norah's pediatrician referred us to a pediatric neurologist outside Children's hospital. I went with Norah. His recommendation was to do an at home EEG for 48 to 72 hours, just to make sure anythings abnormal was being missed, or not presenting in a typical manner. He thinks that Norah may be having migraines. He said because Norah is so young and can't describe what she is feeling on her off days that the only way to treat her is to start giving her medication to see if there is an improvement. I'm not sure if I'm on board with that yet, but I'm willing to do the EEG and start there. As for the medications, I'm not a fan of giving medications just to see or treat a symptom, so there will be a big discussion at our next appointment.

Friday - ENT

So today we started on the road to see why Norah isn't gaining weight and having difficulty chewing and swallowing foods. I really liked the ENT we saw (he graduated from Duke so it was a sign) and he was engaged with Norah. Norah will be having a swallow study in the next week or so and then we will followup to see if she needs an endoscopy as well. He did say he didn't think Norah's chiari malformation was necessarily causing the feeding issues.

So we survived a very intensive Norah week, because on top of that she also had a stellar day at therapy on Thursday. She did a great job with her speech therapist working on chewing and moving food around in her mouth. Then in PT she was taking some great steps independently (I'm working on get a good video of this, unfortunately she doesn't do this as well for Mom and Dad).

Also all her doctors remarked that looking at Norah on paper versus seeing and interacting with her you would guess her to be the same person. The neurologist even said if he were to guess her age by listening to her talk he would think she was a 3 year old. Another observation they made is that she amazing adjusted to letting doctors examine her, no tears were had, but a very watchful and questioning look was given, letting them know not to cross any boundaries. They all enjoyed our delightful little girl.

***Also keep Norah's hydro friend Shelby in your prayers, she had a shunt revision this week. And Tiffany, I don't know why I can't leave comments on your blog and your email address doesn't work for me, but we were thinking of you this week.

Recovery to Recovered

2011-09-02T12:01:00.000-05:00

Getting rid of all those bracelets: one each for ID, Allergies, & Fall Risk

Norah has been recovering from her hernia repair. It hasn't slowed her down too much. The first couple days she was taking two or three naps during the day. Sometimes falling asleep while playing. But we couldn't keep her down. She was crawling all over the house, and playing in the sand and water in the backyard. She only had a couple episodes of pain that she expressed to us, and that was in the first 36 hours after surgery.

Post Op Day 3 (looks much better already (Kids are quick to heal))

Once was after she started poking at her belly button incision trying to get through the steri strips. Any onesie style outfit has been big in our house this week to keep Norah away from her incision. We changed her diaper a bit more frequently since her groin incision was glued, wanting to keep it clean and infection free. I was surprise how quickly she was up and going again, kids are truly amazing.

Thank you everyone for your prayers that Norah's surgery went well and for her recovery. As you can see she's back to her silly self :)

Hydrocephalus Awareness Month

2011-09-01T14:28:00.000-05:00

Welocome to September! This is Hydrocephalus Awareness Month.

Facts about Hydrocephalus:

•1 million people have hydrocephalus in the US.

•There are 180 different causes.

•There is no cure and very little research. The NIH spends 60 cents per person with hydrocephalus per year compared to $300 per person per year with Juvenile Diabetes though the prevalence of the disease is the same.

•The standard treatment, a shunt, was developed in 1952 and has a 50% failure rate after just two years which is the reason so many have to have multiple brain surgeries just to stay alive.

•60% of children with hydrocephalus are not independent as adults and require assistance.

•50% of children with hydrocephalus score 80 or below on standardized intelligence tests.

•It costs the United States $1 billion per year in health care costs to treat hydrocephalus.

Norah asks you help her raise awareness for hydrocephalus.

Back to Work

2011-08-31T02:00:00.001-05:00

All good things must come to an end - 12 weeks have passed and today I have to return to work :(

This is the longest maternity leave I have ever taken, and am glad I was able to do it. I am blessed to be in a situation where I only have to work part time, but right now I feel like part time is still going to be too much time away from my beautiful babies (Grant tells me he's a big boy, but I tell him he'll always be my baby). I work as a registered nurse, which is great because of the flexiblity of my hours and the variety of different things I could do, for now it's working in an emergency department. So today I will wake up early, and head off to work where electronic charting has been introduced since I left, as well as a change in management. Coworkers have left and new ones have come. I will be anxious, finding my way again and having my little munchins on my mind at the same time. This will all make the day long. I will be happy to be home at the end of the day.

Charlie

2011-08-29T14:47:00.000-05:00

Charlie is our Cockapoo that Jason and I brought home the week of Christmas of 2004. We had been married a year and half, I had wanted a dog since we bought our house a year earlier. We loved Charlie from our first day meeting him and getting first pick of the liter. We even made birth announcements for him, oh yeah we did. Charlie was our baby, we bought him super expensive dog food, made him treats from scratch, made sure he had the best bed a dog could have (a memory foam mattress with a down blanket). We went to dog training classes, we spent afternoons at the dog park and his haircuts were more expensive than mine. We were able to teach Charlie how to ring a bell when he wanted to go outside. Charlie would cuddle up with stuffed animals, and did what we called pawpaw them, it was the cutest.

A few months before Grant was born, Jason and I were watching Save the Last Dance, and the scene were they are sitting in the clinic and the baby is crying, Charlie started howling. Full on howl, he was being completely sympathetic to the baby, it was so cute. It was so cute until we brought home an infant that cried, and there was no place to escape. Well, the older Grant became there were less and less crying fits and Charlie's howling also became less and less. I would go for walks pushing the stroller with one hand and holding on to Charlie's leash in the other. Grant loved Charlie just as much as Jason and I did.

Here's a video of Charlie howling while Mason is crying.

Then Norah came along. The howling returned to being an everyday, multiple times a day thing, and Charlie's rank in our house dropped as well. Charlie began spending more time outside, up or downstairs, anywhere but where crying babies were not. In the midst of all this, there was a day when Charlie bit Jason. This made us worry, are the kids safe to be around Charlie. I would have so guilty if I would let my kids become hurt by our dog. More separation was made between Grant, Norah and Charlie. Long conversations were had and places were sought out where we could send Charlie or give him up. My heart ached at the thought, Charlie was part of our family. I would never give up on my children, so why do I think I can just go give someone my dog. In the end Charlie stayed, Grant and Norah continued to grow, a watchful eye was always kept on Charlie and it was fun to watch the kids bond with him. Grant and Norah would ask for a kiss or shake his paw or play fetch, and Charlie loved it.

Once Mason arrived in June, Charlie instantly reverted back to his howling. This time you could see him becoming depressed at the situation. Jason and I decided the stress that we were feeling, was also shared by Charlie. It was time to pray about what to do and work harder at fining a solution.
A month ago, Charlie went to spend a week with someone who was looking for a dog. We agreed that if things did not work out we would take Charlie back. I haven't seen Charlie since that day. We could go and see Charlie if we would like, but I don't think my emotions could handle it at this point. I hear that he is happy, getting to go for two walks a day and being spoiled. I am happy to hear he is adjusting to his new home, and that it has worked out so well.

This had been hard, I miss Charlie. He did a great job protecting our house, and there is nothing like the unconditional love that a dog has for you. Dogs have a great sixth sense, able to sense your feelings and are always there when you need them. It is hard when the kids ask about Charlie. We are adjusting to life as former dog owners. As Jason puts it, "I miss Charlie, but I don't miss Charlie more." The stress that would come over us when one of the kids would cry and the howling that would follow was overwhelming. I know some people would think that we did the unthinkable. I think that we did the best for all of us, we are all is a better place now.

Angry Bird

2011-08-28T19:13:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago Jason started playing Angry Birds on his phone, which led to Grant playing Angry Birds on his phone, which led to the Chrome version of Angry Birds being downloaded to our TV/computer, which led to me being introduced to a highly additive game.... I think Angry Birds will need to be deleted (but not until all levels have 3 stars).

Then tonight I noticed Mason being attacked by an angry bird!!!

Ha! I just looked over to see the bird resting on Mason's head as he naps.

Bad Day!

2011-08-26T15:42:00.000-05:00

On Saturday I asked Grant to clean his room. A few minutes later I hear Grant crying to Jason...

Grant has cleaned his room, on his own several times in the past, sometimes without even being asked. So this went on, and on, and on. Then a few minutes later Norah started telling me this....

Oh my does she know how to copy her brother or what? I wish that this was as bad as days could get, wouldn't that be nice? I also agree with Grant, a Chai Tea Latte does help to make the day good. I hope you are having a good day :)

**By the way, their rooms were cleaned, followed by an afternoon of fun.

Neighborhood Bullies

2011-08-25T08:00:00.003-05:00

These birds are bullying the cute, pretty birds out of our yard and I want them gone!

All summer I have enjoyed the cardinals, sparrows and robins (also a few other varieties of birds I have no clue what they are called) play in our yard, bathe in the bird bath and let Grant chase after them. That was until these big bullies showed up a couple weeks ago. Now I see the birds try to fly into our yard only to have one of these big guys fly in behind it and keep them away. I miss the pretty birds.

This brave robin is one of the few birds I have seen this week, other that the bullies.

SureSteps

2011-08-24T21:48:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago these little braces made their way home with us. We have been working to get these approved by our insurance since the middle of March.

Norah has had no objection to wearing her braces, and occasionally I see her trying to put them on by herself. Then sometimes I find her taking them off or Grant taking them off (he's not a fan)...overall it's been good. I see more stability in Norah's walking now that she has the braces. She is able to talk five or so steps between Jason and I that are more controlled than ever before. At therapy the last couple of weeks she has been showing off even more taking steps like a pro. Since getting these it has also shown us that her balance and coordination are lacking more so than we had realized. This makes us wonder if her Chiari malformation is more problematic than previously thought to be, especially with the eating issues and vomiting. So now that those pesky hernias are repaired this is the next problem to tackle.

We went out and bought a new pair of shoes the match her cute little braces perfectly. I love how they just blend in with her socks and shoes. I have to credit Jason with the cute pattern on her braces, he went with her for the last sizing when they were ordered and picked out the pattern. Flowers and butterflies - super cute for our little girl.

Surgery Day for Norah

2011-08-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

Today Norah had her inguinal and umbilical hernias repaired. We have learned that with hydrocephalus hernias may come as well. Norah has a VP shunt, the tubing that is connected to her shunt ends in her abdomen. The CSF that drains into her abdomen causes increased pressure making her more susceptible to a hernia. Surgery is the only was to correct an inguinal hernia. It was important to get Norah's hernias repair sooner rather than later because we did not want her shunt tubing to get into the hernia, which is rare but can lead to bigger problems. While often an umbilical hernia in a toddler will go away on its' own, the increased pressure makes that unlikely for Norah, even though it is really small. As long as one was being fixed it was a good time to fix everything. Her surgeon was also going to look at the other side just to make sure there wasn't a defect or a small hernia already there. So this morning we left Grant at home with Jason's mom, who the kids call Mimi, and headed to the hospital with Norah and Mason. The hospital doesn't usually allow anyone under 18 into day surgery other than the patient, but they were great about letting Mason tag along. Norah knows that when we pull up to the hospital something for her is in store, she handles it in stride. Lately we've been there a lot, and she recognizes certain areas. Whenever we get close to the radiology department she starts to hyperventilate, and been those quick breaths she starts saying "I need stickers" over and over again. It makes me smile in the moment, she's trying to cope, but my heart breaks she should have to know hope to cope with such big things already. She shouldn't have to fear being held down for a test. Today was no different, I was amazed how Norah handled everything in stride, she and Mommy and Daddy are getting better at this going to the hospital thing, it has unfortunately become part of our life.

Playing in the waiting room once we arrived this morning.

Jason and I are mastering the art of keeping Norah preoccupied, protecting her from all the big scary things happening around her. Today is was making goofy faces, reading Princess Baby (over and over and over again) and playing angry birds on Daddy's phone before surgery.

Here's a video of Norah just before surgery and after the gave her versed to relax her and start the sedation process, she's pretty cute.

After surgery, as I walked into the recovery room Norah was very upset. She did not like waking up alone, she could not get up into my arms fast enough and I was elated to have her in them again. The was two attempts to set her down, one before walking from the recovery room back to day surgery, and one right before we were discharge, just getting near the bed and the thought of being set down would bring the tears and crying, so in our arms she stayed. Mason was also a trooper throughout the day, he had a sleepy day. He slept from the moment we arrived until Norah was in surgery. He woke up and nursed like a champ, had a near blow diaper then back to sleep until we were on our way home. Amazing.

Snuggles while we wait for our discharge instructions.

Tonight at home we kept things low key, brought home some take out for supper, and made a snuggle spot on the sofa. Grant was quick to notice the bandage on Norah's tummy and help bring Norah's attention to it as well, so we changed Norah into a onesie to keep it safely covered.

This was our happy little girl before bed....so happy she is!

I've never been so happy or ready to move after I have had surgery, she's something special!

Norah's Appointment Update

2011-08-17T21:12:00.000-05:00

I just asked Jason if he found today as exhausting as I did. He whole heartily agreed.

Monday Norah went for an upper GI xray. She had to go without eating until the xray was over which left us with a little girl begging for her pediasure. We went to a radiology clinic that was free standing from the hospital and closer to our house. I went in the back entrance, which was a bit of a mistake. As soon as we walked through the door, Norah saw all the different radiology rooms and began to hyperventilate. Between her breaths she was saying "I need a sticker." Over and over again. I think this little girl has been help down one two many times and been given stickers to soothe her in the situation. She put up fight for the xray but we were able to get her to drink enough of the barium while under the fluoroscope to get the pictures needed. The report shows some mild reflux, but no structural problems. Good news, but doesn't necessarily explain why she's coughing while eating, and why her chewing skills are poor.

Today was our second day this week where Norah had to go without anything to eat since the night before. This morning she went for a MRI of her head and spine which she had to be sedated for. It was to check on her hydrocephalus, to see how her shunt and ventricles look, to look at the chiari malformation and to look at a possible syrinx in her spine. Norah started things off with a bang. She got a little over sedated initially, and kept desaturating (where your oxygen level drops) so about the time they bring up intubating her, she decided that was enough fun and began to cooperate. I must say this was the first time that we went and her IV was started with only one poke. Usually it take five, six or sometime eight to get her little veins to cooperate. I was thankful for the one poke. Norah also woke up quickly from her sedation, which was a nice change from our previous experiences.

We meet with a new neurosurgeon to the group of neurosurgeons that Norah sees. Initially I was leery to see yet another neurosurgeon. I feel comfortable, or as comfortable as you can get with the person that has to cut into your daughter's brain, with her neurosurgeon. So I wasn't sure about this, especially after researching a bit and finding out he had just finished his fellowship. In the end with all the symptoms and changes we had scene in Norah since her last formal visit in February it was important to be seen sooner rather than waiting a month to see her regular neurosurgeon. I also had a couple conversations with one of the PA's that work with the neurosurgeons that helped in making our decision. I thought this neurosurgeon was personable. He spent time talking to us. We reviewed Norah's MRI together and he pointed out different things. We discussed her slit ventricles and what that meant for Norah, giving us more understanding. Conversation was had about her Chiari malformation, it was a what came first conversation, the chicken or the egg? Or in this case, the chiari or the hydrocephalus? This lead to discussion about Norah symptoms and how they fit into all of this. Wheww! All this while Norah kept wanting to climb up on the chair and exam table, and Mason had began to wake up wanting to eat.

So what now, you might be wondering? Norah's chiari is bigger. He thinks that the pressure in Norah's head may be higher that we can see because of her slit ventricles. That because she has slit ventricles they do not always expand back open when pressure is high, making it had to see a shunt failure or anything else happening. So on Friday, Norah will once again be without anything to eat to have yet another test. This one is called a Shunt-o-gram. I feel like it should come with a post card or some silly greeting with it. They check the flow of her shunt to see where things are going and how long it take for the CSF to move around and where it goes. Then we'll talk again with the neurosurgeon. There is a high possibility that when Norah is having surgery on Monday to repair her hernias she will have a programmable shunt placed. OH did I mention on Monday Norah will be having surgery to repair an inguinal hernia and a small umbilical hernia, she is. This sweet and precious little girl of ours sure is keeping us busy lately. That's all for now, sorry for the grammatical errors, I'm exashausted. Time for bed, tomorrow morning we have therapy to go to.

Norah playing with the oversized pants they gave
her this morning because she was cold.

The Domes

2011-08-14T07:00:00.001-05:00

I have lived in the Milwaukee area for 9 years this fall and have never gone to the domes. Yet as I drive to work I can see them in a distance, and I usually think "I need to go check those out." It has always looked like a good place to go exploring. I have had planned playdates to meet up there in the past that have been cancelled because of sick kids or bad Wisconsin winter weather. I finally made it there. Jason and I packed the kids in the car last week and went to the domes.

There was a savenger hunt activity to complete while we were there. Honestly I don't know who had more fun finding this hidden objects.

We had fun. It was just the right size to let Grant and Norah explore and not too busy.

Water Fight!

2011-08-09T19:54:00.000-05:00

What else do you do on a hot summer day?

Norah loves playing at the sand and water table.

I loved how Grant was able to sneak up on Jason and spray him. Grant was so proud of himself. Norah didn't want to let go of her water gun once she had it.

I love spending time in our backyard.

Oh Norah...

2011-08-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

I am worried about Norah. While I worry about Norah every day, this worry is different.

Today we saw Norah's pediatrician and shared with him all of our concerns about Norah that have developed over the summer. How things have emerged that previously haven't been a problem before or have gone unnoticed because she was an infant. Some things just aren't as noticeable until your get to the point where a child should be able to do it without difficulty or can tell you it's different than the norm. I am not willing to sit around letting little things turn into big things, or to see Norah lose progress and abilities she has previously been able to do.

Our pediatrician listened to all of our concerns, really listened, probably got behind seeing other patients because we discussed and reviewed everything listening. He referred us to new doctors, who practice outside of the children's hospital but are still affiliated if Norah was to need inpatient care. He said that he has seen some of these doctors for his own kids, that makes me feel better. I left his office with a plan and feeling better about my concerns.

The plan, call the neurosurgery team and relay all the concerns, stressing Norah's appointment should not be delayed for another month. (It was cancelled and no appointments were available until the end of September). They agreed with all of our concerns so Norah's MRI for next week is still on with appointment to follow after she wakes up from the sedation (amazing how that appointment reopened). Meanwhile, Norah will have an upper GI x ray to see what kind of swallowing problems, if any can be detected. An appointment with an ENT is also being scheduled to see if Norah's tonsils and adenoids are causing problems. We were able to make an appointment with a new neurologist. Norah's weight continues to be below the 3rd percent. Bless him for not using the statement failure to thive. She drinks two Pediasures a day to help gain weight and will continue to do that for now, with a weight check in four months. We are also contacting a new feeding clinic for additional help with eating behaviors and weight gain. Norah is also going to the eye doctor this week to check on her vision. I am sure there is more but for now that's what is on my mind after I spent lots of time on the phone making appointments and speaking with doctors this afternoon. All this while trying to set up some training at work so I can keep my job as a nurse and return to work in a couple weeks.

I feel like we were able to find a nice place this last year - Norah was healthy and thriving, making slow and steady progress. Then since late spring things have been building and I feel like now I'm sitting on an active volcano about to blow.

For now this is a verse that I turned to while I was pregnant with Norah and am using to remind myself to put that worry away.

Philippians 4:6-7: Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Please keep Norah in your prayers as we head into lots of appointments in the next couple of weeks, as well as surgery to repair her hernias.

Batting Practice!

2011-08-07T22:16:00.001-05:00

Not only is the sprinkler good for cooling off on hot summer days. It also works well as a tee for batting practice. Grant loves taking a swing!

Evening Concerts in the Park

2011-08-07T21:46:00.000-05:00

I love summer and one thing that there is plenty of around here is concerts in the park. It fun to go as a family, listen to good music as we eat dinner. Then the kids run around playing while Jason and I can relax and enjoy the music. This particular evening it was swing music that was lovely.

It's best if we can bring a picnic dinner, but sometimes that doesn't always work out and that's why it's nice that all of these concerts have food vendors. If they weren't there we wouldn't have made it this evening.

This week I think we'll tackle downtown and go to Jazz in the Park, I just have to Jason to agree now.

Is it Monday yet?

2011-08-05T10:47:00.000-05:00

Well the last couple of months Norah has kept us on our toes. Jason and I have just felt more anxious and worried about her overall health. We haven't had any episodes of vomiting, but we have seen changes in her activites and behavior.

Norah continues to be underweight. She currently is weighing in at 20 pounds. In May she weighed 18.5 pounds, and we started giving Norah Pediasure twice a day. Our goal was to have Norah gain weight, hopefully helping her grow and increase endurance. Norah tires out quickly if we do any activity that requires moving around, or using her walker. On therapy days, she is wore out for the rest of the day after a busy morning of working with her speech and physical therapist.

This last month Norah seems to have hit a plateau or even slightly regressing on progress made previously on chewing foods. She has begun to grimace occasionally when swallowing. She has also developed a crackling cough, it's not there all the time but when it does come it's usually after eating. She sometimes has a soft scratchy voice with this. We are wondering if she is beginning to aspirate.

While Norah has made good progress on her cruising and walking skills she cannot stand or walk independently. Occasionally she will tease us with a good 5 second stand or standing up with a couple steps to follow. She loves to walk, holding on to our hand and has since last spring. This last month her coordination with the ability to do this has worsened. Not significantly but enough for us to notice and her physical therapist.
Norah had an eye appointment next week. Since our appointment to the neurologist keeps getting cancelled we at least can find out if some of her usually behaviour is related to visual problems. She has mild strabismus, where her eye don't move together. We are also wondering if she is color blind.

Norah continues to "off" days where she just isn't her happy, smiling, talk your ear off self. They make me worry about this precious girl that is my daughter. My heart is heavy with worry, wondering if I'm missing something or am I stressing over nothing. I ponder many questions in my head; Could her Chiari be worsening? Could her tonsils and adenoids be to big causing difficulty swallowing? Is she just trying to be a normal 2 year old? Could her hernia just be bugging her and making walking more difficult? So many questions I wish I could turn my mind off sometimes.

Monday is Norah's 2 year check up with our pediatrician, the one who helps to reassure me with my concerns or is instrumental in getting us the help we need when things change. I had multiple appointments schedule for all of Norah doctor's this month. However many of her doctors have cancelled appointments scheduling them for September. I'm hoping that either our pediatrician will calm my fears and worries, or help to contact her doctors to open up an appointment for us. I have written a letter to the hospital sharing my frustration but am also wondering do we need to seek out care for Norah somewhere else. I pray for guidance on this road. Monday, will it come soon, can I plan enough activities for our family to distract me in the mean time? Will Monday come and leave me more questions and worry?

Mason is 2 months!

2011-08-04T00:32:00.000-05:00

2 months. 8 weeks. I feel like I blinked and here we are 2 months later.

Mason, you have already grown so much, today I tucked away the first outfit you have outgrown. I sure there will be a few more in the next couple weeks. You are growing so fast because you eat and sleep amazingly well. I appreciate your patience as I tend to your siblings and appreciate that you let me know when I have taken advantage of your patience. I love the beautiful smiles that you give while you sleep. Your first month you were such a noisy sleeper, but now you have found peaceful slumber, I'm not sure which one makes mommy more anxious. Yesterday you gave me you first on purpose smiles. It came in a two parts. First the left side of your mouth would turn up to smile, then a few seconds later the right side would follow. You are tolerant to the gently yet aggressive touches from your brother and sister, as they come to say "I love Mr. Mason" and to soothe you by given kisses or pushing your paci into your mouth. You are not to found of that paci, unlike your brother and sister (who still doesn't want to give it up), but you'll occasionally put up with it while I try to quickly finish a task. You have learned quickly to tag a long with us on play dates, therapy and doctors appointment. You usually sleep through the event, but if you do wake, you are wide eyed taking in the new surroundings. You don't mind spending time on your belly as long as mommy or daddy are right next to you making it fun. I still marvel at how much you love your bath time since that first bath. Never tears, you just want to sit and soak as long as mommy will let you. I sneak in as many snuggles and cuddles as I can, and you don't seem to mind, Thank you. Don't ever forget that I am always available for a snuggle if you need one. Love, Mom

Fun with Amish Friendship Bread

2011-08-02T07:30:00.001-05:00

While I was home over the 4th of July, one of my sisters sent me home with a starter bag of Amish friendship bread. I was happy to take it. It had been at least a year if not two since we last had a batch, and the bread is never a disappointment. If you've never had Amish Friendship Bread, here's the story. I wonder which keeps going longer, an batch of this bread or the energizer bunny? Well we made our first batch that was delicious, then I had the three batches to share. Well, with the new baby in the house and with Norah keeping us on our toes with lots of appointments right now, I ended up having two bags of starter left, that's enough for eight batches, I like this bread but that's 16 loaves of bread, let's not get crazy. I started to search for recipes that others have made with this mix and I was not disappointed with the variety of recipes I found. Here are two that we tried and tweaked that I had to share and with what was left I put in my freezer. I think that Jason will demand the struesel instead of just the bread from now on. Yup, it's that good.

Amish Friendship Brownies

In a bowl, combine and mix well:

1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup Amish Batter

In a separate bowl combine the following dry ingredients and mix well:

2 cups flour
1- 1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 box instant chocolate pudding
3 ½ Tbsp of cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup pecans or walnuts (optional)

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix and pour into well greased and sugared 12.5 x17.5 jelly roll pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Start to check after 25 minutes. Once cool frost with chocolate buttercream frosting.

Amish Friendship Streusel

This recipe is just following the basic recipe, it just making the streusal part and baking it that's different.

BASIC RECIPE:
To the balance (a little over one cup) of the batter, add the following ingredients and mix well.

1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

In a separate bowl combine the following dry ingredients and mix well:

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 - (5.1 oz) box instant vanilla pudding
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup walnut or pecans (optional)

Streusal Topping

1 stick butter at room temp
1 C packed brown sugar
1 C flour
cinnamon - as much or little as you like

Mix/cut the ingredients together.

Pour ½ of the batter into a greased and sugared 9 x13 glass baking dish. Top with ½ of streusel, then add remaining batter and finish with remaining streusel. Bake as at 325 degrees for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean, start to check after 35 minutes.

Next time, I think we are going to try lemon poppy seed bread, I hope it's as good as these.

Play, play, play

2011-07-31T19:47:00.000-05:00

A place where imaginative play is encouraged and loud noises are welcome, that is a place for us. Betty Brinn Children's Museum is where we headed to celebrate Norah's birthday. Much fun was had by the birthday girl and her big brother, as well Jason's parents and his brother's family.

What a fun afternoon!

Updates

2011-07-25T23:32:00.000-05:00

I had a couple of posts planned for this last week but life with three kids has meant to go with the flow (or sometimes, roll with the punches). So for now I'll give some quick updates.

Norah decided to finish out her birthday in true style. Just before bedtime Norah crawled into the bathroom after pulling off her shorts and leaving her diaper behind to attempt to use the toilet. She continues to show some interest in potty training but we aren't pushing it. I was sitting in the family room nursing Mason when I heard her crawling onto her potty chair, followed by a crash. I'm not sure how she fell but as soon as Jason found her sitting next to the toilet and as soon as he picked her up it was apparent we had a problem. When Norah fell, she developed a hernia. She was seen in the ER and next week will see a surgeon to plan surgery (hopefully while I'm still on maternity leave). Until then we are watching it closely to make sure it doesn't cause any problems.
Mason is 7 weeks, time is flying by. I can't believe how quickly he is growing and changing. This week, he has given me the gift of sleep. He learned that sleeping 6 to 7 hours straight is a good thing. In return of this gift of sleep, Mason has become a bit more demanding during the day. He likes to eat every two hours and if he's awake, his preferred spot is in Mommy's arms. We compromised the last couple of days with a sling.
Grant amazes me with all the changes he has made since turning 3. He is a boy that likes to stay busy, busy, busy. If we can't keep him busy, he find his own projects. This last weekend, he did a great job keeping up on task as we worked to clean up the landscaping around the house and work on some projects in the house. He has taken to his roll as big brother, being helpful to entertain his little brother or help Norah reach something. Currently he would like to start changing his siblings diapers for me, while I would love the break from stinky diapers, I think I'll keep that task for myself or Jason for now. I do love his enthusiasm though.
Jason's company was given a new contract to start on this last week that brings us some peace and decreased stress of unknowns of job stability. We are hopeful that this will continue. We would really like to sell our house, and buy a new home. While Norah is doing far more with her development than we were ever given hope for, her gross motor skills have us concerned. Norah is currently walking with a walker, a walker that doesn't fit a couple doors in our house, including the bathroom and we have lots of stairs in our house. We don't know how long Norah will need a walker for, a year or a lifetime, we would like to a house that she is able to move around in.
As for me, I'm trying to soak in all this wonderful family time I have been able to have while home on maternity leave. I have truly enjoyed this time with my family. This last week I have started to tackle some deep cleaning and organizing that I put off while I was pregnant. It feels good to sort through things, put them in the right spot and get rid things that we just don't need.
Last is Charlie, our beautiful Cockapoo that Jason and I have had for 6 1/2 years. We love our dog dearly and have had to come to terms that maybe it is time to find a new home for him. We learned that Charlie is extremely sensitive to babies crying when we had Grant. Every. time. a baby cries Charlie howls (and howls, and howls). He becomes very stressed by having a baby in the house (and we've had 3 in the last 3 years). We have been able to accommodate Charlie, but at times he has been aggressive. We would feel terrible if anything we to happen to our children because of him and feel that he deserved to be loved and spoiled something we currently cannot do since we have to keep him separate from the kids. This week he will be spending some time with another family to see if they would like to take Charlie. We pray that we are doing the right thing for Charlie and that this family will want to keep Charlie. I feel so torn about giving my dog to another family, but know that the stress we have been feeling isn't good for any of us.

Norah's Turning 2!!

2011-07-20T00:21:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Norah!!

Could two years really have gone by this quickly? What an amazing year it has been.

A year ago you had just began to sit unsupported. You weren't able to get yourself into a sitting position on your own, but would try hard. You could lay in a crunched position with your head and feet off the floor for 30 seconds at a time. We would tease you about your abs of steel. Now you can pull yourself to stand and are walking with a walker. You are just beginning to stand independently. You tease us with one good 5 to 10 second stand during therapy but as soon as we're home, you refuse. You have taught us that you will do things in your own way and in your own time, so we should be patient.

Last year we were just listening to our first 'mama' and 'dada' being called out with your sweet voice. This morning we woke up at 4:30am to you screaming "Mama. Dada. All done napping. Time for snuggles. Mama! All done napping!!" You have developed amazing language skills. You listen to us speaking and take your time repeating what we are saying. In the last month you have begun singing songs to us. Your favorite songs: You Are My Sunshine and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

You have found a fondness for your baby dolls. You love to feed your baby doll a bottle then sing them Rock a Bye Baby. You are very nurturing in you actions whether it be playing with you dolls or helping soothe you new baby brother, Mason. You crawl up next to him as soon as he begins to cry. You try to give him his pacifier and tell him "I know Mason, it's OK. It's OK Mason. Adododo-oo."

You keep us guessing with that shunt of yours. Since January you have had several episodes of vomiting and tiredness that make us very concerned. We haven't figure out what is causing it and why it comes and goes the way it does, but we will keep working hard to find answers. Eating has proven to also be an area of struggle so we are thankful that you love to drink your Pediasure. You like to tease us with taking a bite of food then spitting it back out 5 minutes later. But we having been working with a speech therapist to improve those chewing skills, sloooowly we have been making progress. You recently began taking bites from your food rather than making us cut it into little pieces.

You have develop your own way of manipulating us to get what you want. Whenever you aren't getting what you want, you turn to one of us and so sweetly and innocently say one simple word: snuggle. We gladly oblige, picking you up with a smile, happy to snuggle up with our sweet baby girl. Within seconds of us picking you up, you begin squirming to get down or over to want you were trying to get to. You leaving us shaking our head, thinking we fell for it again. A smart one you are.

We are proud to be your parents Norah! Happy Birthday Sweetie Pie! Love, Mom & Dad

The Ultimate Job Training - Becoming Norah's Mommy

2011-07-19T01:01:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow my baby girl turns two. I can't believe two years have past, but more I think about everything Norah has overcome, I feel blessed to be her Mommy. I think that God has an amazing thing going on down here on this Earth of ours. I pray to Him daily ask for his guidance for everything from strength, patience, understanding, acceptance, to help getting Grant to stay in his bed, for Norah's health and for Mason to sleep for at least 4 hours during the night. I ultimately know that everything comes in His time and prayers are not always answered exactly how I asked for them to be answered. For God has a plan for each of us and as I look back at the journey I have taken thus far and choices I made and know that His hands were working to mold and shape me to become Norah's mom.

My parents helped me to start on this path by teaching me about God and His amazing love. They encouraged me to participate in activities through our church, school, 4H and girl scouts. All of these lead to volunteering to help others often at nursing homes or group homes for those with developmental delays. Time was spent getting to others who may have been different from me, but had so much love to give.

When I was in high school, summers were spent working at summer camps that put on for kids in local communities with ADHD. If we hadn't spent endless time learning about this during training sessions I wouldn't have known that these kids were any different. I love spending time doing activities and playing games.

While in college I worked as a student athletic trainer, learning to be watchful during activities and how to help recover from injuries. I loved be involved with the athletes and learned how much goes into making collegiate athletes their best and the dedication that is involved from not only the athlete but also their coaches, teammates and trainers.

I spent two summers during those college years, working at summer camps. The first camp I worked at was Shetek Lutheran Bible Camp. One of the weeks was spent with campers with special needs, by far the best week of the summer. I learned alot that summer, and left wondering if I wanted to have my own kids someday. Being the person to watch over ten, 13 year old girls for a week would make anyone go a little crazy.

The other camp I went to work at was Camp Ronald McDonald at Eagle Lake. This place is amazing. Many different groups brought campers to this spectacular place including MDA and Easter Seals. The whole summer was spent working with a whole spectrum of people with special needs/concerns weather it be muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, autism to children who had been sexually assaulted. This was a big summer for me. I learned more about myself working here than at any other time in my life. I realized that I no longer wanted to pursue a career in dietetics. I also knew at the end of that summer I wanted to marry my now husband, but that wouldn't happen for two more years.

After that amazing summer, I had no idea what I wanted to do, other that marry the man I love. I finished my degree in dietetics, while also getting a new job working at a nursing home as a patient care assistant. My nutrition background did not go unused, it has served me well working with Norah and her difficulty gaining weight. But what next...what anyone would love to do, move back in with your mom and dad. Yup back to where I was four years prior. I did get the next job in this grand plan of His, preparing me.

Children's Care Hospital and Schools is an incredible place in Sioux Falls, SD. This is a place where special needs can come to live. I once heard it described as a nursing home for kids, and while I found that to be a sad statement because this place is amazing, it does help to begin to think about what this place does for kids. It was here I knew what was next, I wanted to become a nurse.

Back to school I went, excited about truly knowing what I wanted to do. During this time, is when I began working at the same hospital I still work at today. I worked my way up, starting as a patient care assistant, then as a nurse extern, until I became a Registered Nurse. I had even taken care of a couple patients with shunt failures prior to becoming pregnant with Norah. We see very few of those at the hospital I work at, and I was the one who was assigned to be their nurse, coincidence or all in His plan? You tell me.

Now I can spend a few moments, as I snuggle with my beautiful little girl, to wonder why God choose me to be Norah's mommy. I can now see it was always part of His plan. I feel blessed that He prepared me so well.

Discovering Grass

2011-07-18T18:34:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite first for all of our kids has been discovering grass. That first time they are gently placed in the bed of lush long green grass. Their face goes from being shocked from the new sensation to one of wonder, what is the long tickling stuff all around me. Last night I watched in amazement again as I laid Mason down in the grass. He enjoyed kicking his legs, and squirming around. He even reach out in attempt to take hold of it. I do believe he liked it. At least for 10 minutes then he wanted back to a place he prefers these days, in his mommy's arms.

Enjoying Millennium Park

2011-07-15T11:24:00.000-05:00

I thought I share some more pictures from last Saturday when we were in Chicago. We arrived early to the park in anticipation for the days' events. I didn't want to be late because of construction or the unpredictable Chicago traffic. While we waited for our friends to arrive, we had fun looking at ourselves in the large mirrored bean that sits in Millennium Park. It was so fun to see Grant and Norah discover their reflection. Norah took a little bit longer to discover her reflection but once she did she wanted to keep touching and give kissing it.

Once it was time for us to part ways with our new friends, we had to fulfill a promise to a very cute little boy who wanted to play in the fountain. It was such a gorgeous afternoon, we couldn't say no, and I came prepared with extra clothes for these 'just in case' moments. Norah liked to watch the water, but when it can to be near it and the possibility of getting wet she didn't want anything to do with it. Jason kept a watchful eye over Mason while capturing some good pictures of us stomping in the water.

Once we were wet, we strolled around the park drying off. We enjoyed the rest beautiful afternoon with our little family. Jason told me that he didn't think we were considered little anymore, now that we have three kids, but I disagree. It feels like we are still a little family so I'm stick with it.

Once Grant was spun until he couldn't walk straight and his picture was taken next to the 'Grant Park Music Fastival' Sign, and Norah had posed for a dozen pictures where she continues to 'pick nose' and Mason had taken a nap and ate again, we finally had to leave Millennium Park behind and head back to Wisconsin.

Making New Friends

2011-07-11T07:30:00.001-05:00

On Saturday our family had an amazing outing to Chicago, getting to meet to other wonderful families that each have a little girl that also has hydrocephalus. We first "met" these families through the internet. When I first learned of Norah's diagnosis of hydrocephalus I found the Fetal Hydrocephalus website that has a list of blogs kept by families that have children living with hydrocephalus. I read everyone of the blogs and stories listed looking for hope, and I found it. One of those blogs was The Beautiful Cayman Cindy, whose mother Kristen has an amazing talent for writing, photography and giving hope to someone like me.

All three moms holding their girls for snack time

I continue to belong to a couple of websites with message boards for families and people with hydrocephalus as well as check in the the fetal hydrocephalus website. Shortly after Norah had turned one I "met" Claire's parents who had just learned that their baby was diagnosed with hydrocephalus. It brought back all the raw emotions I felt when we had just learned of Norah's diagnosis. I wanted them to know I had been where they were and give them the same hope I had looked for while I was pregnant. They also began keeping an wonderful blog called Our Journey with Fetal Hydrocephalus.

This weekend we were privileged to get to spend the day with both of these families, and meet them in real life. It was a surreal feeling to be sitting next to the people that you have seen pictures of and written back and forth to but had never really met.

We spent time talking and playing in Millennium Park getting to know each other and share stories. I really enjoyed meeting both of these families and wished the day could have lasted longer. Now I'm looking forward to hopefully getting together again in the future and also meeting some of these other families who I've met through the Internet in person.

A Baseball Team & a Cheerleader

2011-07-10T17:02:00.000-05:00

That's what I heard my dad calling his nine grandsons and one granddaughter. I thought it was a cute way to described all of them.

4th of July Weekend Fun

2011-07-10T16:52:00.000-05:00

We spent the holiday weekend at my parent's cabin in Minnesota with all my sibling and their children. We are becoming quite the clan. We hadn't all been together since Christmas so it nice to see everyone and catch up.

Grant loved being outside weather it was sitting on Grandpa's riding lawn mower, playing in the sand or in the water.

Norah also loved the sand, but didn't want to explore the water. She was content to sit on the deck and play or watch over Mason.

Mason's schedule is still very much spent eating and sleeping, so as long as he was comfy, he was happy.

blogger has something against this pic & won't upload it correctly, grr

It was a wonderful family weekend! I just wish I could have seen the fireworks, but it was late and Norah was over tired and all Mason wanted to do was nurse. Oh well, maybe next year.

Double Baptism

2011-07-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

Train up your child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. ~Proverbs 22:6

While we were home over the 4th of July weekend, Mason was baptized along side his cousin Jack, who was born just a couple weeks before him. My dad had asked my sister and I to consider doing this since he would have a hard time finding coverage for his business to come to two separate baptisms where we each live. Since Mason's middle name is Randall after my dad, we felt that is was very important for him to be there. Unfortunately doing this 500 miles from where we live meant that Jason's family was unable to be there, and were missed.

Mason and Jack were able to be baptized by the same minister that married their parents. They were also baptism in the church I attended growing up and where Jason and I made our wedding vows. It truly was a special day.

Both of families and sponsors of Mason and Jack

Three Peanuts Stuffed in a Van

2011-07-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

We love getting to go visit my parents, and the kids love their Granny and Grandpa. However, this comes with a long road trip, one that is 500 miles. If we could drive without stops it would take us around eight hours to get there. Our increasing family has made 8 hours in the cars fade away. This last weekend for the 4th of July Holiday we traveled to Granny and Grandpa's lake house, it took us just over 12 hours to get there. Eight hours in a car is long enough, tacking on four more hours gets you a lot of "are we there yet?" from Grant while Norah pipes in saying "all done." Stops for nursing Mason, potty breaks for Grant, and getting out of the car to eat all added up despite trying to enough entertainment to occupy our little travel mates. Movies, Leapster video games, Tag Jr, books, baby dolls, snacks and singing did not take us as far as I had hoped.

Grant & Mason in the back seat, Grant loves sitting next to his little brother . He does a great job keeping him happy in his infant carrier.

Norah watches over her brothers from her middle seat.

Before we made the return trip home we wore out the kids as much as possible to see if we could knock some time off. It was successful because we were able to get home in just over 9 hours. We could have been home about a half hour less but Norah had a complete melt down after 6 hours in the van. We pulled over and calmed her down and we were off again. Mason was a complete trooper on the way home. He was going four hours between nursing sessions, and he would just sleep away in his car seat.

**We are also loving the new layout of the seats in the van. We put two car seats in the back allowing us to fold down one in the middle. This gives us a big space to work with, if it's raining outside we can get in to put the kids in their seats without getting drenched, there's a spot for Norah's walker and a good spot for a quick diaper change. **

First Bath

2011-06-28T12:31:00.001-05:00

Mason's first bath

Mason's belly button is finally healed. No more stump hanging off his belly and icky oozing, so it was time to head to the little blue tub that fits in the sink. Mason had been a little ornery all day and I thought a nice warm bath to end the day would hopefully get both of us some good intervals of sleep. Well Mason loved the idea as well. Grant's and Norah's first baths were filled with crying (maybe one would call it screaming) from start to finish. Not Mason, he soaked it all in falling asleep within the first minute. I was caught off gaurd. I was prepared to get his first bath picture, wash him and have him out with a couple minutes. Instead I let him enjoy the soak. He only began to make a sound when I drained his warm bath water, as to say "I'm not done yet, let me stay in longer."

Mason is happy to be clean, & I love that clean baby smell

Peaceful Slumber

2011-06-28T09:34:00.000-05:00

Mason, I can't help but try and capture some of these sweet moments of peaceful slumber. For I can already tell you are growing fast and won't be my snuggly little infant for long. Your sleep is often interrupted by your siblings who adore you and want to give you hugs and kisses, and letting you know that you are loved.

Salsa Pizza

2011-06-27T09:18:00.001-05:00

It's been awhile since I posted a recipe, I blame my pregnancy. I had little desire to cook while I was pregnant, many smells made me nauseous. The thought of handling raw meat, no thank you. Now that Mason has been here a couple weeks I been picking up the pace with wanting to cook and try new things again.

This is a quick meal to make and I love that Grant helped me makes these this time. I have been trying to find more easy recipes that he can help me out. To me, this is also more of summer meal. I believe it turns out best if you use the Boboli pizza crust.

The recipe -

1 Boboli Pizza Crust
Salsa (I like you fruit salsa, like pineapple)
Mozzarella Cheese, shredded
Grilled Chicken, cubed

Use as much or little as you like for your toppings, bake it in the oven, and then enjoy!!

**Please notice the flowers in the first picture. My wonderful husband gave those to me for our 8th Wedding Anniversary that we celebrated the day after Mason came home from the hospital. We had experienced a couple crazy days, so he thought it was appropriate to celebrate with crazy daisies. They brought me nearly three weeks of brightness and joy to my kitchen.This picture was taken as we were nearing the end of week two. Jason and I kept joking the lasted so long because of all the preservatives that must have been in the flower dye. Thank you Jason for being the love of my life and taking this amazing journey with me.

Norah Uses the Potty

2011-06-26T14:17:00.000-05:00

This last week Norah started telling us she wanted to go potty. We pulled out the toilet we had used with Grant and cleaned it up for Norah. We set in next to the fridge so it could be out in the open reminding her to use it.

I have to admit I though it would be a novelty, she would play with it and no potty action would be taking place for awhile. Norah like to prove me wrong. The next morning while I was making waffles for breakfast, she sat down on the chair with her pajamas on and saying "poop" and I was saying yup that's where you need to poop, not understanding she wanted to poop. A minute later, my yummy waffle smell was interrupted and Norah gave me a dirty look that screamed Yes Mom I wanted to poop on the potty. Whoops! A missed opportunity. A couple hours later, back next to the toilet was Norah asking to go potty. Success immediately, is it really going to be this easy with Norah??? That day with filled with five successful trip to on the potty, with only a wet diaper after her nap.

Norah has continued using the potty, we have a few trips a day with a wet diaper after naps and occasionally during the day. I know that it will be awhile before we are fully trained, we have a few things to hurdle. Potty training with a new baby isn't ideal, we have had a couple moments when I was in the middle of nursing Mason and Norah wanted to use the potty. I also haven't been able to find any underwear small enough to fit Norah so she continues to wear a diaper. At 23 months, Norah weighs in at 19 pounds, wearing size 12 month clothing. Norah is not able to stand independently or pull up her pants, so she needs someone with her every time she wants to go to the bathroom. All things we are working out, but will hinder our progress.

I am so proud of Norah's desire to want to be a big girl and use her potty chair, I hope she doesn't give up or get discouraged.

Rummage Sale Fun

2011-06-25T23:14:00.000-05:00

This morning all five of us piled into the minivan and headed out to find some deals. We had no set list just looking for a hidden treasure or fun things for the kids. I quickly learned how educational going to rummage sales can be with a three year old that asks what everything is or does, even if it looks exactly like the previous item. Example - we were at a church rummage and all the items were divided up by rooms, men's clothes, toys, electronics, holiday, etc. Grant learned about cassette tapes, TVs aren't always flat, that there are many types of candle holders, how to work a jack in the box toy, and so much more. I also have to give Grant kudos for his radar skills, I think he was able to spot every single flashlight for sale today. Norah was able to work on her color and counting skills today. She has been into bracelets lately, possibly because I wear bracelets when I nurse to remind me what side to start on. We found a box of bracelets, we talked about what color they were and she picked out five bracelets to bring home with her.

Norah sporting her new bracelets.

The prize find of the day.....

this play house for $15. We were driving down a street with a few rummage sales when we spotted it. I sent Jason to scope it out. It has been well loved over the years but all the pieces were there. Jason paid for it and returned to the car without it, finding Grant in tears, the BIG crocodile tears, because he wanted the play house. We explained that we would get it but there wasn't room. We are finding that with five people in the minivan there isn't a whole lot of extra space, especially with a stroller and walker in tow. Jason drove us home then went back for the play house. Grant planted himself by the from window waiting eagerly for his return. Once in the back yard, Jason then scrubbed it clean, and put it back together, thus making the day of two sweet kiddos.

Eeny, meenie, miny, moe

2011-06-17T22:22:00.000-05:00

Norah continues to be having moments when she is not herself. We are seeing more episodes where she only wants to snuggle with us, rubbing her head, being sleepy and little appetite. We will be watching her crawl across the room and she'll just stop and lay flat on the floor and rub her head. Humph. Something's wrong.

Norah sound asleep on the couch this morning while waiting for neurosurgery to call us back

This morning Norah woke up and was able to drink most of her morning pediasure and a few strawberries. She slowly became more quiet, she was rubbing her head and eyes, then actually said her head hurt. She wanted to snuggle. We snuggled, and then I placed her on the couch next to me so I could nurse Mason. She fell asleep within minutes. She was still sleeping when Jason arrived back home from running errands. We talk about what was going on and we decided it would be best to call the neurosurgery office. We could at least talk to them on the phone about all the changes we have been seeing in Norah the last month or so since our last visit.

After speaking with the PA, we agreed that we could wait until Monday to be seen in the clinic, but if Norah had any episodes of vomiting over the weekend we would go to the ER right away. While when they clinic scheduler called back she said that we could get in right away since radiology had an opening right now for a quick MRI (a quick MRI, is more like a CT scan but without the radiation. The pictures aren't as great as a full MRI, but Norah doesn't need to be sedated for it). She remember that we live just a few miles away from the hospital. This phone call came just as we finished lunch and layed both Norah and Grant for a nap, and I was nursing Mason, again. I looked Jason and he quickly retrieved Norah from her crib and gathered her blanket, baby doll and book, as well as some diapers and they were off. I still taking pain medication trying to recuperate from my csection 2 weeks ago. This was my third csection and it is taking longer to recover, so for now still no driving. Life with three kids, we are doing more divide and conquer versus all of us going together to get things done.

Norah's MRI shows her head and ventricles continue to look stable. Norah shows signs of a siphoning problem with her shunt, over drainage and slit ventricle syndrome, or a combination of those. At this point, none of her symptoms are strong enough to suggest one over the other. There is also not enough information to do any revisions and adjustments to her shunt at this point. So the plan is to continue to watch Norah keep track of what's happening. We are also to call the neurosurgeon the next time Norah vomits with these symptoms and take her to the ER right away. I can't say I'm looking forward to an ER visit, but it's best for Norah then we'll go.

For now we'll pray that Norah's symptoms will go away and her shunt will stay happy. I feel so helpless when she's like this, and it's hard to watch and not be able to do anything to fix it. All I can do is give her the snuggles she asks for, and I will gladly do that.

What super power do you want?

2011-06-14T21:42:00.000-05:00

X-ray Vision - that is the super power I would love to have!! X-ray vision would help make life so much easier especially with what's going on with Norah these days.

Way back just after Christmas and about to head to Mexico, Norah had her first episode of vomiting. Grant was also vomiting at the same time so we chalked it up to a virus and rolled with it. Then while in Mexico, Norah had another episode of vomiting that we thought was related to the heat, she seemed to not like the hot sun in Mexico. Once home no more vomiting until about three weeks later, shopping in Bed, Bath and Beyond. Vomit everywhere, on Norah, on Mommy, all over the cart and the floor around us. This was becoming suspicious, we started to keep track.

These episodes always happen at the same time of day. Norah will have a change in appetite for the day, be cranky. she becomes very quiet, then starts to cry, a cry that is different than her 'normal' cry, then within a minute she's vomiting. She is patient with us as we clean her up, then about an hour after all this has happened she sleeps, and sleeps well until the next morning. She'll wake up at her typical time, usually not quite back to herself, but within a few hours it's like it never happened.

Fast forward to May, when Jason is out of town on a business trip. Norah had thrown up the last two weeks on a Wednesday night, and this week it was the same. It was too concerning to not bring this to the attention of her doctors, we had watched this pattern form and now it was time to see if something more serious is going on.

We were able to get in for a quick MRI the next morning and saw one of the PA's that work in neurosurgery. Norah's MRI had little change since the last and she was back to herself at this point. We discussed the possibilities of intermittent shunt blockage that usually will lead to a failure. He also thought it was worthwhile to do an EEG to check for any seizure activity, and then to followup with Norah's neurologist.

As we were leaving the office, another patient was cancelling their EEG for the next morning. We were happy to take the appointment versus waiting a month for the next available appointment. Isn't it nice when everything works out like that - one of those thank you Lord moments, knowing God is there helping me as I care for Norah, while making sure Grant's needs were being met and being 36 weeks pregnant myself.

Norah EEG went well, "nothing exciting" per the tech that performed the test. The results would be available in 7-10 days and we could review those with our neurologist. Ha! Easier said than done. Norah had been discharged from her neurologist back in December, and since then that neurologist had left the hospital. Now we had to become a new patient and wait for the next new patient appointment - August. Really? August? So now we wait. I would like to think if they saw something on Norah's EEG someone would call, but past experiences and working in healthcare I know that doesn't always happen.

We have requested all of Norah's medical records from the last series of visits to add to our collection and we will go on from there. Norah is back to vomiting about every 2 weeks, and we continue to watch for any other signs. This is where I wish I had x-ray vision, so I would be able to see what is going in her fancy little head when these episodes come.

Norah on one of her off days, she'll be crawling somewhere then just stop and lay down for awhile.

Love From The Big Brother

2011-06-14T20:33:00.000-05:00

Grant has been a big brother for 22 months to his special sister, Norah. He has taken to his roll well, and now with a new baby in the house, he is happy to be a big brother again. He is quick to ask what's wrong if Mason cries. Grant loves when Mason is awake and entertains him by shaking rattles, making silly noises or singing to him. While Grant was watching Toy Story the other day, he also took good care of Mason...

Disclaimer: This post follows a trying day of tantrums and "I wants" and "no's" and not wanting to do eat what was given to him and a I don't love you Mommy. Being the Mom to an independent, self motivated 3 year old has it's moments, good thing they're mostly good :)

"Pick Nose"

2011-06-11T21:39:00.000-05:00

We have a situation, every time I get the camera out lately, Norah gets a big smile and simply says "pick nose" as she puts that little finger up to her nose and smiles.

Such a silly girl.

Our Newest Addition

2011-06-10T13:11:00.000-05:00

Mason Randall Zehrung

Arrived Friday, June 3, 2011 @ 5:17pm.

He weighed in at 8lbs 10oz, & 21in long.

Friday at noon Jason and I left Grant and Norah with their Granny at our house and head down the street for our scheduled csection. I was one day shy of 39 weeks pregnant and ready to meet this little one.

We arrived at the hospital and walked back to our preop room. The room didn't have a bed so we were walked around the labor and delivery department looking for an empty room for us. Apparently it was busy, and the csection that was supposed to be happening then so I could go at 2 oclock was being postponed. But we reassured that everything should be caught up and we would be going for my csection by 2:30pm.

We got setup in our room, my IV was started and I was hooked to the monitor to see if the baby was happy. I think it was to remind me of all the contractions I was having.

Well we waited and waited. Then the updates started coming. My doctor was in the OR with another surgery (my doctor was also the in house doctor that day). The next update there is four women all about to deliver within the next hour, darn women who went into natural labor and don't have to have a csection (I was a bit jealous). Then the anestheaologist that I had met with the day previous to discuss my previous problems with epidurals and spinals wasn't going to be available for my csection, so let the discussion begin again...

Finally at 4:45pm it was my turn!! I hadn't ate anything since 9pm the night before, and nothing to drink since 7am, I was getting cranky and anxious to have my baby. Once settled in the OR they brought my husband back to me and things were finally started.

I have to say have a csection is surreal. You are laying on a table wide awake, being cut open, feeling tugging and pushing, but not really pain. People are in and out of the room and conversation are being had all around you, some about you and some about the NBA finals. Even though this was my third csection, it was the first time I was lucid enough and not in an emergency situation to realize this. Anyway after all that tugging and pulling, the best part, watching my baby come out. He was born at 5:17pm and came out peeing everywhere. Soon after came his little cry. The neonatologist checked him oven and gave him apgar scores of 8 and 9, and he was healthy!!

Now for the hard part, what was this little boy's name going to be. Jason and I had a list with about twenty names we liked, but just coiuld narrow down until we meet this little one. Everyone put in a vote for the names they liked. It was hard to decide but once in recovery and spending sometime with our newest addition, we quickly knew his name. Mason is a name both Jason and I have liked and felt suited our little man. We have continue the tradion of giving our kids middle names of from our families. Randall, Mason's middle name, is my father's name.

Grant and Norah were able to meet their little brother the next morning and already love him and want to help take care of him.

We hung out in the hospital until Monday afternoon, and have been at home enjoying our little ones ever since. Mason is doing great, Grant is being a great big brother trying to help get anything we may need with the occasional tantrum, and Norah is having the toughest time adjusting sharing her mommy, but loves giving Mason lots of kisses. Lots of the to Granny for taking care of Grant and Norah while we were in the hospital, we miss you.

Waiting Patiently

2011-05-28T08:30:00.000-05:00

I can't believe in less that one week our next baby will be here...weren't we just finding out that we were expecting our third baby. Well this week has been a big reminder that we are in the home stretch.

Monday evening I realized I was have contractions every 10 minutes and I thought there is no way we are ready for this tonight. I started drinking lots of water, laid down and took a warm bath, really anything I could think of to slow down these contractions. I was caught off guard, I have experienced my fair share of braxton hicks contractions but those usually came while at work or a really active day out with the kids. Monday was low key, just an outing to the post office and out to lunch with Jason and the kids. Nothing out that was out of the ordinary that would make labor start. So when these contractions started they also came with lots of back pain and cramping, I was starting to panic a little. What good is a planned c-section, where you can have everything set up and the people in place to watch your kids if you go into labor before the day? Well after five hours of contractions every 10 minutes they finally spaced out to every 20-25 minutes and have continued that way for most of the week. I have started maternity leave, there is no way I could work at this point, I am sure I would find myself as a patient quickly...and in the ER most pregnant patient once past 20 weeks are not welcome, they are sent to labor and delivery. I have spent most of the week taking it easy and as soon as I don't my body quickly reminds me to slow down.

I spent time this week reflecting back on this pregnancy and my previous two pregnancies as well. I have been feeling the aches and pains of this pregnancy more than ever for the last six weeks. Pain everywhere, occasional headaches, mild swelling that makes my hands and feet ache, and my vision is terrible. I feel like I have been a little bit more whiny with this pregnancy but I have come up for a reason for that. My first pregnancy was filled with unknowns, I was excited about all the new experiences. While I was pregnant with Norah, I was preoccupied with Norah. Time was passed praying and focusing on her, how was she developing. Any aches and pain I had were minor, I was repeated reminded that there was a chance that Norah would survive the pregnancy, let alone after she was delivered. Much time was spent in prayer and thinking of the numb left index finger and carpal tunnel symptoms I was experiencing. So this time around I have been told based on several ultrasounds that I have a healthy baby boy growing inside me and I would like to keep it that way so all these aches and pains could mean something isn't right. Thus more attention being given to them.

I did focus on finishing on the blanket I had started back in December. I have to admit I am pretty proud of it. I suppose this week I should get around to packing a bag to bring to the hospital. Jason and I have talked about many names but the list is not narrowed down at all. We have decided that we will meet this little guy first and then we will know what his names should be. I have some nesting urges but again my body quickly reminds me of its' limitations. There are lots of little things that could get done, but we'll just take one day at a time and see what get done.

Taking a Fall

2011-04-25T17:53:00.000-05:00

Norah has been attempting to take 2-3 steps by herself in the last couple of weeks, exiciting right? Usually she steps away from her walker to the table or couch, sometimes a couple steps from the coffee table to the couch. Jason and I have loved watching her working on her balance and taking steps. This morning Norah was giggling at her brother playing with a toy and wanted in on the action. She was sitting on the couch, so she slide off and started taking two step to the coffee table. As soon as I saw her take her first step I knew this was going to end with a fall, mad dash to try a catch her. She fell right into the corner of the coffee table, I expected blood, thankfully none. The was a deep line down her forehead that let you now any more pressure with her fall and we would have been off for stitches. Just a minute later the bump and bruise had already started. I tried to get her to snuggle into an ice pack for a half hour. She would hold her head against it for a few seconds then situp again. So we'll keep a watchful eye on here (as always) to make sure no other concerning symptoms arise.

It doesn't look too awful now, hopefully by Therapy Thursday it's barely noticable, a girl can dream...

Happy Easter!

2011-04-25T08:09:00.000-05:00

This year we celebrated Easter at home, without any other family to share in the celebration. The thought of having to sit in the car for nearly nine hours made me have a couple contractions. I guess that's the problem living so far away from family, you never get to see them as often as you would like too. The weekend was a little lonely without them at times (especially going to church Sunday morning, no one to fight over bathroom time :) ) but we filled the week with lots of fun.

This year we were able to dye the egg before Easter, unlike last year when we did the week after Easter.

We were ready for church with time to spare, so we let Grant and Norah open the Easter bags that Mimi and Grandpa Bill had sent to them.

We headed to the Cheesecake Factory for brunch after church. I missed having a big Easter dinner to sit down at, but it was nice to be served with no dishes to do at the end of the meal. Norah didn't make it through the meal. First she spilt chocolate milk all over her dress. Then she feel asleep. Meanwhile Grant began crying after he dropped his last strawberry on the floor and we would let him pick it up and eat it. The waiter was so nice, he brought him a second full plate of strawberries.

Back at home it was time for an egg hunt. Grant and Norah loved running around the yard collecting eggs. Grant help Norah fill her basket as well as his own basket.

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Happy Easter from the Zehrung's

32 Weeks

2011-04-20T20:11:00.000-05:00

32 weeks 5 days to be exact, not that I"m keeping track or anything.

I am nearing the end of this pregnancy. It has been by far my best pregnancy, maybe that's way it feels like it has flown by or maybe because it I too busy chasing after Grant and Norah to think about being pregnant. I have had very little morning sickness. Other than my dental abscess adventure a couple weeks ago, I have not been sick or had any complications. I am blessed to be growing a healthy baby boy.

Yesterday I went for a checkup with my OB. It was timed prefect. I had been feeling lousy since Sunday after finishing my weekend marathon of work. I usually bounce back from the long weekend of working 12 hour shifts by Monday afternoon, but not this time. I spent all of Monday and most of Tuesday resting with my feet up and experiencing lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions. I was very thankful that Jason was working from home most of those days just in case I needed so help. By Tuesday I felt like I had done 1000 sit ups and continued to just not feel right. I am one that will sit back and just see what happens versus calling to check in. I had one of my contractions right as the nurse came in the room. The doctor checked me, my cervix is starting to change, no surprise, I am nearing the end. Then just to make sure our little man was happy in his home I had a non-stress test. Well, my usually super active baby decided this was the best time to finally take a nap. It took awhile to get him moving enough to make the test reactive, but in the end everything checked out.

This morning I had an ultrasound to check out the baby's growth by the perinatalogist I have been seeing with this pregnancy. The baby is measuring a week ahead, which is fine. I know he'll be here at least a week early if not a couple. I also will be having a csection again so I don't have to worry about him being to big to push out. I have to say I was disappointed that this baby did not want to show his face for the ultrasound. His current position, which he most likely stay, in head down and tucked in looking to the back. He also has his legs crossed and tucked in so we couldn't check just one last time to make sure we are still having a boy. Everything else looks great, so much so I am no longer being followed by the perinatalogist. I will just be checking in with my OB. I was nice to leave not having to schedule another appointment.

The plan for now is to try and keep working, minimizing the amount of heavily lifting and pushing I do. Also making sure I stay hydrated while at work. I am trying to not to carry Grant and Norah, but when it's sleeting and I'm on my way into Target, and Grant falls and Norah can't walk I find myself carrying and extra fifty pounds. I will try not to overdo it, and ask for help...~~sometimes~~ most of the time I find that hard.

Just one month left to....

enjoy little baby kicks, hiccups and punches
find a comfortable position to sleep in. Oh the tossing and turning and moving the half a dozen pillows I have to find just the spot.
dig out baby clothes that I saved after Grant had outgrown them
pull out the cradle and put it together
finish the blanket I have been crocheting

....oh my, this list could get long quick, maybe I'll stop and go work on some of it and the hundreds of other things that could be added, like getting the house on the market to sell....

Opening Doors

2011-04-11T13:01:00.000-05:00

No hiding behind closed doors from Norah anymore. Jason was the first to find out this weekend. While using the bathroom, Norah decided that daddy wasn't to be left alone. She usually sits outside the door and plays knock-knock, but that will no longer do. She Wants In!

I thought I captured the picture while the door was actually open, but just a split sencond to late for the camera. Norah was playing peek-a-boo with Grant, while he was hiding behind the door to his bedroom. You couldn't help but smile after hearing the marvelous giggles that came from the two of them. The best part no fingers were pinched in the door!

Feeding Frustrations

2011-04-08T13:59:00.000-05:00

After months of working with Norah on eating solid foods, a definate problem has emerged.

Yup. That's Norah holding all her food in her mouth about to spit out everything, after she has turned in to mush. Gross, huh? Ok it could have been a worse picture but I don't want to gross you out. No wonder this girl is so slow to gain any weight. We have shared our concerns with Norah's doctors in the past, but have decided something is obviously wrong and needs to address sooner rather than later.

Last week Norah has a feeding evaluation with one of the speech therapist through her Birth to 3 program. The result - Norah doesn't know how to chew. She knows how to bite into food to get a bite, but once in that's where it goes downhill. She keeps the food in her mouth and will move it around, but if it isn't soft enough or dissolve on its own, once she's had enough she'll graciously approach Jason or I and spit her leftovers into our hand. Yumm-o! Nothing better that a handful of partially chew food to keep your appetite up to finish your own meal.

The plan is to start working on this with a speech therapist on the same morning as Norah's physical therapy to get her chewing.

Not the Week I Had Planned

2011-04-08T13:46:00.000-05:00

This week has been a long one to endure for this mom who hates giving in, especially when I have to ask for help.

It all began at 3:05AM last Saturday morning when I awoke from sleeping with a painful toothache. I took some Tylenol and snuggled into bed before heading off to the ER to work my weekend of 12 hour shifts. I made through the day somehow, with a little giggle to myself and increased sympathy to all the patients that checked into the ER for dental pain that day. After little sleep it was Sunday, and back off to work not feeling any better. I made few phones calls to my husband looking for encouragement to make it through the day, and was thankful to leave on Sunday evening. I called on right away Monday morning to get into the dentist office, they were able to squeeze me in at 3pm. How was I going to take care of Grant and Norah until then, the pain was getting out of control. Hold it together woman and focus, you can do this.

I arrived at the dentist office promptly at 3pm, desperate for the relief I needed. One xray later and little numbing medication to hold me over was sent to an endodotist down the road. The appointment was an hour later, by the time I was sitting in her chair for my root canal, all the pain medication had worn off and there were only tears to be had, sheer pain was all I felt. She did the root canal, but very little relief was felt. She told me that the abcess that had began above the tooth was only going to get worse and I needed to see an oral surgeon in the morning. Seriously! Ugg, this day wasn't ending in the way I expected. My past experience is root canal = relief.

I started my antibiotics and settled into another night of pain after I called in sick for my Tuesday nursing shift. Oh how I hate to call in, but there was no way to avoid this one. The bright side of calling in, it meant Jason would be home all day to help look after the kids so I could go to the oral surgeon and get some rest.

I called the oral surgeon right away in the morning, who then want a note from my OB to clear me for the procedure since I was pregnant. They also needed the xrays from the day before, otherwise they were going to take more. I didn't want to harm the baby anymore than I already had so multiple phone call were made, a little back and forth, the appointment was finally set for 2pm. Oh relief is in site! I always tell my patients how much better they'll feel after there abcess is drained. Later I would learn never to use that line again.

To occupy my time and distract me from the pain, Jason and I took the kids with us to vote, my vote counted if you haven't heard of the controversal Wisconsin election for the State Supreme Court. Our polling place is just a two blocks away in the park and it was a nice spring day so the kids spent a little bit at the park on the was home.

After my visit to the oral surgeon, I was nice a numb again, Thank goodness! but left with a tube in my mouth to keep draining the abcess. Yuck! Also the doctor told me this is going to get worse before it gets better. What? I'm supposed to feel better after this is drained. Homeward bound, I enjoyed my few moments of being numb, still thinking I was on the mend. I was looking foward to the last appointment of the day, my 30 week OB visit. Tonight I would get to check in on the baby, who hadn't been to happy with me the last few days. I had hardly ate, what I did eat had little nutritional value, nothing but jello, pudding, mashed potatoes and soup broth. Anything that required any chewing was out.

By the time I got to my OB appointment the tears were back, the pain was at it's worst and my face was becoming more swollen by the minute. There was a quick meausrement and doppler of the baby's heart rate, then a prescription written for some serious pain medication so I could get some relief, and boy did I need it. This was becoming worse that labor, there was no end in site.

In my opinion, when you take two narcotic pain pills your pain should go away, at least for more than a hour, but not my experience this time. After a loooong, painful and sleepless night, I then had to turn to my husband and tell him there was no way I could take care of the kids that day. I felt horrible guilt, my primary job to take care of our kids so my husband could work, I couldn't do. I apologize a few times for causing such chaos in our life this week. I spent most of Wednesday sleeping. Not to keep all the fun to myself, Wednesday night Norah had a fever and Grant was now coughing and sounded congested. Looking for the bright side, at least I could cancel Norah's therapy for tomorrow and not feel solely responsible for why we were going to miss.

Thursday, really it's Thursday, I should be getting better, but I'm not. I had a followup appointment with the oral surgeon in the afternoon. There was no way I was going to ask Jason to stay home again to take care of the kids. So I made a comfy spot on the couch and set Grant and Norah up with activities and planned to have the TV help me keep the kids entertained for the day. They are also still sick, Norah's fever broke in the middle of the night but she's still sleepy. Well, I didn't last long before I was dozing in and out of conscionsness. Then an hour later, I am half watching the events unfold before I fully grasp what I'm watching. Grant had decided that the glider in the living room needed a makeover and he was giving it some color with his markers. Oh, where was this day going, only a hour had past. Well, let's just say the kids weren't going to let mom sleep on the couch all day.

I did ask Jason to be home in time to cart me back to the oral surgeon's office to have my drain removed. The doctor removed the drain and squeezed my cheeck one finally time, oh the pain again!! Then sent me on my way, telling me I should be great by Monday. That is so hard to believe right now.

Well, it's Friday. There will still be no pictures of me taken, as I look like I may have had a stroke. The left side of my face is twice the size of the right. The is no movement of my lips or cheek if I try to smile, which I try not to do because that too is painful. I however am starting to feel better. I have take much better care of the kids today, towers have been built, tea parties had, and lunch was made. Now, I am enjoying the peace and quiet of nap time.

The biggest bummer that all the fun of this week has brought is that we are not all currently packed into the car for an eight hour drive to my brother's house and going to get to see all of my family. We will be missing our newest nephew's baptism this weekend. We are so sorry, Jeff and Sara, that we cannot be there this weekend.

Graham, welcome to God's family!

Development Report Card for Norah

2011-03-23T00:09:00.000-05:00

Last week, we survived Norah's neonatal development follow-up appointment. This is always the most exhausting appointment that Norah has every six months. This appointment lasted just shy of three hours, ugh. Three hours of questions and testing for one little girl, who is sitting on her mother's shrinking lap, whose 3 year old brother is also in tow, wanting his share of attention. Whew! We survived.

Norah's adjusted age for this appointment was just over 18 months. She weighed in at 19 pounds, just making the 5% for weight. Her head circumference is 47.5cm, making the 75% percentile.

That was the easy part of the appointment. After that I spoke with Dr. Bear, a wonderful neonatalogist that we met with each time, who listens to our concerns and gives us good direction to correct them. I shared my frustration regardingg a follow-up appointment that we were to have with the geneticist in December. After many attempts to contact the office to set up the appointment that have gone unanswered I have given up. My thoughts are: Norah is doing great, the test in the past that we have done have all be normal, so why keep looking for something that may not be there, if concerns come up in the future they'll still be there so we can check with them then. Dr. Bear agreed with me, which pleased me. Norah's physical exam showed low muscle tone, with increased flexibility.

Next part - in comes the physical, occupational, and speech therapist - let the games begin. They use what's called the Bayley Scales of Infant Toddler Development 3rd Edition. Basically, we all sit at a table and test are done one after another quite quickly. If Norah passes part one of a test, the next step of the test is done, if she doesn't pass onto a new test. The further into a test, the higher rating/develomental age is given. I was impressed with Norah's ability to follow all these test. Although, at one point all she wanted to do is keep playing with a doll. So the doll ended up being involved with most of the test after that to keep her attention. She also showed off her amazing walking skills using her reverse walker. The sheer delight that beams from Norah when she is using her walker is magical. She loves the independence she is gaining with its use.

The results:
    Fine Motor: 20 months
    Gross Motor: 11 months
    Cognitive Skills: 19 months
    Receptive Language: 19 months
    Expressive Language: 21 months
**not to bad for a kid whose adjusted age is 18.5 months the day of the appointment

Recommendations that we left with were to get a feeding evaluation done for Norah, which is already scheduled. We are also in the process of getting 'sure steps' which braces for her ankles to see if they will help to improve her balance. We were also given many ideas of different therapies to try improving Norah's muscle tone.

At the end of the day, I can't tell you how blessed I feel to be Norah's mom. I didn't necessarily need to go to a doctor's appointment to know that she is an amazing kid, who is delayed with walking and standing. Everyday I can look at Norah and see how full of life she is and know that she is happy, and that's what's important. But I suppose it would be nice to brag a little bit, especially to all those people who wrote her off before she was even born.

God has special plans for Norah, and I am grateful he choose me to be her mom.

When did Grant get big enough to do this?

2011-03-14T13:55:00.000-05:00

This morning, while I was still slumbering away, enjoying the end of daylights savings, thinking my little ones where still fouled by the change on time. One smart little boy woke up. Instead of waking to the bottom of the stairs and calling out for "Daddy" and Mommy having to come explain Daddy is already at work, he took care of himself. Uggh. My little boy didn't need me :(

As I stirred, I thought I heard the Television. Hmm, that's unusual. So I slowly flipped myself over, removing the five pillows I'm currently sleeping with to find some sort of night time comfort as I'm entering the 3rd trimester of this pregnancy, and ventured downstairs. This is what I discovered.

Grant had poured himself a glass of milk (with chocolate syrup added) and a bowl of cereal. He also turned on our TV, which is actually a computer. That means he navigated the mouse to the different icons, turning on the media center and starting up "my movie" he told me, Toy Story. He was proud of himself. Now I'm torn - so sad that he didn't want his parents when he woke up this morning and proud that he did take care of himself.

Don't grow up too quickly Mr. Grant, your Mommy still wants to be needed.

Move over coffee table...

2011-03-14T13:30:00.000-05:00

Check out the latest addition to our living room.

Grant and Norah received this picnic table for a Christmas gift. It has been sitting in the basement since December, waiting for the warm weather to return. Grant and Norah love sitting at for all sorts of activities, so we decided to bring it to the place they spend most of their time at home. So until the warm weather returns, it has found a place in our living room.

Happy 3rd Birthday Grant!

2011-03-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday to my little boy, Grant William! I can't believe that three years have past since those 28 hours of labor that ended in an emergency c-section. I am amazed at the little boy he has become this last year, especially this last few months.

Grant - 1 day old

A year ago Grant said less than 10 words, making us nervous about his delayed speech. Now, I come home from a day at work and he tells me everything he did that day. He is quick to figure out how things work and if he gets the chance he'll take it apart. He can work the mouse on the computer and get into Netflix to start his favorite movie. Currently that's Bob the Builder and the Search for the Golden Hammer. A visit to Target is never complete without visiting the vacuum cleaners. Grant inspects them, asking to play with his favorite, usually the purple Dyson. He still is quick to pick out the color purple whenever he sees it.

He loves his daddy, always looking for him first thing in the morning, sneaking in some snuggle before daddy has to go to work. He's a helper, working on the house with his daddy and cooking in the kitchen with mommy.

Baking chocolate cookies

He loves to eat fruit, any fruit. We usually hide keep Grant's fruit as incentive to eat whatever else he is being served. Lately he asks if we can eat at the "chicken restaurant" a lot, usually daily. It took a few days to figure out what restaurant Grant was requesting, but we figured it out - Arby's. I know they are know for their fine chicken ;). The best part is, Grant loves getting a roast beef sandwich at his great "chicken restaurant."

Grant helping install the new back door

In the last couple of weeks, Grant has learned his ABC's. I love listening to him sing his ABC's while he's playing and encourages his little sister to sing with him. He can also count to fourteen now. If I has him to do something before I count to three, Grant just takes off counting while he's off to do what I asked. He knows he's going to have a baby brother soon and gives my tummy a kiss for the baby, so sweet. Last night as we cuddled before bed, we talked about his birthday. Then I told him about birthday spankings, he looked at me and asked for timeouts instead of spankings. It was a priceless moment we shared.

Happy Birthday Mr. Grant!