Friday, January 22, 2010

So blessed...

So, Max and I are sitting here watching the Haiti Charity Concert and
it is absolutely heartbreaking. Seeing footage of the Haitian
children who were orphaned and the parents who lost their children and
hearing all the stories of loss... I am overcome with sadness for the
Haitian people. And yet, through every tragedy, a lesson can be
learned.

I look down at my darling sleeping baby Max, who I have been so
blessed to have been given and think about how wonderful it is to have
this beautiful baby boy to have and hold and love. I am not sad that
he is little, I celebrate his uniqueness and have such genuine
excitement to watch him grow and learn and teach us all about what is
truly important in life.

I look back on my initial sadness and, although it was mostly because
of my lack of information and experience with the diagnosis, wonder
WHY I spent even a minute of my life sad about it. It is such a minor
bump in the road of life! We have been so blessed with all of our
children and, although I thank God daily, this tragedy really makes me
so appreciate even more all the wonderful things we have been given.

Max is up now, cooing, grabbing his toys and rolling over and filling
me with such joy and love.

God bless all those mothers who lost their little bundles of joy last
week, and the children who are left orphaned by this.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Surrounded by toys!!

Emmi spent a lot of time this morning setting up toys all around Max
so he could play!! It was so cute. Every once in a while she would
stop and pet him on the head:-). Everytime I put him down on his back
this morning, he would immediatly roll over onto his tummy. I took
some video and I will try to figure out the best way to post it (any
tips from my much more experienced blogger friends?). It is so cute:-)

Playtime!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

WOW!! That was tooo easy!

Well, I somehow just figured out how to put my Facebook information on this page...  I clicked on something and it linked me to something else and WAALLAH!! A link to my Facebook page!!  AMAZING when thing turn out to be so easy!!  (don't ask me how it happened....I don't know!)...

We Won!!! Go Suns!!

FINALLY!! Smiles and silly faces:-)

When asked to smile this is what I get.... Haha 3 year old girls are so funny!!!

Aiden's first game-Lake YMCA-Suns

Today is Aiden's first basketball game of the season at the Lake
County YMCA league. He is on the purple team this time-the Suns.
Eric is helping coach and Max, Emmi and I are sitting in the front row
ready to be cheerleaders:-). Just posted a picture of Max but Emmi is
not letting me get any smiley pictures of her (she can be very
particular about getting her picture taken!).
GO SUNS!!!

Hanging out at Aiden's basketball game

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

How do I respond to a post on my blog?? I am failing Blogging 101!

OK, so I clearly have not mastered this blogging thing.  I so appreciate everyones comments to my blogs and pictures but I have NO IDEA how to respond to each of you.  So many other achon/LP moms have posted and I would love to respond back, but I am clueless as to how to do that...I hope no one thinks I am ignoring them and I don't want to lose any followers for my blogging ignorance...(haha!)  Can anyone enlighten me so I can keep in touch with you all...?  Thanks a bunch!!!

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Who turned out the lights?

LOVE his little hands!!!

Decorating a sleeping baby:-)

My cutie!

Max's second sleep study

My boys after bathtime

Disgruntled!!??

Happy New Year!!!

It's the New Year's Baby!!!

It's been awhile since I have posted!!

Well, the holidays have come and gone and I have been very delinquent in my blogging!  Things have been great here!  We had a great Christmas and a very happy new year and we are hoping to start 2010 off right!  Let me back track a little to catch everyone up. 
In December, Max started doing all sorts of wonderful things. He rolled over belly to back and back to belly, started reaching for his toys and bringing them to his mouth to eat them and drool on them, smiling all the time, interacting with his big brother and sister and just being an absolute JOY to us all!!!  He occasionally rolls over a few times and ends up in a completely different spot than where I put him down on the floor.  He has been so far very  healthy and has only had 2 small episodes of stuffy nose at night and hasn't had a real problem during the day.  His head circumference, which we get measured every month, has been staying on target on his growth charts.  He weighs 13# 12oz as of his last visit before Christmas.  We had an appointment here at Rainbow with an ENT, Dr. Arnold, who is the head of ENT at Rainbow and was wonderful.  He said Max's ears look fine, no fluid and no infection, and that his tonsils are small to moderate in size (all good news!!). He did have a second sleep study at Rainbow on 12/18/09 to evaluate the fact that he had been sleeping with his neck significantly hyperextended.  I was surprised they wanted another one but the sleep study specialist here and the geneticist at JHU thought it was necessary to make sure he is not having any central apneas.  I still haven't gotten the results of that study yet (although just go the $4200 bill for it today!!  Pending insurance payment luckily!!)  I am praying that this study was normal like the first one that he had at 5 weeks old.  He was a champ for it.  So smiley while they were hooking him up.  They LOVED him there!  He only got up twice that night to nurse (usually he is up about 4x!) and he postured most of the night with his head hyperextended so the doctor will get a good look at why we did the study in the first place.  It is a really long night though and I am glad it is over, although we will probably end up needing another one sometime in the future.  Max is scheduled for a behavioral hearing test on 1/21 to make sure his hearing is ok.
We are scheduled to go back to JHU in March to meet with genetics, neurosurgery, ENT and Ortho.  The ENT is the only doctor we haven't me there.  We did get to meet the orthopedist, Dr. Ain, at the LPA Midwest Medical Conference in September (he has achondroplasia as does one of his daughters).  Hopefully we don't need anything else from JHU any earlier than that visit in March.
Aiden is doing great!  He turned 7 in December and is getting so BIG!  I swear he gets taller every day!  He is bummed that Christmas break is almost over and it is back to first grade again on Monday.  They had a Christmas concert before the break and he did a great job singing!  He was really jamming!  Santa was very good to him bringing him a new bike and lots of legos.  He has been building a giant city that he has up on the breakfast bar.  It is quite impressive and he had put lots of time into it!
Emmi has been having a great time with the holiday. She loved everything about Christmas and Santa brought her all sorts of dolls and Barbies and the Bitty Twins from American Girl.  She is at a great age for playing pretend with her dolls.  She is also doing a great job of loving all over her baby brother.  They will be such buddies in the future!  
Let's see...what else to update you on...I will try not to go so long in the future so I don't forget a lot of stuff!
Well, bedtime for the kiddos!  Good night!