Binder Baby

The air was bitter and snow lightly falling as I woke up this morning. I figured I should get to packing Landon up because in a last minute decision he was headed up to his grandparents'. He's going to be there almost two weeks. I was a little apprehensive to have him delay school for that long of a period but his grandma was nice enough to have me send his workbooks up with him. She's going to work on his school while he is up there. Grandma Fullmer arrived and I still didn't have him packed. I had expected her a little later but snow was coming and she wanted to get them started on the hour and a half drive back to her house. I scrambled to get his stuff together and then Landon and Grandma took off. Ronan's 18 month check-up was on the afternoon agenda.

As we headed out I was unsure if we should proceed because the air bit at us as I ran him to the car. When we arrived at the doctor's I parked as close as I could to the door. I actually found a spot next to the door that wasn't handicapped which is saying a lot since the parking lot can probably fit 100 plus cars. I made sure Ronan's hood was up and I buried his face towards me and ran. We checked in at the front desk and the receptionist began looking for Ronan's chart. "Whose he seeing?" She asked confused skimming over all the waiting files. I was about to tell her he was the binder when the other receptionist jumped in "He's the binder. We call him our Binder Baby. We love Ronan here. He's such a sweetie." Wow I thought we'd been there so much that he'd been given the nickname "Binder Baby."We sat down only to be called back almost immediately. He weighs exactly 23lbs and is 30 in. long. The doctor came in and began talking about everything Ronan would need tested for at 18 months. She wanted to test his thyroid again just to be sure. She also said he would get three shots. She went over in detail how he was doing in all areas. She decided to double his reflux medicine and spread it to twice a day in hopes it would stop the episodes he has where his airway gets blocked.

The lab technician came in next and tried to stick a vein in his arm. She poked around quite a bit in his arm but he just looked at himself in the mirror and happily clapped his feet together. He acted as though she was simply rubbing his arm, unaware that she was extensively poking around under his skin. She couldn't get the vein so she poked his finger which he was ok with until he thought she was holding his hand for too long. When he realized he couldn't have his hand to reach his toes he yelled angry, incoherent words at the technician.

The nurse came in and gave him three shots and told me she would call with the blood work results. We headed home and I dropped off his new reflux prescription. I got home and the doctor's office called. I assumed it was about his blood work since they said it would be later today or early tomorrow. Instead it was the nurse calling to tell me that they had made a mistake and Ronan had received double shots. At first I felt panicked but she explained it wouldn't hurt him in any way and they were just making me aware.

She said the mix-up had occurred because we had had to take him to the health department for his 15 month shots. The fridge at his pediatrician office had been broken and they sent us to the health department. At the time I had asked if I needed to take anything to his doctor and they told me no because they would take care of it and it would be put into the statewide database. Apparently the communication between the peds office and the health department had been poor. The health department was supposed to send documentation and they didn't. Also no one had checked the computer until afterward which is when they caught the mistake.But Ronan will not be harmed which was my biggest concern.

After I got off the phone with his pediatrician the phone rang almost immediately. This time it was the sleep study doctor. I thought it was strange because with Jadzia we didn't hear anything for a month and they never called they just waited until our appointment. The doctor wanted to let me know that she had just received his sleep results an hour ago (Because they send them off to be analyzed). She wanted me to know that his apnea was moderate to severe and I needed to make him an ENT appointment immediately. She said he needs his tonsils and adenoids out ASAP. Also she said she has more to address and wants to see him first thing Monday but she wanted an ENT appointment in the works now.

Now I get to wait until Monday to find out the rest but she said it wasn't very encouraging results. I've got to call his pediatrician in the morning to make sure that the insurance referral is all set for him to go to the ENT. Now I'm waiting for Isaac to get home. The last two days he's been putting a massive stage together for the county Christmas program. He worked 14 hours yesterday and looks like it's going to be that or longer today. I had no idea it took this long to put a stage together but I guess that shows how much I know about building. After he gets home I have to run and pick up Ronan's monthly medications and then it's grocery shopping.Also Inara is learning to sit pretty well by herself. She can sit unassisted for about 45 seconds and then she slumps forward a little.

The blind leads the blind

You know the whole metaphor about the blind leading the blind. I think I had that scenario play out in my kitchen tonight. Jadzia was leading Landon around the kitchen (mainly in circles) and the only catch was they both had their eyes tightly shut. I gave my quick mommy lecture about how unwise combining spinning and not seeing was. I found it amusing when after the fifth or sixth whack into the cabinet Landon very disgusted yelled from the kitchen. "Mommy, Jadzia keeps hitting us into the cabinet!" Solution # 1 perhaps you should open your eyes and let go of Jadzia's hand.
Legos. The one toy my kids couldn't live without. I'm pretty sure I could remove every toy in the play area and just leave the three totes of legos and my kids could still entertain them selves for hours. Also you'd think with three totes there would be plenty to pass around and my children would be willing to share the wealth. But the more I think about it I realize there are few children under the age of six who naturally love to share.As a mother and especially as a mother of five little ones I stress sharing to a great degree. My kids will willing share a cookie with each other but they love to hoard legos. Piles and piles of legos. You'd think they could build just about anything with fifty big blocks each and this would bring them happiness but for some reason Xander seems to think he needs every lego in the house to build a decent battleship.

Which brings me to wondering how they are able to build some of the things they build. Without standing on the couch, a chair or any other height boosting apparatus my big boys built this tower.Floor to ceiling lego tower and I'm not sure how they were able to keep the entire thing together. They've definitely gained their dad's engineering skills. I think I'd make it about half that many blocks and it would crumble to pieces.

Blog 100

Today is post 100!! I've been keeping up with this blog for 100 days in a row. I can't believe that I made it this far and this blog didn't crumble a long time ago. I know I'm getting ahead of myself and neglecting the fact I still have 265 days to go but it's a glass half full kind of thing.
So what did we do today on the 100th blog day? There was church, the kids had their patch club. I did a little shopping which was fun. Isaac and I enjoyed a visit with a friend. If you could please say a prayer for my friend. She is 24 weeks pregnant and in the hospital with complications. Pray God will bring her encouragement and help her and her family through this time.
Xander played laundry basket ship wreck and Landon had issues with his new haircut. He kept asking me why his hair had to be this way. Then when he went to church he ducked his head under the table so no one would see his hair. I'm not sure why he's thinking this way because he's had this haircut before and he was the one who asked for his hair to be cut. He wanted it short like his dad's. I guess he felt remorse after seeing it in the mirror but the great thing about hair is it grows back; most of the time anyway. Ronan did go from sitting to standing without holding onto anything. I think walking is just around the corner for him.Blog 100 is turning out pretty short but I'm really having to stretch my thought process tonight. Goodnight all.

Ballerina's First Hair Cut

Isaac decided to cut the boys' hair today. Jadzia started asking to have her hair cut and at first we gave her the usual no. You see Jadzia was born almost bald and stayed that way for the first two years of her life. At the first sight of hair I put tiny side pony tails in her hair and they were so small I had to point them out to people (if you look super close at the picture below you might catch itty bitty pony tails sticking out the side of her head). A couple of months ago Jadzia started back up the habit of twirling her hair in her sleep. This practice would leave her hair in small knots that could only be undone by cutting them out. The biggest problem was she only did this on the left side of her head.
I fixed the problem by braiding her hair every night but the problem became as her hair grew the left side was significantly shorter. Half the hair on her head was two inches longer. I had been unwilling to cut her hair because it had taken so much work and patience for her to have enough that people weren't thinking I dressed my little boy in a pink dress. I was afraid if we cut it we'd be back to people thinking she was a boy. Finally I came to the conclusion that making it even would be best and maybe it would grow better and faster. With my agreement Isaac set to work and gave Jadzia the only haircut she's ever had in her entire three years of life.
Isaac was very patient with me as I stood nervously watching and adding every few seconds "Not too much." I was prepared for tears as I watched my daughters hair fall to the seat of the chair. But they did not come because Isaac turned her around and I saw she had an even cut for the first time since she'd pulled her hair out. She was adorable and still looked very much like a little girl.

Before (this was actually two months ago after she first pulled the left side out but I had to change my camera battery before Isaac started cutting her hair so this is the best before I have).
After:
I then did a little photo shoot with her. She recently got an entire ballerina attire. She assumes every time I put this on her that she is going to go to ballet class even though I've explained to her the costume is just for fun. But I got some cute pictures of her.

Unwelcomed Visitor.

Duck, Ham and finally turkey. Two days, three meals and three types of meat. Thanks to my dad we got to enjoy more delicious food for dinner tonight. I made the mashed potatoes, and gravy. My mom made the turkey. We even topped the evening off with pumpkin pie which we had yet to partake of at any of the three meals. I enjoyed the traditional meal this time.Last night I saw it scurry passed the couch and behind the kids' toy box. I let out a nearly silent shriek and I realized that we now shared our cozy home with a mouse and possibly the rest of his family . I used to work at Petco and I don't have a problem with white, store mice. They don't bother me. I could hold them, feed them and give them medications. This is far from the case with non domesticated mice. At the first sight of a wild mouse I am up on furniture yelling for Isaac while visions of Hantavirus swirl in my head. The sight of this mouse does explain the random squeaking I've been hearing. I thought I was going a bit crazy because I had begun to ponder if the turtles had adopted more than their little air whistle sound and taken up squeaking. I would follow the squeak to the turtle tank and then it would stop. I now know the mouse was likely in close proximity of the turtle tank and my approach scared it off.

Now we must figure out the right method of mouse removal. A few years back we had a mouse problem and we had those little sticky pads. I was horrified when I checked on the pads there was these two little baby mice squeaking and struggling, stuck to the pad. I'm not sure what I had expected but I have never been good at watching any living thing suffer. I think it is best for me to stay out of the mouse removal decision.

With Thanksgiving behind us I can now think forward to Christmas and maybe sometime soon here we'll get around to putting up and decorating the Christmas tree.

Two Days, Three feasts.

At 4:00 am this morning I was up trying to surmise how to remove a neck bone from inside our Thanksgiving duck. I have no idea how a duck neck got lodged in the wrong end. I have always been pampered when it comes to turkey making. Every time I've made a turkey everything that needed removed was neatly kept in a little plastic bag. Once the bag is removed the inside of your turkey is nice and clean and good to go. This was not the case with the duck. I chopped away at the duck neck and finally it broke loose. I was left with wondering which parts needed removed.To my surprise my actual helper was Jadzia. I enjoyed this fact and I found myself stretching forth to future Thanksgivings hoping that someday mother and daughter would cook together. By 11:30 the duck was on the table along with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, green beans, rolls and a few other traditional items. I had placed an orange to replace the duck neck because I was told it would soak up the grease. This left the duck with an orange taste which I have also been told some people like with duck. My personal team of reviewers and critics have requested no orange taste next time but other than that it was good. Isaac loved my mashed potatoes as usual. They are a recipe that I took from online and modified it with my own personal touch and my family loves them.All and all I'd say the duck was not a disaster as I was predicting the most likely outcome. After lunch I got the house straightened and finished the mountainous pile of dishes that Thanksgiving always brings. For the evening we headed over to my brother and his family's house for ham and a lot more food. We'd been stuffed twice and neither time with turkey. My dad was a bit sad because he ate at both mine and my sister in-law's dinners and this is the first Thanksgiving he has not gotten turkey. Due to this disappointment we will be having a turkey dinner tomorrow. Three feasts this close together is a bit crazy but gotta keep the papa happy.

Toe Catcher

Inara has begun a fascination with her toes. I never viewed this as a monumental milestone until I met Ronan's first PT. She told me that she had gone to a PT conference and an entire session was dedicated to babies learning to grab their toes. I'm not sure how unusual this is at a PT conference if they dedicate entire sessions to walking and crawling or if the are trying to raise awareness to baby toe grabbing. But this PT said that when a baby learns to grab their toes they move into a new area of development and if parents understood the magnitude of toe grabbing it would be celebrated right up there with crawling and walking . But it is usually bypassed with non-acknowledgment or a simple comment of my baby found their toes today.Ronan has opened a beautiful world to me, one I could have never discovered without him. Ronan has shown me the beauty in small things that as a busy parent I used to overlook. I find joy in the tiny intricate details of life now, something I missed all too often before. So today I celebrate my baby daughter discovering she has toes and realizing she can reach them.On a sad note our turtle Moya died today. She was our female sideneck. We have six other turtles though so we are not lacking in turtles. I will still miss the way she completely buried herself in sand and I would search the entire tank to make sure she hadn't escaped. She was anti- social though. She avoided all the other turtles and kept to her own sand pile. She will be missed.
Well tomorrow is Thanks giving and I need to go prep a few things and myself for the big event. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! May you all be blessed with abundance as my family and I have.

Little Chef

The morning got off to a start with pumpkin bread making by choice of Xander. My little chef set right to work and wanted me to stay mainly hands off and only guide him verbally when he needed the help. He did a pretty good job and the bread turned out delicious. Someday Xander will be able to cook and bake many different types of foods and if stays as he is he'll love every minute of it. I still need to track down a chef's hat for Christmas.For dinner we continued with the cooking spirit. It was as though we were practicing with a short sprint for the marathon of duck making that is going to be upon us on Thursday. Xander has already informed me that he would like to be present and assist all duck making activities. Landon on the other hand wants nothing to do with it. He is horrified that we killed a duck. I tried to explain we personally did not kill the duck and it's the same as when he eats chicken. He wasted no time and interrupted my speech with "But ducks are so much cuter than chickens! Mommy, please don't kill the duck!" I told him the duck had already died and then tears and a lot of hugging ensued. He does not want to eat the duck. Normally I insist my children try new foods before writing them off but that is usually when the reason is merely because they don't like the look of the food and automatically assume they won't like it. I don't think I'm going to push Landon into eating the duck. He doesn't want to eat it because he's picturing the duck it used to be and that bothers him. He has a tender heart.Back to dinner. We continued the cooking with organic homemade pizzas. The biggest surprise was the kids loved the pepperonis which were comprised completely of vegetables. The pizza was pretty good and the cheese was exceptional. I think this may become a regular occurrence.
Well I'm off to get the rest of the Thanksgiving groceries right after I do a little more research on what to serve along with duck.

The Study of Sleep

I left off last night when I was about ready to leave for Ronan's sleep study. We arrived promptly at 7:30. Isaac drove us and he carried Ronan while I carried in our three bags. One with Ronan's things, one with my clothes and book and the third contained my dinner that in all the rush I'd forgotten to eat before hand. The same nurse that did Jadzia's study greeted us at the door and took us back. She smiled at Ronan, "You're even cuter than your picture."
Isaac left and the nurse prepared all the equipment. I was bracing myself Jadzia had screamed and fought through all the wire placements. At the time the nurse had assured me most kids get very upset. Ronan sat calmly as she scrubbed his head and placed wires. He got a little annoyed when she would place one on his face and began signing "All done".
The nurse said she would wait until he was asleep to put the nose piece in because he probably wouldn't tolerate it while he was awake. Ronan stayed awake for the next couple of hours before he nodded off. When he was finally asleep the nurse came in put the nose piece in and taped it really well. Ronan was out cold and didn't move at all during placement. A short time later she came back in saying that the reading for his carbon monoxide was really high and she wanted to be sure it wasn't her bad placement which meant removal and replacing the nose piece. He slept through that as well. I asked her what the high carbon monoxide level meant and she said it meant he wasn't letting his breaths out well enough.

At one point Ronan woke up and managed to undue most of his wires. The nurse came in to start over. After she was done Ronan was wide awake. We decide it would be best for him to sleep next to me. It worked, he cuddled right up and fell back asleep. He slept the rest of the night content to have mommy close. The nurse came in every so often to fix a tube or wire.

They woke us up at 8:30 and we headed home. Ronan had therapy at 10:00 so we made it home in enough time to wash the sleep study gunk out of his hair and feed him breakfast. Ronan's therapist brought him a new chair so he could practice moving from the chair to the couch. She left it here so I could work with him a lot before her next visit.
In other news Xander has a girlfriend. At least that's how he sees it. About a year ago he thought a little girl named Hannah was his girlfriend and he had told me that he loved her long blonde hair. Yesterday at my parent's church he claims he fell in love with a five year old girl. He followed her around and told everyone who would listen that she was his girlfriend. Today he was talking about her and how we wanted to call her and tell her he was her boyfriend. His dad told him that the girl was too old for him since she was five and Xander was only four. Xander said "But I do love her." He also added that he loved all ladies. What do I do with a little ladies man when he is only four? I'm headed for trouble I guess.

Thanksgiving Apples

Thanksgiving apples has been a church tradition for my family since I was at least 8 years old. The year I turned 8 my dad became a pastor of his own congregation in a small town called Alamosa, Colorado. Alamosa is located about 45 minutes north of New Mexico in the San Luis Valley. Alamosa was where I grew up after 8 years of age until I left for college at age 18. The first Thanksgiving we were there it was decided (by I'm not sure who) that we would bring a basket full of a variety of apple types to the Thanksgiving service. Any person present in the service could step to the front and simply state what they were thankful for and then they could choose an apple.
I honestly don't remember the relevance of the apples themselves and all I can remember as a child was they were a reward for having the courage to step up in church and speak. Today my parents invited us to their church because my dad wanted to introduce Ronan and Inara to his congregation. Today was the Thanksgiving service and the basket at the front of the auditorium indicated that my parents had carried the apple tradition from the Alamosa church to their new one.
I watched as Landon and Xander went to the front and told what they were thankful for and got their very own Thanksgiving apples. Xander said he was thankful for the stickers his Grandma Fullmer gave him and Landon was thankful for everything. At the end I still don't know what the specific significance of the apples is because see there was one thing in the way of me catching this detail. My parent's entire church services are entirely in Spanish and I know maybe a total of 20 words.
The service was finished and we headed to the basement of the church to have a meal with the English speaking part of the church. The food was good and my favorite was this pumpkin cheesecake type thing. It had whip cream on top then regular pumpkin pie on next and then a layer of regular cheesecake and the some of the most delicious graham cracker crust on the bottom.
The blog is early tonight and my day is far from over but I have to take Ronan to his sleep study in a little over an hour and I had to get tonight's blog in. I'll probably include the rest of tonight in tomorrow's blog. This is how I found Ronan sleeping during his nap today.
and here's Inara ready to leave for church.