Cup Drinking Demands Independence

Inara has reached a new milestone. She can properly drink from a cup. The cup she has is a sippy cup but as I have done with all my kids we remove the plug to make it more like a regular cup. Now that she has the whole cup drinking deal down mommy is no longer allowed to assist. If I try to tip or hold the cup for her she pushes my hands away and says "no no". Inara is the child who has been most attached to me so this new independence is a little bit of a surprise. I guess they all have to grow up some time.
Ronan was a train engineer today. Xander and Landon set him up a nice engine that also happens to double for a laundry basket. They padded it well with pillows and blankets. A boy needs to be comfortable while he drives a train. He even had the engineer hat to make him official. He has started a new ploy. When he wants attention and you don't look at him or pick him up he falls flat on his face. He doesn't cry he just slowly peeks his little eyes up at you. The look on his face seems to say "Don't you feel bad I fell?". After about the fifth time of this happening today I realized what he was up to. The boy is too smart. He knows if he appears hurt mommy will love him every time. With five kids you have to stand out somehow.
Jadzia is overly thrilled. She was given a real ballerina outfit. We couldn't find her tights so she wore her pink pants underneath but she felt pretty ballerina like. She twirled and danced even more than normal. She was crushed at dinner time when she spilled a decent sized blob of ketchup on it. I had to assure her this would not exile her from future ballerina class. I'm glad for the invention of shout. The other tragedy that occurred was her plastic princess play shoe broke in half. This was followed by tears and her begging daddy to fix it. After all daddy is a builder he can fix anything.The weather was beautiful today and this meant we had to enjoy it. The kids did a great job of helping me clean up. Their reward was to go outside and play with their colored bubbles. Landon had orange, Xander green and Jadzia can you guess??...... Pink (Like there was another option). These bubbles were an Easter gift from their Nana (Isaac's grandma). They are definitely an outside toy. By the time we were done we had a very beautiful drive way. They were pretty neat though.

Royal Family Adopts Pet Dragon.

Now I am convinced that not only has Landon been sneaking peaks at my Biology textbook but he must also read/watch the news. He informed today that lots of people got up really early to watch a prince and and princess get married. He says he knows that now they will have a bunch of babies and maybe adopt a pet dragon. I haven't talked about the royal wedding at all and Landon really doesn't watch a lot of tv let alone anywhere he could have heard about the royal wedding. He was up before me today so my best guess is maybe he caught a broadcast about it. Either way I thought his prediction for their future was cute.I'm not sure if my girls are really vain but today their favorite game was to kiss themselves in the mirror. Maybe it's the fact that on a daily basis their dad tells them they are the most gorgeous girls ever.
Today was a pretty laid back day. We only had one appointment this week so it made it a very easy week. I got some extra time with the babies while the big kids were gone. Isaac and I are deciding what to do with the boys for school next year. So far homeschooling has gone really well and we are leaning towards continuing for next year. Ronan might attend a preschool program that will help him learn more communication skills. I still haven't completely decided on that yet but I know I want him to have more one on one time in the Speech department.Isaac and I are possibly going to have our date night tonight. He had a meeting he had to attend and if that gets out soon enough we'll go out. I really enjoy being able to go out with him. We are able to talk and renew our relationship.

By the way I can't credit the blog entries completely to myself. I couldn't accomplish this every night without the help of Inara. She is an awesome helper. All the random key pushing adds great intrigue to the blog.

Secret Baby Language

My main focus today was studying for my Biology final. I typed out a 7 page study guide based on the sheet my professor gave me on what would be on the exam. I memorized it. I have been gifted with being able to memorize lists and data and I also have a great long term memory. I can tell you almost everything that's ever happened to me in detail. If you show me one of my kid's outfits from any point in their life I can tell who gave it to them and when.My short term memory however is awful. I'll be doing something and get sidetracked and completely forget I was doing the first activity. Or Isaac will ask me to do something for him and one of the kids will need something and an hour later Isaac will inquire if I've completed the task and I haven't even started it. This trait I have baffles him. How can I remember all the phone numbers to my classmates from fourth grade but not remember he asked me to put a pizza in for him an hour ago. This is the same reason paperwork piles up and I almost miss deadlines. What can I say I baffle myself.

But my list memorizing skills came in handy today and I had the entire study guide memorized by 4:00 pm. I was pretty confident I did pretty well. The teacher let us see our current grade without the final factored in. He said the grade he showed us would be the worse grade we could get because even if we got a 0 on the final it would be our grade. I'm sitting at a B but as soon as he factors in my final I might end with an A. That is my hope anyway but either way I'm happy to have passed since I need this grade for the future.
In the kid zone Ronan is walking! Yes, he has been taking steps but today he took about thirty in a row including three turns. I'm so excited. I unfortunately missed seeing this because I was at the above exam. I mean I was gone less than an hour and I come back and am told I missed this incredible Ronan feat.
Inara is a very expressive baby. She has the cutest look that let's you know she is completely disgusted with what just occurred. You can view the look in the above pictures. She has also determined she will help Ronan out by removing his hearing aides and glasses for him. I think they use secrete code. They seem to have their own language. I will walk in on them standing in their cribs facing each other. They will babble back and forth like they have a language only they can understand.

Double Helix

Oxygen day #1 fizzled out a bit. I realized last night that we had no tape. For the first night I was going to wait until Ronan was a sleep and then try and slip on the oxygen when I could snuggle with him to help him get used to it. By the time I got ready to try and put the oxygen on him it was really late. I picked up tape today as well as extra pulse-ox probes. We're going to give this oxygen another try tonight. I think once we make it through a night with him keeping it on at least half of the time I'll lose a lot of my apprehension about it.My babies are back. The three big kids arrived back this afternoon. My mother in-law's neighbor gave Jadzia a bag full of hand me downs. There are some nice summer clothes for her and even a little tutu leotard outfit.
Landon gave me a huge surprise tonight and I again have no clue where he learns half the things he knows. He picked up Inara's new rattle and showed it to Xander. He pointed to the middle of the rattle and said "Xander, this is like a double helix. It looks like our DNA." I was taken completely by surprise. Not only did he know the terms double helix and DNA but he was right. The middle of the rattle did look like DNA.
Here is Inara waving to our turtles. She loves to watch the turtles swim. She is growing so fast. I'm still trying to fathom the fact she is turning 1 in about six weeks. My tiniest baby is becoming a toddler.

Mom debate # 8,564: oxygen

I awoke to the phone ringing and my body unwilling to move to answer it. " It's probably the oxygen people get up." I tried to motivate myself with that thought. No success. A quick glance out the window revealed a dreary morning soaked in drizzling rain. I felt the deep impulse to just lay in bed and neglect responsibility. A point of impossibility and laziness and perhaps one day I'll take a vacation and indulge that impulse. Today was definitely not that day. The phone rang again and I complied and reached for the phone. The ID read Mercy home care. Yes, it was the oxygen people.
The man on the phone wanted to bring the oxygen and give instructions and I told him that would be fine as long as I could be out the door by 9:45 for Ronan's therapy session. He agreed he could be done in more than enough time. Why did I feel this ridiculous sinking feeling. "You don't want him to have oxygen". I analyzed the thought and then felt bad. Of course I want him to have oxygen it will help him and it's better than a trach. "No you don't want him to that's why you avoided the phone call". Yes, I argue with myself at times. But it helps me to analyze my motives better.I started thinking about all of this and I realized part of me was lazy. I didn't want another machine. I didn't want to have to keep the oxygen on Ronan's nose while he'd be fighting me tooth and nail to keep it off. Another task like hearing aides and glasses. I don't want to battle him through the night. I want to sleep. After I acknowledged my own selfishness and laziness I moved onto the deeper emotions. It scared me. What if he strangles himself? What if the oxygen is really a bad thing and raises his c02 levels causing him to suddenly die like the pulmonologist thought might occur? What if I set it up wrong? What if the tank explodes? If there is a fire do I need to push it outside before anything else? Yes, I was thinking all of those things as I fed Ronan breakfast.The next thought I had about why I didn't want it was because I felt we were going backwards. It would have been one thing if Ronan came home from the NICU on oxygen because he was still progressing. He started on a vent then progressed to oxygen then slowly his oxygen was lowered and finally removed. Now at almost two he has to go back on. I allowed myself to analyze why I felt this way about everything and felt better. But I'm glad I didn't harbor all of this away and not acknowledge all of this was here. Once again I had engaged in the great mom debate full of decisions about the best thing for my children.Ronan did not like his therapy session today. He was grumpy. All he wanted to do was swing and push the toy shopping cart up and down the hall. Every other activity suggestion was met with tears and him collapsing to the ground in frustration. The session was cut a little short and Ronan cried all the way out of the gym. We waited for our ride as he cried. My sister in-law was nice enough to act as our taxi today due to another long story.
As soon as Ronan was belted in and the car started moving he was out. He had needed a nap. I brought him home and he laid flat on his back and was out cold. Inara was concerned. She crawled over and looked at me and pointed at Ronan. A few seconds later she proceeded to gently hit him with a puzzle piece. I moved her away and assured her he was ok. While Ronan was dozing I fed my picture taking addiction and did a photo shoot of Inara. Who could resist taking photos of such a cute face. Ronan would have been included in the cute baby shoot but there is only so many different pictures you can take of him completely passed out in the middle of the living room.

Second Sleep Study

Ronan's sleep study went pretty well. He even left the oxygen in for the most part. His favorite part was getting to snuggle with mommy all night. The only two pictures I have are awful because the room was completely dark and I didn't want to wake him with the flash. If you want to see more clearly how he looked you can review his last sleep study here.

He slept through the night with only a couple restless moments but with wires and devices on near every inch of your body whose going to sleep perfectly. They woke us up at 6:00 am to get us out by 6:30. As I walked in the door at home I heard Inara greeting me to an early morning. She was pleased to have mommy back.I figured we might as well tackle the mountainous pile of laundry that Easter weekend left neglected and thus got started on the day. Ronan had some stridor so I canceled his home therapy appointment. I called to check on the big kids. They've enjoyed playing outside and having a playdough play date with neighbor twins.

I spent the afternoon running around getting paperwork completed for a program Ronan is in. I'm changing to a different type of program. I'm hoping this will be a good change. One down side is he has to have a new case manager and I really like his old one. I wish we could transfer her to the other program with us. If this program doesn't turn out as well I can switch back to the old one.Late afternoon I got a call from the nurse telling me the doctor determined that having Ronan on 1 liter of oxygen at night would be best. This is a much better plan than the trach. They will be bringing his setup tomorrow and I'm sure this is going to take me back to the Ronan NICU days.

Isaac fell down the concrete steps at our back door. He twisted his ankle. Now the poor guy is limping every where. Hopefully he'll still be able to do everything he needs to tomorrow.

Resurrection Sunday

Happy Easter ,Everyone! We had a wonderful morning at church. The pastor talked about the significance of the resurrection. The kids performed beautifully in their play. Landon remembered his lines. Xander helped Landon up off the ground but forgot to say his part but it worked out cute anyway. All three of the kids looked adorable singing the songs. Xander and Landon remembered the words pretty well and sang loud enough to be heard.Ronan and Inara fell asleep mid way through the service and I was happy neither one of them got fussy and restless. on the way home Inara and Ronan held hands in their car seats. At home the kids saw their Easter baskets which were arranged in birth order including my niece's and nephew's baskets. Once all of my family arrived we let the kids explore what they got in their baskets before we attempted Easter dress clothes pictures.The pictures proved as challenging as usual. I suppose the challenge is pretty self explanatory. Seven children all six and under sitting still so people can snap pictures of them in hopes that you will catch just one single shot of all seven of them looking somewhat at the camera. To hope for seven in sync smiles is beyond what is thought possible and therefor unexpected.Lunch was delicious. Everyone chipped in with ham, potatoes, green beans, rolls and pies. There are 3 rules you must remember when having Ronan around. Lesson # 1 Ronan is tiny and can maneuver quickly with near invisible ease. Lesson # 2 if you place food of any sort too close to the edge Ronan will make a run to grab said item. Lesson # 3 Ronan has a death grip when he really wants something he knows is off limits. You will not get the item back without sheer force. The ignoring of these Ronan rules are what lead up to a good portion of the coconut cream pie landing straight on the top of Ronan's head.
The last family event was the Easter egg hunt. We hid 168 plastic eggs in various places outside. We mainly just tossed them around the yard and let the kids search. They each had a bucket full. My three oldest loaded up with Grandma and Grandpa Fullmer and they are now on their way to their grandparents'. They will be back on Wednesday. I will miss them but tonight I will be focused on Ronan.He has his sleep study to see if night oxygen is a good option. If the oxygen makes his situation worse we will have to decide from there what we should do. I don't think the place has internet access so I wanted to make sure we had the daily blog done and posted. But today was a good day to remember the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We also had some great family time together with both sets of grandparents and my brother's family.

All to do with Eggs

Isaac got to join us at the Easter egg hunt because he figured out yesterday what was wrong with the internet. We were able to cancel the repairman. The day started out at a nice temperature and sunny unlike the predicted cloudy skies. This took a turn about the time we were leaving for the hunt. The skies clouded over and the wind began to chill the air.I was paired with my Ronan man and I was fortunate enough to get to be inside. Children two and under were the only group with an indoor egg hunt. Everyone else got to feel the wind chill. This was good for Ronan because if this had not been the case he would have missed the hunt since exposing him to the wind for too long would have been a bad idea.The big kids had their faces painted. Xander was a lion, Jadzia a kitty and Landon requested a snake which the painter chose to have the snake slithering across Landon's nasal bridge. There was a brief appearance from the Easter bunny and we got a group picture. Aunt Alana (my sister in-law) had to hold Jadzia because she was too afraid of him. She is going through the stage of all costume characters being terrifying.Isaac, Grandma Fullmer and Alana took all five of the older children out to their hunt. I got in line with Ronan and Grandpa Fullmer hung back with Inara. When they released the yellow tap and said go around thirty parents and toddlers bounded into the egg arena. Ronan was more interested in sitting in the middle of all the candy admiring the colorfulness of the taffy. I scooped up a few eggs for him and then left the rest for the other kids. I gave one purple egg to Inara which she was more than pleased with.On the way out we made a brief stop to get all the kid's pictures taken with the fire trucks. Back at our house we had lunch. There were cupcakes for dessert. I let Ronan chow down on one which he readily devoured. He's done ok with cupcakes in the past and I thought he would handle this one ok. Instead he irritated his sensitive esophagus. This brought his cough and vocal irritation. I felt bad about it.We dyed 36 eggs and decorated a few. Alana helped me to tack Ronan's pants up. I can not sew to save my life and Ronan's pants were way too long. He's a short little guy and had to have his pants taken up several inches. Thankfully Alana knew what to do.For the evening we went back to my in-laws hotel to go swimming. My mother in-law had her Easter things ready for the kids once they got done swimming. The boys got khung zhu pets and carrying cases, and Jadzia got a hula hoop and a streamer.Tomorrow is a big day. We have church , including the kids' Easter play. Next we are planning on a nice family dinner, followed by our private Easter Egg hunt and the baskets from my mom and I. Tomorrow should be a great time with family.