24 weeks!

24 weeks! Viability! That's exciting news, folks. I'm finally feeling better after my ugly bout with a UTI last weekend, although I have to say I am starting to feel all the typical pregnancy complaints...heartburn, nausea if I eat too much, bone numbing exhaustion, and not breathing because I have the feeling that my organs are getting shoved into my lungs. You know, the norm.

Pros, though....I have made it five weeks beyond the point at which I was on bedrest with Eli. Score! All my regular clothes still fit. Double Score! Also a pro? She finally let us get some semblance of a picture of her!

Here you go...introducing Baby McCall #5, our second little girl.

This is a profile shot. She's looking up, with her arm and hand held just above her face.

In this picture, she's looking straight on. On the far left you have her knees and calves, then in the middle both of her arms with her hands at her chin, then you see her face straight on.

I think she's pretty cute! She's moving a lot, mostly in the evenings. When I was pregnant with Ava, just a little big further along than I am this time, John would tap on my stomach and she would kick back. He was convinced she could count before she was born. I guess we'll have to test this baby out soon. Maybe she'll do some quadratic equations while she's in there!

Halloween Restrospective

Does everyone celebrate Halloween? We do, in the sense that we let the kids dress up and walk down Main Street collecting candy. At Ava's school they don't celebrate secular holidays, so they don't do anything there. Jace's school does a fun carnival thing but they don't talk about Halloween at all or dress up. My kids know nothing about any of the scary parts of halloween, and when a Grim Reaper on stilts walked by them last year, they flipped out.

One very hot topic in our household lately has been Halloween costumes, and tonight the kids wanted to review what they've been for Halloween every other year, so I figured it would be a fun walk down memory lane.

Ava's 1st Halloween - 2004- 2 months old

She was Tigger. And very serious about it.

Halloween 2005 - Jace was one month old, Ava was 14 months (the same age Seth is now!). We reused the Tigger costume and the pose for Jace's first Halloween. Ava got two costumes...at one event she was a fairy, and at the other she and her best friend Zac made very cute dinosaurs, don't you think?

Halloween 2006

Ava and Jace make a very cool Pebbles and Bam Bam, complete with the club. They kept the club for over a year until I had to get rid of it...they beat each other with it. Jace was13 months old and Ava had just turned 2.

Halloween 2007 - Ava and Jace had just turned 2 and 3. Ava was Cinderella and Jace was a Pirate. An adorable one.

>

Halloween 2008- At the ages of 3 and 4, this was the first year that they really had any interest in choosing their costume. Ava was Cinderella (again!) and Jace was a Super Knight on a Horse with a Sword. Yes, we did have to say that entire title whenever anyone asked. It was Seth's first Halloween, and he was three months old. The plan was to have him be Tigger just like his brother and sister had been, but at the last minute we couldn't find the costume and he went as a skeleton instead.

I have to say I think my favorites were either the Pebbles and Bam Bam year or the year they were Cinderella and  a Pirate. I loved those costumes! This year, Ava wants to be a clown (I'm pushing for Belle instead) and Jace wants to be...surprise...a Knight. Again. Apparently when they find a costume they like they stick with it for a couple of years. I have absolutely no clue what Seth should be. I need ideas!

What are your kids going to be for Halloween, or if you dress up, what are you going to be? Do you let them choose or do you "guide" their choices towards what you think looks cute (I do!!). What were your favorite costumes for your kids?

Perspective

Last year, I walked into the Symposium for Early Childhood Deafness with my newly diagnosed profoundly deaf baby boy. I sat through hours and hours of lectures, my brain exploding with new knowledge about things I never thought I'd need to know anything about. Cochlear Implants. Hearing Aids. Cultural Deafness. Total Communication. Oral. Auditory Verbal.

All of it was covered, in different sessions, all with different slants depending on the background and opinion of the presenter. Because the conference is held by the Department of Education, they present a balanced viewpoint, showcasing an equal number of presenters and lectures on both signing and CIs.

I listened to speech pathologists talk about the best way to use sign language in therapy. I was told that it was imperative for kids with hearing loss they they follow the 1-3-6 model...diagnose by 1 month, amplify by 3 months, and enroll in therapy by 6 months. Luckily, Seth fit in that mold...he was diagnosed at 2 weeks, had his hearing aids at 6 weeks, and started therapy at 3 months. We were ahead of the curve. I listened to geneticists talk about the latest reasons they thought hearing loss occurred, and the odds of passing it down in a family. I wrote down the names of obscure genetic tests that Seth should have that not many clinics were doing preemptively yet.

I wandered the exhibitor's hall and met parents who'd moved their whole families to St. Augustine to attend the school for the deaf and blind. I met parents who had kids with one cochlear implant, and even one who had two. I talked to parents who signed, and parents who spoke. There weren't many that chose to do both with their kids. I listened to reps from different schools tell me about each communication style, and saw demos of products I never even knew existed, like smoke alarms that shook your bed. I compared three different brands of cochlear implants, although I wasn't even sure that's what our choice would be.

Everyone was nice, and they all went on and on about Seth, who spent most of the conference sleeping in his bassinet attached to his stroller. I left feeling overwhelmed but with a clear purpose. I needed to get Seth into therapy. I needed to decided our game plan, and whatever it was, put it into play.

Over the next year, I did just that. We took sign language classes and Seth had a deaf educator in the house every week. I had him in speech therapy by the time he was 12 weeks old. Within a month or two, we had decided cochlear implantation was the way to go for our family, and we started trying to make that happen. Then we decided we weren't waiting until he turned one, and we fought our insurance company and started fundraising for Seth. When a roadblock came up, we changed our route. When our insurance said no way to two, we were blessed with the opportunity to change insurance companies, to one that did allow bilateral surgery. When it became clear that our goal of early bilateral implantation wouldn't be a possibility at the center we were at, we changed to a new surgeon when Seth was 6 months old. He fast tracked us and when our insurance denied Seth's surgery due to his age, he appealed it and had the denial overturned in less than 24 hours. In just a few months of fundraising, we had the money to cover Seth's exorbitant surgery costs.

Seth was incredibly blessed. When he was just 8 months old, he received both of his implants in one surgery that lasted just under two hours. It was incredibly short, and we had been led to believe from others who had been through it that it would be over twice that length. He was activated four weeks later and when I called his name for the first time, he turned to me and laughed.

That has been Seth all the way. He loves to hear. He was localizing sound by the day after his activation, and he was saying words within weeks. When he turned one, his speech and language evaluation graded him at 12-15 months. Not delayed. Our deaf baby had no language delay. All the work that had gone into the past year was worth it. He was hearing, and he was loving it.

That's where Seth was at when I headed into the conference this year. Same people in the exhibitor's hall, some of the same presenters, and some of the same type of lectures. But I came away from it with a totally different feeling.

Panic.

Yeah. I know. Seems weird. You see, last year when I left, I had a hard but relatively simple job. Get Seth what he needed. He needed CIs. We made that happen with the help of God and lots of other people. Now that he has his implants, it's not so simple. He's made it to one year with no delays, but the bar just got immeasurably higher. After a year of age, kids language explodes. After two it expands exponentially. Will we be able to keep up? It's just getting harder, with a wiggly 14 month old who is more interested in learning to walk than learning to talk right now.

This year, I walked in with my babbling, crazy haired one year old with bilateral implants. I sat through lectures on the state of the nation of kids with hearing loss, if you will. There have been studies that followed a ton of kids...about 700, and we were shown where they were doing well, where they were doing ok, and where they were doing poorly. They were doing poorly in a lot of areas. It was overwhelming. What most people don't realize is that kids with hearing loss learn differently that other kids. Even when they hear well, for instance at a level of mild hearing loss, they're still missing a TON of what goes on in the world. They don't learn incidentally the way hearing kids do, they can't eavesdrop on conversation and learn all kinds of things they're not supposed to know that way. For the most part, kids who use CIs and hearing aids only learn what you teach them.

Think about that for a second. How many times have you been amazed by your child telling you something in spanish that they saw on Dora, or a prayer they picked up on the radio? Seth has a bubble, if you will, of good hearing, where he can hear clearly. He may hear us call him from further away than that, but it's going to be mostly noise when you're more than a few feet away from him. It changes a lot. Because these kids learn intentionally, they are very literal. What you teach them is what they know. They grasp concrete concepts like what and where, but when and if are hard for them to grasp. Have you ever tried to teach someone whose first language is not english what "the whole nine yards" means? They have no clue, no concept of theoretical or idiomatic language. How do you teach that? At this point, I don't know. But I know that this is where these kids are struggling. For instance, Seth has about 15 words right now, and do you know how many he has learned that I didn't sit down and expressly teach him? One. One word that he picked up on his own out of fifteen. Book. And that was amazing.

So leaving the conference this year, which was filled with so many great and interesting people and who taught me so much once again, I was surprised. Some people that welcomed us last year didn't really talk to us this year, because the processors on Seth's head didn't fit in with their teaching or their school. Reps from the other CI companies didn't speak to us at all. Others, who saw his gear and knew we had chosen the way we did, swarmed us and were fast friends. It was odd. I am still overwhelmed, but this time, my job is not so simple. It's not going to be as easy as simply fighting for my baby to get the surgery he needs. It's so much more complicated...I have to learn how to teach him, because no one else can. One hour in therapy a week isn't going to cut it, and even when he's in school, for kids with hearing loss, every minute has to be a teachable one. They are missing so much that other kids get without even realizing it, and it's going to be up to me and his support system to fill those gaps in for him.

This is what I want people to know. Getting your kids implanted is not the finish line, it's that starting line. Activation day is just the starting gun going off, the clock starting on the rest of their lives. It's up to us as their parents to teach them to listen, and once they can listen, to fill their ears with things that they need to know. It won't happen if we don't do it, if we don't put them in the right places with the right people who will continue to teach them well and with understanding for their differences once they're in school. It's little things. It's sitting the CI kid next to the teacher for circle time, it's cutting down on acoustic noise in the classroom with tennis balls on the bottoms of chairs. It's remembering that even though they look, talk, and act like a normal hearing kid, sometimes they're not. This is a lifelong challenge, and it's one I want to prepare Seth to take on for himself one day. I expect him to be able to advocate for himself one day, to teach his classmates about his equipment and explain to his teachers how he hears. But before he can do that, I have to do it for him. It's a big job, but he deserves someone to do it right.

It's not so different from any other kid, really. It just takes a little more intentionality, and that can be hard in these days of fast food and fast learning, when kids are reading in Pre K. There are lots of choices we'll make for Seth, probably just as controversial as implanting him in the first place, like whether he'll go to a mainstream school or a deaf one, whether we'll start him on time or hold him back a year. Whether ASL or cued english will ever be a part of his life.

It's just funny what a difference a year can make.

This is kind of embarassing.

So I'm going to talk about something that makes me vaguely uncomfortable in this post.

Urinary Tract Infections.

What a gross name, huh? I mean, I guess it's all pretty gross. A year ago, we made a trip to Indiana for my friend Lindsey's wedding and decided to drive straight through the night. We made the trip in just under 20 hours and what with all the pumping and feeding and nursing and changing of Seth, who was like, 6 weeks old at the time, I totally forgot to actually, you know, relieve myself. We only stopped about four times to fill up the gas tank, and every time I was busy with the kids in the van and always forgot to go.

At the time, I thought maybe I had a super power.

Until a few days later, when I was feeling like I had to go every five seconds. Like that one commercial they used to show, where someone sang a song about having to "go, go, go right now!" But when I went, it took me roughly 37 minutes to pee about 3 drops.

I consider myself a fairly smart person, so it only took me another day or so to think I might have a UTI. Everyone said "Drink cranberry juice!" Problem is, I hate cranberry juice. Instead, I went to the drugstore and bout some over the counter pills, figuring I would just diagnose myself and avoid a doctor visit out of state.

It went great, although the medicine turned my pee bright orange. Freaky. At least it warned me on the box. Or at least I thought it was going great, until I woke up in the middle of the night literally in the worst pain I'd ever imagined and crawled up the stairs from the basement, heading for the bathroom. I never made it...I ended up just laying on the carpet on the landing, taking shallow breaths and trying not to aggravate the sharp pains that were shooting through my hips and back and just about everywhere by that point. John ended up finding me there and forcing me to go to the emergency room, although I seem to remember that I thought my version of coping; namely, laying on the floor and pretending I didn't exist, therefore the pain couldn't exist, was working pretty well.

It was terrible. Luckily when we got to the ER they quickly got me antibiotics and within a couple days I was feeling better. But I've never forgotten that night.

This weekend, the kids, my best friend Mara, and I drove to St. Augustine for a conference on childhood deafness. We were excited...a road trip, a free stay in a nice hotel, and lots of lectures. Lectures! I love lectures. Especially from people who can tell me things about how Seth learns, which is not the way other kids learn, due to his hearing loss. Mara was exited, too...they had a great pool and there was a lecture on classroom set up for kids with hearing loss that she thought would be really useful for when Seth is in her class.

We arrived late in the evening on Thursday, said a quick hello to friends in the lobby, then headed up to our room, where I had to call down to the front desk and ask for both a rollaway bed and a crib. (Her response? "You want both?" Um, yes. They're not sleeping with me!) By the time we got them settled and stopped freaking out over the disrespect poor George suffered in Grey's Anatomy, we were both exhausted and my back was hurting, which I attributed to the four hour car drive in my van, which has terribly uncomfortable seats.

The next morning I woke up and the hotel room was freezing. I don't deal well sleeping in super cold air...I had a sore throat and felt bad. I took a shower and then admitted to Mara that I didn't feel great...that either I was getting the kids' cold from earlier in the week or the drive had taken more out of me than I thought. Seth and I said goodbye to the kids and Mara and headed down to the conference for the morning meet and greet and first session. Seth wanted to be carried, and he was heavy. Oh my goodness, so heavy. He doesn't help hold himself at all, and I was exhausted. I actually put him down on the carpet in the exhibit hall and let him crawl around, to his audiologist's horror (her exact words were "I'm not even that kind of mom, but you just don't know who has walked on this carpet!"). But I just couldn't hold him. I headed in to the first session and settled in, just to see that I had missed a phone call from my doctor's office, which was odd.

We ducked out to call back, and she said the most terrible words to me: "You have UTI. I need to call you in a prescription."

I literally went cold. Suddenly the back pain made sense, although aside from that and fatigue, I had had no symptoms. I explained that I was four hours away from home, and after a quick conversation with the concierge, we found a pharmacy nearby where she could call the prescription in.

Apparently when the nurse uttered the word UTI, all hell broke loose. Fifteen minutes before, I thought I was mildly tired and sore. By the time I'd made it back up the elevator and through my room, I could hardly walk. My back was killing me and I felt achy and sore all over. Apparently even saying the words "Urinary Tract Infection" to me make me break out with hysterical symptoms, like the men who have pregnancy symptoms along with their wives.

Mara offered to take the big kids to the pool so I could pick up the prescription, and Seth and I headed out. I was freezing cold and shaky, and felt sick. I either had the worst UTI in the world or I was lucky enough to get a cold and a UTI simultaneously, making them both morph into something much worse than the sum of their parts.

Of course when I got there the prescription had not been called in. I couldn't take the air conditioning, so I took Seth back out to the car and chugged a gatorade and some cold medicine while I waited. It was past Seth's nap time, and he was tired and fussy. I kept calling the automated line to see if the prescription was ready, because I didn't want to walk all those steps again until I had to. The fake lady kept asking me to say my phone number and without fail, every time I opened my mouth Seth would scream and the lady would say "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that." Then I'd start all over. And he'd scream again. I was ready to die. I wanted to sleep on the steering wheel while I waited, but I was worried that someone would think I was dead and call the police. That didn't seem ideal

Finally, I got confirmation that it was ready and I picked it up and started the two mile journey back to the hotel, where I barely managed to get myself and Seth upstairs and laid him in his crib with a sippy cup (which I never do) and literally collapsed onto my bed.

By that afternoon, I was feeling a little better and we managed to make it down to the conference for a while, but what a terrible day. We went to Cracker Barrel and I ordered my favorite food, and then it arrived, and I couldn't even eat it. Couldn't. Eat it. My stomach was a traitor. It was a travesty.

By the next morning, and the third dose of antibiotics I was feeling more human and I was actually able to attend my precious lectures, but that's going to have to be another post, because all this talk of UTIs has made me depressed. But a quick shout out to Mara, who saved my life this weekend! I would never have made it if she hadn't been there to help. You're the best!

Be My Baby

No matter how big she gets,

or how smart;

No matter how dramatic she gets,

She'll always be my baby.

Even when she spends an hour before bed putting on a spoken word poetry jam about "The Wicked Angel Satan" who dressed up in a snake costume and took away Adam and Eve's perfect happiness complete with arm waving and snaps at strategic intervals, with certain words punctuate by a dramatic pose. And then quizzes me on the content of her poetry. And tells me "Thanks for stepping up!" because I "volunteered" after she said "Anyone in the room want to tell me what that poem was about? In detail?"

She cracks me up.

23 weeks!

23 weeks! Aside from the hospital trip on Monday, I've been feeling fine. I think I've gained 8 or 9 pounds so far, and the baby girl's heart rate is always somewhere in the 150's, and she's well over a pound in weight now. Measuring pretty much dead on for dates, which is a first! All the other babies measured big from the beginning of the second trimester.

Have you ever had Planter's Sweet and Crunchy peanuts? I don't even know how to describe them, but they are amazing. I can't believe it's taken me 27 year to find them. They are fabulous. I'm currently eating them pretty much nonstop, which means that soon I'll never be able to eat them again because I'm so burnt out. That's how I tend to roll. Find something I like, and eat it until it makes me want to puke. Fun times.

Anyone have any tips for drinking more water? I can't just drink water nonstop. Can't. And I like Gatorade, the lemon lime flavor, at least, but if I drink to much of it I always get canker sores. I've tried the different mix ins for water bottles, but they never end up tasting right. So I'm always vaguely thirsty but drinking too much plain water can literally make me throw up. I also have something against flavored water. Don't know why. I'm confusing.

Ava and Jace are both thrilled about getting a new baby (in fact, Jace thinks one is not enough), but I have a feeling Seth is going to get a very rude awakening in a few months. He is definitely the king of the hill around here, and he likes it. He thinks he is the funniest, cutest thing ever created, and I think he is going to be mighty annoyed at someone coming along to take the spotlight. We'll see. I'm a little nervous. Let's just cross our fingers that he's walking by January!

Jace & Big Green

This little boy will not allow me to call him "little" anymore. He's big! He's four! He's practically bigger than Ava (not quite)! Apparently, for Jace, 4 was THE number he's been waiting for. Now he can leap tall buildings in a single bound, pack his own lunch, and buckle his own carseat.

Of course, when he was sick today, he still spent the whole day curled up by my side, so I guess he's still just a little bit little. I'll take it.

Even though I spent roughly half his birthday in the hospital and he spent the majority of the rest of it in school, he had a great day. He woke up at 5:30, had his very special Larry Boy cake for breakfast, and opened his presents. His very favorite was a bike he had been begging for, and the first thing we had to do was deface it with as many Spiderman stickers as possible. It was the concession I made to get him to agree to get a bike that wasn't actually the Spiderman bike that had like, 1 star reviews. I don't even know why he likes Spiderman so much...he's never seen a comic book, movie, or cartoon. He has no idea who Peter Parker is. But Spiderman? The Bomb. Just because. I hate character stuff.

After school we headed out to try out his new bike. Ava was in super big sister mode, as she helped him remove himself from a few curbs and get back on his way.

The morning after his birthday, Jace woke up and said "Am I still four?!" When the answer was yes, he grinned hugely and said "Thank You!" He's such a funny boy.

___________________

I loved all your comments on my last post! You guys crack me up. I'm kind of ticked that I responded to a bunch of comments and apparently they never went through. That's annoying.

Tomorrow, we're heading up to St. Augustine for the weekend for the Florida Summit on childhood deafness. I was able to attend last year, soon after Seth was diagnosed as profoundly deaf. I spent the whole weekend listening to lectures about choices in deafness, the importance of early intervention, visual and auditory learning, and I got to meet some great people, including the person who became Seth's audiologist, who I love. LOVE. I'm thrilled to be going back this year with all the experiences I have under my belt now, and I hope there are parents with new babies there who can benefit from the great start that I was able to get having all of these great, experienced professionals around in one place to talk to.

I was packing up Seth's CI stuff today, back ups and extra cables and whatnot, and I made a mental note to pack the car charger for Seth's batteries. Then I literally cracked up at the irony that I can recharge my kids ears while I'm driving. Isn't that wild? It all seems so normal until I stop and think about it, and then I realize...that's pretty weird. I'm sure people in the grocery store give us really weird looks when they hear me tell one of the kids to put their brother's ear back on. It's so funny the stuff you get used to.

In fact, the other day I was thinking about the new baby, and I actually thought "I will be really prepared this time around...maybe we can get her implanted at 6 months instead of 8."

I'm so used to Seth that I literally forgot that there's no reason for us to think that the new baby will be deaf, too. In fact, there's very little chance of it, as Seth's deafness is not genetic. But still, I actually can't imagine having a hearing baby, one who won't sleep through the kids screams, who will startle and wake to a voice instead of a touch.

I think it's been on my mind even more because at Ava's 5 year old check up, she failed her hearing test 3 times in a row in the same ear. She passed in the other ear, but consistently failed in her right ear. It's odd, because the test was one she passed last year, and it's a test that identifies a completely different type of hearing loss than Seth has, so there is no tie in there.

Seth's audiologist is going to do a complete evaluation for Ava next month, and we'll get some answers about what's going on. When I talked to her (she has no idea she even had a hearing test, much less failed it), she told me that she could hear better out of one ear than the other, and every time I asked her which ear worked better, she pointed to the one that passed the test. It was interesting, and I'm anxious to know what the deal is. I'm not worried, as either way we'll be fine...if it's nothing, that's great, and if she does have a hearing loss, well, we're well prepared to deal with it after all we've gone through with Seth.

It's always something around here, huh? Apparently God thinks something really bad would happen to me if I was allowed to be bored for even a second.

What are you doing this weekend?

Radio Silence

I know. Two days without a post. Can you believe it? It's so unlike me.

Well, I have a good excuse, I promise.

I was in the hospital.

I don't know exactly what it was, but apparently a combination of some things that have been going on tried to send me into pre term labor. I think between being out in the heat on Saturday and probably overdoing it getting ready for Jace's birthday on Sunday set me up for a pretty bad day yesterday. Add to that the fact that John and I have not been seeing eye to eye at all lately, meaning I've been incredibly stressed out about what I'm going to open my phone or email box and see waiting for me, and it was basically a recipe for disaster.

Last week, I decided that after ten weeks of trying to spend time together "as a family" when John was actively acting as though he was single was too much for me. As much I wanted to be the bigger person, it was just hard, and as I'm sure you all know, your husband knows better than anyone else how to push every button you have. Every time I saw John I ended up a mess and it took me days to recover. He would say things like "I don't want to have to say _________" and not realize that he was, in fact, still saying whatever hurtful thing he said, and saying he didn't want to say it didn't change anything.

The fact is, since the day he walked out, he has been in complete control of the situation. Finally I have realized that it's not good for me or the kids, and put some guidelines in place. Basically, the way he is right now is not good for me or the baby, so I've been having someone else meet him for his visits with the kids so I don't have to see him. I also have limited his visits to specific set days, so that the kids can count on when they'll get to see him and hopefully be able to find some normalcy in this situation. It was very confusing for all of us when he was popping in and out all the time.

My efforts to make this easier on me and the kids and actually take some control of my life back were met with resistance, to put it nicely. The past week has been miserable, and not a day has gone by without some kind of negative contact from him. Who knew I could tell him that I didn't want to talk to or see him anymore and he would insist on insinuating himself into my life? I thought he would be relieved that I wouldn't be around for his visits with the kids. It's kind of funny, really. All I had to do was tell him I didn't want him to text me or call me and he was texting me every day, just to prove a point. Boys.

Anyway, the past two days were the worst, and he was basically picking fights with me about just about every parenting decision I make, and yesterday I was frustrated, tired, and just done. We were at homeschool in the morning and I just felt bad the whole time, and early in the afternoon my neighbor and I were sitting outside and watching Jace ride his new bicycle around (yesterday was also his birthday) and I was preparing to leave so that John could come see the kids and give Jace his birthday presents.I was nervous about the visit, and I just felt off, so I called my OB and they fit me in, and I headed over thinking I would just get my weekly appointment out of the way and then come back to take Jace out to dinner for his birthday.

Well, by the time I got there, I was having obvious contractions and he sent me right to the hospital. I felt horrible...missing my four year olds birthday to sit in the hospital getting about a million shots of terbutaline, with an IV, hooked up to a monitor that can barely register 23 week contractions for almost 10 hours. Oh yeah...in the same room that I found out Eli had died. Without my husband there. And a phone that was dead. With nothing to do. Not even tweet. Do you have any idea how close my brain came to exploding? Nothing to do for ten hours but sit around and think??

It sucked. Luckily, by a little after midnight, things had died down enough for me to go home, and I feel better today. Tired, but better. And the plus is that John apparently finally had a chance to see how his behavior can actually affect me physically. He says he understands now why I need to distance myself from him, and I hope that's true. It's the last thing I want, but it's the best thing for me right now. I'm just tired of being so upset all the time, and I want to be able to focus on the kids and not what he's doing. Right now, I need to be able to pretend he doesn't exist, at least until this baby gets safely here or something about his behavior changes. It sucks that we are at this point, but as much as I'd like to be able to hang out for the kids sake, I just can't right now. Obviously. As yesterday illustrated.

So, I'm back, and feeling better, and I just wanted to let you all know. I hope you're all having a great week!

Rhyan's Hope Run to Hear

This should be roughly 17 seperate posts, but I'm exhausted, so I'm throwing them all in together. We headed to Orlando yesterday afternoon, and spent the evening swimming in the pool and eating at McDonald's. Jace's choice. When we arrived at the race site at a little after 6 this morning, Seth was not impressed. Jace said "Mom, do you realize it's still night time?"

Jace, however, was incredibly excited about running in the kids race. We manned the registration booth for the kids race and ended up with over 40 entrants, from the ages of 1-11.

He made me pin his number on very carefully. Then he had some adorable brother bonding time. Are these not some of the cutest boys around? I think so, but I may be biased.

Seth leaning his forehead on Jace like that is his version of a hug. He headbutts very affectionately all the time. It's hilarious.

There was an awesome spot set up for all the racers to get massages before and after the race. One of the therapists offered Jace a massage and he said no, very quickly. Then he told me "She didn't understand. I DON'T WANT A MASSAGE!" I think maybe he thinks massages are something bad. Like bedtime. Who knows. He'll learn that they're glorious someday.

The turn out was awesome! It was so cool to see everyone out there running or walking their four miles to help raise money for Rhyan's Hope.

The kids and parents in this picture are other cochlear implant families. It's so funny that this time last year Seth was just a new baby, just past his diagnosis, and now he's hearing just like these kids! Last year, these were the kids whose parents I talked to over and over trying to make our decision. Now he's one of them!

The race was so cool. Some of the first to finish completed the four miles in less than 22 minutes. There was also an 81 year old woman who ran the race! It was awesome to see. On the back of her shirt, it said "You just got passed by an 80 year old lady!" Hilarious. She probably would have passed me. And by that I mean definitely.

The boys got bored and decided to examine the sidewalk. Seth was multitasking by crawling and eating a bagel. It hit the ground several times. Yum.

Still good! Just knock the dirt off it, right?

Contemplating whether to go after it. I stepped in at this point. Even I have standards.

Jace and Rhyan's little sister, Evynn, getting read to run!

Can you see him? He's in the blue shirt.

On the way home! He ran hard. I was worried he would freak out if he didn't win, but it turned out he didn't really notice and was thrilled with his very own blue ribbon.

It was awesome to be able to be a part of such a cool event, and I can't wait until next year's second annual Run to Hear! Maybe I'll actually run in that one. Or not.

After the race we went out to brunch with a ton of the people who made the event happen, and the kids went completely nuts, probably due to how overtired they all were from such an early start. The staff was glad to see us go, I am sure. But it was so cool to be able to catch up with everyone and help them raise money for their next recipient. Now I'm going to go sleep for about three days.

We're off to the races!

I am running frantically around the house getting all of our stuff in order for an overnight hotel stay.

Did you know that hotels are just the coolest things ever in the entire world? My kids think so, at least. They love hotels. Hotels are like Christmas to them. It's hilarious. Of course, I was the exact same way when I was a kid. My mom and I would go stay at a hotel and do nothing but hang out there, and I thought it was amazing. AMAZING. You offer me a nice hotel and some nice meals out and I'm yours, I tell you. Hotels and restaurants are apparently the way to my heart.

And my children have taken after me. It's hilarious.

Luckily, the hotel we are staying in tonight does not have floral comforters. I cannot stand floral comforters, and they ruin the whole hotel thing for me. I know, weird.

We're heading to Orlando tonight so that we can get up bright and early tomorrow morning to be part of the Rhyan's Hope Road Race tomorrow! My original plan was to actually run it, but then I got knocked up. Oops.

So instead, I'll be helping out and hanging out, letting Seth meet and greet all the awesome people coming together to help raise money so that other kids like Seth and Rhyan and Jillian can hear. It should be a great time and I am so thrilled to be a part of it.

Plus, you know, I get to go stay in a hotel. Hotel!!! So awesome.

22 weeks!

22 weeks yesterday. Or, as I have alternately titled this photo...POPPED! I knew it was coming...All week I've been feeling really thick waisted and strange and then, all of a sudden, there she came...evidence of a baby!

This baby is stubborn. Let the record show that right now, so that in a year when I am relating some story about how stubborn she is you can all say "Look! You said that last year!!"


I had a level II ultrasound with my Perinatologist this week to check for any abnormalities or issues with the baby. Jace has something called a Chiari Malformation (basically the opening leading from his skull to his vertebrae is smaller than it should be, and can cut off the proper flow of spinal fluid to and from the brain), so we're always looking for that, and with my history, we generally like to cover all the bases.


Well, she would not cooperate. She was breech and facing straight down and sitting indian style (sorry, let's be politically correct...criss cross applesauce). So the tech couldn't confirm her gender, although my own OB has done that, so I'm not too worried...much. I mean, Ava would be completely devastated, but you know...whatever. The tech also couldn't get any good face shots, which really bummed me out. I get an ultrasound every. single. week, and I have yet to get one good picture of her. By the time Eli and Seth were 22 weeks gestational age, I had entire photo albums of their ultrasound pictures.


This baby? Nada. Zilch. Nothing. Not one good picture. I can't believe it! Everything checked out okay, although the perinatologist is thinking of a few different approaches to the pregnancy that I'm not super thrilled about...I should know more about his game plan in a couple of weeks. I'm trying not to stress over it right now. They were also unable to get a look at some things due to her position. But her heartrate is running in the 150's and she is over a pound now. I just wish we could get a good look at her!

Heartburn has also started to rear it's ugly head and I am not thrilled about it, and my blood sugar keeps creeping on up no matter what I eat, but it could be worse. By this time with Seth I was already on insulin, so every week I avoid giving myself shots is a bonus! Overall, I have very little to complain about for being 22 weeks pregnant. Just have to keep on trucking along!

The Trap

So we have this animal that knocks over our trash. Every night. My neighbor says it's a possum, but I think it might be a raccoon. Or possibly a teenager. They cut through our yard all the time. Anyway, it's annoying. Super annoying. I mean, there's only one thing worse than taking the trash out in the first place, and that's having to pick it up off your driveway in pieces. Ugh. Gross. Flies. Maggots. Sickening.

Anyway, it's annoying. Every morning when we go outside the kids will shriek and yell and we'll be running to late to stop and pick it up then, so I'll shout at them, telling them not to touch a single thing and go straight to the car. Straight to the car! Do not pass go!

The other day, the kids were playing outside in our cul-de-sac of sorts...we have a little commons or something in the middle of it, and the kids like to sit and play in the dirt there. I don't know why. I think it's gross. But I still let them do it, because I am a little bit of a lazy parent, and I'd rather just stand outside and watch them than find them something else to do. Plus, I tell myself it's helping them build immunities. Immunities! Isn't that the excuse for letting your kid do anything that could be germ infested! It might seem like I'm setting my child up to get some scary sounding disease, but really I am exposing them to these germs so that in the long run they'll be more healthy. Yes. That's it.

Anyway, they also ride their bikes and scooters up and down the driveways and on this particular day, just as I was about to call my very dirty oldest children in for a bath before dinner, our neighbor graciously blasted with the hose instead, clothes and all, even producing shampoo for their hair so I could feel completely guilt free about skipping bath night. Ava's hair is looking remarkable shiny, so I'll have to ask him what he shampoo he used.

When we came inside, Jace was lollygagging behind like he likes to do. I couldn't see him from the front door, but I heard him yell "Just a sec!" over and over. When he finally came in, he told me triumphantly that he'd built a trap for the animal that knocks our trash over, and that we didn't have to worry about it anymore. What a little man. Here is the trap he built.

It's placed in front of the trash can...kind of far away, but maybe that's to lure the animal in? Not sure. It consists of a Dora Bike, a plastic motorcycle, a skateboard, an empty carton of milk, and a bottle of water, all perched precariously on top of one another. My guess is that it's supposed to collapse and trap the animal when they get to close, but I'm unsure. It might be that it is just supposed to look scary to them. He didn't fill me in on the details, and I was so impressed by the architecture that I didn't think to ask.

I can't wait to see if it works. I am sick and tired of our trash getting knocked over! Hopefully if it works the kids won't mind giving up their toys, because I can't let them disassemble The Trap if it's keeping the animals away. It's just too valuable.

Oh my aching legs

Have I mentioned how walking around Sea World two days ago has made it almost impossible for me to walk now? Man, I am out of shape. How I miss my gym membership. The Gym! The place I could drop the kids off, watch tv and sweat it out to some oldies. Ahhh. Memories.

Literally every time I stand up I wonder if my leg will move forward when I will it to, or if I will need to bend over and physically move each foot with my hands. Either way, it's not pretty. Not at all.

I walked out of the doctor's office today and saw my van parked three spaces away and I groaned, not sure if I could go the distance. I. am. sore. Try explaining to your almost four year old son that you do want to take him on his special day, you just have to wait until your muscles start to work again. That starts 20 questions. "But what are muscles?" "Why can't they work?" "If you loved me your muscles would work; are you saying you don't love me? But I love you and why can't you just love me and take me to Sea Wooooooorld???"

Speaking of the current man of the house, in the words of his teacher he had an absolutely awesome first week at school. The sigh of relief that whooshed out of my body when she said tha probably could have powered some small town for a day. Jace is a character, and while I think he is funny and quirky and sensitive, to a preschool teacher that often translates into insufferable rigid child. There was a day last year when Jace got sent home from school because his socks were crooked, his potato chip broke, and his towel was wrinkled. Apparently for Jace that was the trifecta of bad things that could happen, and he just could not calm down. We literally had to go pick him up because he was just done. for. the day.

So you can probably see why I was nervous for this year. I mean, it's Pre-K. Isn't that roughly equivalent to, say, 5th grade ten years ago? Seriously, these kids are doing crazy stuff by the time they head to kindergarten. When I was in kindergarten I hammered nails into stumps and learned my letters. Kids these days are like, solving math equations. Crazy. But in any case, Jace held his own. On his first day, he spent most of the morning on the phone.

According to him, it was both me on the phone and me that the phone call was for. Freaky. Can you imagine getting a phone call from yourself? On second thought, that would be kind of cool. Future self, call me! We have lots to talk about.

I'm just so proud of my big boy. We're not allowed to call him a baby anymore, you know. He's big. BIG, I tell you! Of course, school is always more fun when you have your best friend with you.

Sara and Jace have known each other since before they were born...her mom and I were pregnant together and these two have been loving on each other since they were newborns. It's so much fun to see them get bigger and have conversations we can actually follow. Aren't they cute? Jace says they'll wait til their five to get married. I told him that's fine, but when he gets married, he's got to move out. Sara's parents will be thrilled, I'm sure!

With a Capital "T"

The other day I followed Seth around the house for about five minutes, trying to get some good pictures of him. He got into everything. In five minutes he got into the kids crayons, got out his own workbook, hit up the train table, tried to get food out of the refrigerator on his own, and then tried to break through the baby gate. 

These are the pictures that were in focus...he was going going gone and a lot of them didn't turn out. He has apparently been saving up all his energy his entire life for right now and it is literally impossible to keep him in one place. 

Next week he will be casted to make him splints for his legs, which will hopefully help him with stability as he learns to cruise and eventually walk. Seth has hypotonia (basically it's low muscle tone), so his muscles don't always cooperate with him, and it takes a lot more work for him to get them in fighting shape. The splints will support him artificially until the muscles in his legs get up to snuff. 

In the meantime, he is focusing on wreaking as much havoc from his hands and knees as possible. Surprisingly, there is quite a lot you can do to get in trouble below knee level.

He has the funniest version of coloring going on...he gets a piece of paper and a crayon, then very carefully holds the crayon on the paper without moving it at all, then acts extremely surprised when there is no mark on the paper when he lifts the crayon.

He is also becoming very bossy. He points at a person or item and barks some command no one can understand, then repeats if you don't immediately hop to it. It's becoming an issue in therapy...he would rather point than vocalize a word. I mean, who wouldn't?

The temper tantrums have also begun, although with Seth it is usually a keening moan like he is just heartbroken that things aren't going his way. It's incredibly sad and also kind of funny. Better get used to it, buddy. 

So yeah. He's still Trouble...in fact that's what he calls himself half the time. "Ubble." It's adorable. And hilarious.