Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone.  The kids are officially out of school here which officially kicks off the next three weeks of "stop that," "give that back to your brother," "is this really how you want to spend your Christmas break, getting in trouble?" and of course my all time favorite "Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, not how much stuff you get."  Seriously, ya'll that last one is so tough to get them to understand.  They know it, I am just trying to get them to understand more of how important the birth of our Savior is to their lives.

My little Sophie has shown me how not important all that "stuff" is.  She just wants someone to love on her and talk to her and just be with her and what child wouldn't love that?  She likes to lay near the Christmas tree and watch all the lights.  She likes to take all her naps in my arms.  She likes to be where everyone is.  She's a quiet presence but a presence indeed!

This past Sunday at church we talked about being children of light in our small group.  There is a passage in Ephesians that says "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light" (Ephesians 5:8).  The Light of the world was born on Christmas and as His children we are to live as children of light.  Praise God that we no longer have to live in the darkness that is this world.  We can only find peace, light, and true happiness in Him.  I pray that you will know Him and experience His love as you never have before this Christmas season.  "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" John 3:16.

This Christmas may we not be so concerned with the presents that are under our tree as we are with the people who surround it.  Thank you Father for those who surround my tree, family and friends and most importantly the love of our Savior who was born to die so that we all may live.

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you.

Wanna Play Barbies?

I had always thought it was pretty funny how prior to Sophie Kate being born and being the mother to only boys that I was always a regular recipient of the American Girl catalog.  I certainly know how it happened, it was b/c I had bought some things for my niece for Christmas one year and might I add that it was years ago.  Nevertheless, every so often in mail, with my name on it, as if my house was full of girls came the American Girl catalog.  I would look through every page thinking how much fun it would be if I had a daughter.  Now the dang thing goes straight to the trash, especially after the cry fest I had over the Christmas catalog that came in oh yeah that was October.

These days I am inundated with the break my heart Christmas commercials of little girls and their mamas laughing, enjoying and playing (insert majorly girly thing here).  You know, you've seen them, how about the "Wanna play Barbies" one?  Why yes...yes I do wanna play Barbies... and babies and grocery store and tea party real bad.  I'm tired of "playing" therapy and buying her Christmas presents that are for 0-6 month old babies.  I know that this is too much pressure to put on such a tiny person, it's not fair for me to put all this on her.  It's really not something you would ever think about until you don't have it.  I know I never thought about these things with my boys, there was never a question that I would be able to play trucks and trains with them and even ultimately one day have light saber battles with them.  I never even thought about it.  So here I am now and I'm thinking about it way too much.  Just a transparent day here, one where I'm not acting like I'm really ok with all this, b/c I'm NOT!!

Wanna Play Barbies?

I had always thought it was pretty funny how prior to Sophie Kate being born and being the mother to only boys that I was always a regular recipient of the American Girl catalog.  I certainly know how it happened, it was b/c I had bought some things for my niece for Christmas one year and might I add that it was years ago.  Nevertheless, every so often in mail, with my name on it, as if my house was full of girls came the American Girl catalog.  I would look through every page thinking how much fun it would be if I had a daughter.  Now the dang thing goes straight to the trash, especially after the cry fest I had over the Christmas catalog that came in oh yeah that was October.

These days I am inundated with the break my heart Christmas commercials of little girls and their mamas laughing, enjoying and playing (insert majorly girly thing here).  You know, you've seen them, how about the "Wanna play Barbies" one?  Why yes...yes I do wanna play Barbies... and babies and grocery store and tea party real bad.  I'm tired of "playing" therapy and buying her Christmas presents that are for 0-6 month old babies.  I know that this is too much pressure to put on such a tiny person, it's not fair for me to put all this on her.  It's really not something you would ever think about until you don't have it.  I know I never thought about these things with my boys, there was never a question that I would be able to play trucks and trains with them and even ultimately one day have light saber battles with them.  I never even thought about it.  So here I am now and I'm thinking about it way too much.  Just a transparent day here, one where I'm not acting like I'm really ok with all this, b/c I'm NOT!!

Christmas Village and other Happenings

Well today (Friday Dec. 5) SK and I went out with some friends to an arts and crafts kinda thing here in town called Christmas Village.  I felt very normal being out with my baby and my stroller today along with the other gazillion people who were also out with their babies and their strollers.  In fact someone said to me that they thought a stroller was a prerequisite to get in and I really can't argue with them, but it was fun anyway.  Ya'll I don't think I have been in the presence of so much and so cute baby girl stuff ever.  Of course there were clothes of all types: winter, summer, dresses, tops and bottoms.  Then there were burp cloths, I already have way too many of those so I had to pass.  There were bibs, darlin' bloomers, which I passed up but didn't want to.  There were bags, bows, personalized room decorations and precious little ornaments.  I know your burning question, "What did I end up with for SK?"  Well, I did the best I could so that I could keep peace at home (and by at home I mean with Chad) and still satisfy my desire for all things cutsy girly....I bought the cutest summer outfit I have ever seen, besides all the ones she wore last summer of course, b/c they were the cutest too.  So see, she doesn't have any summer outfits right and she NEEDS summer outfits right, so there money well spent.  It didn't hurt that my friend bought her an outfit for her birthday while we were there too, pink and chocolate SK's signature colors.  That's not all we got but those were the most fun.

We also had a good week of therapy.  SK's occupational therapist that we see every Wednesday and just love got Sophie's left leg and hip into full external rotation and got her right leg and hip very close to full external rotation.  What does that mean for SK?  It means she got her left foot to her mouth and her right foot almost to her mouth.  Big deal, right, all babies can put their own feet in their mouths.  No, Sophie Kate has never been able to do that, her muscles are just too tight and too stiff.  It's going to take a lot of work to keep her that flexible and even the next day when I was working with her I noticed that she had already lost some of it, but at least we know that she is capable of getting there and we will continue to work on that for her.  It will be very helpful in her learning to sit unassisted.  Speaking of that SK is now up to between 20 seconds and 1 minute of being able to sit by herself, so she is making progress it just continues to be slow.  God give me patience, I want it now for her.

Also, this week the Early Intervention program that we are in that provides home services for Sophie, brought us a stander for her.  She's not quite tall enough for it yet so we have to make one small adjustment to it, but we have put her in it once.  It allows her to put weight on and stand on her feet, something she loves to do anyway.  It's a little hard to describe in a post so I will try to get pictures soon.  It involves various straps, but as soon as we customize it for her I know she is going to like it.  Ask anyone who has spent anytime with her and they will tell you how much that girl loves to stand, it's just getting her to do it the right way and this stander will help her do that.  Yeah, I'm so excited for Sophie.

I am slowly getting Christmas shopping taken care of thanks to some friends volunteering to come over and keep SK, that has been a huge help, thanks to everyone who is involved with that.  Actually, the best part of it is that I get a few hours to myself, that is priceless to me as it is to any mama.

It has been a good week here, hope it has been for ya'll too.

Remembering

Hey everyone, hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving week, reflecting on our abundant blessings and all the things we have to be truly thankful for in this life.  We spent Thanksgiving with my family this year in Hernando, MS and I just couldn't help but think all weekend long how thankful I was that it wasn't last year.  I know I said that in the previous post too but for me it bears repeating.

We spent Thanksgiving Day last year back and forth to the NICU, once in the morning when we took all the boys to visit their sister and then, once we had dropped the boys off with Chad's parents, we went back up there to spend a little alone time with our baby girl.  Thankfully we were given that time with Sophie Kate by Chad's family and shared a wonderful dinner with them that evening, it was just a very difficult day last year.

Since I'm in the remembering zone right now, I certainly can't let the 28th of November go by without a word or two.  Not only is it Chad's birthday, but it is also the day that we got to bring Sophie home from the NICU.  I swear I will never forget that day, we were ecstatic to bring our baby girl home, what a great birthday present that was for Chad last year.

Anyway, my plan had not been to go down that road, but there I went.  So back to the present, SK has been doing pretty good with her ear tubes.  Today (Mon. Dec. 1) was the first full day that she has not had to have any Motrin.  Over the past week, I can tell her ears have been bothering her but it hasn't been terrible for her, she has handled everything pretty well, especially since we had to travel the day after she had them put in.

Speaking of traveling and Sophie Kate, they really are not words that should be mentioned in the same sentence.  I'm at a total and complete loss b/c SK and I can travel around town for 45 minutes and I will not hear a peep from her, but get everyone packed and in the car for a trip and she is crying and fussing before we even get out of Birmingham, what is the deal?  She needs some serious laying of hands on her and I don't mean my hands b/c I am out of my mind irritated when she starts that stuff and we haven't even passed the airport yet, what's up with that girlfriend?

Well this week it's back to as much normalcy as we can stand.  The boys are back in school and SK and I have a full week of therapy ahead of us.  So I will let ya'll know how everything progresses this week.  Thanks for all the love.

Giving Thanks

Hey everyone.  We are home from getting Sophie's ear tubes put in.  Everything went well, it took a lot longer than it did when Jacob had his tubes put in, but then I wouldn't have expected anything less from Sophie.  She had some trouble breathing once the surgery was over while she was in recovery so we had to stay for a little while longer but thankfully not overnight.

Her ENT doctor told us that she had a lot of fluid behind her ears so the tubes were definitely needed.  As far as her airway goes, he did check all of that out and found some things that might be contributing to her being a noisy breather, but b/c none of these things are causing her any problems, he said there is nothing that he would do about that at this time.  He told us these things were very mild, so that was good to hear.

Now, she just needs time to heal, she is certainly not a happy camper, but I can't say that I really blame her either.  Sweet baby, it's so hard to feel so helpless when it comes to your kids.  I want to do something to help her, but there is not a lot I can do besides hold her and love her and we are doing plenty of that here.

This we can handle.  I have to say I'm most thankful that it's not last year, that to me sums up a lot, thank you Jesus that it's not last year.  We can get through this, I'm not sure we could get through another last year.

Thank you all for thinking of us, praying for Sophie Kate and helping us out today.  Hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Surgery Update

I got a call Friday from the nurses at Children's Hospital.  Sophie Kate's procedures will be done sometime between 7:00 and  8:00 Tuesday morning (Nov. 25).  We have to be there at 6:00, yes 6:00am, I don't even know what time that means we will have to get up.  Poor Sophie though, I have to turn her food off at midnight.  Thanks for remembering us in your prayers.

Small Improvements

Hey everyone.  This week has been pretty good in the life of my newest one year old.  Since Sophie Kate is finally feeling better, we were able to get back to wet tots this week.  She did really good working on balance in the water, she was standing really well with the support of the water around her.  She was able to work a lot on trunk control and holding herself up straight.

Sophie Kate is still not able to sit independently so this continues to be our main focus right now, this is critical for her.  We work on it everyday.  She is to the point where she can sit for about 30 seconds by herself, of course this is up from her previous record of sitting by herself for 0 seconds, so I guess this can be seen as an improvement.  The sitting progress is just very slow right now.

On Tuesday November 25 Sophie will be having tubes put in her ears and will be having another procedure called a laryngoscope done.  I do not mean to overlook this procedure by saying that it is minor considering what she has already been through, but I do feel as though she needs the tubes and it is going to be very beneficial to her.  Having said that, I will now say that she will have to be put to sleep for this and we are certainly not taking that lightly and neither is the staff downtown at Children's.  I have already been contacted by the anesthesia team and asked a bunch of question about Miss Priss so I really feel like they are on top of things on their end too.  Please keep us in your prayers on Tuesday, I haven't gotten an official time yet, all I know is that it will be done early, they are done by age and from what I have gathered so far SK is the youngest one scheduled for our doctor, so it will probably be way earlier than any of us are used to.

One of the things that I am particularly excited about is a possible increase in SK's sense of balance.  Keeping fluid constantly behind your ears can throw off your center of gravity, so I am hopeful that after she gets these tubes in that her balance improves and maybe we can see some significant progress in this whole sitting unassisted thing.  Also, sounds will not be muffled so much for her, she will hopefully be able to hear better and more clearly which certainly can't be a bad thing when one is learning to process sound.  So this procedure is not just going to help out our constant ear infection problem, but it could turn out to be an all around good thing for many areas of Sophie's life.  This is my prayer.

We have noticed an improvement lately in Sophie Kate's eye contact and focus.  She can really gaze meaningfully at us now and just seems more aware of her surroundings.  She is aware of when her brothers are around and surprisingly I think she likes them being around, just kidding.  They are very stimulating for her, there is not a dull moment when they are around.  Her gazes mean so much to me, it is like she is really seeing and taking in the world around her.  Thank You God for the small improvements we are seeing in her, we know they are only by Your hand.

I will update ya'll closer to Tuesday when I have more information.  Have a great weekend!

Appointed meetings

Now that all of Sophie Kate's parties are behind us and we seem to be recovering from all the excitement of turning one, I can take a moment and catch ya'll up on what has been going on behind the scenes.  Last Friday, we found out that Sophie has another ear infection, yeah the count is up to 4 now, so that is the magic number for getting to see the ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor).

Sophie Kate saw him on Wed. (Nov. 11), and no surprise to us, told us that Sophie needed tubes put in her ears.  She still had the infection in her right ear and also had fluid behind her left ear.  As I have said before, Jacob also had to have tubes put in his ears and this was his same problem, this fluid behind the ears constantly whether or not there was an ear infection.  Well, it affected Jacob's hearing and speech development, so we certainly want to be on top of this with Sophie Kate.  She doesn't need things to be any more difficult on her than they already are.

Sophie's surgery is scheduled for Tues. Nov. 25.  The doctor is also going to do a laryngoscope, which means he is just going to be taking a look at her airway, making sure that everything looks ok there.  Yes, that would be two days before Thanksgiving, so hopefully everything will go well and she will be back to her smiling self that same day.  They will be doing her procedure downtown at Children's and have given us very good odds of going home that same day, we were told there is a small chance we may have to stay overnight for various reasons that I won't bore ya'll with now.  I am only thinking good thoughts, though.  I am not even taking a bag with us that morning, so take that!

I have to share another encounter with ya'll just b/c I think it is so neat.  I met with one of the nurse practitioners that works with our ENT doctor and of course over our conversation of her getting to know SK, she told me that she too has a daughter with cp and that she is 12 years old.  We exchanged email addresses and talked about different therapies that each other had tried and some of the triumphs and setbacks that both of our daughters have had.  It was a great conversation and she was just precious.  In fact we talked so long that the doctor was actually waiting to come in, I love that, but truth be known I would have rather continued talking to her.  Conversation just erupts and barriers fall when you are talking to someone who knows exactly what you are going through.

I personally have not been ready to go out and join support groups and meet these parents and see these children.  I don't want to be a part of this group and I do not want to see the future.  I absolutely know that I am not ready for that right now.  It has been really neat though to see how God has slowly trickled them into my life.  First was the nurse I met that night at Children's South Afterhours Clinic, whose daughter had just gotten a gtube (the same feeding tube that SK has now), I still talk to her.  Second, was the group of girls I met at the beach, remember, one of them has a special needs child.  We talked a lot in that short time.  She lives right here in Homewood.  Then there was the girl I met at "The Chick" whose son has exactly the same things going on as Sophie and now this nurse at the doctor's office.  I have learned so many different things from them, they have each shown me different perspectives for looking at things and different ways to cope and deal with life everyday.  Praise God for these meetings, they are so clearly His hands at work here, I am blown away.

Wow, after listing all those people that I've met, it seems like I am growing a little group of people with special needs children around me, you know I am totally against that as I have stated earlier (hee hee not really), but I wouldn't trade meeting any of them for anything.  Some people would call those meetings or encounters random or coincidence, but I believe they were divinely appointed meetings that God arranged just for us.  Whew, I'm glad I wasn't late!