it's a new day

happier entry today. sorry but my shift key has a mind of its own today, so all lower-caps and no great punctuation marks. if you happen to see one, it's because the shift key decided to work at that moment in time.

First, Avery...


This is baby addison. She is Avery's reward for her not sucking her finger anymore. it's been over 2 months now and we don't use the 'anti-finger-sucking' polish anymore. i recommend it to anyone working on the task of removing a finger or thumb. it's called Mavala Stop. heard about it from a friend and ordered it from Amazon.

Avery is extremely proud of her infant baby alive. she takes very good care of her and loves being a 'mom'. When her teacher asks her what she wants to be when she grows up, she always says 'a mom'. hmmm, does she like me that much? yep. This picture is of Addison ...which is what she named her .... buckled in the carseat while Avery is away at school. She told me to take care of her and feed her. i said i would. Don't tell her i accidently left her in the car all day.

Now ian....


yes, we actually have a tooth now. i was helping ian brush his teeth, when all of a sudden i see this white thing on his tongue and blood in his mouth. i freaked with excitement at the thought of actually having one of his teeth. So, of course, this made him freak..luckily with laughter. i pushed his head forward and the tooth came close enough to his lip for me to grab it....no, i was not about to risk losing a finger by putting it inside his mouth. Then i had him try to spit as much blood as he could into the sink. i don't know about your child's spitting techniques, but mine have a lot to be desired. but overall he did pretty good. he was laughing so much that i can't believe he never vomited. bleeding finally stopped, and i'm a proud mom of a tooth that didn't go m.i.a.

Finally, benjamin...


And here is benjamin displaying his pride in his new boots from Christmas. After seeing how much he loved putting on ian's boots...and anybody else's he could find...we finally decided he needed a pair of his own. he wants to wear nothing else. Literally, he would be fine butt naked with the boots. he is sooooooo stinkin' adorable..exclamation point.

Another Tooth Bites the Dust

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for one of Avery's teeth to come out because the replacement tooth has already come in behind it. It is so loose, I just want to 'pop' it out. But she will have nothing to do with it. It's practically just hanging there.

In the meantime, Ian is talking to me this morning and what do I notice? A tooth gone! We have yet to actually see one of Ian's teeth that has come out. All we see is a hole in his mouth. I didn't even know that particular tooth was loose! I've been watching another one that's loose.

I figure he either lost it in his bed or he swallowed it. Hmmmm, I think I'll just stick to searching his bed for it.

Another knocked out tooth...is that really necessary?

Yes, he did it again! Benjamin was running with the football away from his brother. Being the careful boy his is not, he turned his head for a second. In that second, he managed to swerve his body too much to the right, smacking himself into the barstool. Now let me tell you, it just did not look like a very hard hit. He cried, I went over to console. Then Jim tells me there's a lot of blood. As we attempt to look at him, Jim says it's his lip that got busted. As I look a bit more, I notice the space where he knocked out his first tooth is bigger. Jim was in shock when I told him I think he knocked out another tooth. "NO WAY!" were his exact words.

Sure enough, once the blood cleared a bit and we managed to get Benjamin's hands out of his mouth for a few seconds, we could see the missing spot. I ran over to the barstool to look for the tooth. I found it a few feet from the scene of the accident. I found 2 pieces. I was confused however, because one looked like a whole tooth, the other looked like a piece, and I couldn't get them to go together. Of course, I panicked thinking he had also broken a piece off another tooth. After looking at the second piece, Jim informed me it was only a pebble. Whew! After feeling a bit silly, I was quite relieved.

The meltdown of the episode didn't last near as long as the first one. Does this mean he's getting used to it? No, no, no, no! It also didn't bleed as much or as long as the first time. And mommy didn't freak near as much as the first time.

So, his nickname lives on...BooBoo!

Let's Catch Up!

Been too long. Everytime I go to sit at the computer, I decide I'm too brain dead to try to put things into words. Not to mention, that on an open blog, one can really only include so many words. Remember that "big brother watching" thing. One day, maybe I'll do an 'invitation only' blog. Doubt it. Here goes my life thus far. Luckily, can't complain. God is still not only good, but faithful in the busy and crazy times.

I went on my semi-annual scrapbook retreat a couple weekends ago. BTW, I'm proud that this is one of my hobbies and know my children will sooooo appreciate and enjoy it as well in the future. I can't imagine not leaving them with something so concrete. Beats all the money in the world or any computer/disk or other techno form...IMO - which I am well aware is not asked for. (unless of course, that's the way you enjoy doing it or if busy days, busy kids, busy lives don't allow for the concrete stuff....totally understandable, no offending intended - after all, I only have 1st year for each kid) Okay, done with the rant. Anymore, the time away is not soley about getting books done (although we do work LATE into the night/early morning). It's become so much more of a ladies' social, strengthening, encouragement, just plain fun time! And they let me act like a kook(?) as much as I want. What more could you ask for? Well, this time, they outdid me. I don't know if you remember 'the stuffed pheasant' from the last several stays there. It's part of the decor in one of the rooms. Why it's part of the decor, I'll never figure out. Anyhoo, the joke between my grand friend and me is to hide the ugly bird in the other one's belongings. It shows up in the darndest places. This time, a few of the ladies decided to go on a walk. I asked them to take my camera to take some pics of the wildflower fields and whatever. My mistake. They took the 'whatever' to the max. They took the pheasant along for the walk. I've only included a small number of the large number of pics they took of the bird's adventure. I was laughing so hard when I saw the pics, I had tears.





While I was gone, Jim texted me that Ian lost a top front tooth. You all know that when Ian 'loses' a tooth, he literally 'loses' it. About 20 minutes later he texted again with a picture, revealing that he had by that time lost both top teeth! Ian told our friend that he swallowed them. Hmmmmm????
Benjamin had his ARD meeting with the school last week. It went fine. He just had his last session with ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) and will start in his PPCD class on Monday...the day after he turns 3. OMG! I will cry. He's my baby.....and quite the mamma's boy at that. I've also included a pic of yet another black eye. Yes, right before his bday party. No one's sure what happened. Avery told us she accidently fell on him with the chair. All we know is there was bleeding and crying. But, he recovered, as you can tell by the adorable smile.

Last Friday I had a procedure done at my GYN's office called an endometrial ablation. Read about it if you'd like. I'm sure most have heard of it. I'm hoping I get the results I'd like. It was not a big deal to get done. My wonderful MIL took me. They put an IV in to knock me out. Next thing I knew, I was awake, groggy, being given instructions, and heading home. I slept most of the day and took one pain med and ibruprofen for cramping all day. By the next day, I felt fine. By yesterday, I was running (in great weather BTW).

These 3 pics are the reason I should get mom of the year. :) These are 3 reward/extrensic motivators we use. The pizza is to work on toilet training with Ian. You know, to bribe him to stay dry and to pee and poop ON THE TOILET. When he fills up the pizza pie, he gets to order a pizza. Now, if he poops on the potty, we skip straight to ordering a pizza. The two charts are for Ian and Avery. When they do something 'above and beyond' to make us proud, they get a smiley face. If they get 3 by the end of the day, they get a treat. The little board maker cards are 'treasure box' cards. If they have at least one card left by the end of the day, they get to choose something from their treasure box. With all these, we still also use spankings when needed and time out. Life seems like one big game of reward/discipline.


The sandbox is compliments of my wonderful FIL. He built it for the kids! He's so awesome!
This is a random pic from Easter, just cause I like it.

Last thing. I went out running last night on my usual route. I noticed a bunch of emergency vehicles ahead of me in the neighborhood. I knew whatever it was, they weren't going to let me pass, so I changed routes. We watched the news and found out that a gang related shooting death took place.....20 minutes before I went out to run! Just the fact it happened in our neighborhood (actually about 1 mile away) was enough to freak me out. But then when I think I could have been running by as it happened really freaked me out. Jim is definitely getting strict on not letting me run later in the evenings.

Well, I hope you made it all the way through this. I know it was long. Hopefully I won't wait so long next time!

Can't Sleep

It's 1:40am and I can't sleep. Didn't someone else just have this problem not too long ago? So, I thought I would get up, eat another 1/4 of the container of icecream, and add an entry to my blog.

Ian is up to his old habit of not sleeping through the night again. Very irritating. He doesn't cry out and get mad like he used to. He just 'happy screams' in there. Not too long ago, he woke the other ones up. Not cool! He's in there now awake. We just up'd his does of guanfacine cause we were noticing that it didn't seem to be having the same affects. If we don't notice anything after a few weeks of the increased dose, I think we'll go back to clonodine again. We're thinking that maybe since he's gained weight since the last time he was on it, maybe he'll be able to take a small dose of it during the day without it knocking him out.

Remember my 20 year old niece who got married in April? Well, I don't remember if I already told you that she's pregnant. She got pregnant like immediately. She's 17 weeks. Well, she called about a week ago to let me know she got tested for FX and found out she's a carrier. It's weird, but all of a sudden, it seems the whole family is now wanting to read up on it more. It's a good thing, but it kinda woulda been nice to have them so gungho about knowing more about it when we got our diagnoses of fully mutated. My other sister just recently asked me for the websites. My mom said she read something, something, something about the repeats. And of course, my oldest sister (the niece's mom) is wanting to know more about it obviously. I'm not mad, just kind of feeling.....I'm not sure. Probably don't need to go there anyway. I just wish everyone would have wanted to be more educated when I needed them to be....with all my diagnoses. I actually hadn't thought about any of that until I started writing this entry. Oh well, better late than never.

Ian LOST another tooth. No idea where. But at least there wasn't blood everywhere this time. He looks awfully cute with his two bottom teeth out. He's got a tooth growing back in place of the first one. I just hope his permanent teeth are as pretty as his first set. I love his teeth.

AVERY SAYING: One more story, then off to bed. Grandma was watching the kids yesterday and told me this story: The kids were watching football (we have several games recorded for Ian, who loves to watch them over and over and over and over). She decided to give them a quick football lesson. She told them that the man with the ball needed to run fast to the yellow (first down) line. If he didn't make it, they had to try again. So, Avery pipes up and says, "Oh, that's like when I wait to long and don't make it to the potty. I tee-tee in my panties because I didn't make it to the yellow line." Too cute!

Catchup

Okay, catch up time. I'm probably missing stuff, but this is what I have time for right now. Although Benjamin isn't in any of the pictures, he's been doing a lot. He's starting to say single words more frequently. He'll say 'mooooorrrrrre', 'dink', 'bite', 'bath', 'dowwwwwn', 'hi', 'bye'. He elongates about everything he says. I hear that's the way is supposed to be done here down south. A 1 second word becomes a 5 second word. Anyhoo, he's doing good. We had an orthotics appointment a few weeks ago. He'll get his SureSteps in about a month. Hopefully that will help get him walking a bit stronger. His knees buckle a lot and his feet pronate a bit. I can't wait to see him in them. I got them with dinosaur print. Okay, so on with the pictures:



My niece got married in April...little late in announcing. She was such a beautiful bride. Look young? That's because she was only 19. (She's 20 now). She's also now pregnant. Can you say honeymoon baby? If she's startin' this young, I expect her to pop out a bunch of babies! Seriously, so hard to think of her as a mom. She seems to have grown up so fast. She'll be a great one though.

Ian lost his tooth a few weeks ago. LITERALLY LOST IT! We have no idea where it is. We just happened to notice his hand and mouth were bleeding. I thought he made his finger bleed by chewing. But then Jim noticed the tooth missing. (Doesn't it seem kinda early for him to be loosing teeth?) We had noticed over the last month that his two middle bottom teeth were spreading apart more. Now we know why. I just hope I don't find that tooth somewhere. I do NOT do well with the whole loose tooth, pull tooth thing! When I taught 3rd grade, that's the one thing I couldn't handle. It's not a gross thing to me. It's more of a "fingernails across a chalkboard type thing." Can't explain it, but it gives me chills just writing about it.


Okay, so the niece got married in April. My nephew (from the same sister as mom to my niece) just got married last weekend. Yes, my sister is quite a bit overwhelmed at becoming a MIL twice and finding out she's going to be a grandmother! This is a picture of Avery and my other niece (from my other sister). Avery was quite the hoot. My niece was the flower girl in both weddings. Cute thing is the dress she is wearing belongs to my oldest niece (that just got married). It's the same dress she (oldest niece) wore in mine and Jim's wedding. Confused yet?


This is my handsome nephew and his new bride. His wedding was a lot of fun. He is 26 and is such a good kid. Not perfect. But he is definitely a family guy. He still hugs and kisses all over his mom and his aunts. I'm really proud of him.


This is my brave Avery. Just last year I couldn't even get her off me in the pool. Now she's jumping all by herself. I wish I could have gotten a picture of her when she has her legs bent and stretched like a frog! We left her at my sister's to spend the week with her cousin after we came back home from the wedding. I go get her today. She's had a lot of fun, but is ready to come home.

Another thing going on is we started the Folic Acid a few months ago for Ian. I'm not sure our neurologist understands much about it. I gave him the info. from the FRAXA sight (Hagerman's stuff). If anyone would like to post a comment to me about how they went about with their dosing, feel free. We're up to 3 (1 mg) pills twice a day. We've worked our way up to that, and will move on to 4 (1 mg) pills next week. Right now the pills are working fine with Ian, but as we move up I don't think it's going to be a great option. But our dr. doesn't seem to know how to get it compounded to a liquid. Like I said, I don't think he's ever gone this route before with his other patients. From what I've read from some, it doesn't seem like an easy process???? Thoughts????