I wanna build a snowman!!!

Nate has been wanting to build a snowman all winter. We've only had one other snow that was kind of pitiful, so this was his first chance. Blake took him out, and I took pictures from the front porch. I don't like snow.

Snowballs!

Well, the snow wouldn't stick together to make a snowman, so Blake made more of a snow "mound." He asked Nate, "Do you like that snowman?" Nate said, "Um, not really."

Georgia was also unimpressed.

Maggie had a ball.

All in all, Nate liked the snow a lot better than I thought he would. In previous years, he's pretty much thought it was icky.

Just being silly.

Today is Georgia's 6 month birthday! And she's rolling like a little roly poly. Yesterday we left her in the church nursery for the first time during the service, and she did great! It was nice to actually be able to pay attention again! (She looks unhappy with me here.)

This week is not going to be much fun. Tomorrow I have a dermatologist appointment, then Tuesday I have a root canal. Wednesday is Georgia's 6 month checkup (which is fun except for the shots), then Thursday is Nate's MRI. :(

Girls' Weekend and 6 month pictures

This weekend my best girlfriends from college came to visit, and our very special guest was Jenny's 10-week-old baby girl, Ellie. It was fun having another little one around the house and getting to know the little sweetheart. Georgia was skeptical.


And a little aggressive with the new chick.

But later they played nicely.

And held hands! Awwww

Then Nate said we needed to have "a few more babies." Yikes! I think we have enough for right now!

Everybody tells me how much these two look alike. Which is funny because the same people say Nate looks just like Blake and Georgia looks just like me, yet they look just alike! I can't really tell. I do see that Nate is Blake's little mini-me.

This was some of Nate's homework. :) He was to decorate this construction paper bear to go with their theme at school of learning about bears. So he used these paint/markers to draw a face and hands and feet, and then we gave his stuffed duck a haircut to get some fur for the bear's tummy. He named the bear Katie.

This morning I took Georgia to have her 6 month photos taken! She'll be 6 months on Sunday! I had so much fun dressing her up--I just LOVE having a girl to be my little dress up doll.

By the way, her baby dedication is Saturday, Feb. 20 at 5 pm at Southeast for anyone who wants to come. :)

Talking with Nate about Haiti

Nate is just 3.5, so we haven't really watched much news coverage of the Haiti earthquake with him in the room. It would just be too scary and confusing for him (which it is for all of us, really). But today we talked about it some, and I wanted to record this for my own memories.

Our church is collecting supplies to send to Haiti, and we decided to give our tent and some other items. While Blake was collecting those things from our storage building this morning, Nate was asking questions about what he was doing. I said, "You know how we live in Kentucky? Well, there's this place called Haiti where lots of people live. They had an earthquake, which means the ground shook and all their houses fell over." It was so sweet--Nate put his arms out and said, "Oh no!" so full of concern. I said, "So we're going to give the people our tent so they can stay in it for awhile and some other stuff they need. Do you think that's a nice thing to do?" (teaching charity here) He said yes.

After I picked him up from school, we went to the church to drop off the stuff, and he carried a can of formula "for the babies." He was very proud to help, and when we finished he said, "We did it!" We had a couple other stops to make, so about an hour later we were still in the truck, and he said, "Mama, did they cry when their homes fell over?" I said, "Yes, I'm sure they did. It was very said." And then he moved on to another subject. This evening we made sure we told him that our house is not going to fall over, and he acted like we were silly for even thinking such a thing. :)

Look out, she's almost mobile

Tonight Georgia (5.5 months) successfully rolled from her back to her belly and then pivoted around 360*. I give her a couple weeks before she figures out how to go forward! Lately her favorite person in the world is Nate. If he comes near her or looks her way, she laughs so loud and really tries too hard. :) Blake and I make up commentary for her like, "Hi, I love you! You're so funny! You're the best brother in the world! Please like me!"

Last Sunday, Nate busted his lip. Blake and I were at Bible study, and he was here with Elizabeth. When we got home, he was asleep on the couch with a big fat, bruised, bloody lip. It looked AWFUL. He had been jumping and landed lip-first on the corner of the coffee table. Ouch! The next morning the swelling had gone down, and by Thursday it was good as new. This doesn't even do it justice, but this was from Monday or Tuesday:

Sorry to all the squeamish, but I have to tell this. Georgia has at least one blow out poopy diaper every single day. Sometimes three in one day. So not only do I have to change her diaper, I have to change her clothes, sometimes give her a bath, and wash whatever she was laying on when it happened. It's ridiculous. One day this week, she had a blow out in her bouncy chair. So I cleaned her up, changed her clothes, then had to wash the bouncy chair cover. It was the next day before I had it washed and dried and ready to put back on the bouncy chair. She loves her chair, so I put her in it right away, and in less than 2 minutes, she'd had another blowout! The chair was dirty again. So I washed the cover again and had it back on her chair by that evening, and within 60 seconds, she had done it AGAIN! I think she's doing it on purpose!

This is her after one of those blowouts when I had to clean her up and stick her somewhere while I went to get clean clothes for her. She looks sorry.

Obviously, Maggie does not realize the danger of sticking her head *there*.

I love that picture because it reminds me of this one of Maggie and Nate when he was about 4 months old.


Both kids had so much fun at music class this morning. I love seeing them both laughing at the silly songs and dancing! Nate's favorite spot is right in the middle of the circle, and no one minds. :)

Georgia wanted to be on her belly so she could watch all the big kids.

She fell asleep so cute on the couch this afternoon. I don't know why this picture posted sideways, but I almost like it even better that way! Ahhhh!

A couple weeks ago, my friend Laura sent me the link to a Railway Cake Pan from Williams Sonoma. I showed Nate, and every few days he asks me to look up the railway cake pan "on the dot com" (lol!). So today I looked it up for him and got the picture on the screen, then I had to go upstairs to shower and Nate wanted to stay downstairs to play. After awhile, I realized Nate had been really quiet, so I went downstairs and found this. He had looked at the railway cake pan until he fell asleep with his face against the computer.

It made a line on his face! That couldn't have been comfortable! It just goes to show how much this boy likes his trains!

Seizures update

At the end of last week, I asked Nate's teacher to please keep a log of his "episodes" and to look for any signs like lip smacking, eye twitching, finger rolling, etc. Yesterday when I picked him up, one of the teacher aides said he had had a "seizure" (he had zoned out). Apparently her daughter experienced absence seizures and she recognized it as that. Except the EEG showed these are not absence seizures. Then when I picked him up from school today, she said he had another one. Both times, there was no other signs except for the stopping and staring, zoned out.

The pediatrician's office was still trying to get an appointment with Dr. Puri because that's what I insisted. But April was going to be the soonest we could get in, and his April schedule wasn't even open yet. So I called the neurology office, and a nurse practitioner called me back. She had Nate's EEG report and explained that he did not have a seizure during the test, but there was epileptic activity, which probably means he is having seizures, just not during that test. The next step is to have an extended EEG, where he will be admitted to the hospital for 23 hours (strange) to monitor his brain waves, and anytime we see one of his zone outs, we'll push a button so that they can see what his brain is doing during these things we're seeing.

She asked me a bunch of questions about Nate and these episodes, and she said she would not advise waiting until April for him to be seen. So she (the nurse practitioner) will see him on Feb. 16 (we'll have MRI results by then), and Dr. Farber (the other neurologist, the one that read his EEG) will come in at the end. Then we'll probably schedule the extended EEG. If we want to switch to Dr. Puri later, we can. In the meantime, the nurse practitioner wants to us to try rubbing his sternum when he has an episode to see if that brings him out of it more quickly.

Earlier in the day I also put in a call to Vanderbilt, but it looks like it would take just as long to see a neurologist there. Besides, if there was some type of emergency, we would take him to Kosair here in Louisville, so we want a neurologist here in town. But Nate's neurosurgeon's nurse is going to call me so I can check in about the hydrocephalus stuff and just keep them in the loop and see if there's anything more we need to do.

I'm just on edge about all of this. He's been doing so well, and we've had no concerns, and then BAM we find out something has been wrong and we didn't even recognize it. I've always thought of Nate as a little puzzle, and I have no idea what's going on in that little body. I know there could always be something wrong and I have to be vigilant about looking for signs of a problem. At the same time, I can't constantly worry and have to trust that God is in control and has always known Nate inside and out. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." (Jeremiah 1:5)

My job description

Diaper. Feed. Nurse. Rock. Play. Laundry. Dishes. Insert paci. Drive to therapy. Read stories. Fix trains. Clean. Sing. Pray. Find toys. Make appointments. Talk to teachers and therapists. Ask questions. Shop. Blog, facebook, babycenter. Bathe. Dress. Kiss boo boos. Encourage. Cook. Chase. Give time outs. Bounce. Listen. Teach. Love. Take pictures.

This is my new favorite photo.

I got my hair cut. I like it.

He's into funny faces.

Okay, is this not the cutest outfit you've ever seen? Grandma got this for Georgia for Christmas--it's a sleeper with a built-in tutu! It's 9 months and fits her pretty well!

Fun for Nate, scary for Georgia.

She might be a dancer!

Georgia wore that to our first music class of the semester yesterday morning. Both kids had so much fun. We just love our music class. Then last night, Georgia and I went on a date with Blake while Nate stayed here with Elizabeth. He gave me a hard time about leaving, and I figured he'd go to bed within a few minutes of me leaving, but he was still awake when we got home 3 hours later! He said, "I cried the whole time!" Elizabeth said, "You did not!" haha

Today Georgia got her first baby cereal! She was unsure at first.

She looked slightly worried at the mess.

But she caught on quick, and I think she liked it!

We just got back from church, where we became members tonight! We love Southeast. Anyway, I was asking Nate what he did at church, and it went something like this: (by the way, everything starts with "but" right now.) "But, I cried cause I broke the boat. I needed you, and I cried. It wasn't cute."

The EEG results are in

I was finally able to speak to the pediatrician today, and he had read the report the neurologist wrote from the EEG. I found out yesterday that the results were "abnormal" so I was expecting them to tell me it looked like absence seizures. But, I was wrong. There was some "epileptic activity" on the center-left area of his brain, but it does not look like your typical "zone out" absence seizures. So ... it's some other type of seizure? I wasn't really prepared for that.

The next step is to have an MRI (Feb. 4), then see the neurologist (TBA). I've asked to see only Dr. Puri, even if we have to wait longer, and the pediatrician said that would be okay (even though I think he wanted us to see the first available) because they don't seem to be any kind of emergency. They would still like to see a video of one of these episodes, because they want to know if his eye twitches or he smacks his lips or he rolls his fingers or anything like that. I've never seen him do any of that, and he doesn't do it nearly often enough for me to get it on video, which is a good thing.

I guess we're afraid that the fluid in Nate's brain is causing the seizures and he'll need a shunt after all this time. We know that's not the end of the world, but come on, it's brain surgery! No one wants that for their child. I also don't particularly want to put Nate on meds. The thing is, he acts fine (well, for a 3 year old, haha). His only real delays are gross motor, and he's quickly progressing there. Will they get worse? Would he be progressing better if he wasn't having these? Is he really even having seizures?

My mind is all over the place, and I have a lot of questions, but one thing I know for sure--God has his hands on Nate and always has. I often pray that if Nate has any health issues that God will reveal them to me so I can get him help. So even though I'm a bit flustered with unexpected information, I know that whatever happens, he's going to be okay.

But I have told Nate that, after the neurologist, if he is going to add another specialist to our list, he has to drop one from our current list!

Nate and the Toy Train Show

Last January we went to our first model train expo (as it was just the beginning of the train obsession), and Nate has actually been talking about it all. year. long. (This is last year's blog about it: http://whatnatesaidtoday.blogspot.com/2009/01/big-day.html) Last week I found out that it would be this weekend, and it's all Nate has thought about this week. Me: Let's go to school! Nate: Let's go to the toy train show!

So this morning we went. Here's Nate dragging Blake around. "Hey, look at those trains!"


Georgia wasn't quite as excited as Nate, but she made an appearance.

Funny how he has a much cooler train table at home, but we could barely pry him away from this one.

Totally enthralled.

Just like last year, there was a guy there who had some trains set up right on the floor so the kids could get down on their level and watch them.

And just like last year, Nate could have sat there all day.

But after about an hour and a half, Blake and Georgia and I were HUNGRY and had to promise Nate that we would come back after lunch. Across the street is an Olde Spaghetti Factory. While we were waiting for a table, I went to the restroom and saw this train car in the middle of the restaurant with tables set up in it! I knew Nate would flip out! So I secretly asked the host if we could get a table in the train car, and he worked it out. Nate LOVED it! He kept saying, "We're passengers!"

As we promised, we went back to the train show and resumed our spots on the floor watching the trains.

And there was an amazing Leggo train layout that I thought Nate would go crazy for because of his dual loves for trains and leggos. But he couldn't have cared less! Hmph!

The other excitement this week was Nate's EEG. Our instructions were to keep him up until 10-12 pm Thursday, no chocolate or caffeine, then wake him up at 4 am and be at the hospital at 7:30. Fuuuuuun. We told him at dinner Thursday that we were going to have a fun night, and he could stay up really late. He just looked at us. Okay, that means that you don't have to go to bed now, and you can stay up and play with us a lot longer! He looked intrigued but really suspicious. He knows us too well--this had to be a trick. A little before 10, we all went up to his room, and I read books for as long as I could, but he was so tired. He said, "I need to sweep!" He was out by 10:20 without a fight. Well, Blake and I went to bed too, anticipating waking up at 4 am, but we didn't let Georgia in on the plan. She kept me up half the night. So we didn't get up until 5 am, but Nate was plenty tired. The goal was for him to be drowsy during his test.

All four of us went to the hospital, but there was only room enough for me and Nate in the little test room. He sat with me in a recliner and watched cartoons. He did not like when she was measuring his head and making marks on it with a wax pencil, but he only cried a little. Then she stuck globs of sticky stuff on each of the marks and a sensor thing on each of those. He was only mildly irritated with that. Especially for being sleep deprived, I was very impressed with how he behaved. She put a strobe light in front of him for a couple of minutes, then for about 20 minutes we just laid back in the recliner and watched cartoons. I think I dozed off. :) The technician couldn't tell us anything but said we'd get a call sometime this week. I'm glad the test is over.

That's about all that's going on with us. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!