Nine months old and already has a great arm!

I miss my furry babies. I absolutely believe our decision to rehome Chloe, Gabby, Hank and Izzy was the right one, and I know they are loved and well taken care of in their new homes. And I am beyond excited to move in a few weeks to our townhouse with fresh carpet and paint and not have to be concerned about dog pee, hair, and slobber ruining those (that’s what I have children for, right?). I also absolutely do not want to be responsible for keeping one more being alive other than myself and my kids- so please don’t buy me a plant, ok?

But still, I miss them.

This morning, Charlotte and I drove to the new house to pick out carpet for the bedrooms and stairs, and walking down the street was a man and his bloodhound. My throat got tight and my eyes teary- as loud, slobbery, and high maintenance as our Hanky was, he was (is) a great dog. And bloodhounds are just cool dogs, and I loved owning one. This other bloodhound came up to me and I rubbed her silky ear as she pressed her head into my body- just like Hank. Sniff, sniff, sigh.

Then this afternoon, Grayson’s nurse and I took the kids to a park where I used to run with my first dog, Pippi. It brought back lots of good memories of my single days, where I would spend hours and hours a week at the park, running with that sweet little dog. Today, as usual, there were tons of people there with their dogs, and it made me a little wistful that I didn’t have a companion on a leash. Of course, then I looked down at my giant jogging stroller holding these crazy cuties, and I wasn’t so wistful.

Although I do miss the dogs as themselves, and their snuggles, and cute personalities, what I think I miss the most is that time in my life when they truly were my “kids”. I love being a mom, and I think it’s kind of ridiculous I have to even mention how much I love and adore Grayson and Charlotte, but dang, this parenting business is so hard. It’s hard physically, emotionally, and logistically. I think about the years when Ryan and I were married before we had Grayson- I would take those four dogs to the dog park almost every single day. There was so much freedom and joy in being outside with them and not having to worry about schedules, feedings and bedtimes. Dogs are easy. I miss easy.

I know someday we will have a dog again (notice how I said “a” dog, not dog”s”), but it will be years. Our life is complicated, and expensive and unpredictable, and a pet just doesn’t fit with our situation right now. But I can’t help but imagine what kind of relationship Charlotte would have with our crew if they were still living with us. But you know what makes me…tired?  Thinking about Charlotte and Izzy pairing up. Those two have the same personality, just in different species! Yikes. So yeah, I think we’re good.

But I still miss them.

I really enjoy reading everyone’s daily Thanksgiving posts-it’s really touching to have a glimpse into people’s hearts and lives and to share in their gratitude. I’m not putting the pressure on myself to post every day, but I do have several posts floating in my brain that hopefully I will be able to actually write and share.

Today, I’m thankful for my sweet, spunky Charlotte. I’ve said to several people that if someone ever wants proof that there is a God who knows better what we need than we know ourselves, just look at how our family went from three to four.

The practical, responsible side of me would never have chosen to get pregnant a year and a half ago. No way. I was struggling with managing life as it was, and on top of that, there was (is) the risk of conceiving another sick child.

And there was also the infertility component of our story. I don’t write about it much, because my focus is on our current struggles with Grayson rather than the struggle to get him here, but there was some struggle. And in total opposite fashion, Charlotte seemed to just appear. No planning, no struggle, no preparation. The surprise of a lifetime.

She is truly a gift from God. An adorable, squishy, squirmy, hilarious gift wrapped in a big pink bow (that she now will tear off her head, much to her mother’s chagrin). And God knew that I needed her, and that I need her now. Especially now.

In my heart, I know that if Charlotte wasn’t here, making me laugh, amazing me with what comes so effortlessly to her, and wearing me out with her antics, I would really be struggling. So much of my life right now is uncertain and has been for a very long time. Grayson, while relatively stable medically, is so far from the baby that he was. So much of his ability to connect with anyone has simply vanished. I love him fiercely and completely, but our relationship is frustrating. It’s very difficult to care for a child day after day and get very little feedback from him, sometimes not even a smile. It’s maddening to try and discern what thoughts and feelings are inside him that his body won’t allow him to express, and what is just simply gone.

Charlotte is my joy. I stand back and just watch in amazement. She is definitely hand-made by God because there is no part of her personality that came from her introverted parents! She is wild, loves being in the middle of the action, being the center of attention, and there’s not a shy bone in her little body. Yesterday at the music class family concert, it was pretty chaotic: tons of people, wild preschoolers dancing and shrieking, and lots and lots of noise. Charlotte bounced out of my lap, crawled to the middle of the room, and stayed right in the thick of the mayhem the entire time without looking back. I’m pretty sure my 9 month old self would have been buried in my mom’s lap or crying in the corner. Not this girl. She’s never once cried when I’ve left her anywhere; she’s just happy she gets a new environment to explore and new people to meet!

I don’t know what the future holds for my sweet girl. I rarely cry about Grayson any more, but my eyes tear up when I think about the pain Charlotte will inevitably face in her life surrounding her brother. I know God gave Charlotte the personality and strong will that he did for a specific reason, and I suspect part of that reason will be to fight for and speak for Grayson, as well as to manage the day when he leaves us. She already loves him so much, calling “Bubba, Bubba” when she sees him, and my heart hurts when I think about her having to say goodbye to him one day.

Thank you God for this most precious gift. Before she was given to us, I couldn’t imagine life with her, and now I can’t imagine life without her.

I’m sitting on the couch holding a tissue to my nose to try and stop the bleeding. Why do I have a bloody nose you ask? My dear daughter likes to attempt to stick her finger up my nose while I feed her, and tonight she managed to stick it so far up that it’s now bleeding. And it hurts. My life is obviously very glamorous.

Speaking of things that are glamorous, except not, on Friday we had the carpets cleaned in our new home. I was optimistic that even though they appeared to be quite stained, dirty and smelly, if we gave someone hundreds of dollars to put chemicals and steam on the carpets, that they would be fine. Yeah, not so much. We went over to the house yesterday afternoon and I almost died from the smell: wet dog mixed with urine mixed with all other things disgusting. Blegh. I think the cleaning did nothing but bring all the nastiness to the surface. We rehomed four dogs and yet we still can’t escape from dog smells! So three cheers for the unexpected expense of replacing an entire house of carpet.

And the carpet isn’t the only unexpected, large expense we are going to have before we move in. Remember I told you about the torrential rains on Halloween? Well, apparently, the sliding glass doors in the house aren’t installed correctly, and water got in and under the flooring in the dining room and it started bubbling up. YAY! So we will be replacing sliding doors with windows and adding a French door where one of them is. Sounds expensive, right? Oy.

But I do have good news: my Desperate Housewives paint looks great in the kitchen, and the paint store is having a 40% off sale next week. I’m sure that savings will help make up for our new carpet, windows and doors (typed as I roll my eyes). I told Ryan we really need to take “before” pictures of this place, because the “afters” better show an amazing transformation!

Welp, other than new house nastiness and bloody noses, we actually had a really nice weekend. The weather was gorgeous, and we had plenty to keep us busy: music class, a baby shower, church and a music class concert this afternoon. And the best news of all: football season is OVER! Let’s hear it for Ryan’s team that didn’t make the playoffs- woo hoo! I told him Grayson was wearing this shirt today in celebration- hee hee.

Hope everyone had a great weekend- and now I must go to bed; with DST, my body is telling me it’s much later than the clock shows. And my nose still hurts. I’m just going to be done with this day now.

I’ve been meaning to do this link up for quite some time, because it’s easy and fun. It’s Friday, I’m home by myself (as usual) with my two sleeping little ones, and honestly a little bored. Here’s my five random thoughts of the night…

ONE:
We are currently working on picking paint colors for our new house. Back in the day, I was a huge Desperate Housewives fan, and I loved Lynette’s blue kitchen. Our new kitchen has lots of white cabinets and not a huge amount of wall space, so I thought, why not? And my friend found an article that has the exact paint colors of all the DHW sets so Ryan picked me up a sample the other day. We haven’t put it on the wall yet, but I’m crossing my fingers I like it as much in person than I did on TV.

TWO:
While we are on the subject of TV, can I just say again how much I love Scandal? Love. Except we binge-watched the first two seasons on Hulu last summer and now that we are caught up, it’s very frustrating having to wait an entire 7 days between cliff-hanging episodes. Also frustrating is the fact that it comes on at 9:00, which is about an hour past the time I can stay awake while watching TV, especially when I have had wine with dinner. Last night, I gave in to my droopy eyelids and went to bed, and watched Scandal this evening. Sooooo good!

THREE:
Yesterday, Halloween, the weather was nasty. I was in the car in what seemed like a never ending day of pouring rain. By the time I picked up the kids from school and got home, the rain had stopped, but it was still hot and gross outside. Even though I knew we wouldn’t be trick-or-treating, I put the kids in their costumes and we walked around the neighborhood. They both fell asleep. This morning, it was actually cool outside! I jumped at the chance to finally, finally dress Grayson in some of his new fall clothes. He was so cute and snuggly- never mind that by 3:00 it was back up to 80 degrees. Sigh.

FOUR:
I put this picture on Facebook the other day, but it’s just so darn funny that I want it on the blog for memory’s sake. Charlotte has an intense curiosity and interest in Grayson’s medical supplies. She recently started drinking from a straw, so I guess she saw G’s feeding tube as a really long straw. And hey, it’s formula, so I guess she thought, why not? She is a MESS!

 FIVE:
You know how you go to Target and come out spending an insane amount of money that you really hadn’t planned on spending? Well today I went to Target and spent an insane amount of money on diapers, formula, wipes, baby food pouches, and food for the weekend. Nothing fun or unnecessary. Being a grownup and keeping little ones fed and diapered is expensive, and sometimes really not any fun. That being said, it’s still fun to walk around Target, isn’t it?

Happy Weekend Friends!

Well, on Monday, we finally, finally closed on a house. It’s been almost a year of showings, packing, worrying, signing papers, moving, searching internet listings, contracts falling through, negotiating and waiting.

In the midst of all this, we said goodbye to our four beloved dogs, welcomed our daughter to the family, moved in with my parents, continued to deal with Grayson’s disease and hospitalizations, and struggled with several private issues.

To say it’s been a stressful year is probably a gross understatement.

But we’ve survived, and keep surviving each day, and I’m hopeful that one day soon, our little family will thrive.

Our new home is very different than anything Ryan and I have lived in since we’ve been married. We’ve always lived in the suburbs, in your basic cookie-cutter house. Now, we will be living in a townhouse in the city, in a location that is much closer to the medical center and Grayson’s school, as well as Ryan’s job.

The townhouse is 3 bedroom/3 bath, so both kids will have their own bedroom and bathroom. Grayson’s room is downstairs- one of my requirements because lugging him up and down stairs (as we are doing now at my parents’) is no easy task. There’s no actual yard (minimal yard work- hooray!) but it does have a good size patch of grass/courtyard for Charlotte to play on as well a large patio. There’s a private park and pool down the street that we will have access to, for a yearly fee.

The house is smaller than what we’ve had before, and a ton smaller than the house we are in now, so we are going to have to make a conscious effort to downsize our stuff, get smaller furniture, and in general, simplify our lives. I’m excited about this, and hope it will be freeing to be without so.much.stuff.

Unfortunately, the previous owners, although very nice, left the house a mess. I mean, nasty. And the carpet is gross. Before we do anything, we are having everything deep cleaned, and then we plan to paint every wall in the house. All our stuff is at my parents’ ranch, so Ryan will be making several trips to East Texas to get it all.

We’ve also ordered Grayson a new bed- a safety medical bed. Since Medicaid is paying for the bed, the process of actually getting it is relatively long. Since Charlotte is in Grayson’s original crib and the crib he’s in now belongs to my parents, Grayson is bed-less at the new house until his new bed arrives.

So, we have a lot of work and some more waiting ahead of us before we can actually move in, but I’m actually really looking forward to not being in limbo anymore, settling in, and making this new place our home.

I’ve never been a huge Halloween person- costume parties and trick-or-treating just aren’t my thing. Maybe it’s because I really don’t like candy. On Grayson’s first Halloween, he was only a month old and his costume was way too big, so we didn’t do anything. Two years ago, we had just gotten out of the hospital from a 10 day stay and came home with a feeding tube, so we didn’t do anything. Last year, I was pregnant, and was really struggling with having a child who can’t participate in traditional holiday activities, so again, we didn’t do anything.

It’s been really hard for me to embrace the excitement of this time of year- there are so many fun activities for kids- well, for kids who can walk, kids who can eat, and kids who can express their opinion about what they want to dress up as for Halloween. To say the least, it can be a little depressing when your kid can’t even sit up to have his picture taken with a pumpkin, much less go door to door asking for candy. The last few weeks, when anyone brought up Halloween, I’ve been mostly meh about the whole thing.

Then my mother in law made the kids’ costumes, and well, swoon. Halloween, I think I now dislike you a little less. Are these not the most precious duck and giraffe that you ever did see?

Yes, that is a syringe in C’s hand/mouth. And G, well obviously is VERY into this whole costume thing

Yep.

Poor G is lucky he still has a face

Hey look! My kid! Participating in a kid activity!

Sweet cousins on the train

Over. It. (I promise he does still smile, just not when dressed as a giraffe, evidently)

So yeah, Halloween isn’t that bad.

Come Thursday, we still probably won’t do anything. My babies will be in bed asleep before trick-or-treating really gets going. But this year I will see picture after picture of adorable kids in their costumes and not feel as much sadness, and for that, I am grateful.

Happy Halloween!

The title of this post is referring to actual pumpkins, not the three munchkins pictured below, lest there was any confusion. Continue reading.

Yesterday, my sister in law Hannah and I had grand plans to take pumpkin pictures with the kids- a picturesque autumn memory we would treasure for years to come. I had heard there was a patch at a church close to their house, so we drove over there…no pumpkins in sight.

After a major meltdown (why do these things never work out for me?) we saw a sign directing us to another patch a few miles away. It was a fall festival/craft fair type thing that closed at 4:00 (it was now after 4:00) but we figured we could still crash the patch and take a few pictures.

We walk in, and see…3 pumpkins. Three. And not pretty pumpkins. Rotten pumpkins with holes in them. The woman running the festival was very apologetic- this patch has been an annual event for 20 years, and she ordered 15,000 POUNDS of pumpkins. But they sold out by 2:00. And these three rotten pumpkins were all that was left for our pumpkin patch picture taking. Sigh.

But alas, we made do. And if I do say so myself, we got some cute shots of our little pumpkins- definitely the cutest pumpkins in the patch.

I could not love these cousins more

The best sibling shot we got. Charlotte did not like the way the hay felt on her legs, which made her stay put. Score!

Handsome dude. He loves being outside

Theo: Mr. Serious(ly cute)

The beautiful people. Can you believe that girl had a baby 7 weeks ago?

We are so glad Daddy met us from work- we have so few family pics!

Dear Charlotte,

9 Months:  as they say, you’ve now been out as long as you were in! I was looking back at your newborn pictures yesterday, wondering where that sleepy, still baby went. Because you, my dear, are anything but still. You are constantly on the go, moving from one interesting thing to the next.

You are full-on crawling everywhere, as well as pulling up on anything and everything you can. You completely embrace the rule that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line;  no matter what is in your way in getting to where you want to go, you will go over it or crash through it rather than go around it. Your face usually has at least one bruise or scratch from your escapades, but when you hurt yourself, you fuss for a bit, get a hug and kiss from whoever is around, and move right along with your adventures.

According to the scale at the doctor, you weigh 17.5 pounds (28%)- I’m going to have to weigh you again on our scale because I thought you were closer to 18. You are 28.5 in tall (83%). You wear size 3 diapers and size 6-9 month clothes. You still nurse 4-5 times a day/night and drink 6-8 oz bottles as well. Until two nights ago, you were sleeping 10-12 hour stretches at night, but the last few nights you’ve been up, wanting to eat and cuddle, in the middle of the night. I really hope this isn’t going to become a habit! You still have zero teeth, but that isn’t stopping you from eating. Just like me, you love your carbs- you love any kind of bread, cereal, etc. I don’t blame you one bit- we just need to make sure you eat your vegetables too!

You love all your little activities we do during the week- music class, church, and mothers-day-out. You never even glance back at me when I drop you off, but when I pick you up, I’m always greeted with a huge grin and squeal of excitement- I love it.

Charlotte, you amaze me every day with your sweet, sassy developing personality. I absolutely adore spending every day with you and watching you grow. I love you to the moon and back!

Love,
Mommy

I took Charlotte to the pediatrician for her 9 month well-check this morning. She will be 9 months old on Sunday- what? How is she already this close to being ONE, and finished with her babyhood?

It’s so refreshing to take her to the doctor, let her crawl around the exam room while waiting, and not have an ounce of anxiety about the appointment. Charlotte is perfectly, wonderfully, amazingly HEALTHY. She meets every milestone right on time, eats well, and babbles constantly. She’s never had an antibiotic or even a dose of Motrin.

I don’t write all this to brag, but just to contrast it with the experience of her big brother. ALL of Grayson’s many doctors appointments give me varying amounts of anxiety. I hate having to list the six medications and five supplements he takes every day (most of them 2-3 times a day). I hate having to explain every.single.time. that Grayson can’t stand on a scale to be weighed. And a lot of times it’s hard to have a focused conversation with a doctor with a squirmy, stiff, whiny 3 year old on my lap.

Grayson has had a tough week so far. Since his seizure on Saturday, he’s had two more, one at bedtime last night and one at school this morning. I picked him up early from school today because after his seizure, he fell sound asleep and was sleeping the day away.

When I sit and think about the comparison of my children’s health, it’s so hard not to get a little panicky about Grayson. When I’m totally focused on him, he’s just Grayson, and how he is is “normal” to me. His weird neurological ticks, his constant drool and the way his arms and legs move stiffly and unnaturally- that’s just Grayson. But then I contrast him with Charlotte, and how easily and effortlessly she moves, and learns new things. How she’s already mimicking words, and turns when she hears her name. She’s light years ahead of her brother in development. It’s frightening to face that truth, which I often subconsciously ignore, even though it’s right there, playing out in our living room every single day.

Grayson isn’t a baby anymore, and it’s becoming more and more noticeable that he isn’t a typical kid. When he was a baby, he looked like a baby. Most people had no idea anything was wrong with him. Now, his wheelchair, his awkward movements, his feeding tube, and the fact that he doesn’t respond to people talking to him totally give away that he’s special needs. Which is fine. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed of him one bit, there’s just a part of me (probably a big part) that’s heartbroken that Grayson isn’t getting better, and that his differences are just becoming more and more obvious and pronounced.

It kills me to watch my little boy struggle so much and miss out on so much of life. Mercifully, he doesn’t know what he’s missing though, and is surrounded by people who love him and do our best to make his life good.