Because Dan is jumping today and I'm not

I have almost no pictures of myself in freefall, but I have a lot of me under canopy. I'm in Eloy, AZ, in this pic. I had just gotten done doing a jump with the famous OMAR!


On cloud nine. Omar?! Really?


Dan is in the front, doing a 4-way (or 5- or 6-way?) jump out of the Beaver (airplane)


Dan in a sit


There's Skydive Twin Cities! Our small little cozy dropzone. Hey, you can even see our camper in this pic!


That's the balloon we jumped out of a few years ago. Best jump ever!


Right before jumping out of the balloon into the corn fields of IOWA!


Our entrance into the balloon basket was not a smooth one. See the drag marks we left in that field? Oops, sorry farmer!


Our failed raft dive! The raft we are sitting on was inflated in the plane. We were going to attempt to "ride" it down a few thousand feet, but it broke instantly upon exit.


Bill Rehm is in the middle and I'm on the right in an awkward looking stand.


Joel and Joe exiting the Cessna.


Exiting the Otter for my second tandem jump, way back in 2001!


Thinking: Aaaaahhhhh, I love this, how am I going to afford AFF?


After a good jump with Dan and Pinky!

Stuff

Please make your vote to the right! (You love curly hair!!)

Yesterday was Dan's and my SECOND anniversary! Can you believe it? I feel like it has been 10 years... only because we have been through so much. It's hard to believe that a year ago, we hadn't even been through Elijah's first surgery! A lot has happened in our two years of marriage.

I was jealous because Dan went skydiving today and I was sitting at my boring desk at work. AND...his first jump, he got to jump with JOEL! Not fair!!


SOBIG... I got to spend a fun evening with Elijah. He is so proud of being SOBIG.




Yeah, he is the cutest..




TWO years?! We have been married for two years. WOW!

Curls and travel dialogue

Please see the poll to the right and vote on whether or not to get rid of these curls. I don't want to cut off Elijah's hair but Dan does. I told him that if the results from this poll weigh in favor of cutting them off, I will take Eli to get a haircut next weekend. If the results weigh in favor of not cutting his hair now, I will get it cut in two months. Dan says if we wait two months, he will grow out a mustache until the day of the haircut, I think as an attempt to lure me into changing my mind. Oh well, I guess he'll be the one with the sweaty upper lip in the middle of the summer! EVERYONE reading, please vote! We need a wide variety of people included (we can't have only my close friends voting, to be fair).


On a completely different note, I found some of the communication between parents and children in airplanes/airports this past weekend interesting enough to share here.

Sitting in the MSP airport, I overheard a mother tell her 12ish-year-old daughter to turn off her ipod because "once we get on the plane, you'll need to do it anyway."

The daughter ignored her mother and continued to listen to her ipod.

Mother: Fine! The plane is going to crash and EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE! All because of YOU! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!

I giggled because I thought, she has to be kidding, right? I turned around to see that based on the looks on both of their faces, she was not kidding. A few minutes later, just when our flight had started pre-boarding, which means there was still plenty of time before the coach class would begin boarding, the daughter said she was going to run to the bathroom quick.

Mother: You can't go to the bathroom NOW!

The daughter got up and went anyway. The mother yelled after her, "Fine! MISS THE FLIGHT! See if I care!"

Shortly after, I heard the father call their other daughter a moron. Nice.


Then on the airplane from Ft. Myers back to MSP, there was a baby about Elijah's age crying in the row behind us. The ride was pretty bumpy for a while and every time it got really bad, she would cry harder. I didn't have a problem with the crying. I have a lot of patience for that because I know how hard it is to fly with a baby. It was the mother who was annoying me.

She kept telling her baby to "STOP THAT!" Dan and I kept looking at each other like, Really? Does she think that's going to work? Then the loud SSHHHHHHH-ing started followed by more STOP THATs.


Good, so now we know what works! I have a few things to work on: I need to turn up the drama, I need to start calling Elijah degrading names and I need to yell at him to STOP THAT whenever he is upset. You can all thank me now for sharing this parenting wisdom!

Awesome weekend

Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful mamas out there. My boys were wonderful to me today. I'm the luckiest mommy alive! I could not have a better baby boy and I'm so thankful for where we are all at right now. A year ago, Elijah had not even had his first surgery yet! So much has happened in one year. We have come a long way and like I said, I'm an incredibly lucky mama. I LOVE YOU, ELIJAH, and thank you for choosing me.

I was worried about Elijah missing us too much while we were gone this weekend but now I'm worried that he appears not to not have missed us at all! He seemed to do great, which is acually very reassuring. He loved spending time with his cousins and auntie. We drove down to Cannon Falls, where Lissa and her cute family live, late last night after our plane landed so we could spend the night and be there when Elijah woke up in the morning. He was so cute when I got him out of bed this morning. He looked slightly confused to see me, but then started giving me the flirty smile. I have been kissing his juicy neck all day long.



We had the absolute best time in Florda. Mike and Julie's wedding was like a fairy tale. The ceremony took place on the beach, a few feet away from the water. I loved that I could watch my good friends say their vows while listening to the crashing waves and while scooping my toes through the sand. Mike and Julie were so cute and their wedding was touching. I shed many tears.


Dan and Lisa had to drag me away from the water because this is what I was doing until the wee hours of the night...gazing out into the ocean..


Sand, ocean and MY lucky toes!

We were able to stay with our friend Lisa and her mom at their condo, not far from where the wedding took place in Ft. Myers. Lisa and Ruth were THE MOST WONDERFUL hosts we could have ever imagined. They took us to and from the airport, they made us food and drinks and let us get sunburned by their pool. They thoroughly entertained us in every way imaginable. We are so thankful for your hospitality, so THANK YOU, Lisa and Ruth! You made our trip so much more enjoyable than we thought possible.


Pretending to be half as tall as Lisa and Dan


The beautiful sunset, the evening of the MJ wedding

Hanging Out At Auntie's House

Hey Everyone! It's Elijah here. This weekend I have been hanging out at Auntie Lissa's house and spending time with my cousins. My cousin Emma took the day off of school and played with me and fed me and helped change my diapers. (I'll bet she brings that up over and over when we are grown-ups.) Auntie Lissa had a bunch of ladies over last night to show me off and I flirted shamelessly with them all. This afternoon my cousin Erik is going to chill with me. I'll bet I can get him to watch Veggie Tales over and over. (Auntie says he loved them when he was a little guy like me.) Okay, I better get going, I've got a busy day planned and I need to pencil in time for a nice poop before lunch. Thanks for checking in!!

A couple of unrelated things

Someone found Elijah's website after typing this into Google: "do children poop in the pool because the pool water is too warm?" We're a versatile website.

Elijah has a suspicious rash under his arm that we're getting checked out quick today before we take him to my sister's. I'm hoping it has nothing to do with the rash on Dan's arm THAT IS CONTINUING TO GROW AND TAKE UP HIS ENTIRE LEFT FOREARM DESPITE THE MANY ANTIBIOTICS HE HAS TAKEN AND OINTMENTS HE HAS USED and that he acquired in the hospital three weeks ago. I think I'm going to name it soon. It feels like a part of our family.

In 24 hours, sand will be squishing in between my toes!

I mentioned Ellie on here a few days ago. She is my friend's niece who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor that does not typically have a good survival rate. Ellie's dad recently lost his job (and insurance) and they have a baby on the way and they are in serious need of financial help. Please look at this flyer and consider helping them out. Thank you!!

Showing off the chubby neck

Tonight I asked Elijah HOW BIG IS ELIJAH like I do every day and a millisecond later he was throwing up his arms, giggling uncontrollably. I think he wants to show off his big chubby neck (look at that thing)! He is most definitely proud of how big he is.











And, would YOU cut off this beautiful hair?




I want to share a part of the book that we have read and love so much that our wonderful Dr. Moga stars in ("Walk on Water" by Michael Ruhlman). Here is my favorite quote from Dr. M:

The author asks him to define "grace."
Dr. Moga replies with: "A moment of clarity. You're not yourself, you're an instrument of something else. When I was in thoracic surgery, doing a pneumonectomy, taking out part of a lung, I had to sew the pulmonary artery back together with one hand because I was holding the trunk of it with my other hand. I didn't even think. Forehand, boom, boom, boom, boom, four backhand, and it was done. The guy I was training under said, 'Frank, that was a moment of grace. Never forget it.' I hadn't realized, I was surprised, but he was right, and to this day it delights me to think about it...that's what I strive for. Larry Bird was once asked about Michael Jordan after a game between Boston and Chicago when Jordan was on--really on, even for Jordan--and Bird replied, 'That wasn't Michael Jordan, that was God.' That's when you know you're there--when it's not even you."

I love that! How did we get the best surgeon EVER?

Tomorrow night we are bringing Elijah to my sister's house and then we're heading to Florida early Friday morning. I'll tell Lissa she has to upload lots of Elijah pics while we're gone! People are counting on you, Lissa! :)

Really? I get to be on the beach in two days? I don't believe it. All I know is snow, cold, sickness and hospitals. THE BEACH???

Another good day

Yeah. That's my cool scar (and my giant belly)!


Kung fu moves


Happy baby


SOOooooooo big!!

It was another BEAUTIFUL day here in Minnesota. It's about time. There was such a change in moods here in the Porta household. As I said in my last post, it has been a LONG winter on many different levels for us, so this nice weather is such a welcome change. It's hard to believe that three weeks ago I was a total wreck because my baby's heart was making him very sick and I was anticipating something bad happening every second of the day. Now we have a beautifully healthy, spunky boy who is doing new things every day (besides napping).

Elijah now says "Mama" and "Baba" (Dada) discriminately and we are working on "ball." He now does the SO BIG motions with his hands when we say, "How big is Elijah?" He does the sign for ALL DONE and MILK and he is working on BIRDY. It's so cute because whenever he is in a situation he doesn't like, he will do the sign for ALL DONE feverishly, over and over. The other day he was sitting on the bed in the loft and he pulled on a toy too hard and fell backwards onto the bed. He startled himself but didn't cry. He started signing ALL DONE as if to say, "I don't like this! What just happened?!" He has so many new, cute faces that he makes that Dan and I laugh at constantly. Things just seem to be clicking much more now than they did before surgery. His fixed heart has changed him! He is a new man and he's ready to take on the world.

I sometimes forget how complex his recent heart surgery was. I keep hearing Dr. Moga's voice in my head saying, "This is a VERY good outcome to a VERY difficult problem." He had a whole lot of major things done to his heart in this last surgery and he really could not have had a better outcome. We feel so fortunate. Elijah is an amazing, strong little boy.

I worked from home again today so I didn't get to enjoy the nice weather much, but Dan and Elijah got out for a bit. I'm back at work tomorrow through Thursday and then early Friday morning Dan and I are headed to FLORIDA! I'm excited but nervous. I have mixed feelings. I need to let it go and have a great time at Mike and Julie's wedding and release some of the tension that has built up over the past few months. It'll be good.

Thanks for checking in on us. We love you all so much! Elijah says, "BaambababbababMAMAMAmamammmamamaBamba!" which translates to: thank you for all the prayers, you are all wonderful!!

Day OUT

Parachutes are fun!

I feel like we have been imprisoned since October. Elijah caught a really nasty cold in early October and then he had his heart cath and then the nasty cold, snowy winter hit and during that time we hibernated and endured more sickness and then he had another heart cath and then his health started to decline rapidly and we spent time in the hospital and then he had his surgery and recovery and the winter weather continued on, and.......now, finally, today we feel FREE! We aren't in the hospital and we aren't sick and it's not winter and we can actually get out! After seven months of basically not going anywhere unless absolutely necessary, this feels wonderful!

We went out for lunch today and Elijah was in total heaven! I think he has forgotten that there is a world outside of our home and the yucky hospital. Then we went to the mall and strolled around. Then we came home and sat outside and played. Then we went for a walk in his wagon that my awesome college friends gave him last year. Then we took a trip to the grocery store in his new big boy car seat. We heard a constant stream of laughter coming from the back seat the entire way there and back. It's such a new perspective for him to look forward and he very obviously loved it. You would think we were at Disneyland instead of the grocery store, listening to the squeals of delight and watching the constant leg and arm flapping that occured while there.

It was a good day! We are still trying to figure out the napping, but we really can't complain. Elijah is feeling so good right now and he is such a good, happy boy. Dan and I are constantly saying to each other, "What did we do to deserve such an amazing baby?"

I better make this quick. Dan is grilling up some dinner so I should go help! Thanks for checking in!


Elijah was helping me pack my parachute today! He's excited to jump out of a plane soon (in 17 years).


Look at that pretty face


Whoa, look at all of that hair! This was Elijah's first wagon ride. He loooooved it.


What is this sunshine stuff?

Some of us are tired..

..and some are not. Elijah is usually exhausted by 5:30 every night and asleep by 6:00. Not tonight! I just had the most surreal, unusual evening with him. He was smiley and giggly and not showing a single sign of tiredness so I kept him up till 7:15. Even though he still wasn't acting tired, I decided to try to put him to bed anyway. I rocked him for a bit in his room and he kept grabbing my nose and laughing. I finally put him into his crib, expecting tears like usual, but he just rolled onto his side and went to sleep. Unbelievable! I stood outside his door scratching my head like, What just happened? It was wonderful!

Dan and I switched off taking naps today and even after a large 3-hour nap, I still feel exhausted. What is the deal? I almost feel like I've had too much to drink I'm so tired. The hospital really kicked our butts. It is taking forever to get caught up.

I did get a few things on my List crossed off today like getting my hair cut FINALLY (thanks to the wonderful Jai who came all the way to our house for it!) and sorting through the Heart Walk t-shirts. I should be able to get a shirt to everyone who showed interest in them, so hopefully I can get those mailed out very soon. If you asked for a t-shirt, would you mind emailing me your mailing address to mmporta@gmail.com? Thanks!


Look at my new big boy car seat! Thanks Grandma!








I have such big, pretty eyes and curly hair! My mommy always tells me I'm pretty.


Brushing my teeth before bed. Look at my belly!




One last thing. Please keep this little girl in your prayers. My good friend Cara has a niece, Ellie, who just got diagnosed with a brain tumor that carries a 10% survival rate. She will be starting radiation soon so please pray that she will be healed and fall in that 10%. Here is a picture of Ellie.

Napless in Minneapolis

I haven't had much of a chance to write an update this week. Sorry! I've been busy working from home and also trying to help out with Elijah when I can. I feel like we are in total maintenance mode right now. We are doing enough just to get by. I have a list of things that we need to do, that we are so far behind on, but we haven't had a chance to get to any of those things. I just told Dan that our #1 priority tomorrow is SLEEP so we can actually have the energy to get some of those other things done.

Elijah is still not napping well. He will usually only sleep for 20-30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon. This is not enough sleep, Little One! I think it's due to a couple of things: He's still experiencing some anxiety from the hospital and it's uncomfortable to be on his belly right now and that is how he sleeps best. I think as he heals, naps will continue to come easier.

Other than the napping issues, he is doing great! He has so much more spunk. I love it. THIS is what we've been waiting 14 months for! It is such an amazing change. Today I noticed so many new things he is doing that show how smart he is! I could just eat him up with a spoon.

We booked our tickets! Dan and I are going to Florida next weekend! Mike and Julie, we are SO EXCITED to be with you on the beach as you get married. Yes, I'm freaking out about leaving the chubby baby, but all will be well. He could not be in better hands than with my sister Lissa.

p.s. It's a good thing we will be in Florida next weekend. It helps to ease the pain of being HERE where it is storming right now and supposed to snow tomorrow when we could be in Maui! Yes, Elijah's health is plenty of consolation, but it's still hard not to think about.

p.p.s. I will take some pics of the chunky monkey and all of his smiles very soon, I promise!

Energized

Elijah has been doing very well these past few days. He has so much more energy than we have ever seen before. He used to get tired and cranky very quickly but now he is getting by on very little daytime sleep (UG for us!) and he hardly gets crabby at all. Once his incision and chest heal a bit more, I bet he will start trying to move around. You can see that he wants to, he just doesn't know how yet. The rash on his legs did turn out to be a yeast infection, and we got it under control in no time with our magic yeast infection cream.

I am working from home this week since everyone in the office is in MAUI (boohoo, we would have been at the airport right at this very moment to go there, so I'm shedding a tear for that) and since Elijah is still having some anxiety issues. Next weekend Dan and I are planning to head down to Florida for one night for our friends' wedding and I am a little stressed thinking about leaving Elijah. I know he will be in good hands with my sister and her family, but I just worry because I'm the mommy and that's what I do. We haven't booked the tickets yet and I keep telling Dan that we should get that done before I change my mind!

That's about all for now. Elijah gets his last RSV shot today (finally) so I'm sure he's going to love that. It will be good to have him covered through May.

Spunk

Since Grant spent so much time and effort helping us out with the Heart Walk t-shirts, I wanted to show you all pictures of his design! The images are a bit fuzzy because I couldn't get my zoom to work in this lighting (I don't like our camera AT ALL).


Front design (small in upper right)


Back design (big)

Aren't they awesome? Now PLEASE, we don't want Grant's hard work to go to waste, so tell me if you want one. I don't have any smalls, but have mediums, larges, a couple extra larges and one size 4T. I am just going to start randomly sending them to everyone I know soon.

The other thing I wanted to write about is Elijah's newfound spunk! It is so wonderful to see him already blossoming and doing things that he couldn't or didn't want to do before surgery. He has never been able to hold his own bottle but suddenly now he can. He never used to say "Mama" discriminately but he is finally starting to. I love it! Tonight when we were done reading books before bed, I said the same thing I say every night: "All done with story time. Time to go to sleep." He did the sign for "all done" and then let out a big whiny, "Mama!" So cute! He is overall much happier and his personality is so spunky and cute. He just seems to understand more and express himself better. It is an amazing change and I'm sure it will just continue to get even better. He hasn't shown much of a desire to move around yet, but we'll give him some time for that. The one thing he has regressed on is his napping. He will not nap! He's reverting back to a year ago when he would nap for 20 minutes and then be wide awake. That was one of the longest, most stressful 3-month periods I've ever been through. Let's hope he re-learns how to nap very soon. At least he is sleeping well through the night. Thank God for that.

Before surgery, he never would have had the energy to do this (It's kind of long because I couldn't decide what to cut out....it was all too cute! The last part of the video is the cutest, so watch it all.):

Good check-up

We just saw Dr. Gremmels and our little (well, not so little, really) Elijah is looking great. Dr. G was thoroughly impressed and we don't have to see him again for a whole month! His incision looks good, his lungs sound good and based on the very quick echo (ultrasound of the heart) that was done, there is no fluid around his heart and his heart function looks perfect. He has even gained a pound in less than a week. He's just shy of 24 lbs (he had lost one pound during surgery/recovery)! We are going to start weaning him off of his Lasix AND his nebulizer treatments and hopefully he will tolerate those things well.

He wasn't even too traumatized during the appointment. During the blood pressure check and the echo he cried and had a terrified look on his face, but otherwise all was well. Dr. G even commented on his happiness and his ability to have such a good disposition despite everything he has been through recently (he doesn't see him at home when he won't let us out of his sight and when he won't nap because he wants Mommy and Daddy).

There is a giant, quickly spreading rash on both of Elijah's legs that we first noticed this morning. Dr. G thought it might be a yeast infection associated with some of the drugs that were in his system. Dan is bringing him into the ped's office today to get it looked at and hopefully get something on it so it stops spreading. It looks pretty bad. I'm hoping it has nothing to do with the nasty rash Dan got in the hospital that has taken over his entire forearm.

No walk

Lounging instead of walking. We should have called it the Heart Lounge 2008!


Missy, Dennis and Alex (and baby in belly) drove up all the way from Iowa to be with us yesterday for the walk. Thank you guys so much! You're such wonderful friends.


Getting ready to go to Grandma's house for a visit

Because of the crazy weather yesterday (WHAT MONTH IS THIS?!) we did not participate in the walk. Instead, we had people over to our house for yummy pizza! It worked out well because everyone got a chance to see Elijah in a warm environment. I was bummed about not doing the walk, but at least we managed to raise a lot of money for a good cause. We have some Medium and Large t-shirts left and they look AWESOME! Grant did an amazing job and worked hard on them. If you would like one, let me know and I can get it in the mail to you!

Elijah has been sleeping great at night, but he hasn't been napping well. After about 30 minutes into the nap, I think he realizes that Mommy and Daddy aren't around because I can hear him screaming, "MAMAmamama BABAbababa." Stupid hospital!

Otherwise, he's doing very well! You'd never know in a million years that he had major surgery less than two weeks ago. He's our amazing kid.

Last night my sister came over and watched Elijah while we went out for some much-needed adult time. It was sooo nice! Thank you, Lissa!

We're all going to try to take a nap right now. Tomorrow I'm heading back to work (booooo!) and we also have an appointment with Dr. Gremmels at 10:00. Thanks for checking in and thanks so much to everyone who helped out with the non-Walk and who came over to spend some time with Elijah. It meant so much to us!

Only in MINNESOTA!

I cannot believe this. It's is SNOWING and it's freezing cold out today. The status of the walk is "tentative" and I don't think it's a great idea to drive to St. Paul only to be told to drive back home. So Dan and I are thinking that instead of doing the walk, maybe we'll just have everyone over to our house at noon for pizza? We have people in from out of town for this event, so this completely stinks. I feel so bad.

For those of you who were planning on attending, let me know your thoughts. If you all think it would be worth it to meet at Harriet Island still, then we'd be willing to do that. I just don't know what to do! ARG!

The wind chill right now is 21 degrees. Yuck. 28 mph winds with snow.

Heart Walk!

I want to write out some information about the Heart Walk tomorrow. For more detailed info, you can follow this link. The walk begins at 10:00 am, but try to be there a little bit early. A survivor photo is being taken at 9:30, so Dan, Elijah and I will be there by then. It looks the weather is going to be crappy, so I'm not sure if we'll keep Elijah there for the whole thing, so if you want to see him and give him a smooch, come early! Wear a red shirt because I'm not sure we're going to have enough Elijah t-shirts for everyone (sorry! that's my fault for waiting so long.). THANK YOU Pam and Grant for taking care of the t-shirts for us. This means SO MUCH, you have no idea!

So far, Team Elijah has raised over $1,600!!!!! That is awesome! I'm going to ask that ALL of that goes toward CHD research. All of our team captains, you did a wonderful job! Our team captain who raised the most money was Debbie Schnieder, our cute British skydiver friend who we love dearly and who is the cutest, sweetest girl I know. :)

I haven't had my heart in this walk for the past few weeks because of worry/stress/hospital time, so I feel like I have dropped the ball and not kept everyone as informed as I should have and not thanked everyone enough for all of their help and effort. I'm sorry for that, and THANK YOU! We are so excited to celebrate our baby's life in this way and all of the support is overwhelming and so much appreciated. Elijah is a loved little miracle man. If you have any questions about the walk, please feel free to call me: 952-484-4921. We hope to see lots of people there!

In other news, I ended up not going into work today (arg, another vacation day lost!) because it just feels too soon. Elijah is afraid of everything and is still pretty emotionally beat up from his hospital stay. We cannot walk a foot away from him without screams. Every time I put him into bed, he screams horribly and that tells me he's very afraid. It is really tough caring for a LARGE baby who isn't mobile and who we have to "scoop" like a tiny infant and who won't let us leave for a second because he's scared. It's a lot of work! It's worth it, though. I really can't complain. We have our baby and he is doing so well!

I made Dan leave the house tonight and go hang out with a friend. I'm going to sit my butt in the LoveSac and veg out. We are looking forward to seeing a lot of you tomorrow!

And one last thing. PLEASE check out this post and consider contributing books to Kate's Kart. This is such a wonderful organization that my heart mama friend has started. I'm so proud of her! Let's send her LOTS and lots of books!

Videos

If you haven't already, please see the previous post about Kate's Kart!


That's our boy! He is sooo content. He could lounge all day like this and be totally happy. Even with a fixed heart! Ug, I think we have a lot of work in store.

I've been meaning to write and say that we are ALL going to try to make it to the Heart Walk on Saturday. All three of us! That is, if the weather is cooperative. Our awesome friends Pam and Grant volunteered their talents and time to make some t-shirts for us. I don't think we'll have enough for everyone, so plan on wearing a red shirt just in case. I'll post further details about the walk tomorrow sometime.

I called Dr. G today because Elijah's eyes were looking a bit puffy again before bed. He said to increase the Lasix to 3X/day for a couple days and that should take care of things. He hasn't slept very well today (he's soooo scared when we leave him in his bedroom by himself) so hopefully he will get a good night of sleep tonight.

And here are a few videos from recovery. The first one is a bit hard to watch (emotions came flooding back as I watched it).