Thanksgiving 2016

Happy belated Thanksgiving 2016! We survived hosting in our new house. We had 16 people here and everything went smoothly. The food was good, the company was great and our house was officially broken in. I forgot to mention that we also had three big dogs here. It was a full house!

I woke up the following day SO EXCITED for our traditional day-after-Thanksgiving family time. We picked up a Christmas tree the easy way this year (no tree farm), which diminished the experience a bit but gave us more time at home together. The boys have been bouncing off the walls, so excited that it's finally Christmas season.

We are constantly working on getting settled into our house, but we've been able to relax and enjoy it, too. I still ask Dan to pinch me at least once a day because I can't believe we have such a cozy perfect-for-us home. We have MUCH to be thankful for! It is crazy to think back to six or seven months ago and how much we've done and also how much has changed for us since then. Wow! We are so blessed and grateful for everything that has transpired.

Elijah gets a new behavioral aide who will be coming into our home starting tomorrow (she'll come one or two evenings/week after school). E is still loving chess and music class and Sammy is constantly creating art projects that are spread out alllllll over our house. :) The boys have a full week of school this week so we need to wrap up some dreaded homework this evening and prepare for the week ahead. Thanks for peeking in and I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful!

Thanksgiving Weekend 2015!

What happened to the past week?! We had such a nice Thanksgiving weekend. The food and company were wonderful. We invited Elijah's bud over the Friday after Thanksgiving and it was so much fun to have her here with us. We did our traditional Christmas tree shopping and spent the rest of the day decorating it, along with the rest of our house.



Oh no, we're the Griswolds. :)



Fish lips!



Elijah of course remembered that Sammy put the star on the tree last year, so he got to do it this year.



Dan and I have been wanting to clean out our HORRENDOUS storage closet for literally years. On Friday as we were decorating, we just decided to start. It became a HUGE ordeal and our house was a complete mess while we sorted through tons of junk. After a couple days of work, storage looks amazing!

The boys have had a good week at school and Dan and I have been working and doing the weekday routine. I'm still working in Cannon Falls and will be there for another week or two. Once I'm done, I will probably be done for good which is both good and sad. It has been such a blessing of a job, but this season is coming to an end.

Because I know I'll want this information next year, we learned that it takes THREE WEEKS for the trauma of daylight savings to wane for Elijah. After three solid weeks, he started waking up at 5:00 instead of 3-4:00. Post daylight savings has brought some rougher days, but overall things are still soooo much better. "Rough" days now cannot be compared to "rough" days a year ago. We constantly see so many areas where great progress has been made. Especially on the rougher days, I remind myself constantly of the progress. One of the big things that we have noticed at home and at school is that he now shows remorse! He still has such a hard time stopping certain behaviors in the moment, but after they have happened he feels bad. This is good! He will now approach whoever he has wronged and apologize on his own (without prompting), which is always followed by, "I feel bad!" This is such huge huge progress!

Potty issues are also so much better. We still have a ways to go, but the progress has been amazing! I still attribute so much of the positive things we've seen in the past few months to medication. He is still taking 18mg of Strattera/day for his anxiety and we are so happy with it!

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not on here, but in the past few weeks Elijah has complained a handful of times about chest pain on the right side of his chest. It lasts for a few minutes and seems pretty intense and the last time it happened it was followed by a headache. That last time I grew concerned and called Dr. G (cardiologist). Based on what I told him, he thought it was unlikely that it has anything to do with his heart. If it happens again, he'd like for us to make sure his heart is beating at a normal rate. If it's not, we'll bring him in. It hasn't happened for almost two weeks, but I scheduled an appointment to get him checked out by his pediatrician just to be on the safe side. That appointment is tomorrow morning.

Ok, some fun things to end with..

The boys have both settled on what they would like their future professions to be. :) Sammy wants to be an art teacher (he'd be a great one!) and Elijah wants to own and operate a bakery! They talk about this all the time and it's so cute. Elijah always says that he will give free donuts to his immediate family, but everyone else has to pay. :) Sammy is already planning lessons for his art students (he wants to teach elementary kids and wants the students to call him Mr. Sammy).

Sammy is SO thoughtful and responsible. Sometimes I cannot even believe the thought he puts into things. Tonight he colored a birthday card for Dan (whose bday is on Saturday) and then hid the card under his little art desk in the loft. When I put him to bed he told me that he made sure to put all of the markers away because if he left them out, Dan might figure out that he had been making a card and then the surprise would be ruined. Sometimes I think he is soooo intelligent beyond his years. He tries to keep up with his brother on so many things and I know he listens in on our homework sessions, but I was so impressed the other day when he wrote the following (without help) on a piece of paper: 100+100=200   200+200=400   400+400=800  His reading has improved by leaps and BOUNDS! His writing, too. He has such a strong little will at times (I have sooo many stories I could share), but I know this will be in his favor one day.

There is so much more I could say. I need to post more often! Signing off for now! Have a great rest of your week.

Surgery, Santa and thankfulness.

Elijah did great today! Surgery was quick, with an easy recovery. It was one of the better recoveries from anesthesia that we've seen. I have been careful about saying what the surgery was all about in order to give him some semblance of privacy. It's sort of a private ordeal, so I don't want to scream about it from the rooftops. Catch me in person or over email and I'll explain! He was in a bit of pain afterward and had a mild fever. We will stay on top of pain meds through the night.

Elijah was, again, terrified of the mask. :( Also, again, terrified of removing the IV tape. I am thankful this is behind us! He was such a brave boy today. I could see signs of him being more self-aware than ever before, which was encouraging. He was able to recognize that he was feeling scared about specific things and he was willing to try tactics to not be so afraid. This is a first!

Dan and I always feel so terrible watching him endure pain, both physical and emotional, so we always allow him to pick out a toy afterward for being brave. So that Sammy never feels left out, we let him pick something out, too, for being a good and supportive brother. Today we picked out a toy for both boys to share, a new Lego Movie lego set! They were both SO EXCITED. Oh my goodness, they were happy boys!

One thing Elijah said repeatedly today in the midst of his discomfort was, "MOMMY! I miss you!" When I finally asked what he meant by that, he said that he missed me when I have to be at work so much. :( Ok, this kind of kills me. Obviously we all need to work, but I have been working an exceptional amount lately and obviously it is affecting our family. If Elijah can verbalize it, it means something. Thankfully things will start to slow down soon.

Here is the boys' photo taken with Santa from last weekend! (yes, I believe Santa's bare belly may be showing..)

Tomorrow will be busy, but I'm hoping we can take some time to breathe and be THANKFUL. We have so much to be thankful for. I am looking forward to four days of no work and tons of family time. Friday will be our annual getting-our-Christmas-tree day and we will spend the day decorating our house. We are all looking forward to the next few days! Thanks for checking in and HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Hug your family. Tell them how much you love them. Be thankful!!!!!

Giving thanks and picking out a tree!

 

Happy belated Thanksgiving! After a very busy couple of weeks, we had a nice and relaxing day yesterday. Well, aside from the 5K that I ran in the morning and aside from the cooking and baking we had to get done before dinner. Aside from all of that, it was relaxing! Ha!

The day after Thanksgiving is the day every year when we go to pick out a Christmas tree. We spend the day putting it up and decorating it....and resting. TRULY resting. No exercising, no cooking, no working, no nothing except enjoying each other. Just the four of us. I remember last year being snowy, windy and COLD, so it felt balmy this year at 20-something degrees. We picked out our tree pretty quickly and the boys got to meet a few of Santa's reindeer.

Giving each other the eye.

Sammy wanted NOTHING to do with Santa this year. Elijah was eager to get onto the sleigh and chat with him. He told Santa he'd like some Legos. We always try to downplay Santa, so I was glad he asked for a relatively little thing.

Loaded up and ready to get our tree back home! The boys were very concerned that the tree would fly off the back of the car.

The majority of Elijah's days in school lately involve some struggling. It is really really difficult to hear about the things he says and does and not know what to do to help him. I feel like we are doing absolutely everything we possibly can as his parents, and I try to be content with that.

I don't remember who I was saying this to the other day, but Elijah needs not only super strict rules but he needs about 10 amendments and 5 sub-amendments to each rule. It feels so complicated and overwhelming sometimes. There are a bunch of "little" things that we are constantly working on with him, but they all add up and they end up complicating one another (if that makes sense).

We continue to do light therapy and we have tried to put him to bed no earlier than 7:00 every night, even though some nights he is ready for bed at 5:00. For about five days last week he was waking up between 5:00-6:00, which was GREAT! Then he had four days in a row of 3:00-3:30 wake-up times. I have a gut feeling this was a result of the antibiotics he was taking for his strep. This morning he slept till 6:00! On the mornings when he is awake at 3:00, we give him a tiny dose of melatonin, although it doesn't seem to help much.

He tends to get into moods where he literally seems to want to upset/annoy everyone around him. It's really tough trying to stay positive while managing this behavior. We enforce the no "icky" words rule, so he resorts to making horrible noises and using icky tones with regular words. This is where the sub-amendments come into play. Suddenly an innocent word like "baby" becomes just as bad as an actual bad word. When we enforce no bad tones, he finds other ways to get under our skin. I so often wonder what is going through his smart little brain. Is there something he needs that I'm not giving him? He's such a complex little guy. He always has been, and we love him for it. I was just thinking tonight about what a relatively easy kid Sammy has been. I was thinking about what life would be like if we would have had two Sammys and I thought, Wait a second! If we had two kids like Sammy, Dan and I would have missed out on so much! In all honestly, it can be tough sometimes, but I wouldn't trade any of it. Elijah is EXACTLY who he was meant to be and we accept him 100% and love him TO PIECES. If you know us personally, you KNOW I mean that.

Here are some GOOD tidbits for you because we do have a mostly happy home and happy family!

Whenever all four of us are at home in the morning, we all crawl into Dan's and my bed. The boys LOVE our "fluffy blankets and pillows" (I do have a mild obsession with pillows) and snuggle and watch cartoons and hold hands and say "I love you" to each other every couple of minutes.

I have been extra smitten with Elijah and Sammy lately. I think it's because I've been working so much away from home. My heart will literally ache in the middle of the day when I think of how soft Sammy's cheeks are or how Elijah's arms feel around my neck when he hugs me or how he will not allow me to leave home without "a hug and a kiss!" I love my boys so much!

Here is a funny conversation that took place last night:
Me: Hey Sammy, what's up?
S: Ohhh, just pickin' my nose. Trying to find a booger.
Me: Icky! Do you need a tissue?
S: No, I didn't find any.

We have another couple of busy weeks ahead, but two weeks from today we leave for Elijah's Make-a-Wish trip! We cannot wait! The boys are sooo excited!

We pray that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you have a peaceful rest of your long weekend! Thank you for checking in!

Out with turkey, in with lights

As Elijah has been saying today, Thanksgiving-time is done and Christmas-time is here. We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with family yesterday, and now we are already thinking about the next holiday!



We got up this morning and picked out a Christmas tree for our living room. It's big and beautiful and partially decorated (so no pics yet!). Elijah loves it. Sammy is indifferent.



This was the first time both boys met Santa! Elijah acted shy at first, and then he was totally indifferent. I don't think Sam even noticed. He just wanted to be in mama's arms.



I love this photo. It's like Sammy is saying to Elijah, "Can you believe Mom is making us sit with this guy?" I'm sure there will be much more of that in our lifetime.



The boys had fun with their cousins this morning. We even got to see Santa's reindeer! I didn't get pics of them because Sam was being clingy.



And here is a family portrait with Santa!



Sammy had a pretty fussy day and had a low-grade fever AGAIN. Dan brought him into the doctor. Again. And, nothing appears to be the matter. Teeth? Perhaps. We hope.

I want to write just a few things and then I want to get my butt on the couch for relax-time..

Elijah and I had a sweet moment today. I laid down for a nap when Sam did, around 12:30. Dan put Elijah down shortly after, and in bed with me (he has been napping in our bed a lot lately so he and Sammy don't wake each other). When he got into bed, I heard a "loud whisper" say, "MOMMY?! MOM?" I peeked over at him and he smiled and grabbed my hand. We laid next to each other, holding hands, for 20 minutes or so. Elijah fell asleep and I stayed awake and watched his sweetness and thanked God for him and Sam. At one point he startled himself awake and his hand fell from mine. He realized what had happened and grabbed my hand again and fell back asleep. I love those moments! They make up for the ones that occupy most of our days involving poop, sass and sibling-hitting.

I will end with a very funny funny! A few nights ago all four of us were in the loft after bath-time. Sammy was reading a book and Dan and I were cleaning up a bit. Elijah came up to me with his hands on his hips and said, "Mom! Wook at THIS shaky body!" and shifted his little hips from side to side to side to side. Dan and I laughed for a long long time.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Holiday spunk

Elijah's post-croup cough got a little bit worse as the weekend went on. It is still NOTHING compared to what his little body endured after each episode last year, so we have no complaints.

Here is our crazy boy (this was our name for him all weekend) reading books on the LoveSac.



This photo was taken pre-hair cut, which is worth mentioning because it was the first hair cut he cooperated for. No crying or freaking out or thrashing about. Our boy is growing up!

We decided to go to a tree farm on Friday and cut down our own Christmas tree. I have to say that it was a little more difficult than I thought it would be only because it was hard to lug our non-walking little boy around an enormous field of trees, sans stroller. It was fun, though. We will definitely do it again next year. And I think we found the perfect tree!



Elijah's level of spunk and craziness was turned up a few notches this weekend. Sometimes I wish he could walk just so he could run off some of his energy. Something else that got turned up was his desire to test his boundaries and Mommy and Daddy's patience and also his ability to scream, kick and hit. Our house has most definitely been filled with plenty of spunk.

He's still the sweetest little boy, though, kissing everyone and everything, including Baby Snowman..



..and Mama Snow(wo)man..



A new favorite thing for him to do is to shut himself in a closet or in the bathroom and say, "Night night, Mama (or Daddy)!" as he fake snores and then yells, "WAKE UP!!" Repeat about 1,497 times.



We put our Christmas, sorry, KICKUS, decorations up this weekend and Elijah loves them. Turning on the "Kickus wights" is the first thing he has us do every morning.



Our home is pretty festive and cozy right now. I love this time of year and I love my spunky little family.

Lots and lots and lots of thanks!

We had a couple foam mattresses lying on the floor in Elijah's bedroom for a few days a couple weeks ago. Every night when I would go in to check on him before I went to sleep, I would have to step around and over the mattresses, tripping and making extra noise and just being annoyed in general. I would walk into his half-dark bedroom and think, Oh yeah, gotta do my obstacle course over and around the mattress mountains again, ugh. We only had them in there for about a week before we gave them back to the very nice friends who loaned them to Dan for his hunting weekend.

The first couple nights after we had given them back, I couldn't believe how easy it was to check on Elijah before going to bed. There was nothing in the way! I could just walk straight to his bed...four little steps...and it was so easy and simple and quiet and...EASY!

If I hadn't experienced the mattress obstacle course that made my journey to Elijah's bed a little bit challenging for a week, I never would have appreciated the simple act of being able to walk straight to his bed to give him one last pat good night. My perspective had changed. Even now, a few weeks later, I still think about how wonderful it is not to have to climb over an obstacle course when I walk into his room.

I know that is such a simple example of how challenges can change perspectives, but I think of the bigger picture every time I check on Elijah at night now. I think constantly about how much our perspectives (big and small) have changed over the past few years.

This past year has been WONDERFUL, AMAZING, AWESOME. It has been one of the best years of my life, even despite a spinal cord surgery for my little boy and many bouts of croup and sickness (and even despite last night's croup episode). Had we not had the opportunity to experience the challenges we experienced in the previous three years, I don't know that I would have considered 2009 one of the best of my life. It's hard to know that for sure, but I think that is a pretty fair guess. What I do know for sure is that 2009 HAS been wonderful and that I am one very thankful person.

I am thankful that we have been given the opportunity to grow in this way and to see life through a different perspective. I am thankful for the "obstacle courses" we have had to get through because it makes our current path seem so nice and easy. I am thankful that Elijah went A WHOLE YEAR without intervention on his heart! I am thankful that his next open heart surgery is not on the horizon like we (and the doctors) thought it would be at this point. I am thankful that we have a happy little boy filled with tons of spunk and energy. I am thankful that Elijah's speech has blown us away in the past few months. I am thankful that I still have a good job and that Dan was able to work a lot last summer. I am thankful that Elijah has grandparents who love him dearly. I am thankful that we have a warm, cozy house to live in and two (old, yet) reliable cars to drive. I am thankful that we have chosen to become closer to God over the past few years instead of push Him away. I am thankful for my patient, loyal and wonderful husband. I am thankful for Elijah's wonderful daycare provider and for the great things daycare in general has done for him. I am thankful for the outstanding medical benefits I receive for our family through my job. I am thankful for all of Elijah's amazing therapists and doctors. I am thankful for this blog and for the friendships I have found through it. I am thankful for my heart moms/dads who walk the crazy heart journey along with us. I am thankful for Elijah's steadfastness (is that a word?) and his amazing strength and, yes, even his strong will.

I am thankful for such an outstanding year! I could not possibly feel more blessed right now.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, everyone! I hope you all have a safe, thankful, wonderful holiday.

Kickus!

We have been in partial Christmas mode this weekend. We got out our lights and have been playing some festive music and Elijah can't stop saying, "Kickus tweee!" which is his way of saying he wants a Christmas tree. :) Next weekend, little one! We also put our Operation Christmas Child boxes together, which is always so much fun. I can't wait until Elijah gets excited about doing these. Maybe next year.



An exciting thing happened today. Considering we have not been working on potty training at all with Elijah, it's very exciting, actually. He went poopy in his diaper and then said, "Poop, Mama! Potty chair!" So we went and sat on the potty chair. Granted, the poop had already happened, but at least we know the potty-toilet connection is being made. I guess it shouldn't be a huge surprise to me that Elijah has just decided to start this process on his own.



"Kickus" is one of my favorite Elijah words right now. I also love that he says "coco-gut" for "coconut" and "hack-ock" for "hammock."



We are going to enjoy what is left of our evening before the week begins. At least this week is a short week! It's also a week for being thankful for the many blessings in our lives. Have a great week, everybody.