What I want for Christmas

So a little while ago I came across a blog that talked about 4 catergories of gifts for their children.  The catergories were: something to wear, something to read, some thing they want and something they need.  I thought this was a great idea and something I wanted to try this year.  So I got the boys each a present from each catergorie.  

Then a little while later I was in Home depot and I started thinking about how it would be nice for the boys to start getting some tools so when they leave the house they have good set.  So I decided I would get them both a tool box this year and then each birthday/Christmas get them a tool for the box.  I was going to get them only the box this year but it turns out if you bought the box and an accessory you got it wrapped for free.  Bonus.

So at this point I have all the kids presents labeled and wrapped and ready for under the tree.   Then we go see Santa today.  Max sits on his lap and begins to clap his hands in excitement.  I want a big Thomas because I lost mine he said, and my brother wants Curious George.  2 thoughts cross my mind here, first is when did you ever lose a Thomas toy and second, crap now I'm not done Christmas shopping.  

I don't know what big Thomas he was talking about but I found him some cool Thomas the Train bed sheets and blanket set, don't worry he likes that stuff, and a cool Thomas flash light that talks.   If he mentions something about a big Thomas I'm going to have to tell him sorry Santa didn't have room in the bag.

Okay so I've fallen behind

10. I am thankful for our van.  I feel like I waited quite a while before deciding our Subaru was too small and we got our Mini Van and we love it.

11. I am thankful Max loves school.

12. I am thankful we have enough to eat.

13.  I am thankful for our church.

14.  I am thankful for our dog

15.  I am thankful for the Facebook/Pintrest because some days that's all the socializing I get.

16.  I am thankful that Sam has a good team of Doctors that if they don't know the answer will refer us to some one who does. 

17.  I am thankful for all my friends.  Sometimes my family doesn't know what to say or how to say it in reference too all that has gone on with Sam.  But my friends, my good old ones, seems to handle all this in stride and for that I am thankful. 

18.  I am thankful for Jeremy's parents

19.  I am thankful we live in America where we are free to worship who and how we choose, we can vote and do all sorts of other things you can't do in other countries.

Thankful 6-9

Second installment of things I am thankful for but first:

Every one has funny ways of saying things, or little expression they use every day.  We don't even know that we do it until we have kids.  I say  things like, the tv is acting funny, or the computer is acting funny as a way to say it isn't working I guess.  I didn't realize this until Max started saying it, only he says it differently.  He says "My socks are being funny"  I'm thinking so are they telling jokes now or what?  Turns out he just put them on upside down. 

6. I am thankful for Grandpa Bruce my dad.  He was always a good dad but he goes above and beyond for his grandchildren.  He loves them and sees them at least once a week, comes to soccer games, has been very supportive of our special Sammy, and is just a very important part of our lives.

7. I am thankful that even though Obama won the election I can take comfort in the fact the God is the one in control and even though I am honestly fearful of what Obama will do to our country I have to believe that this is God's plan. 

8. Sam's health:  Sam has a rare genetic disease, it kills 20% of the children that have his mutation.  When we learned what Sam had we saw all these very serious complications online that are very common with this, heart defects, stomach not attached to your esophagus, needing a trach to breath to name a few.  Some how by the grace of God Sam missed out on the major scary stuff and for that I am thankful.

9. I am thankful that the cop I blew by today on my way home was looking down when I drove by doing 45 in a 25.

Things I am thankful for

Several of my Facebook friends are posting one thing a day that they are thankful for in leui on Thanksgiving.  I think this is cool, kind of a open prayer also.  I also wish to participate but I feel like this is a more appropriate place for me to put the things I am thankful for.  Sometimes I am a bit un comfortable talking about things that are going on in our lives that are good if the same thing is not going well in your life.  My blog to me is somehow more private even though anyone can read it.  It's weird I know but I feel like if you are here than you want to be, with Facebook you read everyone's news feed weather you cared to or not.  So with out further delay in no particular order

1. The Jerf - Jerf gets up with the kids when I can't, loves on the kids, plays with the kids, does stuff around the house goes to work and is generally a good egg.  Yes he will probably read this :)

2. Mr.Max - Our first born son is a very cool little boy who enjoys preschool and driving his brother crazy. 

3.Sir Sam - My second child also very cool, also loves to drive his brother crazy.  I enjoy his goofy little personality and his nibble your ears off cuteness every day.

4.Our House - We have a nice house that fits us all well, in a nice neighborhood, warm in the winter cool in the summer.

5. Jerf's job - My husband has a good job, lets us stay in above mentioned house.

6. The right to vote - Women haven't always had this privilege, we should excersice it on election day!

Traditionally you post one a day but I started late.

What is that mother thinking?

I have been having some clothing issues with Max lately.  He wants to wear sandals and its November or he doesn't think pants are necessary.  In his defense it was warm here just recently but its not any more.  Any way Max puts up a huge fight about wearing sandals and I realize this kid has got to learn to trust me when I say its cold out, so I did what any tired parent would do.  Let him wear his sandals to school,lets see how he likes having cold feet.  So we get in the car to drive to preschool and I begin to think, what are his teachers going to think when he shows up with sandals on today?  Probably that his mother is a class A moron for letting her kid go to school with sandals on when we had a frost this morning.  So we pulled into the school parking lot and I happen to have an extra pair of shoes in the car, slip them on his feet and away to school he goes. 

This gets me to thinking though....I had no idea how much random kid stuff I am responsible for.  If its yellow day at school, I am responsible for 1. knowing that its yellow day and 2. finding Max a yellow something to take to school.  Its not his fault, he can't yet read a calender so I can't even blame him for not knowing that it's yellow day.  I'm responsible for knowing how warm/cold its going to be and making sure he has the right jacket/shoes/mittens/hat/winter coat.  Not that its a big deal I just didn't realize all that was involved in having a kid in preschool. 

Hearing Aids the Naked Truth

So my son Sammy has bi-lateral hearing loss.  Mild to moderate in his right and mild in his left.  This means that he needs to wear hearing aids as much as he and I can tolerate.  So when Sam was 8 months old he was fitted for hearing aids.  They take an impression of your ears and cast a mold from that and sent it to you in the mail.  The cool part is you get to choose what color your mold will be so we went with red and green for Christmas. 

As you can imagine getting an 8 month old to wear a hearing aid is about impossible.  He tore those things out and threw them all most the second they hit his ears.  If he didn't throw them right away he would suck on them, and then they would short out and die.  So our first hearing aid only lasted a month. 

We got our second set of hearing aids in March when he was about a year old.  After learning he is deaf blind and the duel sensory lose is a major thing and he needs all the input possible so we got the left and right ear aided this time.  We went with red white and blue molds. 

He also had a fancy test called an ABR which is a sedated hearing test that measures how well the brain is getting sound.  This is important because a 1 year old isn't always great at telling you what he can and cannot hear.

That set of hearing aids was by far my favorite.  They fit his ears really well, and we wore them all the time, then he out grew them.  We went for Green and White that time and ironically lost one of them on the campus of MSU.  We lost the other aid 2 days later.  Rather impressive since we had never lost an aid till then.   The good news is his aids are covered for 1 year and we had them from just under one year so we got new ones in the mail.

About this time an organization called Hands and Voices contacted us.  To this day I'm not sure what their purpose is but they came to the house and chatted with us for a bit and gave me a binder on hearing loss.  Funny thing is for us, hearing loss is just a stepping stone if you will.  For many parents hearing loss is the worst diagnosis they will have to deal with and I feel like they didn't know what to do with us since its only a small portion of our issue.

So now we have Yellow, Red and Black aids for Mickey Mouse.  The right ear doesn't fit into his ear canal very well and he gags when I try and get it in and for some reason he doesn't like to only wear one aid.  So we are waiting for tomorrow, he has another hearing test and hopefully he either does so well we can pitch the aids or Lori can help me fit the new aid into his funky ear canal or make us a new mold. 

Don't ask unless you really want to know

So their is this Thai restaurant here in town.  Jeremy and I both really like it.  We have been there so many times we know the people that work there.  They are always very nice when we go in, ask how my kids are and I ask about hers.

Well the other day I decided we should have Thai for dinner since we hadn't been in a while.  I go in and Kim was sitting there with her nephew and she says "wow you look great, whats you secret to lossing the baby weight  are you on a diet or is it stress?"  I stood there for a sec and thought about my answer.  What do I tell her?  Do I lie and say nothing special.  Do I say breastfeeding which is at least partailly true?  Or do I tell the truth and say my son was born with a rare genetic disease that you have never heard of before and every time we can home from a specialist with a new list of what was "wrong" with him I didn't feel like eating for the next day or so. 

Its kind of like when you are late to something and someone says something like "did you get into a car wreck or what"  Well sometimes the answer to that question is yes.  So in the end I told her that I breast feed for a while and that Sam was a little sick as a newborn so some of my weight loss was due to stress but now he is doing better.  She said, "oh so you breastfed", a little uncomfortably, and then changed the subject.

I felt kinda of bad about the conversation.  She wasn't in any way trying to be mean or rude, and I didn't want to lie to her but I did kinda feel like the whole story was way to much information.  I guess the lesson here is don't ask unless you really want to know.

Sense of Direction

I have a really bad sense of direction.  Even on routes I have taken many times before I can get lost.  I have trouble with North, South, East, and West.  Don't even get me started on Left vs Right.  I don't know why this is really.  A friend of mine asked my dad if I came into the world backwards and my dad said "well actually she was breach."  Well at least I get it honestly. 

I bring this up because my son Max has an excellent sense of direction.  He knows the second I take a different way home, he yells from the back seat "going the wrong way!"  Then I have to explain to him why I went the way I went. 

We were at St Joe's a while back for some apt and we left the hospital a little differently than we had entered.  I was looking around the parking lot for our car and Max pipes up and says "the car is over in there mom"  Oh yeah, so it is.

My favorite happened just recently.  The family had gone to the Hands On Museum and Jeremy lead us around the block the wrong way to get inside.  On the way out he said we should go the other way, and we did and i looked at jeremy and we both quietly said I wonder if Max will notice.  Sure enough "your going the wrong way mom and dad"   He so did not get that from me.

Who knew?

Max will be 4 years old in July.  I am excited about preparing his party.  Even more excited about him starting preschool.  But what I want to know is why no one ever told me, or why I never really knew about 4 year olds. 

Did you know for instance that 4 year olds have really bad attitudes?  I didn't, I never would have imagined that Max would look at me with disdain and say No like a teenager. 

Did you know they ask 400 questions a day.  Not just why, more elaborate than that.  Why are we going this way?  Why did you do that?  Where did the dog, cat, you, me, plants, and every toy I have ever gotten come from?

Did you know that 4 year old girls tattle tale like crazy over ever little stupid thing possible?  Stupid stuff like "Hey mom the cat is eating" "Hey mom, Max is sitting in a chair".

Did you know that 4 is when they learn to lie?  They aren't very good at it yet but they will lie to you.

I can't believe I didn't know about any of this.  I know my son isn't the only one because when someone says they have a 4ish year old I say "oh dear" and I always get a knowing smile. 

Know by no means is 4 all bad.  They say and do really cool, and funny things.  For example the other day I said "I have and idea".  Max asked where and I said, um in my head.  Max replied, "I want one too."  Later he hurt himself and I asked him if he stubbed his toe, he said "no I hurt my feelings"  So now he is crying and I am trying not to laugh.

Blood Everywhere!

On Tuesday I was doing laundry.  The plan was for me to put away laundry, get Sam a nap in and then go to the park.  Sam was in his brothers corvette bed. I had my back turned and I heard a thud.  A forhead on metal thud.  I turned around and scooped up Sam knowing that had to hurt.  Then I looked at his face.  I couldn't tell where all this blood was comming from but their was a LOT OF IT!  I thought at first maybe it was his nose, then I saw his forhead.  It had a 1/2 long cut right in the center.  I ran downstairs to my phone and called my poor husband and said there is blood everywhere come home now!  He arrived to find out I was not exaggerating.  By then Sam and I were covered in blood.  I looked like I had committed a crime.  I knew he needed stitches so I took a 3 min shower and we drove him to Mott's  .  We decided to take Max with us, he looked terrified and I need Jeremy to help me keep Sam's hands of his face in the car.

 One burrito wrapped baby later we had 3 stitches.  I feel like maybe he needed 4 since on side is a little open but he seems no worse for wear. 

My little Frankenstein.  Too bad it isn't Halloween.

Hamburg Family Fun Fest

We went to the Hamburg Family Fun Fest tonight with my dad.  Its a little carnival put on by the small town of Hamburg.  Max has been there once before when he was small this was Sams first trip. 

We arrived and Max wanted to ride the big steering wheel. Ferris wheel actually.  The closer we got to the actually "steering wheel" the less excited he was about it.  He choose to ride the carosel instead with my dad.  Then we say the little kiddie coaster that all fairs have and I didn't think he would want to on but he would if I went.  So we got on and he had a great time.  We rode it twice, the second time in the front seat with grandpa. 

Sam got to sample his first elephant ear which of course enjoyed.  We played a balloon pop game and Max poped 4 balloons to win a minion doll.  The carnie was impressed. 

Front seats on the caterpillar ride.

Sammy ready for anything as usual.

This was from 2009, Max's first trip to the fair.

Where is my wiener?

Max has been asking a pretty wide array of questions lately.  I know this is normal 4ish year old behavior but he has expanded on just the simply "why".  The other day he wanted to know where he came from.  I told him my tummy.  He then proceeded to ask me where every person he knew came from.  When he ran out of people he knew he started asking about where the pets came from.  We were on the way to Ohio at the time.

Yesterday he asked me where my wiener was.  I told him I didn't have one.  And of course he asked why.  I told him mom's don't have wieners.  I thought that satisfied him, its not the only time he has asked that question but this was different, he is a little older and he then asked how I peed.  I really need to start locking the bathroom door.

Its been so long since I have posted it took me a while to remember how to "create a new post"  I did figure it out with out having to ask my software engineer husband so that's a plus. 

This summer has started out pretty well, many fewer appointments at Mott's which is cool although once you get used to it, you almost don't know what to do with all your spare time.  So we go to the park A LOT.

Sam and Max are acting more and more like typical brothers.  They fight over toys, rough house, and knit pick each other.  Today at Costco with both boys in the top basket part, Sam started touching Max, then Max got annoyed and tried to squish Sam out of his side of the cart with his butt.  Later we found out Max can sit on the end of Sam's jogging stroller, and then Sam found out he could kick Max's butt from close range.

All of these things make me happy.  One of the things I had the most trouble with was Sam wasn't going to be able to hang out and do all the fun things a had imagined he would be able to do before we learned about CHARGE and it turns out I was so wrong.  He loves outside, he talks, he fights and plays with Max, he goes to birthday parties.  He has a good time.

Mott's Hospital Continued ...

The next time I had to visit the hospital it was for a trip to see the audiologist.  Now our audiologist is really nice and she mostly gets my sense of humor which is a big plus. 

The first you need to know is that when you are small and get your hearing tested they put you in a sound proof room with 2 speakers and then when you look at a speaker after it makes a sound something cool happens.  At the old hospital Donald Duck wiggled when you looked at it after a sound was played and is was funny and cute.  At our new State Of the Art hospital all you get is a pink princess, and she doesn't even move.  But that's only if you look at the right speaker what about if you look at the left speaker?  Pinocchio.  Really Pinnocchio?  what is this 1975?  That's exactly what I said to the audiologist too when I saw Pinnocchio and she said "Oh Heather don't get me started."

So here I am thinking, man I am so not impressed and I have other mom's who think the inside of the hospital looks like an Apple Store.  It actually gets better.  Sammy was scheduled to have surgery on Feb 20th.  We got to pre op when we were supposed to, got all checked in, had someone taking care of our other son and dog, husband had taken the day off work, Sam had fasted.  In short all our ducks were in order and in a row marching along perfectly.  They took Sam down the hall for surgery, then brought him right back.  Apparently there were no rooms available for Sam to recover in.  Say what?  Our doctor said  he doesn't have to have and ICU bed we can deal with just a monitored bed.  Okay, but there aren't any of those available either.  WHAT!  I thought this was the brand new million dollar with lots of beds hospital.  Don't give me some crap about their being car accidents over the weekend it didn't even snow here.  How on earth can the hospital already be out of beds.  It's only been open for 6 weeks. Seriously?  So we had to take Sam home and reschedule the surgery.  Lame IMHO

Mott's Childrens Hospital?

We live very near Ann Arbor Mi.  As such when we go to the hospital, and we go pretty much every week, we go to Mott's Children's Hospital.  It's a nice place, they have Big Bird in the O.R.waiting room, Magna Doodles and flat screen T.V's with cartoons, fun radiation vests with themes and many other random kid friendly things.

About a month ago, the new Mott's Hospital opened its doors.  This hospital was 10 years in the making and really really expensive.  You can't drive anywhere with out seeing a billboard for the grand opening for this new state of the art hospital.  While the hospital was being built all the clinics had signs up that said "can't wait for you to see our new home."  I started asking some of our nurses if they had seen the new hospital and they said things like, "yeah is cool but you have to walk and walk"  or "it's okay but they didn't take any of our recommendations". 

So I waited with much anticipation for our first visit to the new hospital.  Our first visit it turned out was to our ENT.  When we got to the waiting room the first thing I noticed was that the flat screen T.V. apparently didn't make the trip to the new waiting room.  The next think was where were the coloring books and stuff?  Oh well, Sam's to young for that stuff anyway.  So we go in to one of the exam rooms and I am thinking to my self, the one thing I hope they have is a baby changing area because in and ENT office you get a chair with some fancy stuff attached and a small desk for the doctor's computer but there is no exam table where you could change your baby.  And let me tell you something about babies that are doctor savvy.  They poop when they see a white coat.

No such luck with the changing table sadly.  So we sit and we wait for our doctor and I look around the room.  It's Salmon colored, with a picture of an ocean.  REALLY!!!?  How on earth is this supposed to be calming to a kid who is scared to death some one is going to come in with a huge needle and poke them with it?  I asked the nurse where the coloring stuff and Magna doodles were and she said "oh, we just haven't brought them over from the old hospital yet".  OMG!  Some one actually paid money to build this?

Pink Cape!

So, before Christmas my mother brought over some sort of a toy magazine for Max to browse in search of a Christmas present.  He flips to the back and finds 2 children wearing capes.  A boy with a blue on and a girl with a pink one.  He is very excited about these capes.  Especially excited about the pink one.  My mom gets all "come one Max,"  "pink is for girls."  And Max decides the pink one is all he wants and wants nothing at all to do with the thought of having a blue cape.  I look at the price..$19.95, for kids cape?   Not this year, I had already gotten all his gifts any way. 

Later that week a friend of mine called and said she would be in town for the week and was their any project I would like to do?  First thing I thought of was the pink cape, he had been carrying that magazine around for a week and the only page left was the one with the pink cape.  Jessy said "sure, we can make a cape."

I went to Jo Ann Fabrics later that week and bought the pink, purple, and silver material and velcro.  Spent $16 on a cape I didn't want to spend $19.95 on, oh well.

Jessy came over and we made the cape.  I have to say it came out pretty well but you be the judge.  Max loves it.

 from behind

and then he noticed I wanted to take his picture.