First Day of Preschool...

This past week Noah started at "Little Cougar Preschool", and no they aren't teaching him to date younger people.  The advanced child development class at my high school is doing a 10 week preschool for $75, which is a pretty good deal.  It's 3 days a week (Wednesday-Friday) for two hours.  Theresa said she wouldn't mind dropping Noah off and picking him up, so Ryan and I signed him up.

Noah started on Wednesday, and Ryan took the day off so he could take him for his first day.  They made pancakes for breakfast and Noah ate four of them.  Then Noah began to pick out his outfit.  He wanted to wear something "special" for his first day.  Ryan had to talk him out of his Winnie the Pooh halloween costume.  He settled on a Halloween turtleneck and sweatpants.  Ryan got to walk him all the way to his classroom and then he stayed for 10 minutes to make sure Noah was doing fine and then he went home until it was time to pick him back up.

When I got home from school, I was immediately bombarded by Noah with shouts of, "Look what I made at school!"  He had a good time.  He even brought home part of his snack to share with his sister.  His favorite part of school is when they do arts and crafts.

I have several of the advanced child development students in my anatomy classes this year, and they tell me that Noah is one of the best behaved kids and that he listens to directions really well.  One of Noah's favorite "teachers" this week was one of my students named, Candace (I think one of the reasons he likes her is because he can remember her name since it's the same as his Auntie Candise's).  During game time, Candace had to sit in the middle of the circle and Noah didn't want her to be alone so he got up out of the circle and sat next to her.  My little boy is growing up!

My Husband The Bargain Shopper...

When I was pregnant with Juliana we never anticipated her medical issues.  Who would?  When it was time to move her from the uber-concentrated formula (concentrated to make it higher in calories) to whole milk, we were told that we wouldn't be transitioning her to whole milk.  Instead, we would be transitioning her to a high calorie drink.  Going along with a high calorie drink is a high price as well.  Insurance won't cover it because it's not her primary food source, so since Juliana doesn't have an N-G tube or a G-tube they won't cover any of the cost for her drink.  To order it through a pharmacy like Walgreens or Target, it would cost us around $65 + $18 for shipping for a case of 27 juice box size 8 ounce drinks.  On a good day, Juliana will drink 2.5 of them, sometimes 3 (if it's the first week of her appetite stimulant).  Needless to say, this has been costly, and last year we had not budgted for this.  This year we did.

Anyone who knows our family, knows that I lovingly refer to Ryan as "Hitler of the Wallet".  Ryan holds us to a tight budget, and it is good that he does, especially when things like high calorie drinks fall into our laps unexpectedly.  Ryan had the idea of searching for Juliana's beverage on eBay, and fortunately we have been able to find it there and buy it cheaper than through a pharmacy.  In fact, Ryan won one of the recent auctions for $20!  I can't tell you how much that excited the two of us, especially since we are trying to find money to send Noah to preschool in the fall.  Most auctions don't end that cheaply, but we can usually get a case for $40.  I'm sure some of you are probably thinking that we are nuts for paying that much for a kid's drink, but what else are we supposed to do to get pounds on Juliana?  We will do what we have to do and we know that God will provide. 

Morning Dance Routine...

Noah is not a morning child.  During the summer time this isn't a big deal, but during the school year when I am trying to get all of us out of the house on time it becomes an issue.  Lately every morning has been a fight to get Noah out of bed, dressed and out the door.  Last week I started thinking of ways to get him moving and out the door.  Noah and Juliana like to dance, so now before we leave the house, I turn on Noah's "Pump It Up" song (Tobymac's song, "Tonight") nice and loud, and Juliana and Noah get their dance on before we leave the house.  Here's what it looked like today (before the blizzard- that's why they are wearing boots).  Enjoy!

Night Time Stirrings...

At one o'clock Sunday morning a strange beeping noise woke me up.  I sat straight up in bed and tried to figure out where it was coming from.  "Why is Noah's baby monitor beeping?"  Ryan asked.  "I don't know.  Is it not plugged in all the way so the battery is dying?"  I responded.  Ryan checked the receiver and everything was fine, but it still continued to beep.  "Maybe the plug came loose in Noah's room.  I'll sneak in and check.  Go back to sleep."  I said.  I found my glasses and went to Noah's room.

I crept into Noah's room and immediately saw that the light on his monitor was turned off.  I walked over to his dresser to turn it on and my shin hit an open drawer.  I bit my lip so that I didn't yell out, because I didn't want to wake Noah up.  I thought it was odd that the drawer was open, since that wasn't how the room was when we put Noah to bed.  I shut the drawer, turned his monitor back on, and turned to walk out of the room.  All of a sudden, my little ray of sunshine's head popped up, "MOMMA!  I had a bad dream and I peed in my bed!"  He started to cry.  I told him it was okay.  I found the light switch, which my smart husband had installed as a dimmer switch, and turned it on very low.  Everything started to make sense.

Noah was in his bed in just his pajama top and underwear.  On the floor next to his bed were his wet underwear and pajama bottoms.  Next to the dresser drawer were a pair of sweat pants.  In the dark, Noah had been able to find himself new underwear to change into, but not new pajama bottoms.  While he had been moving things around in his dresser he had bumped the cord of his monitor which caused it to come unplugged.  Had this not happened, his monitor would not have beeped and I would never have known he had a bad dream and an accident.

I calmed him down and got him some new pajama bottoms.  He said he had to go to the bathroom so I took him to the bathroom.  Ryan came in and stripped down Noah's bed while we were out of the room.  Fortunately, Noah has a trundle bed, so Ryan pulled that out and had it ready for us when we got back into the room.  Noah was terrified of whatever he had dreamed about, and didn't want me to leave the room, so I laid in his bed with him for two hours until he finally fell asleep.  As I settled back into my own bed, Juliana began to cry, and I got up to feed her.  Eventually, it was my turn to go back to sleep.  While some people may say that this part of parenthood is not fun, I disagree.  I will gladly get up in the night with my children as long as they need me.

January 15, 2004...

The first few years after my brain injury robbed me of the ability to make memories.  However, there are certain dates and events that I made sure I would remember.  This one is too important and too meaningful to forget.

My sister, Jaime, is my best friend.  She is super-mom to my beautiful neice (and my mini-me) Rori Rose, my wild-haired nephew Liam (and Noah's special wrestling buddy), and my chubba-bubba nephew Brendan (Juliana's favorite boy to bully). 

Before Rori, Liam, and Brendan, there was Faith.  Faith was born at 19 1/2 weeks into Jesus' arms, where she is healthy and free of pain.  I remember the day like it was yesterday, and the pain that went with it.  At the time, I didn't know how any of us would move on, but even though there are still holes in all of our hearts, we know that one day we will see her again.

The other day one of my co-workers caught a glimpse of one of my tattoo's and asked me about it.  I explained that the symbol meant Faith, for my niece who is waiting for us in Heaven, and then explained how the Bible verse underneath it (Psalm 139:16) gave me peace.

Happy Birthday, Faith!  We all look forward to the day when we are all together again!

Sleepless Nights...

Ryan and I finally figured out why I haven't been sleeping well the past few weeks.  We figured it out two nights ago when I woke up screaming that there were bugs crawling all over me and Ryan literally had to wrestle me back down onto the bed (I was standing on the bed trying to get them off of me) and convince me that there were no bugs in our bedroom.  It's the increase in the dosage of my migraine medicine.  I haven't been on this dose in several years, but the last time I was, I would have vivid nightmares like this where Ryan would have to wrestle his screaming wife back into bed and convince her that there were no bugs, snakes, spiders, etc crawling all over her.  If you've ever read the book "Go Ask Alice", this is how I imagine her bad LSD trip starting out.

Now, you're probably saying, you said it's been a few weeks that you haven't been sleeping well, but you just started having the crazy bug nightmares a few days ago, how is that related?  Well, I'll tell you.  This time, my nightmares didn't start with bugs.  They started with Juliana and her heart.  I have been having vividly detailed nightmares of Juliana being in open heart surgery, with me watching from above, and then having the surgeon look up at me and shake his head, meaning she died.  I wake up sweating, run to the bathroom and throw up (usually), and then go and check on Juliana.  The weird thing is that I stopped worrying about her heart back in the summer and gave that to God.

Hopefully I'll never have the heart surgery nightmare again (I'd also like the bug one to stop, but I'll take it over the heart surgery one), because today we received good news about Juliana's heart.  All 3 holes are closed, yay!  Her left ventricle is still enlarged and the cardiologist is going to continue to monitor that, but yay for good news!

Nurse Noah...

On Sunday, I hit the wall with exhaustion.  I collapsed on the couch.  Noah took over and told me he was my "noise" (it took Ryan and I a little bit to figure out he was saying nurse- sometimes Noah has a Jersey accent when he says certain words).  He covered me with three blankets.  He put his hand on my forehead and kissed it and told me to just rest- all the things that I do for him when he doesn't feel well.  Then he told Ryan to make me some soup and came back to snuggle with me.  It was really nice, everyone should have their own "Noise" Noah.