Happy New Year, farewell to the gtube!

Oh lord, what a crazy day it has been. After spending the afternoon at Egleston and spending the last hour making banana pudding, I'm a tired girl, but it's an important night for reflection, so I'll do my best. Today Will decided that his gtube was no longer necessary, so he pulled it most of the way out. I wasn't really sure what to do about it. He doesn't need it since we haven't used it in a couple of months, but I was afraid to take it out without a doctor telling me it was okay. The local ER didn't feel comfortable taking the case, so we headed to Egleston around noon. I had packed a bag since I figured we'd have to stay at least overnight. Thank goodness I was wrong! The doctor found that the balloon that holds the gtube in had a leak and deflated, causing the tube to come out. He said that he couldn't take it out and leave it out without getting clearance from Will's primary physician, but if we took it out, we could take him home and he'd heal fine. So I reached over and pulled that little sucker right out. They stuck a band-aid on it, told us to follow up with the pediatrician in two days and sent us on our merry way. Between my extensive knowledge of trachs and my expert gtube removal skills, I'm thinking about going to medical school! So we now have a baby that is completely free of hardware!!!! Yay!!!! I guess will just wanted to get all of his medical drama out of the way in 2008- and that is fine with us!
We're having my family and Matt's mom over tomorrow for a traditional New Year's lunch- blackeyed peas and collard greens, along with ham, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, and the aforementioned banana pudding. Got to get our luck and money!! I've been doing this for several years now, and I'm glad I didn't have to cancel.
I truly can't believe that another year has passed. 2008 was pretty much a blur. It was absolutely the hardest year of my life, but it was also the most rewarding. When our twin adventure really started in February, I had no idea what lay ahead. I'm glad I didn't. Had I known then what we were about to face, I would have walked out the door. I would have said, "God, there is no way I can handle this. The burden is too great." I remember when I met my friend, Jessica, in the NICU a couple of weeks after the twins were born. She had already been there for 5 months with her sweet Zach, and all I could think was, "how does she do it?" I couldn't figure out how she could possibly keep going that long with a smile on her face and an attitude of endless courage. Little did I know we were about to embark on a similar journey of months in the hospital with endless fear, frustration and worry. Yet somehow, we got through it. Jessica is still miles ahead of me when it comes to faith, grace under pressure, and the willingness to persevere in the face of incredible obstacles. But I learned a great deal this year. . I learned more about faith, hope, and the bottomless capacity for love over the past year than I ever knew. I learned that a mother can do things she never thought herself capable of for the love of her child. I learned the true value of friends and was reminded once again how wonderful people really are. It was a year that brought us so many challenges, and yet so much joy, and absolute miracles. I wouldn't trade it, but I'm hoping 2009 will be pretty uneventful!
So on the last night of 2008, I want to thank every single person who has ever checked our blog, prayed for our family, been the support system that got us through all of this. We could not have done it without you. Please know that you were an essential part of the journey that brought us to this night, happy and blessed with our three beautiful, wonderful, healthy children. May your next year be filled with more blessings and joy than you ever thought possible.

We had such a nice day today. I'm sure it was due partly to the fact that the sun is finally shining after weeks of gray gloom. I got to have some time alone with Mason today, and that was great. I took him to get a haircut, then we met Matt at the Cracker Barrel for lunch. That's Mason's favorite restaurant because it has toys and pancakes, two of his favorite things!
This afternoon we were able to get outside for a long time since it was so warm and sunny. Since I had Bo, my wonderful nurse, to help me with the babies, I was able to spend more time with Mason pushing him the swing and playing baseball. The twins really enjoyed the afternoon outside, but all of the fresh air must have wiped them out because they were seriously tired and cranky when we came back in!
It was nice to have a relaxing day, because yesterday was work! I took down and packed away all of the Christmas decorations by myself while Matt was at work. And I didn't have a nurse yesterday, so I had to do it all with three kids underfoot. A more logical person would have waited until Matt got home to help, but I'm impatient. Once I decide that it's time for Christmas to go, it goes. I don't wait for anybody. I do this pretty much every year, and one year I'm going to videotape myself trying to wrestle the Christmas tree out the front door. I'm five feet tall and the tree is eight feet tall- but I win that fight every year!

Merry Christmas!




Hulk SMASH!!!!!!!!






The babies' Santa loot







Putting out cookies for Santa








Mommy and Mason decorating the Santa cookies









Mason's Santa loot



I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had a great time. We had a very busy Christmas Eve as we tried to get everything eady for Cristmas day. We went to my parents' house that day to exchange gifts with them and Mason got his favorite present- a Batmobile! It really is cool. You can push a button and it opens up and Batman comes riding out on a motorcycle. I'm not sure who's had more fun playing with it- Mason or Matt! Mason had a tough time going to sleep on Christmas Eve, and he was worried that Santa might skip our house because he was awake. But he must have fallen asleep eventually, because Santa came in a big way! If it had a superhero, or Power Ranger, or Ninja Turtle on it, Mason got it! He was so excited, and it was so much fun to watch him on Christmas morning. Even the babies got into it. They were both very excited to see all their new toys. They got several cute things, but their favorite thing is this soft, flexible plastic ball with holes all over it. They can pick it up and hold it really well, plus it doesn't hurt when they whack themselves in the head with it! Thank goodness Santa brought one for each of them or we might have some serious baby brawls!
I had given Matt several little fun gadget kind of things for Christmas, like a coffee travel mug that you can program to keep your coffee warm, a new coffee grinder, a cocktail shaker, just fun stuff that I thought he'd like. (He wanted a Wii, but I think that's going to have to wait for Mason's fifth birthday!) He gets the husband of the year awarrd for his thoughtful gift. He gave me a beautiful pair of amethyst earrings, which is the twins' birthstone. I had been teasing him about buying my present on Christmas Eve for the past few years, and basically just grabbing whatever random, girly thing he spotted on the shelf first, so he really raised the bar this year! But I truly loved them, and appreciated the lovely sentiment behind them.
Matt's mom and his brother, who was visiting from Chicago, came to have breakfast with us on Christmas morning and Mason had a good time with Uncle Jonathan. We had exchanged gifts with them and Matt's Aunt Judy earlier in the week, and Uncle Jonathan won Mason over with a five-pack on Transformers. He knows the way to a nephew's heart!
We also celebrated with Matt's dad earlier in the week, so we just about had more Christmas than we knew what to do with! We spent Christmas day with my big ol' family at my aunt's house. Everyone had a great time, and we were really glad that my grandmother was able to make it since she wasn't able to be with us at Thanksgiving. Mason got even more fabulous presents, so he's been in hog heaven ever since. Every time he turns around, he spots one of his new toys to play with. Wonder how long that will last before he starts whing that he has nothing to do!
Yesterday Matt and I had a few of our friends from high school over like we do every year. A couple of our friends weren't able to make it, so we were a smaller group this year, but it was great to see them and we had a good time.
My mom and I hit the mall for the after-Christmas sales today. We found some decent deals, but nothing amazingly cheap. I found a few things and got out of the house for a little while, so it was a worthwhile trip. We had movie night with Mason tonight and watched "Kung Fu Panda." He was trying to kung fu the living room, and it has been no easy feat to get his kung fu fanny to bed!
Matt's got the next several days off of work, so I'm hoping we can get some things done around here. But knowing us, we'll wind up lazing around, wasting time. Oh well, I guess we can just call it quality time and not feel too bad about not getting a bunch of projects done!

So we had the most bizarre accident with Hays yesterday. When he woke up from his nap Matt noticed that he had a few strands of hair wrapped around three of his toes. It had gotten so tightly wrapped that it was cutting into his toes and cutting off the circulation. His toes were purple and swollen and the cuts were pretty deep. I had been out running errands and I came home as Matt was trying to get the hair off. He wasn't having much luck and Hays was getting really upset. I was kind of freaking out and decided to take him to the urgent care center near our house. I thought about taking him to the emergency room, but I figured we'd have to wait forever. Luckily, they took us right on back at the urgent care center (once I showed them his bulging, purple toes.) The nurse practioner said that this is not as uncommon as you would think. She said that she used to work in a pediatrician's office and they would see this at least once a month! She and the doctor were able to remove the strands of hair (which was, of course, mine. Yay for the mother of the year!) and the circulation returned right away. The cuts were very deep- almost halfway through his toes- but the doctor thinks they'll heal fine. They put lots of neosporine on it and bandaged his foot. The doctor also gave him an antibiotic because it was already showing signs of infection. The really freaky thing was that all of this happened within an hour. He had been barefoot most of the morning, so we would have noticed it if it had happened before naptime. The nurse told me that it doesn't take long at all to get bad, and that if we hadn't noticed it when we did and brought him right in, he might have lost a toe or two! Unbelievable.

I had to take him back today so they could check him and make sure everything looks allright. The cuts look bad and his toes are still really swollen, but they're pink and the circulation is fine. The doctor said they should heal completely within a few days, and we just have to keep them clean and keep neosporine on them. It was just the craziest thing. I check their fingers for hair because they love to pull hair, but i never even thought to check their toes. you'd better believe I will be from now on.
As if that weren't exciting enough, we are having more septic tank issues. I noticed on Thursday or Friday that everytime I did laundry, the yard smelled like sewage. I hoped it was coming from someone else's yard, but no, it was ours. I called the guy who pumped out or tank a couple of months ago, and he was like, "Yeah, I was afraid that was going to happen. Your system is really old and you're going to need to replace the whole thing." Our house is 40 years old, and he said that's about as long as you can expect a septic system to last. Then he told me that replacing the whole system will cost somewhere between $3,000-$7,000. Yay. And in order to replace the system, you have to have a permit from the environmental health department. So the inspector came out today and told me we would need a whole new type of tank and all new fill lines. He recommended several and I found one who's estimate was between $3,500 and $4,500 depending on what was needed. It's a lot of money, but it beats $7,000. Ah, the joys of homeownership. So next week we should have guys with backhoes digging up the yard. Mason can't wait!

Thanks a lot, Milo and Otis!!

Last night was movie night at our house, and we chose "The Adventures of Milo and Otis." I remembered this as a cute little kids movie and picked it up for a couple of dollars at Walmart a few months ago. Now, if you saw this movie as a child, you probably remember that it was a tale of a cute little dog and cat who got themselves into all sorts of scrapes. As an adult, you see the darker side. You notice as you're watching a pug dog fight with a bear, and a cat go over a waterfall in a box, and the cat being attacked by seagulls, then being thrown off a cliff into a churning sea, that these are REAL animals. Not stuffed cats, or computer special effects, REAL animals. So I start wondering "How on earth did they do this? There are all sorts of regulations regarding the treatment of animals on movie sets." Well, not in Japan where this movie happened to be filmed! Matt and I googled "PETA and Milo and Otis" and it's rumored that as many as 27 cats were killed in the filming of the movie!!!!!
As if that wasn't bad enough, they also show a close-up shot of a kitten being born and a puppy being born. Mason didn't say anything right away except "gross!!!" so I thought we might avoid uncomfortable questions. Of course, we were not so lucky. About ten minutes later Mason looks at me and asks, "Mommy, how does the baby get out of the mommy?" Not wanting to get into a major discussion of the birds and bees with a four year old, I replied "It comes out of her body, son."
"Where on her body does it come out?"
Here Matt helpfully interjects, "Not out of her butt."
"Well , where does it come out?"
At this point I notice that the credits are rolling, so I'm like "Oh look, movies' over, time to brush your teeth!"
That's as far as we got, and so far, he hasn't asked again. I know we'll have to face it some day, but I wasn't ready to deal with it last night!

Merry Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Mason is out of school for the next couple of weeks. That's a lot of time to fill! He's sleeping over at my parent's house tonight, so the morning should be a little calmer. He had his party at preschool on Wednesday and had lots of fun getting all sugared up on cupcakes and juice!
The boys and I had an adventure today. After a quick trip to the grocery store, we stopped by a Christmas tree lot on the way home to see how much they had marked their trees down. They had really nice one for $10, and since I have an extra tree stand, I decided why not put a tree in the playroom too? So I got the tree off my car, in the tree stand and into the playroom by myself, with a little help from Mason. It's tough to get a tree in the stand straight when your helper is three feet tall and has the attention span of a gnat! But we managed. And Matt was thrilled that he did not have to come home from work and deal with putting up another Christmas tree! Then I spent this evening making ornaments for it. I cut tons of family pictures with fancy scrapbook sissors, glued them to cardstock, and decorated them with glitter pens. It looks pretty cute. A five year old could have done it, but whatever. It's fun to look at all the pictures. I included some old ones from when Matt and I were kids, and in every single one of them, Matt's dad looks like Sonny Bono!

Family picture!


Our Christmas card picture



Mason with his orange belt (and cute instructor!)




Hi-ya!

Mason had his taekwondo graduation this weekend. He showed off his cool ninja moves and got his orange belt. Now he's decided he's done with martial arts and wants to play baseball in the spring!
We went to my parent's house to take the annual Christmas card picture on Sunday. Matt shot several pictures of the boys before we left, which was pretty much impossible. Since the twins aren't sitting on their own all that well, Mason had to support them, which wasn't easy. So he's complaining, the twins are crying and falling over. Yeah, it was fun. After all that, there was not a single picture in which all three kids were smiling! If both babies were smiling, Mason had a goofy look on his face. But we got one with two kids smiling and the other looking cute, if a bit solemn. And we managed to get a halfway decent family picture at my parent's house. So, all in all, it was a success.

Will's appointment went perfectly today. The doctor thought he looked great, and his only advice was to watch Will closely and let our pediatrician know if he started doing anything out of the ordinary. (I was kind of like, "Duh," but whatever.) One of the nurses hadn't seen Will since our last visit and didn't know that he no longer had his trach. When we told her the story of how he made the executive decision to remove it, she said "Oh my gosh, I'm getting goosebumps!" We swung by the TICU while we were there to show Will off. They were all thrilled to see him and couldn't get over how big he is.
I was dreading the trip there and back, but Will was an angel. And since our appointment took all of 15 minutes, we were on the road before traffic got bad. The downside was that we were on the road for a total of 2 1/2 hours for a fifteen minute appointment, but such is life. It certainly could have been worse.
Mason had his Christmas show at preschool this morning. He did a great job! He stood where he was supposed to, and sang the songs perfectly. No running around the stage and falling on the floor like last year! Matt's mom took him for the afternoon and he had a great time. When he came home, he gave me this little silver heart with a bell inside of it that had the word "joy" engraved on it. He said, "Mommy, this is for you because you are in my heart and I love you." We put it on my dresser so I can see it before I go to bed and right when I wake up. He told me to pick it up before I go to sleep so the bell will remind me that he loves me. How sweet and beautiful is that? Being his mother is such a blessing (most of the time!).

It was Mason's turn to get four shots. He had his check up today, complete with four year old immunizations. Matt had to take him because I honestly didn't think I was strong enough to hold him through the shots! He cried, but he got over it. As a reward, his daddy took him to the toy store and bought him a Transformer that requires a degree in rocket science to put together, but Mason likes it. I thought maybe he would be pitiful and sleepy after all those shots, but no such luck!
Hays was pitiful yesterday after all of his immunizations. He ran a fever and slept a lot. Will ran a fever in the afternoon, but was not so keen on the sleeping thing. If anything, he slept less than he usually does. But they were both fine and fever-free.
Tomorrow is going to be loooong. Mason's Christmas show at preschool is tomorrow morning, then Matt and I have to head to Egleston for Will's appointment with the pulmonologist. His appointment is at two, and as long as they take us right away, we'll be on the road home before traffic gets too bad. But I'm not optimistic since we had to wait well over an hour to see the doctor last time. If that happens we'll get stuck in rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon. Yuck.

Poor Will and Hays had to get their nine month immunizations today- four shots! They didn't think much of that, but their checkup went well. The doctor thought that they were growing well and doing all the things that they ought to be doing for their adjusted age. Hays is of course not even on the growth chart for a nine month old, but Will is in the 10th percentile of height and the 3rd percentile for weight. That's not bad considering how tiny he was at birth. Hays is 12 lbs, and 25 1/2 in. long and Will is 15 lbs. and 27 1/2 in. The pediatrician took Will off of his prevacid since he's showing any signs of reflux, and said that we don't need to use the pulse ox at night since he's doing so well!!!
The physical therapist came out yesterday and she was pleased with the boy's progress as well. They have come such a long way in the short time that she's been working with them. It's amazing how on track they are considering everything that they've had to deal with.
Now we just have to get through the remaining doctor's appointments this week. Mason has a check-up on Thursday (and four shots- boo!!!!) then Will has an appointment with the pulmonologist on Friday. I can't wait for him to see my amazing boy! We might even run by the TICU to show off our little miracle. They don't get too many miracls in there, and we are awfully glad that our baby is one of them.

Mason had a fun morning. We went on a field trip with his preschool class to see a ballet of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." Now, I'll freely admit, when I heard about this field trip I thought, trying to keep a bunch of four year olds still and quiet to watch a ballet? Worst. trip. ever. But I was wrong! Mason sat with two of his little buddies, and I figured they'd cut up through the whole thing, but from the moment the lights went down, they were completely transfixed. Seriously, they did not even move! Now, the same could not be said for after the show ended. Those little boys ran around the lobby of the civic center like wild little hooligans. But they weren't being bad, just wild, silly boys.
My sister was in town today doing grad school stuff, so she stopped by to see the boys. They were all very happy to see their Aunt Ninny! Mason does not like having to share her attention with his brothers. He used to having her at his mercy whenever she comes for a visit!
Tonight was our family movie night, so we watched "The Polar Express" with Mason. He really liked it, and it gave some great explanations for how things work at the North Pole. Especially when it comes to Santa keeping an eye on the little boys and girls. Mason's been a handful over the past couple of weeks, and I've been using that whole "You'd better behave because Santa's watching, and if you're bad he won't bring you any presents!" thing a lot lately. So it was good to have the "he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake" idea reinforced!

Mason woke up this morning with the croup. He came into our room a little before six wheezing and barking like a seal. For some reason, he gets it every year. The upside of that is the pediatrician called in the medicine for me rather than making me bring him in. One trip to the doctor avoided- yay!! So we got his steroids, and hopefully he'll have an easier time tonight.
While Mason started the day very early, Hays didn't wake up until 9 am!!! I had to check on him a few times to make sure he was still breathing! I guess the past couple of weeks of practially nonexistant naps and waking up every few hours during the night finally caught up to him. Maybe he'll continue to make up for lost sleep over the next few days. One can always hope!

Well, the twins are playing happily on the floor rather than napping like they're supposed to be. Will woke up after a very short nap and then proceeded to wake his brother up with his yelling. Add this to the morning nap they refused to take, and you have two tired babies. I don't know what's up with the no sleep, but I'm getting pretty tired of it! At least Mason is asleep. Of course, that completely screws up my plan to take our down comforter to the cleaners this afternoon (our stupid cat peed on it for some unknown reason) since the twins will be ready to lay down when Mason gets up.
In spite of the lack of morning nap, I managed to get a ton of baby food made this morning. I pureed apples, avocados, mangos, sweet potaoes, acorn squash and mixed veggies. I still have strawberries, kiwi, peas and bananas left to do, but I ran out of ice cube trays. The homemade baby food has been a success. The boys love it, and they'll eat pretty much anything. The only down side is that it takes up a TON of freezer space, so that limits what I can put in there for the rest of the family. Of course, at this point, the twins are eating better than any of us!