Rockin' Out!

Two kids means twice the fun, right? Most days, I'd say this is true. There are those days when you feel like all you do is referee, separate, tell one "no," tell the other "no"...you get my point. So on those occasions when they do play well together, you get excited and grab your camera! Must document these days too! They were really sweet. One of those, "Aww, my kids do love each other!" moments.


Wonder what they were discussing here!?!

Currently with Addison

I haven't said much lately about Addison. So I thought I would give her a little face time today. There's some good news, and some bad news. Let's start with all the good news!

Neurology: Back towards the end of August, Addison saw her neurologist. She has had two brain MRIs. The first one showed some abnormalities. The second one showed no changes. This was a good thing, because it showed that her brain stayed the same and didn't get worse. So this past visit, the doctor just wanted to follow up with her one last time. Her brain will eventually grow and complete its maturation like other "normal" brains. And the doctor said she looked, acted, walked, talked, and behaved like a normal two year old. He said he didn't need to see her again unless something changed in the future. I was so happy! Nothing personal to the doctor, but I never want Addison to see the neurologist again! One less doctor in Addison's little army!

Physical Therapy: Last week we saw Addison's physical therapist. We had stopped seeing her on a bi-weekly basis, and were just going in for check ups every few months. So this visit, the therapist wanted to see how she was doing. Addison has low tone, which has slowed her down a little in her physical development. Her therapist thought she looked really good and said she didn't feel like she needed to be in her care any more. Yay! Another member discharged out of Addison's little army!

Gastroenterology/Pediatrician: Over the summer, Addison's weight had plateaued somewhat. We had seen the GI towards the end of July, with the recommendations that she begin her medicine again that stimulates her appetite. She is also taking some calorie supplements. The good news is she had gained almost 2 pounds! This put her on the growth charts again. Yay for Addison!

Feeding Clinic/Speech Therapy: We started speech therapy with Addison in August. She is doing really well and we can already see improvements in her vocabulary and speech! She is communicating more and more with us and using new phrases, like "what are you doing?" Every time she asks me that, I smile because she sounds so grown up! We also are attending a feeding clinic every Friday. Several therapist work with us on getting Addison to try and eat different foods. They are showing me a lot of tricks and teaching me a lot about why she has such a difficult time eating. Hopefully we can work on incorporating more textures into her diet and more foods, which will mean more nutrition and calories!

Well, now for the not so good news...

Preschool: We enrolled Addison in a preschool for many reasons. We were advised that her being around her peers would help with her physical development and her speech development. She goes twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Well, she missed the first week of school because she came down with a cold, which flared up her asthma. Then she went the second week and really seemed to enjoy it! She was happy when I picked her up, the teachers said she did really well and was very well behaved. But now she's missed the third week of school because she's sick...again!

Asthma: And Monday we went to the ER because Addison's asthma flared up so badly we couldn't get it under control with her normal medications. We hadn't really needed her on a daily asthma maintenance medication. But with our recent trip to the ER, it looks like she will be starting daily medicine to help keep her asthma under control. We also had to take chest X-rays to rule out pneumonia. Her pediatrician said that it wasn't bacterial pneumonia. But that she did want to do a light course of antibiotics, just in case her symptoms were masked and it is pneumonia. Her weight was back down, which is so devastating and disappointing. Her pediatrician said not to panic about this, that it's just because she's sick. We work so hard to get her gaining weight, it's hard not to be discouraged when she loses. Currently, we're in a holding pattern of rest, breathing treatments, oral steroids, antibiotics and more rest until her body heals and recovers from this asthma attack. My hope and prayer is that we can manage her asthma so she can stay healthy and happy. And no more trips to the ER!

I tried both mornings last week to capture her "first" day of school. Each time she just was NOT in the mood for pictures. But here's a couple shots. I tried!

Me Stew

Alex is doing really well in kindergarten! I'm so proud of him. Right now, his

theme in class is "All About Me/Families." So we had our first homework project of making a picture of Alex. We went to the craft store and picked up a few supplies. When I asked him how he wanted to decorate his shirt, he wanted it to look like a Dallas Stars jersey, of course! And we tried to make the mini Alex a pair of Sketcher Super Z Straps...his school shoes which he absolutely loves! He was proud of his little mini me. Then Wednesday when I picked him up from school, he walked out carrying this big, black, plastic cauldron. His little arms barely reached all the around this thing! It was funny! I asked him what that was about and he was so excited. He told me, "Me Stew!" Sure enough, we made Me Stew in his cauldron and filled it up with things that told about Alex. He chose to put in a Dallas Cowboys football, some cars, a couple airplanes, a bakugan, his teddy bear that he sleeps with, a Dallas Stars jersey, and a few pictures (one of him and daddy, him and Cadence, and him and Grandma). We also threw in Addison's cheese pizza play food, since that is his favorite food. He was thrilled to do this little project. Today I got this email from his teacher:

"I really had to write to tell you how cute Alex was this morning while he presented his Me Stew.
The kids get to ask him questions at the end and one child asked him what his favorite song was.
He answer was priceless……Rain Makes Corn! I love that song! LOL
Just wasn’t really expecting him to say that!
I started to sing some of the words….but he looked at me and said….actually they sing it faster on The Wolf."

I laughed when I read his teacher's email. I wasn't sure if I should be embarrassed about his song, or not. But he really does love that song. We listen to it all the time, and dance and sing to it. So I'm just really proud of his work. And his behavior log has had good notes all week, so that's a bonus too!

Truth about Mascara

I was in the kitchen doing dishes a couple days ago and I heard a funny noise. My first thought was, "uh, oh. What is Addison up to?" Sure enough, she was up to no good! She's smart too. She always manages to get into things when she knows I'll be otherwise occupied. This time she got a hold of my mascara. I thought it was out of her reach. Clearly, it was not. After I caught her putting my mascara on, she ran away from me. She fell as she was running away from me, that's why she's crying in the pictures. I couldn't help but laugh. We did have our first girl-to-girl talk about why you can't cry and wear mascara. It's just not pretty! Funny on a two year old, but still not pretty!

First Day of Kindergarten!

When I was a kid, my mother always (I mean ALWAYS) took my picture on the first day of school. As a young child, I'm sure I thought this was great. As a teenager, I remember thinking it was dumb. As an adult, I love looking back at my first day of school pictures, which I now have in an album. As a mother, I'm excited to be continuing this tradition. Here's Alex on his first day of kindergarten:

And this is what he was wearing when we picked him up that afternoon. It says, "I loved my first day of kindergarten." It made me laugh when I saw him after school, which immediately helped my anxiety. He had a great first day of school and was happy to return to kindergarten the rest of the week!

Our Last Summer Outing

For our final outing of the summer, we visited the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. I've been a few times with the kids, but this was the first time that Roger was able to join us. We really enjoyed our visit, as always. We started in the children's museum part. Roger and Alex went straight to the building section...building tents, building blocks, building railroad tracks. Addison went straight for the shopping! Then we made a pit stop in the gift shop. Oddly enough, there is a little slide in there and the kids loved that! We also visited the planetarium for the first time. We saw a really cute show called Big Bird's One World, One Sky. It was a little movie about the stars and the moon, and it was specifically geared towards young children. It was really entertaining and informative! We finished out our visit in the tinkering around area and the art area of the museum. Roger and I were both really sad to see our last outing of the summer end, as we both realized that we won't have these occasions very often anymore. With Alex starting kindergarten and Roger's schedule, we just won't have the time together that we used to have. That was part of the reason we made family time this past week top priority.

Pool Fun

On our second day of "end of summer fun" we decided to swim at the Howard Moore Pool. It's a public swimming pool and the whole pool is only 18 inches deep. It's perfect for the smaller crowd. We went one other time with my sister and her kids, and Alex LOVED it! He couldn't wait to go again with Roger. Most days it's only open in the afternoons, so we had to go on Wednesday morning when it was open. We didn't have great weather. But we made the best of it and had a fun time!

Because of the weather, we were kicked out of the pool a couple times. The first time someone thought they either saw lightening or heard thunder. So we had a snack and waited it out.

The next time we got out of the pool for the weather we actually thought it might rain. But false alarm..again! This time, we took advantage of the break to eat lunch.

It was a fun morning, despite the clouds. And really, I would much rather be asked to get out of the pool because of possible rain, than have to get out because someone pooped in the pool. That happened last time we were there. Always the optimist, right?