Let's Play!

This last Friday I met my friend Heather and her two adorable boys, Boston and Cooper, for a playdate at Play Boutique in Lake Oswego. The main area is a big open space with tons of hands-on toys for the kids to play with on their own while the parents actually get to sit and chat...and I actually go a free latte out of the deal, so you can't beat that! It was $5.00 for 2 hours of play time and Maddie loved every minute of it--we actually shut the place down! :-)

Heather & the kids

Maddie, Cooper (1) and Boston (3.5?)

Cooper's daddy & brother are both into soccer...looks like he'll be a natural!

What a gorgeous little girl, inside and out! :-)

Mickey Mouse birthday

Maddie's two favorite cartoons are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Little Einsteins...she watches them every day when she wakes up & when she's engrossed in imaginative play during the day I can hear her reciting phrases and storylines to her dolls. :-) For her birthday party, we invited family and some close friends to celebrate with cupcakes, a great Mickey & Minnie cake (from Safeway, of all places--after I'd called about 6 other stores that no longer made them!), and way too many presents. This 3-year-old is now up to her eyeballs in cool toy food, a tea set and cute clothes.

Homemade cupcakes & decorations. I saw similar cupcake wrappers online for a ridiculous $1.00 each and thought, "I'll just whip out my scrapbook paper and find a template online!" Voila...custom wrappers and sticks for about $3.00 total.

A couple seconds after this, Maddie decided to lean in and bite the whole cake with her mouth (don't ask me why!)...and in the process lit her hair on fire! Thank goodness Keith was right there and it was out within a second and Maddie never knew what hit her.
It's not truly a party until there's the smell of burning hair in the air! :-)

Lisa's aunt Kristen & cousin Bridger

Alli's daughter Macy (age 6)

Alli & Ava (age 2)

Cheryl & Henry (1 month)

Nana & Papa

Maddie is normally an unusual kid in terms of opening presents--she loves whatever the thing is and wants to devote her full attention to it right then. "Let's unwrap it and play with it right now!" Well, when you're having a party with little kids on a school night, there's a need to rush things along. So I encouraged Maddie to open everything first and then we'd play with everything afterwards...well, then she went into birthday-girl-speed-mode. You know, how normal 3-year-olds do it--rip off the paper as fast as you can, glance at it for 1.2 seconds, chuck it over your shoulder and get on to the next gift! I think I created a monster. By the end of the night the living room looked like a tornado had hit it. Oh well! Fun was had by all!

PRAISES & Prayers

First let's hear the great news...JAMES IS COMING HOME SOON!!! We met with his team of doctors today and they told us he should be coming home before Thanksgiving, probably during the week of Nov. 16-20! Praise the Lord!! I can hardly believe it. When they told us those dates I was in a mixed state of bliss and sheer panic. It's like going into labor...you know it's coming for 9 months beforehand, but when it actually is time, then it feels like it was suddenly sprung on you. :-)

We are absolutely thrilled that James will soon be coming home to join our family...for real...and enjoy all life has to offer beyond a sterile hospital room. The next week or so will be very busy I'm sure. Mon & Tues we have a follow-up kidney ultrasound for Maddie and visits with her doctor at OHSU, Thursday I have a 3-hour infant CPR class, and I'm sure we'll be in the NICU more than usual every day because we'll have to be trained on all the different aspects of James' care for when he comes home. Our little guy looks perfectly healthy on the outside (and he's now tipping the scales at 7 lbs 3 oz, can you believe it?!), but when you get him undressed it's like a medical mine field in there...central IV line in his chest (tomorrow), healing incision across his middle, catheter port coming out his right side and ostomy bag on his left side. Considering all that, he's a super strong boy who hardly ever fusses about anything and must have a very high tollerance for pain.

Now for prayers...
1) Tomorrow (Friday) around noon James will have a minor operation to place the central IV line in his chest. They'll have to make incisions in his neck and under his collarbone, thread a thin catheter tube into a main vein and then place a port in his chest. This port will be used to deliver his TPN (liquid nutrition of fats/proteins/carbs), which he'll likely be on for the first year of his life or more. They perform hundreds of these procedures a year, but of course there's always risks involved. James is anemic, so he was given extra blood products today to prepare him--please pray for minimal bleeding during the procedure & also that there wouldn't be any complications with his heart or lungs or infections.

2) He wasn't able to digest my breastmilk as well as they would have liked, so he's been switched over to a formula that has the proteins already partially broken down so that his intestines don't have to work quite as hard. Pray that he is able to absorb as many nutrients as possible from this new formula and that he can handle an increase in volume of formula.

3) The catheter in his lower intestines has been very problematic over the past week or two and has fallen out/been pulled out at least 3 times. This, along with other factors, has made it so that the doctors are not going to be able to re-feed through that tube--a major bummer. Pray that his intestines be protected from infection and atrophy, since they will be sitting dormant until he has the re-connection surgery (in 6 months or so).

4) Pray for continued healing of his wounds, regulation of his feedings, and that Keith and I would feel confident learning all the medical techniques so that we can take our boy home & that there aren't any complications that would delay the schedule. Pray for good health for each of us and lots of energy to get preparations done before he comes home.

Need a Laugh?

One of the blogs I subscribe to daily is www.dooce.com by Heather Armstrong. She's hilarious! I just read her book about motherhood and laughed out loud the entire way through. Just to warn you, she does swear sometimes, but just overlook that part.

I read this post this morning and thought, "Oh my gosh, that's sooooo going to be my Maddie in a couple more years!" Or, you know, next week. Have I told you that when we call her a Drama Princess she says, "No, Mom, I'm the Drama QUEEN!" :-) God help me when she's a teenager.

From www.dooce.com: Leta and I enter her room after eating breakfast, and because I haven't slept in several days I forget the structure that we've implemented in order to get her to focus her attention on tasks that need to be completed before school. Recently we've been making a game out of getting dressed, timing her with our iPhones to see how fast she can switch out of her pajamas and into her clothes. I KNOW. The fun here NEVER ENDS. If I send you an invitation to our tooth-brushing game, you better RSVP the s*** out of it.

So I've forgotten about the game and just say, "Leta, let's get dressed." And because she gets so distracted in the mornings I might as well have said, "Je m'appelle le croissant."

She dives head first into bed, throws the covers over her head and plays dead. I've got little-to-no-patience at this point (insert reference to major project launch, ill-timed vasectomy, and baby who wakes up at 4:30AM since the time change) but I summon what I can and say, "Leta, I need your cooperation this morning. Get up and get dressed or I'm going to take away your Nintendo DS." You know, A THREAT. That's Quality Parenting 101.

And hoo, I don't know if it's just my five-year-old girl who is going through this phase, but she uncovers her head, slowly limps her way out of bed and mumbles, "No you're not because I'm going to hide it and you won't find it and then I'll play it without you knowing." Like Dennis the Menace, except it's Dennis the EVIL.

Now, If I had said this to my father when I was growing up, I wouldn't be alive today.

So I get right up into her face and say NO YOU DID NOT. You are not allowed to talk to me this way DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. Not to instill fear, necessarily, except, yes. To instill fear. A little bit of fear is good. Oh dear god, the mail I'm going to get about this one.

And that's when it starts, what we call her Academy Award Winning Performance, and she starts saying things like, "Now I'm sad and I'm going to be sad forever. For the rest of my life, MOM."

And I'm like, dude, you can be sad. You can choose to feel this way, but we're getting dressed. Here put on this shirt.

"But you hurt my feelings and I'm never going to be happy again. Ever. For the rest of my life."

And I'm all, I know what it feels like to have my feelings hurt, that must be hard what you're going through, but now we're putting on these pants.

"But now I'm going to have a bad day because I'm sad, and then I'm going to have many bad days forever."

And there is that irresistible, generation-spanning urge to go, you know what you need? A trip to Humble Camp, a place called AFRICA. But I nip it, I shut off that valve, and I say, "I'm sorry you're feeling sad, that must be hard, now put on these socks." SOCKS THAT KIDS IN AFRICA DON'T HAVE.

And I'm not even kidding, she looks up at me and says, "You made me sad, and I don't know how to go on with the rest of my life."

A half hour later as she's gathering up her backpack and lunchbox and headed toward the car, her head hanging down in a pout, I pull Jon aside and give him a heads up that Leta is going to start her period ANY DAY NOW.

Happy Birthday, Madeline!

Today we celebrated having Maddie in our lives for the past 3 years! She is one of the cutest, sweetest, funniest, most clever and definitely most chatty little girls we have ever met. She's always integrating new words and phrases into her vocabulary. Today she was helping Keith put together a play kitchen, which was a birthday/Christmas gift from Grandma & Grandpa Frank (thank you, it's awesome!). (As a side note, I love the design of this play kitchen because it looks like stainless steel, it's sturdy, and it's gender-neutral, so James could also play with it as he grows up.)

As Maddie was watching the kitchen being built, she kept saying over and over, "Wow, Dad! How fun is THAT?!" We couldn't help but crack up. Tonight she got to go to Toys 'R Us and pick out something with her birthday money, so she settled on a big tub of toy food and a kitchen mixer...now the stage is set for hours of fun!

We're having her birthday party on Wednesday night, so there will be more pictures to come!

Prayer Vigil for Lois

Hi Friends,

You may have read my posts in the last week or two about my friend Christine and her mom Lois, who was just diagnosed with breast cancer. She is having lots of tests this week and goes in Tuesday night for a lung biopsy to determine if the cancer has spread. They are holding a prayer vigil for her in the hours leading up to the procedure. If you feel led, please pray for her! Here's the post from the blog they've set up to document Lois' journey:

“Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. ” – Matthew 18.19

We want to invite you all to be part of a 12-hour prayer vigil for Lois, from 7 p.m. Monday night to 7 a.m. Tuesday morning (Pacific Standard Time). Why until 7 a.m.? At that time she goes in for her lung biopsy to see if what they see is actually cancer. It feels like God has opened a window for us and giving us more time to come before Him in unceasing prayer so that He can reveal his mercy, and his miraculous power. And so we pray in agreement with one another, and without wavering in our own belief, that the doctors find absolutely nothing on or near her lungs. That what they initially saw on the MRI will be totally absent. That God would already be showing us His miracle.

Will you commit to help cover her in prayer for those 12 hours? You can sign up for 15, 30, 60 minute slots depending on your schedule and time zone. We want to have every minute of those 12 hours covered. Please leave a comment on this post to sign up for a time you will pray. Make sure you read the other comments before choosing a time so that you don’t choose a time already covered. To leave a comment, simply click on “Leave a Comment” or on “# Comments” at the bottom of this post. (Here's the website: http://loisholman.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/call-to-prayer/#comment-57) If you are willing to cover more than one time, write your first preference first and we’ll let you know via email if we need you to cover your second preference as well.

On the same note, let’s start the 12 hours together. When it hits 7 p.m., take a couple minutes to pray right where you’re at. We’ll have a mighty prayer circle taking place. If you feel moved to, join us in fasting for her for those 12 hours. Easy for those of us on the west coast to say since we’ll sleep for most of it. Invite your families, friends, and churches to join us in prayer during this time as well.

Bless you all for walking this journey with us. We know that God is listening to each of your prayers and that He who made us is already on the move."

Trick-or-Treating & James update

Last night we did our 2nd Annual Halloween tradition: trick-or-treating at McMenamin's Kennedy School and dinner afterwards at Old Towne Pizza. This year we were able to double the fun by having my sister Dana here from London (yay--she's here all week!) and the Newell family joined us with their new baby Henry.


And just because you're a baby who lives in the NICU, that doesn't mean you can't celebrate Halloween! My mom bought James an adorable giraffe costume, complete with little horns on the hood and a tail on the back. :-) On Thursday Maddie and I made cupcakes for the doctors and nurses and then on Halloween I took Dana to visit James and hold him for the first time. She'd seen him about a month ago after his PDA heart surgery, but he couldn't be held then. Between cutie-pie Maddie and sweet baby James, we're determined to kick her biological clock into high gear (watch out Travis!). :-)



Update on James: We'll learn more next week at our Care Conference with our team of doctors, but it looks like James may be coming home by Thanksgiving!!! What a thrill that would be! They attemped a dye test last week to see if they could re-feed through the catheter in his large intestine, but they couldn't get the dye to go all the way through the large intestine, even after multiple attempts. Plus, James pulled out his catheter 3 TIMES last week, so the surgeons weren't sure if it was even placed back in the right spot or not. It looks like they may be giving up on the idea of re-feeding (which would be a big bummer for James & I'm not sure if that would pose complications for the future) and decided to do the minor surgery on Friday, Nov. 6th to place a permanent central IV line in his chest. It's a port that's very similar to the ones they place for cancer patients. He'll be getting his IV nutrition through that line and it's a big first step towards being able to take him home! I'm having my baby shower this coming week, so it will be a great time to celebrate his life and all he's overcome so far. :-)