Milestones

I can't believe May is almost over already! This month is a huge month for us. 3 kids born in May makes for lots of birthday parties. Riley turned 1 on the 4th. I can't believe my baby is already 1. She is so little that she can't be 1 yet. I guess when you miss out on 4 months of your babies life because your other child is in the hospital a year goes by a little faster than normal. She is walking and getting into everything. Her favorite toys are Colby's syringes for his medicine. Now before you think I'm a horrible mother we don't have any needles in the house for those syringes. I just use them for the meds into Colby's feeding tube. She is starting to sign using some of the signing time videos I got for Colby. She also says Thank you, mom and dad and uh-oh. She loves to play patty cake and peekaboo. She's such a good little kiddo. Colby turned 3 the next day on the 5th. Everybody at every doctors office we go to always thinks he has the coolest birthday. It's 5/5/05 Kind of crazy that everyone thinks that is so cool but I guess it is! Colby is trying to talk more and he loves preschool. I really didn't want to send him to preschool. He has such a hard time with new places and people that I was afraid to send him. As usual he is a trooper who proved his mom didn't have to worry about him. He is sad that he has to take a month off so his teachers can have a summer vacation. I'm sad because I have really enjoyed my 2 1/2 hour break 4 days a week. Sounds awful until you see how involved my day is with everyone. Jahnna turned 5 on the 24th. I'm not sure whe she got so big. It doesn't seem possible that she is 5 already. I still remember (vividly) being pregnant with her. I like to say that she has been a whirlwind since she was concieved! If any of you remember how sick I was with her and how much she bounced around nothing much has changed. Well ok, I don't throw up 10 times a day anymore but that' about it! She is so fun. She loves her brother and sister very much and tries to very hard to help in her own way. She just finished up dance and her recital is tonight. Sometime she amazes me with the thing she says. She has asked me all week this week what my favorite thing in the whole world is. I always tell her my family and then she adds in don't forget Jesus and Heavenly Father mom! It didn't seem like a year ago I was sitting here holding a newborn on my lap and watching Colby and Jahnna jump on the trampoline. This year will be a tad different seeing as I know hold my 3 year old on my lap and watch my 1 and 5 year old play. Sometimes the changes in life aren't quite what you expect but I guess we just keep going one day at a time.

Gratitude

I am continually amazed at what other people are willing to do for us! I can't express the gratitude I feel to all the generous people who helped us in our quest for therapy equipment for Colby! We were able to purchase the swing and some other things that we needed for him. The remaining amount is being put into a fund to go towards another round of Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment for him. It is insanely expensive. There are only 13 reasons that insurance covers it and of course a basal ganglia infarction is not one of them. So it costs us $9000 to do 40 treatments for him. We were able to do one round of 40 due to the generosity of an anonymous person (people????)from our ward. The difference is Colby has been amazing to watch. He can open up his hands when he wants to or is not having a muscle spasm. His hands were always clenched before. He can hold his head up and is able to relax on the floor and watch TV for up to 2 hours with out me holding him. He used to scream each and every time I put him down but now he only does when Riley tries to climb over him or pull out his feeding tube. His lungs have cleared up tremendously. We were able to send back his oxygen concentrator and O2 monitor which is quite nice. He hasn't been sick (knock on wood) since before we started doing the oxygen therapy. He got a cold of pneumonia every time we went to the doctors office before we started this. His digestion has improved and he has gained weight. He doesn't look like he is literally starving any more. He used to just be skin and bones. We hope that with a second round he will get his speech and a stronger swallow back. He is so close to talking again that it is frustrating. I wish those nerves in his brain would just work themselves out and find a new path to connect with. It is frustrating to hear about other kids with brain damage gaining back so much of their abilities when we are still celebrating the small things. He wants to walk so bad my heart aches for him as he watches the kids at his preschool play and run. He tries so hard to talk and gets so frustrated when I don't understand him. I can't imagine the pain and anger he feels at not being able to do the things he used to do. I pray continually for him to regain his speech but I know that all things come in the Lords time and that as his brain heals he will gain what he is supposed to gain back again. OK enough of the sad things in life. This was just supposed to be a thank you to all those who signed up for the money exchange and enabled us to get Colby some therapy equipment. Again you have my deepest gratitude and words cannot express how thankful we are!

Here is supposed to just be a picture of Colby on the first day of school. Apparently I took a video so most of it is the camera in my hand upside down. Just watch the first part if you want. Obviously I am technologically impaired. =)

Help with Colby's equipment

Here's a link to help Colby get some therapy equipment.Its the refer a friend link to the right. It doesn't cost you anything you just sign up before May 15th and $10.00 will go towards Colby's equipment. We are hoping to get a swing sling that we can ue to help him try andwalk and crawl again. If you can forward on our blog site to as many people as possible we sure would appreciate it! Thanks to everyone for all your help, love and support!

Birthday Month

Well, so much for my goal of blogging at least once a week. Now it's May. Riley has turned 1, Colby has turned 3 and Jahnna will be 5 in a couple of weeks. The kids got a big swingset for all their birthdays plus some little stuff. At this point in time it's easier to do one big gift instead of smaller ones. Colby started preschool at the developmental school. He goes 4 days a week. I think he likes it. On Thursday he only cried for an hour out of two and a half hours. So that is progress. He seems agitated today though so he's pobably going to scream for longer today. It takes him a long time to adjust to anything anymore. I am going to be ambitious and try and get all their pictures taken some time this week. We'll see if it happens. Ihave to take Colby's special tomato chair so he can sit up for pictures so it makes it kind of difficult. That's all the news for now, wish me luck on the pictures.