Elsie's story-part 1

When I read other stories of families who have children with Cerebral Palsy, their story usually begins with a baby born premature.

Or major complications.

That is not our story.

My pregnancy with Elsie was great.

No major issues.

I went into labor with Elsie at about 3:00 a.m.

We went to the hospital because I started bleeding.

When we got there, they stuck us in a room, and we didn't see anyone for a long time.

At least it seems liked that.

I was in pain, and worried sick about my bleeding.

Finally they came in to check me and I was a 7.

At that point they got serious...and rolled me into the delivery room...and got me in a gown.

I was checked again and I was almost to a 10.

But we had no doctor.

I was given an intrathecal, a fast acting epidural that also goes away fast.

Great for fast deliveries.

Then I had to HOLD ELSIE IN until the doctor showed up.

Finally, I was able to push, and out she came.

She was born at 5:39 a.m.....so it was all pretty quick.

I was shocked to see a blond little girl!

There were no big problems.

We took her home a couple days later.

Things started out rough because eating was pretty hard for her.

She would only eat for 5 min. at a time.

And she cried ALL THE TIME!!!!!

And that is not an exaggeration.

She cried all.the.time.

Poor girl.

Of course everything makes sense now.

But at the time, I had no idea what do do for this baby.

We would swaddle her....VERY tightly.

Then Brent and I would take turns holding her close and tight to our body and bounce our bums on my exercise ball.

If she was held tight, and majorly bounced...she seemed to be fine.

I can't even tell you how exhausting this was.

It finally got to the point that I stopped trying to nurse her.

She just wasn't gaining weight.

So we went to the bottle, and she would still only eat for maybe 5 min.

I know now that her poor mouth muscles were too tired to suck.

But back then, I didn't know what to do.

I started making the hole in the nipple bigger so more milk would come out in the short amount of time.

And since she had trouble with sucking....it would just poor down her throat.

Finally at about 4 months....we saw a beautiful SUNSHINE through the storm.

Elsie became the happiest baby on earth, with the absolute BEST smile!

Oh man...and those eyes.

She was a dream baby.
And she always had that little tounge hanging out....she still does that.

Everyone loved her, she would catch peoples eyes everywhere we went.

I could not believe this was the same baby!

I finally fell in love with her.

Not that I didn't love her, but I felt like I never had that bond with her, cause all she did was cry.

And I just couldn't fix it.

It was such a hard time.

I don't know what changed....except that maybe she was finally getting enough food.

******

...to be continued

Long day...

I just wanna go a curl up in bed.

It has been one of those non-stop kind of days.

But the day is done, and a success...so I guess I should be happy about that!

We had our Relief Society Birthday Dinner tonight.

It was a great night.

Our theme was "My Sisters Hands".

For the center pieces I took photos of different sisters in the ward, doing different thing with their hands.

The pictures were only of their hands.

One was gardening, another knitting, some clay pottery, and a sister writing to her missionary son.

A lot of fun ones.

Then we played a guessing game, trying to figure out who the sisters were.

I think it turned out to be really fun.

Plus we had really yummy sweet pork dinner.

It was a great night, but like I said, lots of prep work to go into it.

The exhausted part comes cause Brent was working tonight.

But the kids went to the nursery, and they were pretty good in there.

But it got late, WAY past their bed time.

So I hope they sleep great tonight, cause I sure want to!!!

*************

I feel like I haven't said much about sweet Cassi lately.

We got report cards yesterday, and Cassi is sure rocking it at school!

And she is very well liked.

Her teacher always tells me that Cassi is the one who everyone wants to sit by and play with.

That makes me happy.

And she is an awesome reader!

She has had some of her little breakdowns lately.

She used to have what our pediatrician called 'spereation anxiety'.

That was then she started kindergarten.

She gets panicked and there is no talking her out of it.

It has been a long time since she has acted like that, but the other morning she had a COMPLETE meltdown when the bus was coming.

The morning went fine, and as she was heading out the door, I told her she should wear a coat.

I got it on her, and that's when she started saying she didn't feel good, and she didn't want to go to school.

Then she started crying, but the kind of cry that you know there is no getting through.

Then the bus came by....we told her to run....

I am sure she woke up anyone who wasn't awake yet.

Finally we waved the bus to go, and Brent took her to school, after she went up to her room and calmed down.

It was the craziest thing.

I wondered if maybe it was cause of the coat, maybe someone made fun of it....and she didn't want to wear it.

But she said no.

She doesn't know why she broke down.

Anyway...I came up with my own little theory.

In the mornings, Cassi is a hard one to keep on task.

She just wants to do her own thing.

So I decided to make a check list for her.

That way when she gets one thing done, she knows what needs to be done next.

It has been working pretty nicely for the last couple days.

So maybe me getting after her so many times in the mornings was just to much for her...and she finally broke down.

Now I just ask her what is next on her chart.

I hope it keeps working good.

 I sure love sweet Cass.

She is so fun and lively!!!

Pioneers

Madi is in 4th grade.

Which means learning about the pioneers.

Madi has been having a blast, they have been doing some pretty great stuff.

And she is learning a lot.

The kids had a chance to earn some extra credit.

And of course Madi was all over that.

She loves extra credit.

This is what Madi planned out.....and with Dads help, and a little of my help....it turned out great!

She loves being out in the garage and working with Dad.

They spent some time looking on the Internet for pictures of wagons....found what they like, and made a plan.

She is proud and happy with the result.

She said tonight that she just wishes we could build a miniature rocking chair to fit inside....

Madi gathered the fabric in the back, like the real wagons have.

And they made the cute little water barrel in back.

Great job madi and dad!

****************


I will get to Elsie's story.
I just want to have do it when I have a good time to sit and write it.
Tomorrow.

Smiley face reward!

We have been trying all we can to get Elsie to do better in school.

She does great, but she has been a little bit rotten lately.

It is all absolutely developmentally normal!

But still, we want her to be good and obedient.

So we got her some fun new foam soap to use in school.

Washing her hands was the biggest issue, she doesn't like to be told what to do.

So that has been working GREAT!!!!

She comes home every day with a book, letting me know how the day went, what her snack was and what she did.

That way, when I talk to her about it, I can kind of get an idea of what she is saying, by reading what they wrote in her book.

Anyway, she also gets a smiley face rating.

Up until a few weeks ago, she rarely got anything but the super happy face.

But then she started to say 'no', and throw some pretty crazy tantrums.

Well, we told her that when she comes home with a smiley face, she gets a reward.

She gets ice cream, and unlimited horsey back rides from Daddy!

I know, not great to bribe your kids, right?

But in this case, what's the harm????

And it has been working great.

This girl loves her ice cream and unlimited Horsey back rides from daddy!

**************

Also.

I have just recently found out that March is Cerebral Palsy Awareness month.

I am excited about that.

I love to hear the stories of others.

I have been finding info, and blogs about families who have someone with CP.

One thing I have found, there needs to be more support groups.

I would love to have some kind of buddy walk or walk-a-thon, or even some kind of get together to meet these amazing people.

If anyone knows of any such thing, let me know!

So in honor of the month, I thought I would tell Elsie's story.

I am gonna take the next few days and write all I can remember.

I sure wish I was a blogger back when she was born.

I would have loved to know what I would have written.

We had some pretty ROUGH times for the first four months of her life.

And it took over 18 months to get her diagnosed....

So check back for Elsie's story.

Boy stuff...

I just can't get enough of this little man!

He cracks me up on a daily basis!!!!

We got him some cute little cowboy boots a few weeks ago.

They are just the cutest little things on him!

And the best part is, he can put them on himself...so great!!!

We got a size to big, so they will last for a while.

He likes to wear them everywhere.

We need to go shopping to get him some pants that are a little longer.

He is stuck between size 2 and 3.

This is his 'cheese' smile.

It cracks me up every time.

He really has quite the sense of humor.

And he loves the attention.

I think that is maybe why he is rotten a lot of the time, he loves the attention.

And this boy loves his Buzz and Woody.

And he has a great way of pronouncing the 'ck' sound.

I need to get it on video.

Again, I laugh every time!

Dear Great Grandparents

My kids have one set of  living Great Grandparents.

And they live in Arizona.

It has been so many years since we have seen them.

We have been writing letters to them for the last few weeks, along with my sisters and parents.

The kids have been telling the Grandparents all about themselves.

It has been pretty fun.

This week I decided to take a picture of them when they were all nice and ready for church.

Then I could send a copy of the picture to the Grandparents in our next letter.

Well, this morning, before church didn't work out.

So we tried again after church.

They didn't want to do it then either.

Maybe they are getting really sick of me trying to take their pictures!

Anyway...we did end up getting this one, after I talked Elsie into looking at Madi's porcelain dolls.

I am sure Grandma and Grandad will love it.

Play hard.

The kids had a day full of play.

They played with friends ALL day long...but I never took any pictures.

So I am posting this picture.

Cause I am planning to start the binding for Madi's blanket tonight...and if I blog that I am gonna do it, I am more likely to do it.

I am excited for it to be done....

And like I said before, I hope she treasures it always.

********

Tonight we went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries to celebrate the birthday of our little friend Alex and the rest of the Terry family.

Going into the building, I pulled the door open right into Porters head.

Poor guys got a giant bruised goose egg right away.

It was a fun night.

On the way home the kids and I had fun singing and rocking out in the car.

They were all good about bathing and getting ready for bed.

I hope they all sleep good tonight.

I caught Cassi sleep walking last night.

She was wondering in the hall way, and then heading downstairs.

When I called down to her she kept going.

I finally had to go and physically grab her and get her to come back up.

Sleep walking is a weird thing!

Also, I wanted to add a story from yesterday, cause I think it is so cute and i want to remember it....

For dinner last night, I forgot to set a spoon out for Elsie. So she got up to go get her own.

On her way back, Porter decided he needed a spoon too.

He was getting up at the same time Elsie was coming back, getting right in her way. Normally she would just go around him, but she didn't have the time to go around...so she did all that she could do.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and plowed right through Porter.

I wish I had it on video...cause it really was funny how she did it.

She shrugged her shoulders up and held her hands on her biceps, and kinda leaned forward, then went right in....Like she was getting ready to run though a brick wall.

Porter was clueless to what was going on.

It was pretty dang funny.

Elsie would normally be the one to fall down, but she held her own, and actually knocked Port down on her way through.

I was proud of her to just push her way through, but I had to laugh that she closed her eyes to do it.

Fun new tricks.

Porter thinks he is pretty cool now that he can open his own car door.

It is a pretty funny thing to watch.

He climbs up on the foot step, grabs the handle, they swings off and hangs until it opens up.

You can kinda see his swing in motion here.

Maybe not the best thing for the door.

But he sure feels like a big boy!

****

Later in the day, while Porter was napping, Elsie doing her own thing.

Going between playing with her dolls, riding the trike, and a few other things.

Then she got into this game that Madi left out, and was very entertained.

She popped each of the flaps off of the game board.

Then took each picture out of each flap.

She stayed busy doing this for quite a while.

Oh well, it isn't that big of a deal to put back together.

Happy Birthday to little OLD me!

What a fun and great day!

I had my 31st birthday today!!!!

THIRTY-ONE!!!!!!!!

That is so crazy to me!

Anyway...It was a fun morning.

The kids got up and got ready and it was a pretty smooth morning, which was great.

Cause it doesn't always go smoothly.

Then I hung out with the little ones for the morning.

Brent had to go take a test at the airport to certify him when he goes on calls to people at the airport.

So that took a chunk out of the morning.

Then at around 1:30, I got to go out to lunch with some pretty great ladies.

It was a lot of fun to sit and chat.

Thanks girls, I really enjoyed it!

I am so lucky to have so many great friends.

Then I got home and Brent and Elsie had made me a cake.

Now...you can't tell me that I am not rubbing of on him a little bit......

Look at what they made!

I LOVE it!

And Elsie was SO PROUD of it.

She was so excited all day to have an actual birthday to celebrate.

She called me birthday girl all day.

"Hey, Birthday girl!"

So cute!

Anyway...I think the cake turned out pretty dang awesome!

Thanks, babe, for taking the time to do it.

Elsie and Dad have been the best of friends the last few days.

She always LOVES Dad...

But it has really escalated lately...and Daddy sure loves it.

So she had the time of her life cooking with Dad!

Especially since it was a BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!!

****

Then the kids got home from school.

We did homework and chores.

Then headed out to eat.

Yes...I went out again.

Hey, my kitchen stayed clean!

It does always turn out to be somewhat of a hassle to take them all out to eat, but also so much fun.

Elsie loves to smile and talk to anyone she sees.

Porter won't sit still...he is kind of a mini tornado!

But it is always fun, so we keep doing it!

***

Then we came home.

They sang Happy Birthday to me (accompanied by Cassi, of course!)

Blow out the candles and dig in.

Thanks to so many people for such a fun day.

I guess I will keep celebrating my OLDNESS as long as I get to spend it with great people that I love!

Feeling good and bad.

Today Elsie woke up with a little fever.

So we kept her home.

She has been kinda rotten the last few days at school...so hopefully it is just cause she wasn't feeling well, and not cause she is starting to be rotten.

You know what I mean.

When I say rotten, I mean telling the teachers "No" and refusing to go potty or wash her hands.

She has been acting like that here at home too.

So, not that I want her to be sick.

But I would love for there to be a reason for her to be rotten...if that makes sense.

She has the best little bottom lip...it is so cute.

I hope she feels better soon.

It is no fun when she doesn't feel good.

It was another nice day.

Kinda windy and rainy....but still good enough to play outside.

The dark skies, and incoming storm made the air smell so good!

Madi was a great little helper while I got dinner ready and entertained the little boy.

It's nice to have a great helper around.

(They were acting like puppies in this picture...silly kids.)