Endoscopy

Clay had his endoscopy today. Let me just say that if we're going to have to drag any kid to multiple procedures and Dr.s appointments, I'm glad it's Clay.
You know Carter is awesome, I would much rather run or jump or laugh at the silly monkey in the Hand Hand Fingers Thumb book with him any day.
Yeah, have you seen this thing? MOST.HILARIOUS.MONKEY.EVER.



Even more awesome, is that it's mine and Carter's funny joke.

But waking up super early, taking different medicines, going under, riding in the car for extended trips is much more Clay's cup of tea...

They gave Clay some "silly juice" about 30 minutes before his procedure, and he was quite the cute, drunken baby. He wasn't too exaggerated, but his mouth hung open and his eyes had that glossed over look.

A 2 year old little girl next to us got hers at the same time, and she was a hoot! She was grasping at objects in the air, and unable to keep her head up. She didn't care a bit when the anesthesiologist took her back to the OR.

Clay cried for just a moment when they took him from us, but he was done and 'awake' only 45 minutes later. They had him wrapped up in a warm blanket, half naked, and with a bottle in his mouth. It was so sweet to see him be a 'baby' again, asleep and sucking away. But heaven help you when that bottle was empty. It was the most offended, agitated 'roar' of a cry when that apple juice was gone. I don't even know if Carter could have matched it.
Add to that the awareness that his arms was bundled up with an IV, his chest hooked up to EKG leads and it was over, we were done for. I've never seen Clay agitated like that, but luckily it was all over and he was feeling back to himself within 5-10 minutes.
We laid and snuggled for about 45 minutes while he gradually woke up, ate a cracker and tried sitting up. That is more the Clay I'm used to.

The procedure itself went seamlessly and we only had one surprise finding! She showed us a picture of his vocal chords and explained that they are very swollen from reflux. Now, reflux wasn't a problem we were aware he had, but apparently it's pretty severe to cause this damage. Thankfully Cory thought to ask if this could be a culprit to his speech problem and she was very quick to agree! She said, "Of course, there's no way he could talk normally with his vocal cords in this condition. He can probably only make a few certain sounds. No wonder he's behind!"

I am super excited that we had a good surprise finding, and that with this new medication, his vocal cords should be healed in about 4-6 months!

They took some biopsies of his small intestine and the results will be available within 2 weeks. I of course was WAY too quick to think that things would be done quicker since we were in the LA area. Things have been moving slower here than when we lived in Korea.

Here's to hoping some answers are on those slides and the 13th of April will bring us some good news!

Shots

**warning, this post may contains words like cervix and uterus, please do not continue if you don't want to hear about those parts of your daughter's (or daughter in laws) body.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, my ultrasound went great and the baby measured and looked great! I can't wait to watch the movie! (S)he had all the ribs, bones, chambers of the heart, kidneys, stomachs and bladders (s)he's supposed to have.
I had started to become a little worried since I can still fit into regular jeans (pretty comfortably) and don't look all too pregnant - unless it's at the end of the day and I've eaten a lot, then I kind of look pregnant.

I was somewhat convinced we were having a dwarf baby. Which, would totally be cool with me, but can you imagine Cory having a dwarf baby? That would seem like a weird cruel joke in some ways I think.

One thing the Dr did find (and I think it's so awesome that the perinatologist is the one who did my ultrasound. Right then and there, It gives me a lot more reassurance about the baby being totally on track!)
was that my cervix is measuring very short. Which, is not a super cool thing, and so they're going to measure it every two weeks and hope it doesn't get any shorter. If it does, I go on bed rest. Aaaand, I'm not really sure how that's logistically possible..but I guess we'll do our best right?
Also - don't lift anything over 15 lbs. Things that are over 15 lbs that I have to lift? CLAY. If he would get the MEMO already and please start walking, I think I could follow that rule for a good bit of the day. Too bad babies can't use fax machines, or e-mails or read. It makes sending them memos very difficult.

And, their last plan of painfulness, I will be taking 17p shots on a weekly basis. (Also known as progesterone) to help keep preterm labor at bay. I've been reading a lot of success stories with this stuff, and people who had micro preemies first, are having 36 weekers! I haven't read anyone making it to 40 weeks (which IS TOTALLY fine with me, I would just like 38 please!) people seem to be averaging around 36 and 37.
And actually 36 is a pretty good number too, and this shot will probably help get me there safely again! We are just trying to prevent baby coming any earlier than that!

Baby Poll

We've already had the ultrasound, I closed my eyes, and the Dr. determined the sex for me. He even made a DVD and put the sex of the baby on there too, but I closed my eyes for that as well.

Right now, in my bedroom there is a sealed envelope with a picture of "parts" labeled either boy or girl. And there's an entire 10 minute level II DVD of baby that I can't watch either...and it is killing me. I can't believe I've been able to even last this long without peeking.

We're having a 'reveal party' on the 3rd of April (while my parents are here - yes this is all their fault that I'm having to wait so long) where we will cut into a cake that (unbeknownst to anyone at the party - including me.) will have either blue or pink cake on the inside. A lot of our TPS friends are coming (well really - who else would come, we're in the middle of the desert, people.)
and I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

We'll capture it on video and I"ll try to get it uploaded the next day...I know you just can't wait! But, until then you should vote on my baby poll over there to your right.
You've only got 10 days - hurry up!

Hard Headed

We took an awesome trip camping this weekend to Leo Carillo State Park. A big group of our classmates went down to the beach, built campfires and sang kumbahya. (Okay just kidding about the singing).



But there was lots of sand, lots of dirty kids, lots of sticky marshmallows and Bud 55.



This is the first time we've been camping since we've had kids, and it was a learning experience. We should have packed more changes of clothes considering there was a miscommunication along the lines of CORY STOP LETTING THE KIDS GET JUMP FACE FIRST INTO THE WATER WITH THEIR CLOTHES ON BECAUSE I DIDN'T BRING THAT MANY EXTRA CLOTHES FOR WHEN THEY GET COLD DAMMIT.



Also - bring some sort of air mattress for when you're halfway through a pregnancy and camping on the ground.



Things on the 'good idea' list: 1. glow sticks. They were a hit with the kids!
2. a whole can of Wet Ones 3. putting Clay in disposable diapers for the weekend.
4. the mansion tent we have that had enough room to zip up all 11 kids and let them run around while being contained.



We went to the beach, saw tide pools with sea anemones and star fish (which if you went to high school or college with me totally brought back memories of dissecting that disgusting thing) and even saw dolphins off the coast.
We had a quite impressive spread of food to choose from (Seriously - it was like a camping gourmet meal y'all!) and lots of smores.



The kids were put to bed, the adults stayed up late drinking watered down beer, and everyone was filthy from head to toe.



As we were packing up the next morning Carter took a fall playing "Upsies-Downsies" with the hubs and landed smack on his head. He seemed fine - obviously upset though - until the vomiting and uncontrollable falling asleep happened about 30 minutes later. Well - if that's not an excuse for a cool ambulance ride, I don't know what is!



We had about 10 paramedic/firefighter/lifeguards around us and got to speed away to the nearest ER - which was like 30 minutes away! Cory got to practice his 007 car driving skills one more time, and Carter got hooked up to more tubes than a....well than a something with a lot of tubes.



He told the paramedic he didn't want an "IB" (He meant IV) but was basically unconscious 2 seconds after it happened so he didn't care much anymore after that.
We got to the ER, had some more vomiting and a cat scan and found out he BROKE HIS HEAD. No..for real. He broke it. He has a skull fracture and I'm sure a really cool CT scan to prove it. After his 'sleeping beauty' episode was over (only a mere 3 hours later) they admitted him for observation and he started acting normal and back to his old self.



By the next morning, he was normal Carter again and was making Cory a nervous wreck by pretending to fall off of everything. He totally has my sense of humor - which is a good thing, because if he had Cory's he'd be laughing about linear equations and nuclear fission or something.

We're back home now and Carter is doing just fine. You would never know he had a head injury. The logistics of having one kid at home and one kid admitted to a hospital over 100 miles away are a bit tricky. But the families here at TPS made it totally doable. They were awesome...and now, so is Carter.

Buzzy

Carter is OFFICIALLY, 100% POTTY TRAINED!

Now, I know I have some steep stipulations. I consider potty trained as never carrying extra pants with you and never needing a single pullup or diaper. This includes night time and naps. Also - being able to "hold it" when there's not an available restroom.

Carter has been waking up dry from naps for about a month and dry from night time for about 2 weeks. We were really tired of the pullups thing (since we weren't really a believer in pullups to begin with) so we just cold turkey switched him to underwear. Yes, we changed wet sheets every night for a week or two. And then 3-4 times per week for another few weeks. But IT'S OVER! He wakes up at night by himself to go, and we haven't changed wet sheets in over 2 weeks!

I firmly believe he was so tired of waking up wet that he trained his body to sleep a little lighter. He wasn't even waking up when he would wet the bed, just wake up in the morning and everything would be damp...'several hours ago' damp. We sleep trained him at an early age and since then, he sleeps like a rock. We can have parties, sonic booms happen and he even slept through a car wreck once. But, my friends, IT CAN BE DONE! He's a lighter sleeper now. Which - fantastic for night time potty training - Not so good for late night get togethers at the house and him waking up to tell me to fix his covers 3-4 times a night.
But, no diapers and pullups is worth it....I think.


Here is the newest family member, Buzzy, courtesy of no more wet sheets!

GYMNASTICS

That's how carter says it, in all caps.

Here are some pictures of his 2nd day at gymnastics. I only got a few before I got in trouble for using flash photography and distracting the gymnasts....

You can expect Carter's Olympic debut in 2024.

The "Big" trampoline




The somersault sequence:





We might need to work on his form a little. Maybe we'll push Olympics back to 2028



The cartwheel sequence:







The bar:

Aquarium of the Pacific

Our good friends and neighbors from across the street ventured to Los Angeles with us this week. It's nice to get out of the Mojave desert every now and then, and we had room for everyone (In my new van!)



The older boys rode in the back and watched Finding Nemo the whole way there, and the babies rode in the captain's seats.
We had another friend (who has yet to have any kiddos) come with us and wow, was she a huge help! Just to have an extra set of hands was awesome!
Lucky us, she was able to hold a pee cup for the older boys when we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the 405. Ha!



We looked at a bunch of neat things on the first floor - and then broke for an outside picnic on the grass. Afterwards we finished the 2nd floor, drove to a chick-fil-a (where I stocked up!) and we made it home in a mere 4 hours!
(Traffic in LA was not kind to us.)



These were the lorikeets. You could buy a tiny cup of nectar (for $3) and they would drink it out the cup. They were flying around like crazy and even running into things. (Like the back of my head!)





Clay really, really really enjoyed the aquarium! He loved watching all the fish and would point and grunt and get very excited! I didn't take any more pictures of the fish other than this for two reasons. One, I think it's kind of dumb to take pictures of fish or animals at a zoo or aquarium. Are you really going to look back and say, "Aw man, remember that fish that looked just like every other fish in every other aquarium we've been to?" No one's going to ask to see pictures of the fish you saw at a random aquarium either. And two, In Finding Nemo, when the divers take pictures of Marlin, it causes him to loose Nemo because he's temporary blinded. I'd hate to cause that mess all over again.

I Think I Might be a Hippie

We've been doing lots of fun stuff lately. Carter went skiing for the first time, we bought a brand new (to us) minivan (ohmygosh I love it more than I ever knew I could!), and we packed up friends of ours and headed to the Los Angeles Aquarium this week! I've been meaning to post about all of these wonderful things, but instead, you're going to read a blog about DIAPERS!

This is my blog, and I will post in the order I deem appropriate thank you.... Although I will hopefully get the pictures from all the other cool stuff up by the end of the weekend too.

You can read about Clay's tummy issues here and here, and to say they're messy and a pain his (and my) asses are an understatement. No really, his butt has had ongoing acidic, poop, diarrhea rash for going on almost 4 months now..It wasn't a figure of speech.


We've tried every method of getting rid of the diaper rash possible...Trust me, and every time it happens to come up, someone always thinks, "Oh, well have you tried [insert diaper cream here]?" Do they think that maybe in the 4 MONTHS of diarrhea, I haven't tried that? That maybe I didn't go to the store, buy every diaper cream known to man and have my mom swipe prescription diaper cream from a patient - don't' worry they said it was ok - she's totally not a clepto - and put everything known to man, or on the Internet on this kid's butt???? REALLY? YES, I'VE TRIED THAT!

Anyway - After doing a bunch of reading online I had decided to give cloth diapers a try. I know, I know, only tree hugging crunchy, granola people do this right?
Turns out, (at least at Osan) there were a lot of NORMAL people who did this, and swore by it.. I promise, they bathed and ate off real plates and I only saw one of them ever hugging a tree.

But people, desperate times call for desperate measures. You know you've got some serious diaper rash when 3 years after telling people, "No way would I cloth diaper, that's gross, we've evolved, that's why we have Huggies, for Godsake!" I am now a member of the cloth diapering family.
Now, I am at least being reasonable. An initial investment in cloth diapers can run fairly expensive. Cloth diapers aren't what they used to be. They have SNAPS! and VELCRO! and they can grow with your baby from newborn to potty-training. There are about a million different kinds, with different inserts, pockets and methods. I found a website that offers a "trial run". They'll let me try out about 7 different types of cloth diapers. I pay about $150, try them for 21 days and then if I don't like them, I can send them back for a full refund (less $10). I think that's a pretty good deal. I want to try this out, I want it to work, but I don't want to spend $300-$500 on something I've never tried before or that I'm not 100% sold on.

There's definitely a bit of a learning curve (especially when you're trying out a new diaper every diaper change.) And there's a little bit of a gross factor when you're dunking the poopy diaper in the toilet. But so far it's not as "bad" as I thought it would be. We've been doing cloth wipes with an organic diaper solution (that wets the cloth wipes) for about a month now, and I think that was an easy segue into the cloth diapering poop factor.

This is only day 2 of cloth, and I'm still trying to work out what's most absorbent and how often to change him (It's a little more often) and doing a little more laundry than I'm used to - not because I'm having to wash dirty diapers as much as the new diapers require a lot of "pre washing" before they reach their full absorbency.

So far, his rash looks to be improving, but only time will tell!
Here is Clay modeling the bumGenius!3.0

The Duggars

There's a lot of heat surrounding the Duggar family these days. They just had their 19th baby, Josie, who was born at 25 weeks.
They're the topic of many a message board and yahoo news article (not to mention they have their own show on TLC!)

There's a lot of people that are angry, or who think that the Duggars are irresponsible, or crazy. But you know what? They're probably some of the most responsible people that live in this country.

You can think what you want, but at least hear the facts.

Yes, they have 19 children (and one grandchild!) But they live absolutely 100% debt free. How many Americans do you know that do that?
They built their entire GIANT, 7000 sq. foot house house by hand, and on their own dime. They don't even have a mortgage.
They have health insurance, and every single one of the family members is covered. They do not owe anything in medical costs either. This includes all of micro-preemie Josie's' medical costs.
When their oldest son got married, they (to put it in the mom's, Michelle's, words) cut the strings. She explained that he is his own man, and they firmly believe in "Leave and cleave". How many American parents still support their 20-30 something year old children?!

They home school all children, include many aspects of their faith and have proven that their methods are successful!
Their 3 oldest children who are old enough to work, are successful people!

And she is such a calming presence. You never see her yell or lose patience, but she is calm and understanding, even with 19 kids!

While I don't feel that I'm fit to have such a large family, really who can fault them for doing what they believe is right? What is wrong with how they are living their life?

I think they're an inspiration, not only to Christian families, but to anyone who wants to run a happy, close knit, frugal home!

You know what Grinds my gears?

Because I know all of you are just dying to know, here's a list of things that grinds my gears, I'm pretty sure it's way overdue.

1. People who are babywise Nazis

2. People who say "hunerd" instead of "hundred"

3. The words flesh, residue, milk, and tapioca

4. The sound of styrofoam

5. When someone opens one window in a car and messes up my inner ear equilibrium

6. People who post pictures on facebook or myspace and caption it with, "Oh my gosh, look how fat/ugly I am! lolz"

7. People who like to say they wear a size zero but very obviously do not. If you weigh over 105 lbs or are not at least 5'9, it's not possible for you to wear that size, sorry.

8. People who are offended by breastfeeding babies

9 People who don't vaccinate their children

10. People who open their food at the grocery store before they pay for it.

11. Litterbugs

12. People who do not understand that not everything is life is a kid friendly event. Or people who refuse to do things because they're not kid friendly.

13. LATE PEOPLE

14. People who tell their birth story to you 100 times.

15. Women who think eating a piece of lumchmeat is going to kill their unborn baby.

16. little yappy dogs. (Dont confuse this with puppies, puppies are always okay.)

17. Keith Olberman

18. Michael Moore

19. When it's my hubs turn to 'do the dishes' and he just puts them in the dishwasher, but leaves all the handwash items dirty, and in the sink.

20. Anti-military protesters


That's at least my top 20, for now.....