Henry's Courage

Our friends have a pretty hilarious 3 year old. Here is his new version of "Nephi's Courage". Keep in mind Ellis is his baby brother. For more by Henry go to the home page of their blog. Enjoy your weekend!

Argh!

Guess what will be really frustrating? In 12 years when I have to drag Matt out of bed for early morning seminary.

Hannah Banana

disclaimer: This post expresses my personal thoughts, I am not judging any decision you have made. It has no effect on my opinion of you. Please don't be offended or think I am having a 'better than thou' moment.

So I've alway maintained the opinion that my daughter(s) will never wear sleeveless clothing. At all. Obviously as long as I am making the choice...ie when I am dressing her and even when I am still buying her clothes. Hopefully after that point she will decide on her own to be modest. Do I think there is anything wrong with a 2 year old wearing a tank top? No. A 16 year old. Yes. So when does that change take place? 4? 8? The vague onset of puberty?

Now I finally have my girl. And I was looking at summer outfits. And a lot of them don't have sleeves. I always buy the ones with sleeves. Until a couple weeks ago I bought one without. And figured I would just sew sleeves on. Until I realized, Hello. Hannah doesn't wear pants. Which is more cause for concern...bare shoulders or completely, 100% bare thighs?

So my new conclusion: Hannah can wear sleeveless (meaning no sleeves, but not spagetti straps) until it is no longer kosher for her to go sans pants. Which for me is about when my kids start walking. And then they just look weird with no pants on. So 9 or 10 months if trends hold.

Logical conclusion or poor justification?

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

While searching for a picture of my Texas bathroom I came across this post. And realized number one why I love blogging. I NEVER would have remembered that moment without typing it down. And number two Matthias has had this 5:30 problem for quite some time.

We've tried many things (later bed time, seperate rooms, confinement to bedroom in moring, etc). But I think we have finally given up. Honestly 5:30am I can handle. It's 4am that is really not okay with me. Because that's what was happening since Hannah would wake up about 4:15 to eat and by the time she was fed and back to bed it was nearly 5. Meaning I had about 20 minutes to fall back asleep before I heard the stomp, stomp of boots across the wood floor. Have I mentioned I very much dislike cowboy boots at 5 in the morning? Very much.

Side note: One really disturbing fact about Colorado is at 4:40 am, yes AM people, while I am awake feeding Hannah, the sunlight begins streaming through our bedroom window. I am not kidding. I am not exaggerating. It is a true fact. And it is scary.

Fortunately for us Hannah has started sleeping until about 5 or 5:30. Yeah!! So we have been too, dispite the audacious sun. And since we now go to bed at 9 pm (9:30 if we're really crazy) we are actually slowing adjusting to the early wake up time. Slowly. However when you have exercised, breakfasted, read scriptures, thrown dinner in the crock pot, and showered by 7:30 am you're really feeling good. And the wondering what on earth to do for the next 12 hours until bed time...

I will admit we bought blackout shades for $12 at Wal-mart. I didn't really expect that to help, but I did hold out a small hope they might buy me until 6 am. Or at least 5:45. No such luck. It's pitch black in the boys' room right now. Mid day, pitch black. No help for the early riser. So enjoy your children who sleep until 6:30. Rejoice in their sleepiness. And be glad your sun doesn't rise until after 5.

Again Mom, again!

Obviously my boys are obsessed with this...

Taylor Update

Brief history for those not aware...Taylor has a history of lung collapses. The first was about nine years ago while he was serving a mission in Portland, OR. It was the worse and was on the left side. Since then he has only had collapses on the right side, maybe 6 or 7? Apparently it's not too common to have collapses on both sides.

His collapses (otherwise known as spontaneous pneumothorax) are caused by blebs on the top of the lung that pop letting air out of the lung and into the chest cavity. The blebs then seal back over and the lung stops letting out air, but cannot expand because of the air in the chest cavity. In Taylor's case he has always just waited for the lung to reabsorb the air and has never gotten a chest tube. He largest collapse has been a 25%. After the first two we have not gone to a doctor as Taylor can feel when they collapse and if you don't get a chest tube then all you can do is wait for it to fix itself.

Taylor had no collapses for the 2.5 years we were in Houston. He had 2 within the six months after moving to Denver. The last stuck around for several days so he finally went to a doctor to get a chest x-ray. At the time of the x-ray he was at a 25% collapse. Long story associated with this, but he still just let it absorb by itself.

After the last collapse we opted to finally get the surgery (blebectomy and pleurodesis). At the time of his first collapse the surgery still involved cracking the chest cavity so you can see why we have avoided it. Now they do it with scope.

He went in Wednesday morning and the surgery went really well. The doctor cut off the top portion of the lung (blebectomy) and did find a bleb. The performed the pleurodesis and all went great. Taylor was then on a chest tube for 72 hours. They do this to make sure all the air gets out of the chest cavity, etc. He had a small leak in his lung for the first day, but it resolved itself quickly. The doctor kept him on the tube because recently he had a patient where they removed the chest tube too early and his lung collapsed, etc. So for 72 hours Taylor was hooked to a small box which was hooked to the wall to continue suctioning his chest cavity. He had about 8 feet of tube...just enough to get from his bed to the bathroom.

We also found out right after surgery that he is allergic to morphine. It gives him hives. He found out about his other drug allergy (sulfa) with his first collapse...it also gives him hives.

He is now home, but still feeling sore and weird and drugged although he hasn't taken any vicatin for over 24 hours. Can't lift more than 10 lbs, but he is cheating with Hannah (she's about 13 or 14). We were very blessed to have Taylor's mom out to help this past week tending kids, cooking, visiting Taylor, etc. The 35 minute drive to the hospital got pretty old quick. And I had to leave Hannah a lot. Something I had not yet done (except a little bit here and there with Taylor).

We are happy to have him back home and doing good! He requested no photos.

James Speak

Me: Hopefully our daddy will be home tomorrow. We don't want to wait until Sunday.
James: Yeah, because our dad is the strongest and the bravest.


James: What do 6 and 3 make. (holding cups with 6 birds and 3 flowers)
Me: Count and see.
James: (after counting starting with the 6 cup) Nine! pause What if you do 3 first?
Me: Count again.
James: Nine!

He's already a little math whiz!