New Skills

First off, I'm sorry about the lack of photos. I can only load pics on to our big computer that's up in the loft (not the laptop that I use downstairs). I can't really go up there while the kids are awake and after they are in bed, I'm too tired to climb up there just to load pictures. So, you'll just have to read another little story about the kids.

Today Kai showed me a new trick he learned. He has been peeing standing up more and more lately and discovered that when he stands up to pee in the potty he doesn't actually have to use his hands. He has good aim and doesn't make a mess. He joyfully told me, that because he doesn't touch anything, he doesn't have to wash his hands after he goes potty! He watched me expectantly, after he pointed out his logic, to see if I could poke holes in it and still make him wash his hands. He got me! I guess if you don't touch anything (except the the handle to flush the toilet...I didn't point that out to him b/c I figured he'd start using his foot to flush like he's seen me do in public restrooms) you don't have to wash your hands. It rankles me though! Just doesn't seem right! I guess I could just make him wash his hands no matter what...I don't want him to turn into one of those guys who doesn't wash after going poop and then pumps gas at the pump just before I get there...I saw that Dateline (or whatever) showing all the nasties on the gas pump handle!!! But, for now, kudos to Kai, for stumping Mama and getting out of washing his hands!

Juicy

Zeze has learned a new adjective: Juicy

He usually uses it in joyful exclamation about how something is SO yummy and juicy...I'm not sure if he thinks that juicy=yummy though. Examples include:

"Thank you for the banana, Mama!! It's SO juicy!" (hmmm on the instructions for my juicer it explicitly says not to try juicing 2 things: bananas and dried fruit)

"Mmmmmm Mmmmmm! This carrot is so juicy!"

"Thank you for the juice, Mama! It's so cold and juicy!!!" (I guess he's getting closer!)

He makes me laugh! :)

Both

I asked the kids this morning if they wanted eggs, oatmeal or both. Zeze excitedly exclaimed, "Both! I want both!! Both!!!" Immediately a frenzied panic ensued with all 3 boys shouting that they wanted both. I knew that Zeze was crazy hungry and him excitedly yelling about anything he's going to get often triggers this response from the boys, like herd of deer startling and none of them are sure why.

I bring out oatmeal and eggs to jittery repetitive mumblings of, "Both. I want both. Kai do you have both? Zeze did you get both yet? I want both too. both. both. both." Zeze sees what I've brought and starts wailing that he doesn't want oatmeal or eggs. He wants a 'both'. "BOTH!!! Waaaaaaaa!!!" Oh good grief! It's too early for this! I spend 5 minutes explaining the word both and finally got some very disappointed boys to understand that I only had eggs and oatmeal to offer them. (Can you all picture a 'both'? It's probably dripping with frosting and oozing chocolate out of the middle!)

On the way to school as we're praying for our day, Zeze prays, "Thank you for this day. Thank you for the eggs and oatmeal. And thank you for the 'both'!" I guess he got a 'both' when I wasn't looking. :)

Little Red Riding Kai

Kai is very excited lately to point out to us how he's growing so big. He is so happy to have himself measured and has such an innocent joy to think that he's growing and might be as tall as his mama or daddy some day. It is really cute. That is why I try to take what he says with a few grains of salt! Here is a collection of observations from Kai....

"Mama, I am such a big boy! I am growing so big! Look, my nose is small now, but it growing so big just like yours!"

"Mama, look at my teeth they are growing so big! They're almost so big as yours! Can you show me your big teeth again?"

"Mama, do you see my feet. I have small feet but soon they will be so big just like your feet!"

I guess I'm the big bad wolf.

He also said he loved me because I am soft. :) I will try to take these things as compliments, from my dear 4 year old that says these things without a spec of criticism and is purely delighted to become like me, instead of picturing myself as described.....a big puffy soft mama with huge teeth, nose and feet. From the mouths of babes....

Tonight at dinner he ate a lot of food and lifted up his shirt and said, "Mama, look at my belly! It is growing so big! (I'm thinking, "Here it comes...") Soon it will grow so big just like Daddy's!" Phew! Dodged that one! Chad and I have both eaten a LOT of chocolate this winter!! Just keeping it real, folks! :)

Oh, a truly sweet thing Kai said the other day: I bought some potted tulips and daffodils and put them in the window. Kai inhaled their fragrance and said with all earnestness and amazement, "They smell like the sun, Mama!"

Noah wins again!

Back to the pediatricians. Zeze's fever of 103 wasn't gone after 3 full days. Turns out he also has an ear infection! Now he get's antibiotics too! Kai is passing the Zithromax torch onto Zeze as it's Kai's last day on it and Zeze's first day. However, just when Zeze thinks he can top Noah with illnesses and number of medications, Noah pulls ahead and wins the race! Not only does he win his Omnicef antibiotic, but also steroids AND albuterol from a nebulizer. Guess he had pnumonia after all and the added steroids and albuterol will help open up his lungs and clean out all the junk. PLUS Noah get to start on a GI drug to help with his reflux! Congrats, Noah! It was a close race and we thought you might actually be the healthiest kid here!!

Actually, everyone is starting to feel better (except me, I caught the cold) and Noah is full of vim and vigor. Zeze is feeling better now that he's on ab's and Kai is back to normalish now that he's off the abs.

I pulled out Noah's nebulizer from last year and found his old Albuterol. It was filled last year during this same week in March! It's when we were leaving the hospital for his 2nd round of pneumonia and got the script for the Albuterol (it's good for a year). Ah, memory lane via medical records! I'm so glad this winter hasn't been filled with hospital stays! I'm so glad it's almost Spring! yay!

Not To Be Outdone

Well, Zeze got to join in the sick parade! He was up puking all last night. I finally got him to where he could keep down 3ml of water...that took a few tries with subsequent puking. I'd give a little squirt of water and then wait 1/2 hour while watching Curious George (at 1am), meanwhile he's begging for all the drinks he's ever had. 1/2 hour later another 3ml of water...repeat. After 1.5 hrs of not vomiting the little bits of water, then I increased him up to 3mls every 10 minutes. He tolerated that and I finally got his 5ml (1tsp) of Tylenol into him (oh yeah, he was burning up this whole time). After 1/2 hour when that kicked in he finally fell asleep for 4 hours, and no vomiting. We've slowly progressed this morning with an ounce or two of dilute juice every 1/h hour, another dose of tylenol and finally he kept down some jello. It's a long arduous process, but I learned it as a vet and it's the most successful way to calm their pukey stomaches down enough to keep a few drops of water in it.

Anyway, he is now the sickest one here and if the other boys are 'lucky' they'll have fevers and vomiting tomorrow too...then more medicine for everyone! Woo Hoo!! (note the sarcasm) :)

Medicine

Zeze and Kai love to get Tylenol and Motrin. They've both had a good share of fevers and sore throats the past few months so they've gotten plenty. However, now they are asking for medicine all the time. First I'd say, "You only get medicine when you're sick." So now they wake up and say they feel sick and need medicine. I started asking them what felt sick or what hurt that would make them need medicine....Kai will say, "My belly hurts." and I tell him you don't get medicine for a belly ache. Zeze will try, "My cough hurts" and I tell him you don't get medicine for coughs. He'll counter with asking for 'honey medicine' because when they have the dry painful coughs we give them honey to soothe their throats.

Today, Kai woke up from his nap (he never naps anymore, so that's the first mommy clue that something is up) crying and saying his ear hurt. This sounded legit, so I gave him some Motrin and made an appt for him to see the pediatrician tonight. Zeze woke up from his nap and was happy as can be and dancing and running around. When he heard that Kai was getting medicine he stared up with the "I feel sick, too" barrage, complete with his cough and belly hurting (meanwhile laughing and still running around). However, he came up with a new one that made me laugh. He got serious and said, "Momma, my mouth hurts. I need medicine in it." I like his creativity, but as this progresses I think I will really have to put my doctor skills to good use to determine the real illnesses! :)

P.S. Kai does have an ear infection and is on antibiotics. We brought Noah along for a visit of his own since he's had green boogers for 2 weeks along with a cough and is now as crabby as can be. The doctor gave him antibiotics too, either for a sinus infection, the start of pneumonia (his O2 sat was 93%- which isn't horrible, but not the 99-100% he usually is) or both sinus infection and pneumonia together. Poor Zeze will be very sad for the next 2 weeks as his brothers get medicine every day and he doesn't. He also felt very left out at the doctor's tonight b/c the doctor didn't examine him too. Zeze got a complimentary ear check so he wouldn't be completely left out. It's hard to be the healthy kid sometimes. :)

Dennis found a family!

Here is the blog of the family that intends to adopt him!

http://r7thheaven.blogspot.com/2010/02/dennis-has-family.html

Dennis needs a home! Click the link below to see this cutie! http://reecesrainbow.blogspot.com/2010/01/11th-hour-crisis.html

Kid updates

Noah is pretty much walking!!! He's taken 7 steps together once and often does 3 or 4 to get somewhere before plopping down. It's so cute to see him upright like a big boy!

Zeze is speaking in full sentences and takes it upon himself to correct Noah. Yesterday he said, "Noah, don't throw your food! Time out! Good boy!" He amazes us with he dexterity and cleverness and has such a great sense of humor. He is almost able to put his pants on all by himself and easily puts on his own hat, mittens and boots each day. This is something I was working on with Kai at the beginning of the winter.

As for Kai........

***The following has an extreme amount of potty talk, so skip it if you don't like to hear about poop. :) :)*****

Kai is officially potty-trained!!! Woo Hoo!!! We started the week between Christmas and New Years. He got the pee under control at the end of the first week. It took another greuling week for the poop. He refused to even try to go in the potty and would purposefully poop in his underwear every day. I finally started making him do the messy clean up including floor, undies, tub and himself. He would cry, "This is gross! My hands are going to get dirty!" and I'd say, "You're right. It is gross and I'm not doing it any more. I don't want that on my hands either." (Thanks, Heather, for the advice!) The first time it took 45 minutes of crying hysteria before he took his messy underwear off. After 3 times of self-maintenance he stopped going in his underwear! Today he jumped up from playing and said, "I have to poop!" and ran and did it in the potty like a pro! Phew! Thank you, God! I haven't prayed about poop this much since this summer when we were having the Noah Poop Wars! I guess I pray about poop a lot, but come on, when you have 3 in diapers, poop is a big and stressful part of the day! :)

That's it for kid updates!

You and I can (and did) make a difference!!!

Reece's Rainbow is an organization that specializes in the international adoption of children with Down Syndrome and other developmental disabilities. They have it set up where you can donate money to a child's fund. If someone chooses to adopt the child, then some of the adoption costs can be payed for by the donated money in that child's fund. To me, that seems like a great way to help these kiddos! In other countries, when children with Down Syndrome turn 4 years old (Noah is 2 right now and perfectly aware of mom and dad) they are sent to an institution where they are tied to their cribs and scantily fed until they die. No speech therapy, no pre-school, no hugs or bedtime stories just because they have 1 extra chromosome. It breaks my heart!!! As I've said before, we are not able to adopt right now, but we can surely put money into some of these kids funds so that when God moves the hearts of another couple to adopt, they will have some money to start with to waylay the $20,000 needed.
Here is some evidence that my money (and yours) does make a difference! Thank you to those who donated money to help these wonderful kids with their adoptions funds!


Grab This Button

A Ministry that has touched our hearts

Don't worry, we aren't planning to adopt any time soon. We aren't even 'allowed' (per an agreement between Chad and I) to talk about more kids until the twins are 2 and even then it'll have to wait b/c Chad will still be working nights! Ha! I love this ministry, though, and while we can't handle another kid right now we can help families that can! Thanks for watching this video and feel free to pass it on!

UPDATE: I can't figure out how to shrink this embedded video so you can see the whole frame. Sorry, Click this link instead if you want. http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=9b08ab7214bb71b4b33e33&skin_id=1602

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Noah took his first step tonight!!!! He did it 3 seperate times, just moving one foot forward while he stood all by himself!!!!!

Not The Same

Word to the wise (or to the exhausted parents just trying to get the dishes done and go to bed)...If you run out of Dishwasher soap, DO NOT use dish soap instead. They are not the same. Even if you think, "I'll just use a tiny amount b/c it'll probably get sudsy", DON'T DO IT! Not only will sudsy water be covering your floor in the morning, but your dishes still won't be clean! *Sigh*

Heaven or Hell?

(This is Zeze looking out our front window at all the action. He's brought his drink, his snack and a toy and put them on the window sill so that he doesn't have to miss a thing!)

They have been digging up my front yard/parking lot for the past two weeks in order to install a new septic system and leach field (or whatever it's called). There is an enormous excavator and dump truck, a medium-sized excavator, a mini excavator, sometimes a crane, a jack hammer, a couple of skid-steers, the poop truck (this is what Kai calls the septic truck) and a very large DEEP hole 20 feet from our front door. Every day I have to usher all 3 boys past all these "BIG TRACTOR, MAMA!!!" (Zeze exclaims this at least 10 times every waking minute of the day...it's like having 100 boys screaming, "BIG TRACTOR, MAMA", at me all day every day, but it's really just Zeze and Kai....I hate these big tractors!)...anyway, I have to usher the boys past all this to get Kai to school and then walk back again with the twins, then load the twins up, yet again, 2 hrs later, to go get Kai from school, only to walk past these "BIG TRACTOR, MAMA!!!" for the 4th time in three hours with 3/4ths of us still in our pajamas. While this is a huge pain in the, ah...bum, for me, these are heavenly things for boys to see ALL THE @#%@##& LIVE LONG DAY!!

It is driving me, and my mommy neighbors, CRAZY trying to get to our cars with all of our boys in tow. You can hear, "Don't go near the edge. Get off the rock pile. No, you can't take rocks with us in the car. Fine! one rock. No, that's not poop it's a tree root. Yes, you can kick it. Don't touch the excavator! Don't go near the edge! Yes, it's a big hole and it's for naughty boys who don't listen!(my neighbor said this to her boys...hahaha). Yes, it's a big tractor. Please, keep walking. Please, keep walking! Noah is dead weight in my arms and you've seriously GOT to KEEP WALKING! Leave the workers alone! You can't wait for the tractor to drop the dirt. The man is not going to move the digger while we're standing right up along side it. Keep walking! No rocks in the house. "....FOUR TIMES A DAY, PEOPLE! The only thing that would make this project more exciting for all our boys is if they were filling this monster hole with candy or puppies or something!!! As it is, rocks and dirt and cement slabs are pretty exciting, or maddening depending on who you talk to!

10 seconds

I could hear Kai and Zeze playing downstairs today and I heard the most amazing and rewarding thing! Here is their interchange...

Kai: "OWWW, ZEZE, THAT HURT ME!!!"
(I'm holding my breath at this point waiting for the hitting and screaming to start)
Zeze: "I'm sorry, Kai."
Kai: "That's OK."
followed by happy playing sounds.

1st - We've been working with Kai a lot about telling people when he doesn't like what they are doing to him instead of screeching unintelligibly. He did it!!!

2nd - Zeze apologized without ANY prompting or time-outing from me! AMAZING! And, he spoke a whole sentence SO clearly!

3rd - Kai, yet again, verbalized and said it was OK!

4th - Kai let it go and didn't carry on screaming and crying and yelling for me to come down and give Zeze a time out...which often is the other scenario to this interaction.

What transpired peacefully in 10 seconds could easily (and often does) become 1/2 an hour filled with time-outs and mean mommy voice. Thank you, God, that my boys are learning to interact like actual people and less like rabid squirrels! It was so nice to be "thanked" through a moment of manners and good behavior...all my efforts ARE sinking in!!

Dance Lessons

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A Little Fun

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October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month, so I'm including this link to let you meet a woman with DS that lives on her own and has her drivers licence! Thanks for learning with me, friends! :)

Down Syndrome Awareness!!

October is National Down Syndrome Awareness Month!!! Help spread the word to end the use of "R" word (ie retarded) in everyday language. 'Retarded' is such an outdated and hurtful word that is completely inappropriate to use as an insult or just in terms of someone/something being stupid, lame, ridiculous etc. You guys can help me change the future for my sweet Noah by learning more about DS and spreading the word. Visit http://www.ndss.org/ or ask me questions...I love talking about my amazing little boy!! Thanks, friends!!!