Tales from my life as a mom of 2 sons and 2 daughters

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Cheli On Friday, October 31, 2008
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
HAPPY SAMHEIN!!!!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy evening and night. Stay safe!








Cheli On Thursday, October 30, 2008
WOW so I'm slow and just realized that a shared a few pictures of the boys that I had previously shared the week before. LOL oops. Not that it matters , am beginning to wonder if anyone reads my blog at all LOL.
So let's see.. I have decided not to focus so much on the number on the scale but more on other things like how my clothes fit etc. Otherwise i'm going to drive myself insane. I did so my measurements and since I started measuring them back in June I've lost 5 1/2 inches off my waist, 2 off my hips, and 4 off my each thigh. I'd say that's pretty good :) So I am going to keep doing what I'm doing and stop stressing so much about the stupid scale. I went today and got on the depo shot again. We don't want to get pregnant right now since I'm starting nursing school and it worked well for me in the past so we'll try it out again. Orientation for school (which means getting my books and scrubs) is in exact 1 week. School starts in 11 days. I'm SO excited. And nervous. And anxious. And I can't wait!!!!!
Doug seems to be getting more hours at work now. Not sure if that's just because we changed his schedule to 5 hours instead of 7 in a day so he's getting all the clients at once or what. I don't think so but it seems that way. He will start getting deep tissue clients very soon. Everyone he has done deep tissue practicums with has raved about his pressure. So that should keep him busy and booked at work which is good because more bookings equals more money. His birthday is next month (26th) and our anniversary is the 10th (3 years). I'm hoping we'll be able to do something nice for it this year.
River's behavior seems a little better than it has been. He's listening better and not having as many fits but maybe it's just me not seeing them as much. Not sure. He continues to amaze me with how smart he is. I can't wait until next August when he is old enough for the preschool program (as long as he's potty trained by then) because I want to keep him growing mentally. Keep him challanged.
Journey is doing okay. He went Tuesday for his speech appointment. She agreed that he is tongue tied and that it needs to be clipped which means yet another referral to yet another specialist for evaluation. I'm so sick of appointments and doctors and evaluations. I know he has to be sick of them too. On Tuesday he wanted nothing to do with the therapy or the therapist. I can't say I blame him. I'm not sure I like her either. LOL He is 8 1/2 months old now. Time is flying by. In some ways he seems to have grown so much but in other ways., he still seems so little. He still trying to master crawling. He'll get up on his hands and knees and rock but can't seem to figure out how to go forward on hands and knees. However he's gettin faster at the army crawl and is starting to use his knees more to help him go forward so it shouldn't be too long. He's still not sitting up and he still has no teeth. The pediatrician said if he wasn't crawling and sitting up unassisted by 9 months she would refer him to a physical therapist for evaluation.. yeehaw.
I'm so afraid he won't live a normal life. He just seems to have so much going on :( I'm going to try not worry about it. Because it's not like I can do anything about it anyway.. Right? He has a speech appointment on Monday next week and a GI appointment on Friday next week. I'm eager for Friday's appointment as we should get the results of his bood work and allergy testing. I've been waiting for them. In some ways I hope they come back showing nothing and in some ways I hope they come back showing something as then we'll have an idea of why his tummy is having such a hard time handling foods. Still no word on the genetics people. I guess I'll call them tomorrow and see what's going on as it's now been almost 2 weeks since Journey got released from the hospital
Cheli On Friday, October 24, 2008
It's been like 2 weeks since I updated but it feels like it's been about 2 years with all that has happened in the last 2 weeks.. so here we go...

I weighed in this week at 174.6.. so another lb down. I don't understand why I seem to be stuck at this weight. It's frustrating. But at least it's not going up anymore. I went on Tuesday and met with financial aid and got it squared away. Found out tha t I got more in credit then I thought I did so the program will cost less than I thought it would. YAY! Then today I got my acceptance letter in the mail. WOOO HOOOO. Orientation is in 13 days. School starts in 17 days. WOW. I can't wait!!!!My acceptance letter.
6 months of weight loss... First one is me back in April and 2nd one is me just a few days ago.
Doug got a new schedule at work that I think will work a lot better for us. He works 5 to 10pm Tuesday through Friday and 1pm to 6pm on Saturday then he's off on Sunday and Monday. My schooling for the first semester will have me at school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 8 am to 2pm. So this way we won't have to put the boys in daycare especially Journey because it's just not an option at this point.

Which brings me to Journey.. Last Friday Journey went in for a GI appointment.. the ended up doing some blood work to try and see if he has any allergies or even celiac disease. We'll get the results on November 7th when he goes back. So we came home from that and Journey felt hot to me so I checked his temp and it was 103.1 so I gave him motrin. Shortly after, he had a seizure. I called Doug and told him he need to come home but he was in the middle of a massage so I couldn't get ahold of him. 30 minutes later he had another seizure. This time I got a hold of Doug and he came home and we took Journey up to the children's hospital ER to be evaluated. We ended up waiting in the waiting room for almost 4 hours.. While we were waiting he had a 3rd seizure. We got back in the ER and they ran some tests to rule out all the obvious problems and then decided that because he had 3 seizures and has all these other issues they wanted to admit him to just make sure everything was okay. So from Friday to Monday he was in the hospital for observation. On Saturday they decided to do a lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis and started him on some IV antibiotics while we waited.. 48 hours.. to see if the cultures grew anything. On Sunday the attending noticed a bulge between his eyes when he gets upset.. he thinks there is a possibility to might be an encephlocele. A pocket of brain matter coming through a spot in his skull that didn't close properly. So he has been referred for an MRI as soon as we can get one set up.. they weren't comfortable doing one while we were there because it means he has to be sedated. He also brought to our attention that Journey has a lot of markers for a genetic disorder called Noonan's syndrome so he has now also been referred to a geneticist for further testing. Monday he came home and has seemed fine ever since.

Today he went to the speech pathologist evaluation and they determined that basically when he's eating he is losing his coordination to suck/swallow/breathe. So we need to teach him how to do so. They gave us some techniques to try to help him handle foods but said we can't really work on that until we know what his tummy issues are all about. So she gave us some very basic exercises to try. He goes back every week for now for therapy. She also said that his tongue is tied. How it's possible that no one else has noticed this is beyond me.. so now she wants him to see an ENT (I know yet another specialist) to see about getting his tongue clipped (either now or in the future). *sigh*
One positive.. Journey is army crawling now!!! YAY!!!

River is doing okay. His behavior isn't improving any but everyone says it starts to get better around 3 or shortly after... so hopefully. Until then we'll continue to love him and try and guide him to make better choices with his behavior.
Cheli On Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Journey is 8 months old today.. so of course I had to get pictures








Cheli On Monday, October 13, 2008
So I have started making Journey large batches of formula and keeping them in the fridge. I'll make 32 oz at a time and keep it because it's easier than trying to make individual bottles as needed with the thickening that needs to happen. So this morning I made up a batch to specifications.. Let me break it down for you.. for 32 oz of formula (approximately 1 1/2 days worth of food) Journey needs:
16 scoops of Nutrimagen
32 oz of water and one of these:


Yes that's right... 8 oz of rice cereal for 32 oz of formula.. Which means we go through approximately 8 cans of formula a month and 20-21 of the above rice cereal containers. For those that don't know.. Nutrimagen formula is 27.00 a can. Rice cereal is 2.50 a container.
Breastmilk was free.
This sucks
Cheli On Friday, October 10, 2008
Where to begin....
So after I weighed in I balloned up to 178.4. We joined the Y and I have started going at least 5 days a week to walk and 3 days a week I am doing weight training to help get into shape. I weighed in this morning and I am back down to 175.6. Not wonderful but at least now I'm moving in the right direction, right? *sigh* trying not to get discouraged. I went last Tuesday and took my pharmacology test. You had to get a 57 on it to pass and it was graded on a pass or fail type thing. I got a 63 so I passed. And that means I will get credit for the pharmacology class I took while I was in school for my PN license. So now all that is left is to iron out the details with financial aide. Which hopefully will be next week.
Doug went last Saturday for his deep tissue class. So now he is certified in deep tissue which will hopefully mean they can start booking him for deep tissue. He also heard back about the scheduling.. he will work Tuesday through Friday 5pm-10pm, Saturday 1pm to 6pm and have Sunday and Monday off. So we won't need to worry about daycare for the boy which is a huge relief (and money saver). Hopefully he'll find out today when the new schedule will go into effect.
We took both boys to the doctor this week because they are sick. River has an ear infection for the first time since he was 11 months old and had tubes put in his ears. According to the doctor, the tubes don't look to be in place anymore.. lovely. He is 34 lbs and 41 inches tall. He's HUGE. He still isn't listening at all. Which is really beginning to grate on my nerves. Time outs don't seem to phase him anymore and I really don't want to use spanking as a form of discipline so I'm really at a loss of what to do with him. Everyone keeps saying this is a phase but I really don't know how to get him to get past this... alive.
Journey went to the pediatrician on Monday where she said he has another upper respiratory infection. He's a miserable little boy. He is 19 lbs even now. WOOT. Tuesday he had to be at the children's hospital for his Barium Swallow to figure out what's going on inside him with the acid reflux and what not. We found out 2 things.. 1) he has severe acid reflux.. every time he eats it immediate starts to come back up but is forced back down when he takes another swallow. 2) whenever he eats he is aspirating some of the food into his lungs. She said that he HAS to have rice cereal or some other thickener added to his food which means we are done breast feeding.. :( He has to have 1 1/2 teaspoons of rice cereal added to every ounce of formula. All liquids from now until otherwise noted need to be a honey consistancy. He has also been refered to a speech pathologist for therapy to learn how to swallow and to learn how to take solids. The pediatrician said that if he isn't sitting up and crawling by 9 months she wants to refer him to a physical therapist or occupational therapist for evaluation as well. *sigh*
In other news.. he won't sleep in his bed. Or I should say he won't fall asleep in his bed. He'll fall good and asleep when he's being held or when he's on our bed but not when we put him in his crib. And if we lay him down in his crib too soon after him falling asleep he wakes up. At 8 months old he's only getting about 8 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. He refuses to nap during the day and doesn't sleep well at night. He's such an over tired little boy.
This week we got caught up on the Dell account. Which means we are officially caught up on all bills for the moment.. YAY! Hopefully that lasts.