A Hug

I gave Callie a hug today, and this was her response.

"You're squeezing me like a blood pressure cuff."

I laughed.

"What? You really are."

Think she has been to the doctor enough in her four years of life?

It finally happened

The little miss started preschool today.

A little less than a month ago, Callie had her (belated) four year checkup. Jason and I had started discussing the possibility of preschool in the fall but we wanted to get the doctor's thoughts. Her first thought was "Why wait until fall?" She really encouraged us to go ahead and start Callie in school now. So, we took her advise, discussed it quite a bit and today Callie had her first day.

She is going two days a week for a few hours and she absolutely loves it. The preschool she attends is across town, so we went big and Callie rides the bus there. I think that might be her most favorite part. She was outside flagging and waving the bus down this morning. We have come a long way from the days when she would vomit any time we would put her in her carseat.

The preschool teacher that has been coming to our home met Callie at the front door of the school and took some pictures for us. Callie made friends (though a kid named Wyatt is the only one she can remember), she played in the gym, ate a cookie, or "part of a cookie," and read some books. Sounds like fun to me.

I was emotional this morning but so very thankful for a healthy girl who can now go to preschool. Part of our decision to send her to school is realizing that we have about maxed out on the "school environment" we can give her at home. She can learn her numbers, alphabet and colors here at home, but she really needs the social environment. I can now see how her life is different from spending the first 2 and a half years secluded from the world around her. She now needs to spread her little wings and learn to interact with others and listen to a teacher. It was so fun to see how excited she is about her new experience and I am thankful it is one she was ready for.

When we first started talking with her about preschool, she had three requests. 1. She wanted to take Wyatt's thermos to school. (She doesn't actually do this since she is there for such a short period of time). 2. We sew a backpack. (Boy, did we sew! Callie and I think it is the best backpack in the entire world. We looked at all the pink fabric in the store before Callie finally decided what she wanted. And once she made her choice, there was no going back. She picked out the material and told me what was to be the inside and what was to be the outside. I gave her other little creative options/ideas during the sewing but she did not like any of them. She wanted it simple and her way. The result is a cute, lightweight backpack that can carry her treasures to and from school). 3. I help her with her homework. (She still doesn't understand that she won't be having homework. One of her first statements today was "Mom, I think I am going to need some help with my homework tonight."

So that is our latest big news. And followup from last week. The steroid helped Sadie tremendously. She still has a cold but is not having trouble breathing. Callie is quite healthy, for now. Watson got sicker over the weekend but seems to be doing better now. And Wyatt now has a wonderful bright orange cast.

Callie excited for her first day of preschool.

Showing off the fancy backpack that her mother made for her (out of material chosen by Callie).

Wyatt sporting his new orange cast.

Oh, What a Day

Sadie has croup.

I knew this yesterday when I kept her home from church. It was confirmed today when I took her to the doctor for a dose of oral steroids.

While caring for Sadie, the doctor heard Callie cough. She wasn't impressed. Though Callie does not have croup yet, given her history of crummy lungs, she is now on three days of steroids.

Watson has a cold. He wasn't sick enough to warrant any drugs but we are keeping our eye on him.

While at school today, Wyatt fell. He broke his arm.

It is 11:00 PM. I just showered for the day. Impressive.

We're doing fine...just busy.

Keeping up with the blog seems to be getting more difficult to do. I dunno, maybe it's because we have four kids, all age six and under. By the time everyone gets bathed, dressed, fed, and off to work, school, therapy, errands, activities, etc., it seems like it's time to go to bed and do it all again tomorrow. Life's busy, but we're having fun.

Here's an update on the kiddos, in age order (oldest to youngest), based on what everyone did today.

Wyatt went with Jason to Monster Jam. It had been a few years since Wyatt went to see the monster trucks, so he was glad to go again. Jason and Wyatt rode their bikes to the Fargodome (on February 4 - what an awesome winter we're having!) and enjoyed the show. Wyatt particularly liked Megatron (or whatever the cheesy, car-eating, flame-throwing, robot-dinosaur-monster thing is called these days).

Callie enjoyed the fact that Kelli has been in a sewing mood recently. Kelli's made lots of stuff over the past few days, because she obviously has plenty of time to sit in front of a sewing machine. She made Callie a backpack that she can use when she eventually starts preschool. She also made Callie the skirt that she's proudly trying on in the photo below. Callie's coming down with a cold, so she also spent a lot of her day just resting and wiping snot from under her nose.
Sadie enjoyed her day just playing and eating. That girl will eat anything that's placed in front of her, at any time. She's the polar opposite of her tube-fed older sister. Below is a picture of what her hair looks like each morning. She twirls her hair each evening when she's going to sleep, or if she wakes up during the night. Some days are worse than others, but we typically have to struggle each morning with a couple of small dreadlocks that may or may not require scissors to remove.
Watson is still as cute as ever. He smiles a lot, and he enjoys "talking." Lots of cooing and giggling make him a ton of fun to be around. It's hard to believe he's been with us for almost four months now. Watson's growing - he's at the tenth percentile for height and the thirty-third for weight. He's such a blessing!
I mentioned earlier that we've had an awesome winter, with regard to weather. The past couple of days, we've had "hoar frost." You'll have to look it up online to get an official definition. I just know it looks awesome and turns everything into a winter wonderland. Snow on trees looks cool, but hoar frost covers all the branch surfaces - not just the top - so everything gets a frosted look to it. Here's a shot looking north on our street.

Anyway, we're all just peachy. We're looking into some options for Callie to have some more aggressive feeding therapy, so we'll probably offer an update when we know more about that. At some point in her life, she'll need to put the feeding pump away, so hopefully attending an intensive feeding therapy program somewhere will aid in that process. More on that in the coming weeks...