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...

What a Trip!

We're back from a long (but great!) trip to Alabama. Here's a quick recap:

On Thursday before Christmas, we loaded up Jason, Kelli, Wyatt, Callie, Sadie, Watson, and the dog in the Excursion and hit the road at 2:00 PM. We drove through the night Thursday and most of the day Friday, stopping only to feed someone, let someone use the bathroom, or fill the tank. Other than that, it was just us and the road. Although rather stinky when we arrived 26 hours after leaving, we were glad to have had safe travels.

We stayed with Moms and Pops in Trussville. Jason's brother and sister-in-law, Stephen and Lauren, got there the next day, so Moms and Pops were glad to have everyone at the house for Christmas. It was great to see Stephen and Lauren; we don't get to do that often since they live in Florida.

On Christmas day, Moms picked up her parents from the retirement home in Cook Springs and brought them to the house. It was fun seeing four generations together in the same place, and Great Grandmother and Great Granddaddy Glaze got a kick out of all the little ones running around. Sadie squealed and got excited about everything, whether the gift was for her or not. Watson just sat quietly and took it all in.

The day after Christmas, we drove to Anniston to see Pops' side of the family - aunts, uncles, cousins, and other extended family. We spent the afternoon there and had a grand old time.

Kelli took a shotgun and harvested some mistletoe. I don't know how others do it, but that's the way it's done in Alabama. Shoot some squirrel shot at the mistletoe and it just comes tumbling to the ground to be gathered. Lots easier than trying to climb the tree.

Funny thing is, Uncle Mike has a donkey (named Jack - guess what his last name is!) that decided the mistletoe Kelli was holding would make a nice snack. Kelli couldn't turn her back on Jack or her prized "kill" would start missing a few leaves here and there.
Uncle Mike's brother stopped by in the Rat Rod he's been working on. As you can see, it's awfully ugly, but that's the point. The saw blades across the front are just clipped on for now. He hasn't welded them in place yet, because he's still experimenting with where exactly they should be.
Jason's cousin Wesley has an S10 pickup that's on the quick side. Wide tires in the back, Chevy 350 under the hood - it'll get you there in a hurry. He took the kids on a ride down the driveway and back (it's a long driveway) and took Jason out for a spin. To call it loud would be an understatement. To call is slow would be a downright lie.

The day after Anniston trip, we loaded up and drove to Northport, outside Tuscaloosa, to see Papa's side of the family. Kelli's uncles and aunts and cousins were there, and it made for quite a crowd. They're all big Alabama football fans, so you can be they'll be tuning in to the national championship game in the next few days. Here's the whole gang on the steps.

As usual, we had a great time visiting with everyone. Papa's brothers are a hoot! We had traditional Christmas fare - hot wings, Chick-fil-A nuggets, ribs, potato salad, baked beans, and fried pickles. Oh yeah - and enough dessert to feed a village. No, make that two villages. We all ate way too much.

Though we would have loved to stay longer, we loaded the Excursion again and drove to Montgomery to see Kelli's sister and her husband. We mainly just hung out, though we did make one journey downtown to see the big Christmas tree at the capitol building. Here we all are (well, most of us) in front of the tree.
We did get pulled over on the highway between Tuscaloosa and Montgomery. It was night time and the driver (Jason) let our land yacht drift a little too far across the center line. The officer approached the Excursion, and with his flashlight shining in the window, he saw booster set, car seat, car seat, car seat, wife, father-in-law, driver. After about the second car seat, he must've determined we were no threat. He just checked Jason's license and insurance, made sure we were okay, and sent us on our way. Later, Papa said he probably pulled us over because he'd never met anyone from North Dakota. Apparently, not many folks from the upper-midwest drive through Podunk, Alabama (not the real town name).

After a couple of days in Montgomery, it was back to Trussville. We participated in all the fun stuff at Moms and Pops house - riding the zip line, riding the battery powered jeep, going on hay rides, playing with marshmallow guns, going on four wheeler rides, sitting around bonfires, shooting Wyatt's new BB gun (Christmas present), making s'mores, and mixing kids and fireworks. Sadie was a big fan of the sparklers.
There were lots of other tons-of-fun things we did, too, but space and time are both short. Suffice it to say, it was a GREAT trip to Alabama.

On New Year's Day, we loaded up (again) in the Excursion and headed back to Fargo. We made better time on the way back - only twenty-FIVE hours instead of twenty-SIX. We couldn't have asked for the kids to be any better, though. They're some real troopers (and road warriors). The final total was 3287 miles. We'll probably not drive anywhere else for a while... :)

Early Christmas

Mom: "Callie, would it be fun to have Christmas early and open up presents tomorrow?"

Callie: "Um, I don't want to."

Well, there you have it. A child who is not excited about opening gifts.

Family Update

Well, now that we're all settling into a better routine with a new member of the family, hopefully some time will be available to keep up with the blog on a more regular basis. Of course, you shouldn't hold your breath...

Here's a quick overview of everyone in our household:

Since the weather's been so nice (no permanent snow yet), Jason's had lots of time to get the house ready for winter. All the leaves are out of the yard, the lawnmower and the snowblower have changed positions in the garage, and the downstairs windows have a little extra insulation around them. Today, he even got the garage cleaned up so that when it does become time to crank the snowblower, he's got plenty of room to maneuver it out into the driveway. Hopefully, it's a few more weeks (months?) until we get to that point, but at least things are already set to go. Jason also watched some football this weekend - real football (SEC) - so he enjoyed that.

Kelli has spent lots of time putting up Christmas decorations. Because we're cheap, our budget for new decorations is zero. However, that doesn't mean we don't have some snazzy new stuff this year. Back during Fargo's cleanup week (last May), we found a lot of garland, lights, and wreaths that someone had put on the curb as trash. After sorting through it, Kelli discovered it was actually in good shape. Really good shape. (Still haven't figured out why it was being tossed, other than the owner just got tired of it.) The result is that now we've got "new" garland around our door (with lights!), a couple of new wreaths (with bows and balls) on the door and fence, and a small lighted tree (tasteful - not tacky) on the front porch. Cheap? Yes. But seriously - it really looks nice.

Wyatt enjoyed his time off school for Thanksgiving. With the nice weather, he and Jason spent quite a bit of time playing football in the yard. Well, it probably wasn't actually football that was being played - at least not in the sense that anyone else would understand the rules - but it was played with a football, so maybe that counts. Wyatt's at the age where it's fun to make up new rules or change the rules as the game progresses to increase his odds of winning. If you're a Calvin and Hobbes fan, you could think of it as Calvin Ball. Regardless, it was good exercise for father and son, and a good bonding experience. And the nice weather made it all the more enjoyable.

Callie asks each day (several times) if it's Christmas. Nope, it isn't Christmas. We've still got a month or so. How about now? Is it Christmas now? Nope. Hasn't changed from ten minutes ago. Is tomorrow Christmas? Nope. It's in a month. Is Christmas next week? No. A month. When is Christmas? December. Is it December? No. Not yet. When will it be December? In a few days. Then will it be Christmas? Not until the end of December. Will it be Christmas tonight? You get the picture...

Sadie has greatly improved her climbing skills, though her parents do not necessarily approve. Just the other day, when Jason was alone with all four children while Kelli ran some errands, he walked into the kitchen to find Sadie sitting cross legged in the middle of the kitchen table (stark naked, no less), helping herself to a beverage left from supper. Just because food appears to be out of her reach on the counter doesn't mean that it's actually in a space she cannot get to. She's quite resourceful, and if food's involved, can climb to great lengths to get it. We discovered she's able to access the apple bowl. We also discovered she prefers to take only a bite or two from one apple before moving on to the next.

Watson has begun to smile. They're still pretty few and far between, but at least we're beginning to see some. He really is adjusting well, and he's usually very content. He gets a little testy if he asks for food and doesn't get it in approximately half a second, but other than that, he's pretty mild mannered. It's fun to watch him be a bit more interactive now as he gets older. He's still tiny, of course, but that makes for some great snuggle time. We sure do love that little guy!

So that's the world of the Medders family.