camping

my parents went camping last weekend pretty close to home

so we decided to go visit just for the day on saturday.

 we did a lot of this:

sitting.

that's what camping is about, right?

until my dad made us all play volleyball.

he can never let us just be.

parker was loving some extra time with nu-nu.

walking with his push toy like a pro!

 park had an absolute blast with all the attention from the campers.

he didn't do a whole lot of sitting like the rest of us.

special occasions such as camping with the grandparents

call for special treats.

like this yummy drum stick parker claimed to be his own.

 

and hayes came too!

 i was a bad parent and didn't put any sunscreen on p.

it was just so cool outside it never dawned on me.

he had a bit of a rosy nose that evening.

my bad!

but honestly i think it's adorable and makes me anxious for summer

and more fun times outside!

carpe diem

SEP

 

par-tay!

april bdays plus nan's in march.
get all that? don't ask.
i unfortunately have zero pictures from the amazing
photo scavenger hunt we did.
but we did: drive thru a fast food restaurant backwards
sat in a boat
found a 4 leaf clover
got on the roof of a house
rolled down a hill in a trashcan
found road kill.
you get the idea. yes, you can wish you were in my family.

requested meal of the day was bbq by the burns boys.

all the bday folk blowing out their candles

 yes i chopped off 8 inches of hair the day before!
mid life crisis?

 

reid couldn't wait to watch his new rescue heros movie.

 present opening...

and then more shananagins!
everyone wanted to take a turn on p's new roller coaster.
do you blame them?

sweet p had to show them how it's done!
glad we didn't get a picture of me face diving on my turn.

we actually have no may birthdays.
if you'd like to become a member of the fam and have a may birthday
we are accepting applications.
although we do have mother's day to celebrate
so it's not like we get a month off.
next up, june bdays....nana and mollie!

which reminds me the count down is on:
8 more weeks till vacation in FLORIDA!!!!!

carpe diem

SEP

neuro apt

 i gave parker's doc a day to send the referral info to the neurologist

and called on wednesday to see if i could make the apt.

and she had an opening  THAT friday, as in 2 days later.

it was nice they got us in so quick, but it was an 11am apt.

not the most opportune time (lunch time, nap time) but i agreed.

i was so excited i wasn't going to have to stress for another week.

i had to go online to their website and print off an 8 pg packet of papers to fill out.

luckily d got off work and go with me to help wrangle him

or listen so i didn't miss anything.

sooo overall i left feeling like it was a good apt.

i really liked the doctor. he was very knowledgeable yet had good bedside manner too.

he was also really good with parker who still isn't a huge fan of strangers.

there weren't any nurses in that office, which i found kinda odd.

the doctors themselves come get the patients from the waiting room.

we were brought into an exam room that was more like a playroom

with a bunch of toys sprawled out over the floor

and the exam table pushed up against the wall totally out of the way.

he watched parker play and asked us a ba-zillion questions.

"did i have brother, did my mom have brothers, did my moms sisters have boys"

trying to find if there were any development delays in any male relative.

none that we know of.

he did a couple tests with parker on my lap.

poked and prodded him a little.

and then asked us more questions.

"when did he hit other milestones, was he a good eater, a good sleeper...."

i mentioned the cpk test (blood work he had at 15mon)

and he said a level of 280 is in his normal range and doesn't raise any suspicion.

so after all that he sat up on the exam table and talked to us

for about 30-45 min while parker sat on my lap and chugged some juice.

he was very thorough and answered lots of our questions.

basically he said "i'm sorry, but i don't know."

patient's like parker are the ones that frustrate he and his colleagues

as well as their parents.

there was nothing about parker that raised a red flag for any kind of disorder.

nothing that said, "oh he might have this.

or because he does this he might have that"

so that leaves us to question, is this just the way parker was meant to develop? at his own pace?

or is there some underlying issue. 

he has had patients who had delays and didn't walk until 20-24 months

and was never able to find any explanation for it.

so basically he said the ball was in our court as to how to proceed.

if we wanted to dig deeper and try to figure out if there is an issue

his first plan of action would be to do some bloodwork.

he could check his chromosomes and see if there was a genetic link

or any type of mutation on his chromosomes.

 he talked to us about if or when we planned on having more kids

because IF there was something wrong with parker and IF it was genetic

we would have a 25% chance of having another child with the same thing.

now, he said that it was totally none of his business but wanted to make us aware of the fact.

if we so chose, we could have 10 more kids despite that,

it was ultimately up to us.

so then IF all those blood tests come back normal/negative

the next step would be a sedated MRI of his brain.

danny says no way, no how.

i've gone back and forth about it. i know what all sedation requires

and all the risks involved. and i don't think it would be worth it to me, at this point.

we will cross that bridge when we get there.

but there's probably only a 1% chance we will do that.

so d and i quickly discussed while sitting in the exam room,

decided we would go ahead and do the blood work.

it's no more traumatizing than getting a shot (as awful as those are)

he survived ok last time and didn't hold any resentment towards us.

we just feel that IF there's something wrong, we want to know

to give him the best possible help/treatment he might need.

the neurologist was nice enough to call pj's pediatrician personally

and add on what blood work he wanted for his low weight gain

and add it on so pj didn't have to get poked more than once.

it was finally time to leave. i had a good feeling as we left.

relieved he couldn't diagnose parker with anything, 

but frustrated at the same time that he couldn't.

but then there was a huge annoying screw up with his blood work though.

 we went straight down the lab from the office

(i was unaware they built a pediatric lab since i worked there)

after waiting like 20 min with a tired, hungry, crabby toddler

they decided to walk us down to the ped lab.

and after waiting in a room there, they came and told us that whatever

the doctor ordered could only be drawn on Mon-Thur!

seriously!?

i was beyond annoyed. so i'm taking off work tomorrow

to take him back down to the hospital/doc building

to get it drawn because it can't be drawn anywhere else.

plus we have to wait up to 3 weeks for the results.

as you might know, i'm not the most patient person around :)

so there's my update.

i'm sure there will be bits and pieces i forgot to write that i'll add here and there.

i promise tomorrow i'll actually do a post with some pictures :)

carpe diem

SEP

18 months

a year and a half.

547 days.

i can't believe it's been that long since parker's been with us.

and i can't believe it's ONLY been that long since he's been with us.

he's growing (slowly) and learning new things every day

and teaching us many lessons along the way.

18 month STATS: 19lbs 13oz

which means he only gained 5 ounces in 3 months.

30.5 inches long.

which means he grew 1.5 inches in 3 months.

(on a side note. pj's getting his 3rd antibiotic. 

amoxicillin again. we found out he had an ear infection at this visit)

his doctor wasn't crazy about his weight gain to say the least.

we've discussed again what a horrible eater he is and he's going

to let me borrow a book he just read on picky eaters.

he usually suggests to other patients to cut back on the kid's milk intake

to get them to eat more food and don't fill up on milk

but he doesn't think pj is getting too much milk and actually suggested we give him more.

so we're cutting down to only one 4-6oz cup of juice/water a day

and everything else milk.

which he wants to be around 20oz a day and nothing for atleast an hr before meals.

he decided he was more concerned with the fact that he wasn't walking

than the lack of weight gain.

he possibly wants to get some blood draw for this but wouldn't even go into details

as to what he was looking for saying it could be a huge spectrum of things.

and he knows how i like to investigate and stress :)

as far as park's walking goes....

he is still not even attempting to take any steps

and can not even stand for longer than 1-2 seconds without holding onto something.

we both agreed is was time to do some looking into.

he noted how i've mentioned before that we think parker seems weak

but when i told him he has no balance and can't stand without holding on

it raised a red flag to him.

but he wouldn't elaborate as to what that means.

so he's referring us to a neurologist

that i'm supposed to call tomorrow and will hopefully schedule an apt soon.

he told us this doc could do absolutely nothing,

look at parker and tell us he's fine.

or go as far as to order bloodwork, physical therapy, a sedated MRI and so forth.

IF they order bloodwork, i have to let him know so he can add on

the bloodwork he wanted for his low weight gain

and kill two birds with one stone while my little man has the needle in his arm.

i threw out the word cerebral palsy and asked if that was a possibility.

he just sits and smiles at me.

i really do love his doc, and he knows me too well and is so laid back.

he wouldn't give me a straight yes or no answer.

but said that IF that was the case, it could give us a label which could possibly 

assist getting parker some therapy.

but there was no rush to diagnose that, because it's a condition from birth

and isn't something that could get progressively worse.

but i just had to say it and get it out there

and off my chest and see what he thought.

and as for the cute and adorable things the little man IS doing!

he's become seriously obsessed with our cell phones.

i know i mentioned this but

he wants to sit on my lap and swipe thru pics and videos all. day. long.

he smiles and laughs at himself.

he's cutting 6 teeth all at the same time.

within like a 2 wk span he cut all 4 molars which are just now poking thru the skin.

he's also getting his 3rd and 4th bottom teeth,

finally!

these are the first teeth that have really caused him any pain.

with all his other teeth he honestly just woke up and they were there.

but these have been a little more brutal.

nasty diapers (like that require a change of clothes and bath and a gagging daddy)

runny nose, slight cough

 whining, whining, and whining. 

as these new teeth have come in he's starting chewing on his feet and/or shoes.

seriously child?

in the car i can hear his top teeth squeaking on his tennis shoes.

he's also started crawling on his hands and feet.

his knees quickly got skinned up from crawling outside so he decided this was his solution.

he loves loves loves to carry little plastics animals/people around.

my mom has a TON of littlest pet shop (remember from the 90's) that were mine growing up

and now my sons new fav toy!

and he will pick an animal that day and carry it around alllll day.

to lunch, to nap, to bath, to bedtime. it's hilarious.

sometimes it's ernie or bert, or puppy, or skunk....

he kisses them and makes them kiss each other when i'm not looking.

he pretends to feed them his snacks and drinks.

he's also started hitting! yah!

and he already knows it's wrong but it's like a drug and he can't help it.

he'll hit me and just stare at my face to see how i'll react.

gotta love testing the limits.

and has gotten himself in 'time out' a couple times from this.

i'm not sure how he knows to stay and sit wherever i put him, but he does.

he hasn't started saying a whole lot of new words these last few months.

it gets very frustrating for us and for him

when we don't know what he wants even tho he definitely knows what he wants!

we do a lot of asking yes or no questions trying to figure it out.

which i'm not sure is the right thing to do because then we aren't making him talk.

or can you really make a kid talk? 

i swear the kid understands almost everything we say.

and even when i tell him, 'parker say dog'.

he knows he's supposed to repeat and say something but it comes out in another language.

he was saying wee wee wee the other day in the car.

d and i started laughing that he's just speaking in french. lol.

i've read a bunch that kids with delayed motor skills then have delayed speech because

they're working so hard on learning to walk for instance than on learning to talk.

i'll go with it for now.

i'll leave you with some pics of p's new roller coaster!

 a girl from work sold it to me for less than half price bc her daughter had out grown it.

 it's already been worth the money!

he absolutely loves it!

and maybe his mommy does alittle too,

i may or may not have ridden it a couple times myself.

sooo i'm anxious for his next doc visit.

but at the same time i'm really ok with it.

i'll do whatever it takes to help my guy succeed.

he needs legs braces, done.

he needs more PT, done.

he needs to go on an all-inclusive caribbean vacation, done.

i'll only love him more.

happy 1 year and a half bday sweet P!

carpe diem

SEP

random day

i was starting to feel like i was slacking 

in my picture taking.

i used to take pictures of parker every single day i was off work.

i always have my camera charged and sitting on my kitchen counter

ready.

and so that i see it constantly, reminding me to take pictures

of the regular every day stuff around here,

not just for birthdays and the special events.

parker's latest obsession is looking at photo albums.

real ones, or on my phone.

he'd sit on my lap for probably an hour

just swiping through pictures of himself and pointing out other people.

and absolutely loves to watch the videos i take of him.

he'll sit and smile and giggle for ever!

so this only makes me want to take more and more

knowing he will enjoy looking back at what we did together.

even if it's just a little cookie crisp cereal 

on a pirate ship.

which is why every one should have a blog, i tell you!

do it!

all the cool kids are :)

 

carpe diem

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livingroom

yah!

we are finally in the process of putting hardwood

in our livingroom.

good bye nasty carpet!

 it was lots of fun trying to keep a toddler

entertained in the basement

while all the racket was going on upstairs.

luckily my parents were in florida so

parker and i packed up and hung out there for 2 days during the day.

 don't mind the dust and dirt.

this was the day it got laid.

our friend casey came over to help d

put ceramic tile by the front door.

 parker watched a movie

and supervised all the boys hard work.

it's slowly getting finished.

kinda hard when parker goes to bed by 8 every night,

leaving danny only a little bit of time to work in the evenings.

we got blessed with a very light sleeper :)

but only a couple more transition pieces 

of whatever they're called 

and a good cleanin'

i can't wait to have my life back in order!

carpe diem

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backtracking

in my absence of posts,

we celebrated d's brother's birthday.

and all the boys got some more playing

time in outside.

 parker was watching papa on his tractor

in the garden.

 driving a purple golf cart 

in your front yard

does not make you a hossier.

in case you were wondering.

 papa's house has way too much

fun stuff to play on.

they are best buds!

carpe diem

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