Spontaneous Sign

Addy uses several signs and she will do "more, all done, dog, bath and star" pretty much on her own when it's pretty much a routine thing we are doing. However, today she and I headed to Target before her doctors appointment and I was looking at things to buy for a friend's new baby. We were in the bath aisle and I saw these little turtles that I thought were cute. I showed them to Addy and she smiled and touched them and held onto them for a minute. I picked them back up and put them back on the shelf. When I turned around to her she was signing "PLEASE"!!! It was too cute and so spontaneous and appropriate!! (yes the above pic was prompted!) So yes, Addy has new bath turtles to play with! I'm so thrilled!

We also got good news at the doctor. We saw Addy's surgeon's physician assistant today. Her surgeon just announced his retirement!! He is gone and we are heartbroken! He has performed all of Addy's surgeries (except T/A) since we brought her home! He was the only doctor that embraced us when we brought this medically fragile child, that we were adopting, to him. He really made us feel like that no matter what we were doing the right thing and Addy was a lucky little girl. He never made us feel like what we were doing was a mistake. We did have others that treated us that way! Anyway, we are sad he is gone but happy that he gets to be home with his wife to raise his twins that were just born within the last several months. What a blessing to them! Anyway, the good news is is that Addy's little bottom is doing really well and we can drop the dilations down to three times a week! We go back in five weeks and if things are still good we can quit! Woo hoo! Addy had developed quite a bit of scar tissue and at one point we were told that the doc may have to go back in and remove it surgically! So glad that's not the case! The PA also told me that she just went to a conference in Chicago for anal malformations (sounds like fun huh?) and got some awesome information on potty training these kiddos! She said when it looks like we will start training Addy that we will be able to work with her so she can do some things medically to help Addy out! Nothing invasive from what I gathered but I'm glad there is some information out there. Kiddos with anal issues usually are much harder to bowel train since they were not formed correctly. We are really hoping that Addy won't always be in a diaper due to bowel issues so I'm glad there's hope!

Busy Weekend/Lots of Pix!

I am so exhausted! Looks at what we passed on our way up: piglet snouts!

Scott and the boys and I took off to St. Louis Friday to go watch the St. Louis Cardinals play the Minnesota Twins and just happen to hear Cooper sing The National Anthem with the Junior Jay Singers! They did an awesome job considering they haven't practiced together in over a month! You'd never know it they did awesome! I planned on putting the video on the blog today but no time to upload video yet but I will soon! It was a lot of fun but oh my goodness it was sweltering hot!!! It was about 95 during the game and the heat index was well over 100! Unfortunately our Cards lost Friday but they won yesterday and they play later today. It was nice just going with the boys for a couple of days, they don't get that very often! It was their first Major League game so they were really excited about it. Avery loves Yadier Molina so we got lost of pix and videos of him and Cooper's (and my) favorite is Albert Pujols so we got tons of him as well. Did you know he has an adopted daughter with DS??? Isabella Pujols, she is the daughter of his wife and he adopted her! He does a Buddy Walk every year too. We may go to one up there when Addy is a little older, I told the boys maybe in 2010.
Yesterday morning we attempted to sleep in but none of us slept very well! We ate breakfast then headed to the pool for a couple of hours, it was heaven! No trip is complete unless you jump on the hotel's beds!

After lunch we went to the St. Louis Science Center. It was so much fun! We went into the Dinosaur Named Sue exhibit and enjoyed it quite a bit. The boys got to search for bones, got to experience how little movement a T-Rex had of its arms, and got to see how dinosaurs "see"! It was a good time. We didn't even make it all around the center before we needed to head home but it was well worth our time! Did I mention that it's FREE? Some exhibits aren't (like SUE), so for the whole 28 dollars we spent it was totally worth it!

Aren't these rocks cool? I loved this exhibit!

This is how hot it was when we left St. Louis!

I think Avery got a little worn out!

I missed my girls and was glad that Addy isn't too mad at us for leaving her! My awesome friend Loriell came and stayed at home with her. Addy adores her and they had a blast!

OT

Addy does so well during OT, she just amazes me. Today Delene got her to stand against the chair all by herself. She will stand if she can lean her upper body onto something all of the time but I've never been able to get her to do this!
I know it looks like she's crying but she's really just screaming/laughing at the same time! :)

She also had fun painting while laying on her belly. We had to pull out Ava's hip helpers to keep her from swooshing her legs around but she cooperated a really long time!
Before nap she played with one of the kitties for awhile. This one is PurrPants according to Jarika!
Naturally we had to find some random wildlife in the back of the house again :)

An Addy First

Yesterday morning as I was getting Addy ready for the day I was putting her hair up and noticed that she had a lot of wax coming out of her right ear. Ew! So we got it cleaned up and she didn't complain a bit. Here is how she acted yesterday:

This morning I am sitting on my bed putting on my make up and Addy starts to stir. I look over and see this:

Once I get her up and start our morning get Addy ready routine I notice that her right ear has oozed a LOT of gunk and it's down her ear, cheek and all in her hair. It was gross! She acted completely fine. After I got to work I called Suzy, her nurse that was with her today, and asked her to take a look to see what she thought. Addy has had tubes in her ears since November of 2007 so I figured that it was just pushing it's way out. She took a peek and put a call in to her head nurse and they both agreed that she most likely needed to have it checked since it had looked so bad this morning. It only oozed a little bit today and she never complained, just winced a little when Suzy took a look at it but nothing major. So today was a nutty day, work, summer school, piano lessons, baseball game, etc. So I waited to take her into Urgent Care. We got right in and sure enough this poor child has a bulging ear infection! Not a little bit infected, way infected! I know she has a high pain tolerance but wow! Poor thing, when Cooper's ears bulged when he was little it was horrible! Everyone thought he was being beaten by the doctors I'm sure! So this is my little trooper tonight, playing with her puppies, happy as can be with her bulging infected ear! Hopefully it will be better in a couple of days, she's on an "oral" (g-tube) antibiotic and an otic drop antibiotic so hopefully it won't burst. BTW her left ear tube is in but is on the edge of coming out and the right one was so infected and oozing so much puss that the doc wasn't quite sure of the placement but he did see the tube.

Buddy Walk 2009

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my awesome father who I miss sooo much! I so wish he was here to see his grandchildren grow everyday. He never got to meet Addy, man he would have loved her soo much!
Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband who is such an awesome dad. He is totally wrapped around Addy's little finger it's not even funny! He is doing more and more with the boys all of the time and I know they really love that! Thank you for blessing me with these four wonderful children they are our true blessings!
And last but not least, Happy Father's Day to my older brother who is the goofiest man I know. He is such an amazing dad. He is so obnoxious and his youngest son is taking after him, I'm sure paybacks will be you know what!!!

Relay for Life

Bunco Babes Relay for Life 2009

Last night was our annual Relay for Life here in Marshfield. My awesome group of friends, the Bunco Babes and I have been doing a relay team for the past four years together. Not all of us were there during the pix, there's usually a lot more of us! We always have so much fun and we have raised over $5,000 for the past three years! The theme of relay this year was 80s so we decorated with blow up guitars and had punk hair and had the coolest shirts! This is what it said on the back.
The boys love going to relay because all of the fun things to do. They beat the tar out of each other on the joust which is great fun when you can hit your brother and not get in trouble!

Then they spent some time in the bounce house when this happened.... I guess having two inflatables was a little much on our electrical system! Don't worry the boys came out unscathed!


These are the people that I made sure to walk a lap for:

My Dad who left this world on 10/25/06 after fighting colon cancer and multiple myeloma for four years and my mom who was diagnosed with breast cancer 10/23/07. She is currently cancer free!
I walked a lap for sweet Kennedy who I love to watch grow and develop everyday through the wonderful world of blogging and Facebook!
For precious little Zoey who I have grown to love and pray for daily. Thank you internet!
I also walked a lap for Addy's awesome nurse Rosemary. She is definitely an angel on earth. For some silly reason I do not have a pic of this wonderful person who has blessed our lives. There will be one soon! She won't be back to see Addy until August but I will snatch pix of her then! I walked several laps for many more people but these were the special ones that made me shed a tear as I thought of them and prayed for them during the night.


This is Addy's latest accomplishment! She is now standing without her AFOs at her table! She does wear her AFOs several hours during the day and it's made a huge difference and look how strong she's getting! I've been worried about her lately, she is not maintaining or gaining weight. She is down to 18 lbs 14 oz. She was up to 19lbs 12 oz. in March after her hospialization. Her OT, Delene was here to see her the other day and I needed to change her outfit because her mickey button had leaked. I brought her in to Delene in just her diaper and she's was like "What is going on with her? I should not be able to see all of these bones!" She is going to a new pediatrician on July 1st so I am hoping he may have a better insight on what we can do to chunk her up a little. It's not like I don't have complete control of what goes in!!

This is my "I WANT DOWN NOW!" face, cute huh? She hasn't figured out how to get down on her own yet, but she will!