Ramblings...........

This week has been one of frustration and stress for us over at the Smith household.  We met with new doctors that have conflicting views from other doctors, decisions need to be made that seem impossible, and trying to juggle time to fit in tball, soccer, therapy, work, etc.  I have never asked "Why?" when we found out we had a child with special needs.  I kne wfrom the beginning it was something we were chosen for.  However, I have often wished to take it away from her and gladly suffer through it myself.  One day, after all my stressing and gut feelings that something wasn't right, Bear told me how he knew that God gave us her because I would know something wasn't right and based on my personality, I would be so persistant and talk to any doctor that would listen until we figured it out.  Well sometimes I get tired of being so persistant and worrying, and yesterday I felt like I was at my breaking point.  But it is amazing who and what God can put in your life to put things in perspective.  After meeting with Dr Flowers today, I feel tons better with waiting to make decisions that yesterday seemed nearly impossible to make and knowing that he will be there to talk about any decisions other doctors make in Cohen's care and be willing to step in when needed.  And then God jumped out and slapped me today as I read through 5 CaringBridge pages that I follow.  All of these pages that I follow are about children who vary in age and diagnosis told from a parent's perspective.  These children have SOOO much going on that make my situation look like a sunny afternoon.  I feel for these parent's and what they are going through.  One of the mom's posted today an article given to her.  I instantly connected to this story and wanted to share. 

God Chooses Mom for Disabled Child Written by Erma Bombeck Published in the Today Newspaper Sept. 4th, 1993 Most women become mothers by accident, some by choice, a few by social pressures, and a couple by habit. This year, nearly 100,000 women will become mothers of handicapped children. Did you ever wonder how mothers of handicapped children are chosen? Somehow I visualize God hovering over Earth selecting his instruments forpropagation with great care and deliberation. As he observes, he instructs his angels to make notes in a giant ledger. "Armstrong, Beth; son; patron saint, Matthew. "Forrest, Marjorie; daughter; patron saint, Cecelia. "Rudledge, Carrie; twins; patron saint.... give her Gerard. He's used to profanity. " Finally, he passes a name to an angel and smiles, "Give her a handicapped child." The angel is curious. "Why this one, God? She's so happy." "Exactly," smiles God. "Could I give a handicapped child a mother who does not know laughter? That would be cruel." "But has she patience?" asks the angel. "I don't want her to have too much patience or she will drown in a sea of self-pity and despair. Once the shock and resentment wears off, she'll handle it." "I watched her today. She has that feeling of self and independence. She'll have to teach the child to live in her world and that's not going to be easy." "But, Lord, I don't think she even believes in you." God smiles. "No matter. I can fix that. This one is perfect. She has just enough selfishness." The angel gasps, "Selfishness? Is that a virtue?" God nods. "If she can't separate herself from the child occasionally, she'll never survive. Yes, there is a woman I will bless with a child less then perfect. She doesn't realize it yet, but she is to be envied. She will never take for granted a spoken word. She will never consider a step ordinary. When her child says "Momma" for the first time, she will be present at a miracle and know it! When she describes a tree or a sunset to her blind child, she will see it as few people ever see my creations." "I will permit her to see clearly the things I see---ignorance, cruelty, prejudice--- and allow her to rise above them. She will never be alone. I will be at her side every minute of every day of her life because she is doing my work as surely as she is here by my side." "And what about her patron saint?" asks the angel, his pen poised in midair. God smiles. "A mirror will suffice."

Love these girls!

This weekend we honored one of my bestest friends, Aimee, on the upcoming arrival of her little boy, Reed Harrison Kelly.  This baby has been prayed for, for so long now and we are just thrilled to know we will meet him in just a few weeks.  Aimee and Shane will be fantastic parents!

It is getting to be that time of year again for these group of girls....our annual beach trip!!  Although it will be a few members short this year,(we will miss you Aimee and Bo!!), it still can't get here soon enough!!  It just amazes me how close we have stayed over the years, and this year has been one of the toughest one's for us.  Individually, we have all had enormous trials that have had us worn down.  But that is the good thing about us, we are a little group and we have been there for each other whenever we need each other.  Can't wait til May!!

Back to my roots..

If any of y'all knew me before, say, oh, 7th grade than you might find this hard to believe.  I used to spend many days and nights out on my uncle's farm riding my horse and feeding all the animals when I was younger.  My family had/has 2 farms that we would take our horses out to and ride for HOURS and fish in between.  We LOVED it.  And then as I got older, I just never had time for it, and then when I was in high school my horse (my uncle's that I called mine!) died and I never went back out there.

This past week for Spring Break, my 2 aunts and cousin, Nicole came and stayed with us.  This is the first time that a lot of my family has been in town since my mamaw passed away in July.  It was a very different trip because we would always spend their visits at my Mamaw's because she had been homebound for the last 5 years and we always wanted her to be included.  My aunts stayed at my Mamaw's house, which was kind of weird going to visit, especially since their was no TV or phone!  So Sunday afternoon, we decided to load the kids up and head to the farm.

Aunt Deborah, Nicole, and the kids riding the golf cart to round up the cows.  My things have changed, we definitely didn't have a golf cart when we were little.

Even Bear got into it!

They had a bag of bread and the horses and cows came running.

We brought Kinson's gator for the kids to ride around the fields in.  They loved all the wide open space!

This was the most recent calf that was born.  Cohen loved all the animals and wanted to pet all of them!

We had so much fun with my family here and both the kids keep asking when they are coming back!  Hope y'all come back soon and we promise not to give anyone strep throat again ;)

Fire truck, Fire truck,

I want to ride on your fire truck!

Those are the lyrics to a song Cohen's school sang to the brave firemen at the Clinton FD.  If you hear this song, you will never stop singing it. Ever. It never leaves your head.

STOP,

DROP

and ROLL!!  (rolling was by far our favorite part)

Putting out the fire!

Attempting the group shot.....

Riding in the firetruck!

Still trying.....

This might be the best one.......

Ringing the bell!

I can hear it!!

The Clinton FD did such a great job with the kids and really taught them a lot!  They got a real emergency call while we were there and that made even more exciting for the kids!

***The fieldtrip was a day before her surgery, sorry for them being out of order.  Cohen has been a trooper after the surgery the last 2 weeks.  She is just getting to where she is not as congested as before and it seems as though her nose has stopped bleeding.  We are having to do an antibiotic nose spray until we go back to the dr in April and she is tolerating them well. 

BIG NEWS in her vocabulary-- The other night she was carrying around her sippy cup.  She usually shakes it and says "wa-wa" for water.  The cup was empty and she looked at me and said "Mo wa-wa", which translates into "more water."  This is a BIG deal!!  She took 2 words and put them together on her own.  I know she knows a few 2 word phrases, i.e. sit down, fire truck.  But she learned those together.  This she did this on her own :)  I am so proud of her.  After getting so much praise, she has attempted a few more phrases this week.  Her favorite "papa ruk", translating into "Papa's truck."  She runs around everywhere saying it.  She is progressing so well and even though it is not at the speed we were anticipating, it is progress and that is all we have prayed for.  Hope you are having a good spring break!!

I can dress myself

The last few weeks at school, Kinson's teacher has been going over hygiene and dressing with them.  Last week, Kinson had to dress himself and take a picture of the finished product to school.  Well, I knew better than to let him do this before school because he would never let me "fix" it if he dressed himself incorrectly.  So we decided to let him pick out his PJ's and dress himself..........

Not too bad!!

See, Momma, I can do it by myself :)

Well it looked good until he turned around!! 

Seriously, he has the best teacher this year.  Now every morning and night he dresses himself because   "Mrs. Danuielle told him to do it by himself!"  We might have to readjust his pants or put on his socks the right way, but for the most part, he does it Independently.  Now if he can learn to do his laundry by himself.............

Were they actually playing..........

TOGETHER?!?!?!

Caught y'all!!

"I better get away before they think we like each other :)"

"Maybe he isn't too mean to me!!"

My babies LOVE me some slumber parties.  Kinson always has the TV on and right now he is going through the Thomas the Train phase (yes, again) so that is what is usually on.  I LOATHE Thomas, I mean I can't stand watching him.  Yes, he teaches Kinson great, innocent story lines but I draw the line when Kinson starts telling me he is "cross" at me!  I usually find a good excuse to skip out on the Thomas features ;)  But Kinson knows as sure fire way to get me to watch TV with him.  He gets all cute and excited saying "Do you want to have a slumber party?  And we can watch..............Beauty and the Beast!!"  He is so dramatic and full of drama when he says this.  I know, he is a boy, he likes Thomas, and McQueen, and Woody, and Buzz.  But come on, I can't watch another minute of Sir Topem Hat being cross at Thomas.  I won't make him watch it when he is like 12 or anything :)

Boring and kind of gross........

This is a post solely for my medical journal, it is kind of boring and gross!!

Friday, Cohen had another surgery as a so called "last resort" to clear up her sinuses.  Dr Carron felt like we had exhausted all other options and the next solution would be to add windows to assist with drainage.  So off to Batson we went.  I had been kind of nervous all day/morning about it, but I thought it was because we had to wait so long to start the surgery.  But my mommy instincts were right.  Prior to performing the actual surgery, Cohwn required a CT scan to kind of serve as a "map" to do the surgery.  The portable CT was unavailable so she had to go to CT in UMC to have it done.  While there, the drs put her to sleep and then did the CT and kept her asleep to transport her back to Batson to surgery.  Bear and I got to go with her through all of this.  Well, after the CT they brought her out and I was kind of worried when they were running with her in her little crib.  One nurse was using one of those bags to perform her breathing for her.  We made it to the elevators and all hell broke loose.  Her monitors start dinging, nurses come from everywhere and just stand there while Cohen is turning purple and not breathing.  The nurse who was with us could not get the bag to inflate!!  Finally after screaming for a dr and what seemed like and eternity, she started breathing again.  It took the next 10 minutes for me to realize that I had completely frozen, words could not come out of my mouth, my feet did not move, nothing.  Finally, I looked at Bear and told him that it was the scariest moment of my whole life! 
The surgery itself went well.  The dr came out and had to change clothes because he said it was so bad in her sinuses and everybody smelled afterwards!!  The only other glitch was that her Left ear tube was being pushed out of her ear drum from the pressure the last few weeks  so they were going to replace it.  When they removed it, it had a "plug" on the end that perforated the ear drum even more and the hole was too large to place a tube.  (Doesn't that sound familiar?!?!  That is the same problem we had in May last year!) So we will wait for it to heal itself and replace it if needed. 
Overall she has recovered well.  There has been LOTS of blood, blood that I was not expecting!!  I had sinus surgery last year and I remember all the times I blew my nose.  Now I realize that a 2 year old can't do that.  Not a great time to have a white couch or white bedspreads!!

Sorry for not posting about her surgery prior to the actual event, I know we have many prayer warriors on our side and I like to keep everyone updated.  Things just have gotten kind of hectic the last few days beforehand. 

Cohen needs your help!!

Magnolia will be hosting a "5K Sprint," on June 4, 2011.  It will be around the Ridewood Rd/JA area and should be lots of fun!!  It is February now, so this is plenty of notice to be ready to run or walk 3.2 miles by June :)  Seriously, it is for a good cause and this is a way for those who don't have tons of money that they can donate to really help out.  Plus, you get something in return, a goodie bag, a shirt, and a good workout.  We already have had several friends and family wanting to do this with us and we can't express enough our gratitude.  So we have decided to have a little team, "Cohen's Crew," out there to encourage others to help out in the cause.  We are still planning all the details so that we can distinguish y'all from the crowd, but if you do sign-up, PLEASE, PLEASE let me know so we can add you to our "crew!" 

http://www.magnoliaspeechschool.org/fundraisers.asp

THANK YOU!!!

What have I been doing?

This little girl has been BUSY!!  She has acquired a few new words:

• nit nown (sit down)
• bootball (football)
• off/on
• ot (hot)
• and (hand)
• ock (sock)

We started using the association method right after the Christmas Holidays.  It is going very well!  She has 3 sounds now (o,m,b).  She still loves her homework and all of her therapy. 

She has finally entered into the "Terrible Twos."  We can't complain, Kinson hit them at 12 months and it was 18months of terror after that.  So we are blessed that she has been so good for almost 2 and 1/2 years!  And even her little fits are easily redirectable.  Most involve leaving school (she loves that place!!), food, or a typical fight with Kinson.  Speaking of that, I am pretty certain that my kids will never like each other :(  When we returned from Disney and went and picked Cohen up from my mom's, we were expecting to see her running up to us all excited.  Well she took one look at Kinson and ran away from us!!  I think she enjoyed 5 days of non-stop, undivided attention.

She loves anything and everything involved with being outside. She is still very shy and will bury her head if she doesn't want to see you.  She interacts very well with other children now and gives hugs to the kids in afterschool with her.  She loves her Papa more than anybody in the world (something about girls and their daddys.)  She is till very Independent and can play with her toys for a long time unless Kinson disturbs her.  She really doesn't care for t.v. at all, not sure if it has to do with what she can hear or not.  She LOVES to "shake her booty."  Her B.B. couldn't be more proud :)

Maybe they do like each other sometimes!

Now for the boring stuff.  We did get into to see a new Ped Endo at UMC.  She was recruited about 6 months ago and has come very highly recommended.  She doesn't meet her until March 24, but she has reviewed her case and has assisted our ped with medicine adjustments until then.  We are seeing our favorite ENT on Wednesday to establish the need for sinus surgery.  We have put it off for awhile now and we are not sure we can wait much longer.  She had a terrible crud for about 4 weeks and now her nose is bleeding on a pretty regular basis.  This past week she has been getting pretty irritated with her hearing aids and the Audiologist says there might be pressure building behind her tubes.  She has always loved wearing her ears so we hate that she doesn't want them in.  She has become very Independent with her "ears."  She takes them off before bedtime/naptime and places them on her table and looks for them when it is time to get up.  She will let us know if the batteries are dead by thumping on her ears!!  We have no idea if she has grown by a measurement but some of her 12month pants are getting short on her!! Something is happening!!

 I have a few questions for moms of girls out there:

When do you get their haircut?  Cohen's hair goes to her rear end when wet and it is easier for us when it is longer as far as ponytails and such.  I don't want her to have bangs and her hair is naturally wavy so it really doesn't have a shape.  Can she go years without getting it cut?

Anybody else out there have a little (I mean size, not age) girl that they were potty training.  Cohen is showing every sign and has been for awhile now.  I have been scowering stores for panties small enough for her.  The smallest I have seen is 2T in panties and pullups, so we are not sure what to do.  I have some bloomers from outfits that are the appropriate size but they seem kind of thick to go under pants.  Any suggestions?

Along with that, anybody ever potty trained a limited verbal child?  I don't want her to point to a picture to indicate it (she will get lazy and NEVER say the word!!) but I need to figure out a way for her to communicate she needs to go.  Right now she grabs her crotch and walks kind of weird and well, it's just not very lady like.  And when she attempts to say "potty" it comes out ba-ba.  Well 50% of what she says is "ba-ba" and the other 50% is "ma-ma."  I can't really rely on that.............

Disney World Recap

We really had a great time in Disney World.  I came in when all kinds of expectations, some weren't met and some were exceeded by leaps and bounds.  Like I said before, we know what we do next time in some areas and we learned what things we would skip over or wouldn't be disappointed if we missed in a time crunch.  However, we are not sure when we will get to go back considering some of the bigger rides you have to be 40" tall, and well lets face it, Cohen might be 6 years old by then :)  We have talked about making a big family trip there again with my brother and his family and grandparents to have more helping hands!!
I was always very apprehensive about going because I would hear and see my friends planning this trip for monthd.  I will always be grateful that we had a wonderful travel agent who did EVERYTHING for us!!  She made reservations, gave us tips, and answered every text we sent her while we were down there.  If anybody wants her info let me know, she only does Disney and really made it so easy for us!!

If you are wondering why there is no pictures of Day 4 Afternoon............that leads me to tip #4
*** Be prepared for RAIN!!!***
It rained for about 30 minutes that afternoon and we were very prepared due to being given great advice by friends.  Don't forget the stroller too!!  The strollers sit in a big "parking lot" ouside each ride, so you might be dry undeer or in a ride but when you get out your children might have a wet bootie :)  Luckily, I had remembered our rain cover, ours was the only one in the parking lot dry!!

Disney World Day 4 (Morning)

Day 4:  Kinson's Birthday!!

We went to 1900 Park Restaraunt at the Floridian Resort for breakfast.  This was a last minute reservation for us because we had a dinner reservation that night but the more we thought about it, we knew he would like this better.  Our travel agent suggested this one and this was by far our favorite place for food and characters.  There were a few characters he didn't know but he LOVED Tigger and Pooh and they were so funny with him! 

Can you tell how affectionate this child is?!  He loved hugging them and would knock them over with his excitement!!

Tigger always playing tricks!!

Happy Birthday, sweet boy!

Kinson knows nothing about Mary Poppins, so he told me that she was getting married!  Ha!

He also doesn't know Alice and Wonderland or the Mad Hatter, but because they weren't in the big costumes they could actually talk to him, and well if you know Kinson, he can talk with the best of them!!

Pooh came sniffing the "honey" (a.k.a. syrup) that was all over Kinson's hands.  He was loving this and was laughing hysterically.

Yes Kinson is still laid out laughing!!

After that we went and spent the morning at Animal Kingdom.

The Safari ride was lots of fun for us.  It was kind of educational, and well I am a nerd that loves that kind of stuff.

Then off to the Dino Land playground.  My kid loves a playground :)

Papa does too :)

On the dinsaur flyers!

Waiting for the Nemo show to let us in!

I am glad that we did Animal Kingdom, but if we go again and get in a time crunch, this would be the park that I would forgo.  Like I said it was fun, but the other stuff was a lot more things we couldn't do anywhere else.

Day 3 (Afternoon/Night)

After our "Coming to Jesus" moment at lunch, things started to look up!!  Kinson began interacting and having lots of fun.  He gave a shot at hula-hooping.....

I reallllly likt the movie "The Beauty and the Beast."  And when we have a slumber party, I always choose this party.  Mamas don't tell me you haven't made your little boy watcha girl movie or two ;)

Kinson befriended the usher and he let him be VIP.  We got to sit in the very front center of the theater.  I loved it but Kinson said it was a little too loud!!

The bad guy, Gastoine

Don't the characters look incredible!!

The beast was huge up close!

Kinson really enjoyed sitting through the show.  After that he was ready to go have some fun!!

Waiting on the Pixar parade.  If you don't make it to any other parade, I highly recommend this one.  It had all the characters from the current movies and the music was fantastic, plus they come right up to you. 

Incredibles

A Bug's Life

Ratatootie as Kinson calls it :)

Monster's Inc.

Up

Jessie and Bullseye

Buzz and Woody

After the parade, Kinson kept saying he wanted to ride Buzz, not the one at Hollywood Studios, the one at Magic Kingdom.  So off we went!  We rode Buzz 4 times in a row, gotta love no lines!!

He got brave and started to ride everything when we got over to Magic Kingdom!!

even the roller coasters!!

His favorite ride were those rockets flying high over everything!!  Not a lot of pictures taken that night because we were enjoying every moment of happiness we could get out of him.  One tip, after you have already seen the parade once, come back another night to ride because everyone will be waiting on the parade and the few rides that had longer rides, we were able to get right on!!