Here we go...

So tomorrow we go to the neurologist for Kory. My stomach is in knots and I can't stop eating. My kid's trauma is going to make me fat. If I didn't know before that I was an emotional eater, I'd have to accept it now. I hate waiting. I dread what we will find out. More than that, I'm afraid of what we won't find out. I fear that they will ask a lot of questions and send me home with very little comfort. Is it me, or does years and years of medical school make doctors somehow less human? Haven't you ever felt like the doctor was a little too objective? Haven't you ever wanted to smack him out of his nonchalance and yell, "This Matters to me, you detached robot!" I do. I'll probably restrain myself. If not, that will make a far more entertaining blog. Do they let you blog in jail?

The test, etc

Kory's EEG was just as awful as I thought it would be, but at least we lived. The results came back normal, which would be reassuring except he has had two more episodes since the test. So, next week we're going to see a pediatric neurologist. I'm still not freaking out in general, although I have had my moments (thanks to the many friends who listened with sympathy, and to Greg and Gwen, who let us interrupt their evening to give my baby a blessing.). I wish I had more to report, but this is the best I can do.
On a happier note, Jake had quite the adventure this morning. I have a jetted tub, and Jake has learned, at his own cost, that playing with the button that turns on the jets is a poor idea. However, he must have slipped or something this morning, as the jets ruined his day. He pushed the button and a whole host of hysterical things happened. The water wasn't high enough to cover the jets, so all the water being shoved through them just flew through the air with rocket force, hitting his skinny little body and making a terrible noise. Add to that the knowledge that he was going to be in big trouble for pushing the button and you can understand his panic. HE LOST HIS MIND! He was screaming, "Mom! Help! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" It was SO funny. I felt kind of bad for laughing when he told me it wasn't funny, "I'm really sad!" but the thing is, it was funny. Darn funny. And I deserved to laugh, because I had to clean it up.
Kory is a mover and a groover. He can get just about everywhere. If his tiny arms won't let him drag himself to his destination, he's got the rest of the family good and trained so we assist him in a timely manner. He is desperate to eat like all the big people, but will sadly have to wait. He is currently not sure what is up with the dog. If you've been to my house, you know my dog isn't so much a canine as an equine. This animal is frickin' huge. Kory doesn't seem to be able to figure out if he's people, if he's something else, and why can't he catch him?
More later when the doctor tells us that the baby is fine!

Update

I've been getting a lot of calls about how my baby is doing. The test and the fun leading up to it were indeed the torture I had predicted. But we came out of it ok, and are just waiting for the results. I'll let you know how that goes. He did have another seizure on Sunday, but it was really short. I'm not losing it yet, but I may soon.

compare

Compare my two boys at about the same age...

Cute Baby

I was up all night with my kids, and strangely enough, I'm not tired. Make no mistake, I will be later, but right now I'm motivated and charged by that blessed friend of all mothers, second wind. Gwen mentioned I need to show how big my baby is getting, so here he is!

He can almost sit up by himself!

Note the two tiny bottom teeth!

Those were a joy to cut, let me tell you!

Sleepy Sleepy Guys!

Two boys with a hard working Grandpa!

Broken Baby

So, my baby has had a couple of seizures lately, and now we have to go up to the hospital to have an EEG. I don't think it will be any fun. He has to be sleep deprived, so I have to keep him up till midnight, wake him up at 5, and not let him eat for four hours before the test. So the hospital will get one ornery baby come Thursday morning. I'm really not looking forward to it. I can't believe I have to torture my baby to have a health professional tell me it's nothing to be concerned about. Of course, I'd be more upset if it was something serious, but still, baby torture is not high on my list of stuff I like to do. Especially when its my baby. So boo to that.

We're back!

It's been a crazy summer, but as things are finally starting to settle down, I figure I'd better post so you can keep up! :)
So, top on our list of events this summer is the monumental water situation we have had in the basement. First I flooded it, thanks to a broken pipe, then there was a leak, thanks to my swamp cooler. Thankfully both floods were covered by our homeowners insurance. So the end of that story is we have a completely recarpeted basement, and lovely newly painted walls in the family room for the bargain price of $1000. Not bad considering the recarpet would have cost us $10,000 easily. It took a while to put everything back together, thus the no internet for Emily, but all is well now and we are really enjoying the new digs.
Next in my summer of chaos, my sister moved in with my under stressful circumstances. The idiot boyfriend I have mentioned before had managed to get them evicted from their apartment and they no longer had anywhere to go. They called us in desperation, and we went down to Salt Lake to get them. The hoser boyfriend lasted less than 24 hours before he was on the phone with his dad getting a bus ticket back to SLC. After spending more time with them, making observations and some conversation with my sister, it became clear that she was not safe with him. So Joe and I made a command decision that did not go over well...we made him go and made her stay. She was pretty upset for a long time, but she has a job here now, and is making plans to attend either ISU or USU in the spring. She has decided to dump the boyfriend, and we are going down to SLC to get her stuff this weekend. She's in counseling now, and things are going really well. I really hope things will work out for her, and we are enjoying having her here. The kids really love her.
Speaking of kids, I babysit two little boys, 6 days a week now. Colton and Tucker and 6 and 5 respectivly. They both attend Kindergarten all day, and are really coming along. They have a lot of challenges, but despite that, having them here has been good for Jake. Colton and Tucker need a lot of help getting caught up learning their letters and numbers and so forth, so the extra work has been great helping Jake get ready for Kindergarten. Plus he's learnign to share, take turns, compromise, and communicate. I'm not sure he would have aquired these skills any other way, so I'm hoping he'll be the most prepared boy ever! Plus, money that is all my own is quite a plus too. I like feeling like I can help with our debt situation, especially since , lets face it, I made the debt situation :).
Kory is getting bigger and more accomplished all the time. He has two teeth now, and will be sitting up soon. He creeps along the floor at an alarming pace, largely due to his desperate need to get to his big brother and play. He wants to be a part of everything Jake does. He really loves that guy. I didn't fully appreciate how much fun it is to watch those two interact. Jake is a great big brother. When Kory cries in his carseat, Jake sings him a song his grandma Ward made up for him. Its so cute. I love my little tiny boys.
We're looking forward to the fall (yea!) and will keep posting more often so we're not such strangers!

Oi!

This summer has turned out to be kind of awful. I flooded my basement twice, had to rescue my sister from homelessness in SLC, and have been stressed out a lot of the time. HIhg points have included Harry Potter, making my own money, and my really cute kids. I just wanted everyone know that I was not dead. I'll talk more later when I get my computer back.

Best Wife Ever...

I am so proud of myself! Joe has been talking about and dreaming about and searching for Gnocchi ever since he came home from Argentina. For five years he has conducted a vain search for his favorite potato pasta. Well, I was searching for recipes online in preperation for a culture night, and found a really easy authentic gnocchi recipe and made it for my husband. He was so happy! Granted, he decided that my skills with his gnocchi paddle were insufficient, so he formed every one of the pastas, but still, I made it and the sauce, and he was one happy, happy gaucho!

Product Recognition or My Kid Watches Too Much TV

Kids pick up on the weirdest things.
Joe and I were sitting outside the Quizno's deciding what we wanted to get, and Jake starts asking for a burger. We asked him to wait patiently, because we knew he was hungry. He said, "OK. I hungry sandwhich. MMMMM...Toasty!"
It may be time to turn off the TV.

More Walking...

While on our walk this morning, right at the end, (we only had about 3/4 of a mile to go) Jake began to be desperate for Gwen's attention.
"Gwen! Gwen!"
"Yes, Jacob?"
"Um, we need our car. We need to ride car."
Maybe he's getting tired of his hour long stroller ride. Maybe he thinks I'm too slow. Maybe he knows that deep down I'm really to lazy to be doing all this work...

Walking

Why is it that most of the things you are supposed to do for your health are unpleasant? You can't have a lot of cake, and I really like cake! You shouldn't eat a lot of meat, and I love steak! (PS-you really should eat a lot of beef, because it pays my bills and if you are my friend, you would hate to see me in the poorhouse.) You should excercise, and that hurts! You have to submit yourself yearly to an uncomfortable and vaguely degrading physical exam. I want to take care of my body, I just wish it didn't take so very much maintenance. Man, am I looking forward to the ressurection.
I mention all of this because I am a captain of a walking team. It worked out that way because Gwen only registered herself for the Family Circle walking challenge, and couldn't go back. So now I am the boss of logging our miles, which are, I must say, very impressive. So far we have logged 39 miles this week. Walking is the only thing I do to take care of my body that I really enjoy. It does hurt, but mostly I like it because it garuantees me a good hour of adult conversation and a captive audience to vent to. I like having friends so close. When I got married, there was no one my age around, and even the girls in my ward I never really felt like I could get close to. That's the best thing about moving into 2nd ward. Now we have friends! Walking buddies, movie buddies, game night buddies, and inappropriate-yet-still-funny-joke buddies. We have been so blessed to get to know all of these people. They make a lot of things a lot easier.
Anyway, our walking goal is to log 75 miles by mid-July. Clearly that will be no real challenge, but making 75 miles individually will. I may need to get a pedometer to help me with that. Also, walking myself on mornings when Gwen can't make it will help. But its not as much fun. I like Jake, but he's not much for conversation.

After all the family has gone

The hordes have come and gone, and what an adventure it was! Kory's blessing coincided with Kiera's graduation, so there was much to celebrate. Thankfully, because I have a tiny baby and a demon preschooler, we were excused from attending graduation. However, there didn't seem to be any plans for after the ceremony Friday, so Joe and I had the whole family out for a BBQ at the last moment. It was a lot of fun to see Nik's family, as they live in Vegas and can't make it up much. Joe often says they are the branch of the family you can laugh the most with. An example: Aunt Rissy has a really tiny, really cute nose ring. Jake was passing by and caught sight of it. He stopped short, and said,"Excuse me. I have to poke you," and went to work trying to figure out what was in her nose. She thought it was the funniest thing, and everyone got a big kick out of it.
Saturday night I was expecting my brother and sister to come up, but my brother got really sick early Saturday morning and couldn't come up. So it was just my sister and her fiance. They were very concerned that they couldn't make it 188 miles on one tank of gas, but I managed to assure them that their Alero would do just fine. There were also concerns about my dog. Richard (that's my future brother-in-law) refused to get out of his car until I put the dog in my room. He is a security guard at Becca's apartment complex, and just so we wouldn't forget, he wore his badge. The whole time. A lovely, official looking shield with the words "Security Guard" right on the front. Very impressive, I must say. He wasn't really interested in conversation, and so he quickly got bored. He wanted to go play laser tag. Sadly, we lack the facilities to accomodate such a request, so my dad took him and Becca so see the resevoir. As it transpired, he had failed to bring clothes appropriate for church, so I found some to lend him. He did not wind up using them, as he stayed in the parking lot for the entire meeting. There is so much more to this story. If you are intrigued, let me know and I will post something solely in honor of Richard, and maybe we can all come to a greater understanding of why I can not believe my sister is going to allow this person to father her children.
Joe did a wonderful job blessing little Kory, and the rest of the family was a delight to have around. My uncle and his daughters and their husbands all came up for the day. They left at 5am in Bountiful to be here, and left so they could get home by early evening. That's love, right there. They are my favorites. You shouldn't have favorites in family, but I do. We were also so happy to have Alison come. And of course our other good friends are in our ward, and really couldn't avoid missing it
The best guests were Kory and Amy. Kory was Joe's trainer on the the mission, and one of his best friends. You'll note that he and my tiny baby have the same name. We named our son for him. He gives my tiny face a lot to live up to. He's one of the best men we know. He is so genuine and kind and giving. We just love him, and his wife. We wish they lived closer, and we could see them more.
Soon, I'll have to get Gwen to teach me how to post pictures, and then you can see how cute my kids are. Just so you know, they are the cutest kids in the world, so you should be looking forward to pictures with wild anticipation.

A blogspot is born

In the interst of being as cool as my friends Gwen and Brittany, I decided to get a blogspot. I hope my efforts result in my continuing progression down the road to awesomeness.

It's a crazy busy week for us. We're blessing Kory on Sunday, and so we are about to be inundated with relatives (dun dun DUN!). That means we'll be having a lot of fun, but to prepare for the fun, there must be a lot of work. I'm cooking and cleaning up a storm. I finally planted my garden, and my yard is starting to look like nice people live here. It had a decidedly hillbilly look to it before.

I am just a little frustrated with family, but that's mostly because that's how family is. You see a lot of them, and the nerves are bound to get a little fried.

More later when operation "Name and a Blessing" is complete!