float...

natalia: --VERY excitedly-- "that little one is floating!! is that because its not heavy??"

i'll let you guess what she was talking about...

OUCH!

n: OUCH!

me: what's the matter?

n: my brain hurts.

me: why?

n: my brain just said a bad word.

me: what word?

n: the one you said yesterday.

me: ::uh oh:: which word was that?

n: i can't say.

j: was it "gud demmit!"

n: YEAH, that was it!!

me: ::slaps forehead::

new words?

i'm sitting at the kitchen table last night with natalia next to me finishing her dinner. i'm looking through a jewelry catalog and surveying the damage to my checkbook.

she says to me, "mommy, are you eaple-ing?"

me: "what?"

n: "are you eaple-ing?"

me: *giggle* "honey, i don't know what eaple-ing is."

n: "YOU KNOW! when you take 1 plus 1 EAPLES 2!"

i couldn't help it. i laughed. it was so cute!

a summary of 2010...in reverse

natalia opens santa gifts...

jameson opens santa gifts...

the tree...

natalia's preschool christmas program...

the gingerbread house build...

we said goodbye to my dear grandma garrett...

the fabulous karmen lindner graced us with awesome family photos...

a beautiful girl turned FOUR...

that same beautiful girl LOOOVES ariel and the color pink...

we went halloween camping, but a certain policeman didn't make trick-or-treat...

a beautiful princess did though!...

jameson's first school picture - kindergarten (credit goes to the school photog)...

"up north" got a new lease on life...

natalia's first day of preschool...

jameson's first day of kindergarten...

camping in wisconsin dells...

we have new furry friends..."specks"...

...and "bill"...

we sometimes were just plumb tuckered out...

but, we took time to dance and jump in the rain...

our "chocolate-chip-eyed" cherubs...

we battled the summer heat with plastic pools...

we traveled to minnesota to visit family...

...and celebrate new houses, new baby, and new marriage (in this case all for that beauty in the center of this photo)...

we became the owners of a bunny, "speckles"...

we created art and wonder whenever possible...

we soaked up early summer sun while blowing bubbles...

jameson finished preschool and his beloved teacher, mrs block, retired...

a longtime friend visited from FAR away...and natalia made a new friend, nina...

we ate hamburgers in buckets of water...because we COULD...

our firstborn turned FIVE...

natalia begins her fight to break the gender barrier...

...and, we now get ready to start again. a new year. a new beginning. may 2011 bring us all blessings and happiness - the best we've yet to see, have, experience.

love, the family of four from the old farm...

**unless otherwise noted all photos are property of stephanie averill. use without prior consent is prohibited.

one more kitten?

this morning, natalia went with jim to help the neighbor farmer with morning milking chores. this evening, i asked her if she had fun...

me: did you have fun at the farm with daddy this morning?

natalia: yeah.

me: did you get to hold the baby kitty?

natalia: yeah, sam put the baby kitty in my arms!

me: did you bring it home for me?

natalia: no, daddy said no.

me: how come?

natalia: because we don't need any more kitties sitting in the driveway.

natalia: and, because they sit in the lawn too.

OH WAIT! that's what i heard at first...BUT what she REALLY said was...

"because we don't need any more kitties shitting in the driveway. and, because they shit in the lawn too!"

**ahem**

grandma...

sorry for the delay in posting. i owe you (all 3 of you) a continuation about jameson and his seizures, a natalia 4th bday post, and a halloween post. i promise, i'll get to those.

first, my grandma garrett died. :( we all know that our grandparents are going to go at some point. we know. but, when it happens, it really...really...really sucks. i remember so many awesome things about lorraine garrett.

on our drive to minnesota for her funeral services, we noticed this. a sunbow. i've never seen one before, but this beautiful beauty wrapped clear around the sun. no rain, no clouds, no moisture of any kind. just sun and color. grandma was leading the way...i've no doubt.

she was silly.

she was funny.

she was excitable. [jim did a fantastic job of bringing out this trait!]

she was short.

she was my grandpa's love of a lifetime.

she was a mother to 6.

she was a grandmother to 16.

+ 9 spouses (so far)

she was a great-grandmother to 11.

again...so far.

she reminded me of glinda the good witch from the wizard of oz...but i'm not sure why.

she was stern.

she was a WONDERFUL baker.

she is missed. a lot.

i love you grandma rainny...fly high!

my cousin carley thought it would be nice to have the great grandchildren release a ballon in memory of grandma...

almost up to her in heaven...

~two year anniversary~

we are approaching the two year anniversary of jameson's weaning from seizure medication. he's been OFF meds for TWO years! he's been completely seizure free for FOUR years. those words are so, so wonderful to type.

i remember very clearly the first few times i saw him seize. i thought they were shudders. i thought he was "cold" or had the heebie jeebies. but then, the more i watched them occur, i knew they weren't right. i knew something was up. we took jameson to his pediatrician. he didn't have an "episode" while we were in her office that time. so, she didn't see one. she thought it was just "something kids do". "kids this age explore what their bodies do...he's doing it intentionally." that made sense...but my instincts said differently. i tried to ignore them. {note to other parents - never do that...never ignore your instincts.}

CLICK HERE

this video is a bit out of order for this post...it was taken on 9-22-2006. toward the end, you can see what his seizures looked like. this is the only one we ever caught on video. (watch closely when jim says, "tell me where mommy is again") oh, and i had totally forgotten how cute he was when he tried to say "truck" and made that noise instead.

we went up north that year (2006) for the 4th of july week/weekend. he was 15 months old. i was 6 months pregnant with natalia. (yes, i know...you're all doing the math. save yourself ... they're 18 months apart.) :) my mom was with us and had the opportunity to consistently observe him for a few days. she recommended we take him in - she thought they were petit mal seizures. (she was close.)

this was taken while "up north" - 2006

a few days after we arrived home, we went BACK to his ped. this time he had one episode ... she barely caught it. and, i can't blame her. these "episodes" were VERY quick. jameson never had any reaction to them...no tears, no stopping, no sounds. just a quick (less than a couple seconds) shudder and flutter of his eyes. if you weren't looking him in the face, they were VERY easy to miss. but, he was having loads of them every day. again, his ped thought they were nothing. "i'll refer you to children's for an EEG just to ease your minds." this was the end of july.

we went to children's hospital in milwaukee on august 28th, 2006 for his first EEG. anyone who has had to put their toddler through one of those knows that they are not. fun. there are definitely worse tests (as we'd soon find out). in order to effectively test for seizure activity, the test needs to be conducted first while the child is awake, then while they're falling asleep, then asleep, then while they're waking. they require that you "sleep deprive" them before bringing them in. joy. have you ever purposely withheld sleep from a 17 month old? erg.

he really did wonderfully for the test. he's pretty patient while they stick a gazillion electrodes (soon to be known as "buttons") to his head. he falls asleep. we watched the monitor with the technician. we watched as the line jumps all over the place. it looked like a 6 on the richter scale. of course, we had zero idea how to read these things. the technician left the room and returned to tell us there were "irregularities" occuring and that we'd need to come back in a couple days to speak to the neurologist. "sorry, that's all i can tell you."

we made an appointment to return 2 days later. we meet dr. sunila o'connor - pediatric neurologist on august 30th, 2006.

(in amongst this, i was dead-sick. i'd caught a run of the mill cold on august 3rd...yes, i remember the date. 4 weeks later, i'm still sick - sicker. i had a horrible cough. my sinuses were SO plugged that i lost hearing in one ear. i hadn't been able to hear anything from my right side in 3 weeks. so, to give you a picture of my mental state on this day: i am 8 months pregnant, i have been sick for 3 weeks, i can't hear, AND my 17 month old baby boy suddenly "has a neurologist". needless to say, i'm a basket case.)

she checked him over, covered the results of his EEG and told us "he's having myoclonic seizures". the rest of our conversation with her is a blur. but, she's very kind and we come out of our discussion with her feeling as good as we can about the situation. after that, we were instructed to get a urine sample from him (again, erg!) and were sent to the lab for blood draws. i distinctly remember the very first time he was poked for blood. he didn't whimper. he didn't flinch. he just looked at me with those eyes. i died a little that day. it took another week to finally get a good urine sample. we needed to do all of this to rule out metabolic causes of the seizures as well as to get the current levels of his liver. the medication he was about to start is very hard on the liver...especially in patients younger than 2.

on september 3rd, 2006, jameson started taking depakote. we weaned him on ... increasing dosage each day. by the first week in november, we noticed the seizures had stopped. finally. it took almost two months. (natalia was born october 10th.)

there were many blood draws, a few more EEGs, an MRI and an evaluation for speech therapy during the next two years. during these years, he took his "sprinkles" - the capsules opened to be sprinkled on food. dr. o'connor became known as "dr. sprinkles". protocol said that he stay on medication for 2 years (as long as he was seizure free for all of those two years) and then be weaned to see if he'd "outgrown" the seizures.


...to be continued...