Missin' My Trevor

Yes folks, I really do miss Trevor. All the complaining and head-against-the-wall-bashing seems so silly now that my little guy is 900 miles away. My parents offered to keep him for a few weeks for us because we have so much going on right now with the move and Kade's medical tests. We jumped at the chance for a little stress relief, and, knowing that he was in great hands and that we'd be seeing him very soon since we are moving back up there, I came back to Texas with one less child griping at me from the backseat.

Now that things have slowed down a bit, Kade having been discharged and the move on the back burner until TVA gets it's act together and finishes Chad's backround check, I find myself with [gasp] enough free time to feel the loss of #2.

Trevor, on the other hand, is having the time of his life! For the first several days after he left every time I talked to him on the phone he said, "Mom, I'm so happy, I haven't gotten in trouble for [insert #] whole days!" Pangs of guilt then plagued me till I realized that the only reason for this is that he has nobody to pick on or argue with and he gets tons of one on one attention from his grandparents. He is perfectly content to be doted upon and doesn't seem to miss the stress of another move so close to the last stressful move (and getting out of the 14+ hour drives doesn't hurt either!). It sounds like they have even taught him how to say his name correctly so he doesn't enter kindergarten with everyone thinking his name is "Trouble", which is how it used to sound when he said it.

Today I plugged my iTouch into my car to listen to my "Kicky Songs" playlist and Trevor's favorite song came on..."Lollipop" by Mika. I just had to call him and let him listen, and to my extreme delight, he sang along with it in his slightly high little five year old voice. Good times!

Chad is on his way to Nashville as we speak to do a physical for TVA, so he'll be able to spend some good ole quality time with him this weekend, and then he will be heading up there for good next weekend. I will once again be relegated to the purgatory of single-but-not-single parenthood. I know I have said it before, but it is a good thing I keep my sanity in a bottle, and that I can't work my webcam so you don't see me laughing hysterically as I rock myself and suck my thumb!

Someone recently asked me how I am dealing with the chaos that is my life at the moment, and I came to the realization that this is probably one of my major tests in life. I am completely type A, loving to plan my life in advance so that I know what is going to happen for months down the road (I can see you laughing Marie...yuck it up lady!), having to live in limbo waiting for test results and not knowing when life will get back on track and become predictable again. I can't complain though, things have worked out so far and I am sure will continue to do so. One could argue that I should have been prepared for this with three unplanned-for children, all of them boys no less!

As for now, I will continue to stick by the motto I adopted when I found out I was pregnant with Kade, "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans."

Hospital Stay

**I would have posted about this sooner, but it has taken me several days to get the house under control after Chad and Blake lived it up bachelor style while I was gone!

Last Monday morning I got up around six thirty to get ready and finish packing the last of the things we needed to take with us to the hospital. At around eight am we packed into Chad's car (cause it has GPS) and headed to Houston. We got to Memorial Hermann Children's hospital around nine thirty and began the tedious admissions process. Kade was in great spirits, of course he was oblivious to what was going on...that probably helped.

I don't want to bore anyone with useless details, so let's just say that the next few days involved me trying to entertain Kade by taking him to the various Childlife playrooms the hospital had to offer, monitoring what he ate like a food Nazi so I could document it for the fat intake/output study that was the whole reason we were in there, playing my mother's DS cause Blake left mine in his friend's car, riding the escalators up and down (over and over) with Kade because he loved them, collecting said "outputs" from Kade to put in a jug that lived in our bathroom in a container filled with ice...and trying not to throw up as I did it, meeting with GI specialists and a whole team of Endocrinologists to get the lowdown on the plan to find a diagnosis, and watching way too much HGTV.

On Wednesday afternoon I noticed that the hospital was going to do a blood drive the following day and I thought to myself that I should do it, (a) because I had nothing better to do, (b) because, in some small way, I might be able to help some people, and (c) because they were going to serve sundaes and you got a free t-shirt...okay, this last one I didn't find out till I got there, but it was a MAJOR perk for the horrific bruise I have on my arm from giving blood! When the phlebotomist was unhooking the needle she said, "Congratulations, you just saved three lives!" I thought that was pretty cool, and, since I didn't pass out and they gave me free chocolate Blue Bell ice cream, I deem the experience a SUCCESS!

Kade was a real trooper most of the time. By the time we left he had all of the nurses and most of the doctors completely in love with him. He is a charmer by nature, but I think they are so used to seeing little ones in pain and in terrible spirits from the pain that he was a breath of fresh air for them. He was so patient when they came in to take his vitals, it got to the point where he'd see the nurse come in and hold out his little arm for the blood pressure cuff. They ended up having to do two blood draws, the first time he barely cried, the second time he knew what they were going to do so he cried as soon as we laid him down.

We finally got discharged Thursday evening, with strict instructions for the many follow up visits and future tests that need to be done. We still don't have a diagnosis, but we are a little closer. They haven't gotten the results of the fat absorption study back yet, but they did discover thru the blood tests that two of his Thyroid levels are elevated, and they shouldn't both be elevated at the same time unless something is going on with his Pituitary gland. Hence the reason for meeting with the Endo team. We are now waiting for the hospital to schedule an MRI of his Pituitary. They also did a bone age scan of his hand and found that, depending on which bones you look at, his "bone age" is around 6-9 mos and 18 mos. This proves that he is definitely under developed for his age (23 mos)...and made me feel a little more justified in my worries.

Everyone who saw him just couldn't believe that there might be something wrong. Usually with a child who has been labeled "failure to thrive" the child is lethargic and anti-social because they have been seriously neglected. Dr. Shelbourne (the head GI doctor at the hospital) confided to me that they normally won't let kids like that leave the hospital without a diagnosis. In Kade's case he is a happy, social little guy. They could see that he is well loved and that Chad and I are both dilligent in taking care of him (why else would I be willing to "harvest" his poop and save it in a jug for four days?!). I feel like our prayers have really been answered. The hospital stay was not bad, it sometimes even felt like a vacation as I rarely have that much free time at home. The staff at Memorial Hermann is awesome, and they all tried their hardest to make sure our stay was comfortable and pleasant. We are that much closer to the answers we have been praying for, and going back to TN is not going to be a detriment to Kade. We are confident in his pediatrician there and the staff at Vanderbilt that we can pick up at whatever point we leave here. It is so nice to be home...although it won't be home much longer! Stay tuned for moving updates to come...

On the Road Again...

I am in Tennessee this week, and sick as can be. Not much fun on a super long car ride but I am still alive and the boys are too, so I deem it a success. But that is not what I want to blog about tonight.

No, tonight I have awesome news. News to eclipse all other news I could blog about. Chad got word today that he will soon be formally offered a job from TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), whom he was flown up to interview with in Nashville a few weeks ago. Yes, I know what this means. More packing. More dumpster diving for moving boxes. More parting with things I can't find room for in a moving van. More looking for a place to live. More super long car rides with the boys arguing over which dvd to watch. More blessings than we our minds can comprehend at this moment.

My heart is so full of gratitude and wonder that Heavenly Father really is looking down on us and hearing the prayers of our mouths and hearts. I was reminded very keenly today that the Lord loves us and even though at times it feels like He answers our prayers in ways that we maybe aren't ready for, there are times when we get what we ask for, surprising ourselves that we are on the same page for once. I don't know, maybe that doesn't make much sense. All I do know tonight is that Heavenly Father knows me, he loves me, and He knows the desires of my heart.

I am so ready to be settled and to have a home that we can call "home". It still may be a ways off, but I can FINALLY see it in the distance, right up there where my husband enjoys his job and is doing what he has worked so hard towards for so long. Pardon me if I ramble, I am really sick though. I'll see you in Tennessee.

1st Grade Picnic

Only one more day of 1st grade for Blake! Is it just me or did this school year go by super fast?

This morning we trudged over to the park next to Blake's school to meet him and his class for a picnic. It was sooooo hot! The boys had a blast though, there was sidewalk chalk, bubbles and lots of kids (including mine) had water-bottle-squirt-fans and ran around trying to see who could get the wettest. I kept losing sight of Trevor cause he was pretty much as big as most of the 1st graders! Kade loved running around with all the big kids, and even found a few little girls to help him get up on the things he couldn't get to on his own. Here are some pictures from our sweaty outing: