The Brewers are undefeated (we better hurry and post this, it’s like the weather, things change in the blink of an eye here). Jay’s Cubbies starting the year off with a disappointment. Between the two of us, me the Brewers fan and Jay the Cubs fan we must be optimists!

Things here have been busy busy busy but great! Gav is starting to forward crawl, once again, “for the love of a ball” and is saying bubbles, mama and a ball. He also can’t resist a good “Dat off”, especially when he and his sister scream it as loud as they can. He has also managed to pull himself up to his knees. This is a particularly fun trick for him to perform at three a.m. when he shakes the crib to make sure we are aware that he needs some attention.

He is tipping the scales at 18 lbs and he looks like a little butterball with short little legs, we love to rub his little budha belly. It’s good that he is stretching, since an adult kidney is about the size of your fist so he needs room for it. They will transplant the kidney into his tummy. He is such a little ham! Anyone that walks by, he gives them a killer smile and he wants all the ladies to hold him. I swear he poses for pictures! My grandma is calling him Hercules!

We are supposed to hear from the transplant team next week sometime for the first official meeting. I stalked them today since I hadn’t heard anything. You can’t dangle transplant thoughts out there to me. It’s like putting a steak in front of a lion and asking him to sit, not happening. We have his clinic next week so we will know more there as well, but we are very pleased medically with his care, he is well maintained so we feel very lucky!

Lulu is out there doing her usual Lulu thang, she’s just plain funny. Tonight she decided she wanted to be a princess so she put on her princess jammies (poof, then she was a princess). I thought to myself wouldn’t that be great, to just pick something that you want to be and in your mind it happens, “I want to fly planes, poof I’m now a pilot!” Aren’t their minds great? She also likes to be referred to as Dr. Lauren since she has decided to become a doctor when she grows up. She met a female pediatrician the other week and thought that was pretty cool (even though she didn’t have brown curly hair like Lauren).

We’re trying to sell her on Easter to take some of the heat off the Christmas obsession, but we did have to still get one Christmas video from the library this week. Today she decided that she should have a horse (poof). I shimmied our way out of that one by saying that she is not old enough for a horse yet, and I suggested that maybe she could have a fish, but she’d have to run it by daddy (make him the heavy on the no horse in the backyard and or room thing). Parenting is the ultimate sales job! When else do you try to swap a horse for a fish?

Happy Easter everyone!

Jill

Gav threw up blood this past weekend. He has also started to throw up when he is sleeping. Luckily, Jay and I heard him and were able to get in there and get him on his side. It has been scary. I feel like I can’t sleep for fear I may miss something. He is just being pushed so hard and his little body…I just feel for him. It’s a hard road to watch, let alone travel. He’s now our littlest roommate so we can have viewage 24/7.

We’ve also had to increase his injections for his blood count to every four days. So he gets his daily growth hormone and now he gets his other injection bi-weekly. He cries the instant he sees me start prepping the needles.

On the plus side he is still gaining weight, which is what is bringing us closer to transplant. I have to just keep in mind that transplant is our ultimate goal. We NEED to do this for him to survive. There are no other options here, this is the only way.

In fact, the most exciting news to date is that they are going to start working me up to see if I can donate my kidney to Gav. I am very excited, now I feel like we are finally honing in on transplant.

We have been lucky, things for Gavin could have been a lot worse. He could be experiencing so much more pain, but it’s hard to accept that he has to experience even an ounce of pain. It’s really a battle to inflict all of this on your child when he looks and seems to be fine.

Gav is beginning to sign some words. OK, so not the ones that I have been working on teaching him (and the ones that Lauren reminds me to do when I forget). But he’s signing none the less. He hits his head when he is excited and wants something (so much for pointing and/or ‘more’). When he is hungry instead of signing ‘eat’ he climbs up and starts eating my hair (gross). So all in all he’s not exactly doing what I am training him to do, but he’s signing none the less and getting his point across(: He is also now able to put himself from being on his tummy into a sitting position and is quite pleased with himself.

Lauren has started to scrub in and wear her mask at night when it is time to hook Gav up. It’s very endearing that she wants to be involved in her brother’s treatment. Also a little sad. I know when she’s happy when she’s singing her songs. She is the little singer in the house.

We try to make things normal, but I can’t help but wonder what all of this does to her. I just pray that she and Gavin don’t remember all this. When he throws up, she comes and gives him a little kiss on his noggin and tells him that she loves him. It’s been a rough adjustment for her with him getting sick so much. Things aren’t as “normal” as they were and with all the added cleaning and laundry it leaves less time for me to have one on one time with her. And I am admittedly not as calm as I was before. Luckily, she has her Polly Pockets and she escapes into their imaginary world.

Thursday was nice, as we managed to get in a good snowman build before all the snow melted (no disappointment there)! Lauren reminded me of how much fun it is to step on a little panel of ice and watch it crack. She had fun eating the snow (gave firm warning: only white snow) and the delight of putting together a snowman’s face (it was hard for her to give up the baby carrot because that’s what horses eat and she’d really like to just eat it too, please please please…okay).

When the snow melted, we raced boats with the neighborhood kids in the streets. It was so sweet to watch these little aluminum foil rafts streaming their way to the gutter and getting swiped back up to safety just in time.

We also took advantage of the one day heat fest (hey anything above 60 right now is like tropical) and went to the zoo. It was so much fun. Lauren is a regular zoo expert since she and her Grams go weekly and her favorite was the new giraffe exhibit (it is really amazing, you are so close to them). Gav started clapping when he saw “Lipz and Tommy” the orangutans. It was hilarious!

Children are really awe inspiring. The way they view the world, the way they love and laugh and take each moment in. They are the reason that hope is eternal and love is ever lasting! What a delight!

Jill

My cousin sent me a card that said, “Wear cool boots, they make you feel like you can handle anything.” This would have been a week for some cool boots! Gav gets so much food at night his body isn’t able to process it all so he is like a little vomit volcano. I feel so bad for him, but he doesn’t seem to be phased by it. It’s a little more work for us – changing his outfits like four times a day, and a lot more cleaning and laundry. Apparently, the vomit volcano thing is “typical”, although I don’t think anything about this whole experience falls under the category of “typical”!

Gavs had his zillion and one shots for his one year check up (his poor little legs are all puffy and swollen). We were very pleased to hear that his head circumference finally falls on the lowest notch of normal – which is… awesome (does anyone use that word anymore?). He is getting closer to being on chart for his height and weight. He looks like a little boy now, for so long it seemed baby baby baby, but now I can see the distinct difference. Even in his mannerisms. He wants his sippy cup and is trying out sucking through straws and wants to be in the thick of things. He is watching his sister like a hawk and is ready to leave mommy to be with the big kids! Still not crawling, but dangerously close and his bottom left tooth is giving him a run for his money! Teething is eternal!

Lauren and I often play a game, “I love you more” and then we list things that we love and tell each other that we love each other more. Example, I love you more than unicorns and bubble gum. We were in the midst of it during our afternoon lunch and it was my turn. As I was looking at my little beauty, I was about to begin when I hear her fake burp. This gives me slight pause and then she holds up her little hand to let me know she has something important to say, “I am going to burp the alphabet, erp A” What????!!!! Where did she learn this, to my knowledge Jay nor I can complete this feat so I have no idea where my baby girl is coming up with this stuff. She has a way to keep you on your toes! She also informed me that she knows that metamorphosis is when caterpillars build a chrysalis and become butterflies. I can thank Baby Einstein for that. She is up to three books now for bedtime story time and we get a new sack of books each time that we go to the library. The library here just hooked up to a whole new network (sweet) and we can find everything online and have it sent here. I’m like a kid in a candy store, ahh the little simple things!

I bought Lauren a booster this week and decided to go with a real simplistic one, just a plain ‘ol booster. Sometimes you look around at all the baby gear and you think, man this is over the top, so I thought I’d scale back. The first day I put her in it she falls asleep and is tilted at a 90 degree angle flopped to the side. My advice is to get one with a back if you are in mid transition of the car seat debacle…this one isn’t going to cut it! Any suggestions out there on a good one?

Take care and let the sunshine baby!

Jill