Graham's Request

Just in case this ever comes to pass I wanted it recorded.

Here is a brief conversation I had with Graham yesterday.

Graham: (getting up from playing and walking over to me.) Mommy, do you have a baby in your tummy?

Me: No, Graham, why did you ask me that?

Graham: Because I want a baby sister.

Me: Well, you're going to have to ask God for that. Maybe some day.

Graham: Ok. (Back to playing)

I'm pretty sure some family member put him up to this, but whether they did or not, it was pretty cute. :)

Spring/Summer 2010

Much has happened, obviously, since our last post, so here is a picture tour of our spring and summer. (By the way, I feel like the most technologically stupid person when it comes to blogging. This post literally took me hours to get all the pictures up and it's not even all of them. I said forget it and posted it anyways. I think I would blog more if it didn't take so much time....time is one thing I don't have a lot of these days. ARG!!)

Graham loves his sun glasses....we bring them everywhere, "so the sun won't get my eyes!"


This is a pic of the brothers during Blast Extreme week at our church (Vacation Bible School). Graham absolutely loved it! And while we were all exhausted by the end of the week, it was so worth it! Ask Graham to quote Joshua 1:9 to you next time you see him. He can sing it and say it....good job, Graham! Hide God's word in your heart!

Something we did a lot of this summer....forts inside! When it's hot you've got to find fun things to do indoors. :)

My sweet Rowan cuddling up to Mama. :)

Hmmmmm....thinking about something, or meditating, or??

Crazy hair!!

I'm sorry this pic is sideways (again, see comment at the beginning!), but it had to be posted. Graham has a mud pit in the backyard that he plays in quite often. It's his time to just be himself and not have mom all over him to keep clean! (That is until he comes back into the house.)

Sweet Rowan James

Rowan hanging out with his Papa.

Easter hike in Tucson up to Romero Pools.....Let's just say I was a trooper, but still complained quite a bit.

This is our backyard in the spring....I LOVE all the flowers in bloom. The ice plant is my fav!!

The boys hangin' with Grandpa! Graham is trying to give Rowan kisses with the frog. I'm thinkin' Rowan's not super excited about that.

Rowan eating avocado....we are happy that he is picking up food with a "pincher" grasp and getting it all over the place to FEED HIMSELF!!

The brothers

Here is Rowan eating his first cupcake ever at his 1 year old party!! He likes it, of course. :) We did not know this at the time, but two days later we found out he had pneumonia. He was sick for his party, but not too sick for cake.

The cupcakes in the shape of a caterpillar for his "Very Hungry Caterpillar"/Eric Carle themed birthday party.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Rowan. First of all because he is sitting all by himself! And also....I don't think anyone is not smiling after seeing THAT smile. He literally lights up the whole room. :)

Here are the brothers playing around. Graham now likes to wrestle with Rowan, and Rowan likes it a lot too! (most of the time......)

The Olympian

So now that the Olympics are over, we can go back to forgetting all about those people we got to know for two-plus weeks until 2014. I'm always surprised how I get pulled into sporting events and games that I completely ignore for 4 years, save those 2 weeks they get high profile during Olympics. During these times we get an in depth, up close look at the athletes' lives and training for this one, special time. We're told that they've trained their whole lives for this chance at Olympic glory, to live forever in our hearts and minds and in the record books. They of course, have other competitions that they earn their living at, but this is the Olympics.

We root for people we've never heard of because they wear our flag on their back. We root against people we've never heard of because we don't like what the president/dictator/military of their homeland did in the past. Strangely, we're really only rooting for the place we were born, through no decision of our own, and we're forever rooted there. In each competition there's a winner who gets to climb the podium and hear his or her national anthem. The glory of victory lasts forever.

Right?

Who was the men's polevault winner in 2000? Can't remember? Maybe you need something more recent and prominent. Who won the women's figure skating gold in 2006? Google it and you'll know, but is that glory? I say no. Sports glory lasts as long as the national anthem of the winner. Maybe even as long as the offseason. Short lived for sure.

There is a kind of glory that lasts for much longer. You could say it is truly a lasting glory that Olympians strive for, but slips through their hands like sand. The Olympian is God, and his glory has no end. His victory is over the power of Hell, and he stands atop the podium to hear his anthem. "He doesn't have an anthem" you might say, but surely he does. It goes like this "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come" and continues "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being." (Revelation 4) But the anthem doesn't end, and it's not a recording that repeats. The anthem is sung by the creatures God himself created, and they sing it not because they are forced or coerced, they do it because they feel compelled to and have no other way to express their feelings. God never tires of this expression, and neither does his creation.

God is The Olympian who receives the eternal glory that athletes strive for.

Time goes on....

Enjoy the pics of our two darling boys!! We know that we are so blessed! I also wrote a "novel" about each of the boys after the pictures just so I would remember this stage of their lives. If you care to read, then enjoy that too. :)

Wild Graham!!

Rowan LOVES his brother!

Silly boy.....

SMILES!!

Graham concentrating while coloring......of course it's blue. :)

Rowan sitting up like a "big boy" in his Bumbo seat.

Hugging a snowman.

Bundled up for the snow!

Daddy and Ro-Dawg



This one is my favorite!!

So I wanted to write a little bit about the boys in the stage they are in so I won't forget. Time just keeps ticking.....I can't seem to figure out how to keep up with this thing called "blog". Anyway.....

Graham is in the hardest stage so far to parent. We're in full-on parenting mode with him. You know, the "Oh-my-gosh-am-I-going-to-screw-this-kid-up-for-life-or-have-I-already?" mode. You know, that one! At the same time, there are so many things that are so amazing about him. Yes, he's VERY strong-willed, and sometimes rude, and takes EVERYTHING apart, and gets into trouble, but those are also the things that are so great about him (except for the rude part). While it drives me crazy, I know one day we are going to look back and laugh at how many times he took the lamps apart, and how we had to remove several things from his room because he would disassemble them and hide the pieces. Or how he would take the dominoes and playing cards and dice and magnetic letters and any little parts of some game and put them all into one special place (usually so special we don't find it until the boys are asleep and we're cleaning up after the day). When I find them, I always smile....he loves the parts of things. :) I also love our conversations (when he will actually sit down and talk). This usually happens in the car on the way to go somewhere. I have heard him ask God if He will make it rain while driving along in the back seat. (This is a frequent prayer, along with "God can you get my hiccups away") We also talk about the tractors, or clouds, or the blue cars (he loves blue like he loves Mommy or Daddy or Brown Doggie), or the buildings, etc. The conversation usually goes something like, "Mommy, is that tractor working today?" "No" "Why is it not working today?" "Some days they don't work." "But I want the tractor to work today!" "Well, Graham, you can't make all the decisions." "Yes I can." Some day he'll get it. Oh Graham, my first born, my sweet, sweet Graham. Mommy and Daddy love you so much and want you to become the wonderful person that you are. God help us to let him go a little at a time. I pray that he would see his need for You at a very early age.

Our little Rowan baby, as we call him, is so sweet. He truly is our sunshine. Every morning when I go in to get him up, he looks up at me and smiles and gets so excited as if to say, "This is the best day ever!!" Everything is the "best thing" to him. Everything is "funny"!! He is rolling all around the floor and often ends up near the entertainment center where he will pat the glass with his hands or try to get the CD cases out. He is starting to discover the difference between his toys and brother's toys....and I think he quite prefers brother's toys. Which is fine, except in cases when there are small pieces; of course he doesn't understand this. He is starting to tell us when he is unhappy about something. Eric gave him a bath the other night and he grunted and groaned when he got him out because he wanted to keep splashing. Speaking of baths....forget having him lay down in the tub....he wants to roll right over and begin the splashing!! He tries to "grab" the water in his hand, but when that doesn't work, he just pats it. He "talks" to us often, also. I love his little "bababababa's" and "dadadadada's" and when he's really upset it's "mamamama!!" in a very sad voice. Rowan is happy most all the time, but just like any other baby, he has his moments. When he gets sad, it's a "break-your-heart" face and cry! One of these days I really do need to capture this face on camera. It's pretty classic. Our prayer for Rowan is that he would try, try, and try again. There may be things that are difficult for him, but we pray that he would have the motivation to keep getting better. More than all of that, though, we pray that Rowan would learn to love God and His Word and that the people around him would be blessed by his sweet spirit because of his love for God. We also pray that Rowan's "story" would cause others to praise our marvelous Creator who has given this little boy life!!

Rowan's first bites of food

We gave Rowan his first taste of rice cereal tonight, and he liked it!

Graham's Halloween costume:

Graham excited about his new jammies:

The boys enjoying a warm bath:

Family Picture

By request:

Post Surgery

Ok, it's been 3 weeks since Rowan's surgery so I thought I should recap now or never do it.

The weeks and days leading up to the surgery got heavier for us as the time approached. Graham could sense that mama and daddy were not quite the same and he acted a little differently because of it. He was a little more clingy than normal and so were we. Anytime you do heart surgery there is a chance of mortality, and I think that both of us were focusing on that chance more than anything. The last numbers I had seen were somewhere in the 3-4% range, which doesn't seem high until you consider that Rowan was a 1 in 1400 baby with DS. So numbers aren't exactly comforting to us, no matter how small. The week before the surgery we decided to take family photos. Natalie and I both knew why we wanted the photos, it was in case Rowan didn't make it. We didn't have to say it out loud; we knew. After taking the photos there was a little bit of relief for both of us, not sure why.

The day before the surgery we did pretesting at the hospital to make sure he wasn't getting sick. They had to draw blood and couldn't find a vein in his arm, so they had to use a vein in his head. Not a good sign. He was fine and we got ready for surgery the next day. We got to the hospital at 8AM to get checked in for a 10AM surgery. We ended up running into the sister of a friend from high school there. Her daughter was having heart surgery that day, but a different type. It was a nice distraction from sitting and waiting.We didn't get called for surgery until 1130AM. That was hard to sit and wait and think about what was going to happen. Plus Rowan hadn't eaten since 5AM and was getting hungry, but he just grunted like he was toughing it out. Good sign.

The long walk to the operating room was tough, as we were mentally preparing to drop off our son into the hands of a stranger to cut him open and fix his heart. It didn't help that the gal who "helped" us get to the OR took us to the wrong cardiothoracic OR. They have one just for the kids, she took us to the adult side. On the wrong floor. In the wrong wing. Not very comforting at all. We finally got to the right place and handed Rowan over. This moment was the hardest of all. I can't really explain it, except to say that I had a thought that this might be the last time I held him. I wanted him to be healed, but I was worried of the possibility of mortality. I think Natalie had some of the same thoughts. The funny thing was, as soon as the OR doors closed we were fine. It was out of our hands at that point (it always was, but I think it truly hit us at that moment) and we were at peace. We moved our stuff into the recovery room and took a little nap.

We got news at 230PM that they had just made the first incision at 130PM. We were surprised because they told us that it would only take 30 minutes to prep him. They couldn't get an IV in the kid anywhere, it took 2 hours. The poor kid came out looking like a voodoo doll. We decided to get dinner since he would be late getting out of surgery. It felt odd to leave our son in the hospital having surgery and go eat. We made quick work of dinner and got back ASAP. In the parking garage Natalie's phone rang and they said he would be in the room in 30 minutes. We were so overjoyed. I let out a Whoooohoooo in the garage and startled some people. Who cares. We were on cloud 9 that our boy made it!

We waited in the waiting room while they got him settled, IV tree put together and all the monitors setup. When we saw him for the first time what struck me was that it was going to be a tough road of recovery. I felt like I had been studying for a test, and when I got there the topic had changed and I studied for the wrong thing. I studied for the surgery instead of the recovery. It turns out that I didn't matter. Duh! Rowan was a stud and recovered so quickly that he was out of there in 6 days, when they told us to be prepared for 10-14! He's practically back to normal already and was rolling over, albeit gingerly and he wasn't thrilled once he got on his tummy, just as soon as we got him home. We still have an area of the living room fenced off from his brother so he doesn't get smashed on accident, but Rowan has exceeded our expectations so far.

I hope I didn't bore you with this long essay, but I thought it might be interesting to see my thoughts and emotions during this time. If it wasn't, hopefully you skimmed and will enjoy the pictures.

-E

Immediately after surgery

3 days after surgery

Discharge. This was almost as exciting as leaving with a newborn.