Carter is too cute...and smart

Ok. I know it's a second post in the same month! Rare? yes. But this was too cute and was going on over and over today...I grabbed the camera and just let it go and watched.

Let me set the stage. The last few weeks, Carter found that the buttons on the TV make the TV do interesting things. Noise, on/off, make it loud, etc.

Ashleigh came home from school (I've been home sick) and wanted to play a Wii game. So we started playing and Carter would turn the TV off. Ashleigh would pull Carter away, turn the TV back on and Carter would get from whatever part of the house Ashleigh moved him to and get back to those fun buttons. Over and over and over between these two. I started to laugh.

Ashleigh then decided to put a box of toys and other stuff in front of the TV to stop Carter from doing his "work." This went on and on and over and over.

I decided this was worth recording and grabbed my camera. Anyway, just watch the video. It's just under 2 minutes.

You see Carter not trying to draw attention to himself as he gets closer and closer and closer to the TV and then he makes his move. After this, Ashleigh stayed close by to stop him (I would have too.) I tried to get her to come back to the couch. This was fun!

Alan (Dad)

P.S. The number of times he turned the TV off was about 15 or so you can see everybody got creative each time. More toys, more not drawing attention to himself, etc.

P.S. Yes we still have our VHS player hooked up that we never use and we have an old TV. We hope we've been very good this year and can get one of those new flat panels.

Ok...fall off your chair....it's a Carter fix for the holidays

We are SO bad. You'd think we could at least post an update more frequently.

Anyway...let's get to business...and it will be all about Carter.

First, some uniqueness about Carter, besides his extra chromosome.

Carter always sleeps on his stomach sort of. He puts his leg up like a brace...or something and he seems to always have his leg in this "wow that looks uncomfortable" position.

Many of you have seen his modified crawl up on one leg and use his other knee. Anyway, it's cute when he sleeps like this.

And he walks...finally...We were waiting in the pre-op at Primary's when all of a sudden he just took off and started walking. And he hasn't slowed down since.


















He thinks he has had his fair share of operations - Dad you're next!













Then of course, surgery is over, he wakes up and smiles...there is no pain he can't smile away...

About 90 minutes earlier, he had tubes placed in his ears and his adenoids removed from his throat. I don't think I would look like this...

















Now that he is all better, he can go trick or treating for Halloween. What a cutie cow...

























That will have to do it for now. He is growing up and it's nice to have his rough start more behind us and watching our little boy grow. And for those who don't know, Carter is going to be a big brother to a little sister in March. This is going to be fun...

Ok...Dad this time

We are so bad in updating our blog, but Dad is here to sneak a post in...A very busy summer for the fam. The good news first, Carter no longer has Pulmonary Hypertension so the CPAP machine has been returned...Yea for Carter. We can just keep Carter sleeping in his O2 tent in his crib. What is an O2 tent? Great question. We have a funnel connected to the end of his oxygen line and then cover his crib with a sheet draper over the top. He consistently sleeps in the 90s for his oxygen levels.

This has been a great relief to us. His doc even took a two-night oxygen test where Carter wore a portable pulse-oximeter that recorded his sat levels.

The not so good news is that we're back to surgery in October to remove his adenoids...again...who knew they could grow back and they are not under any warranty so we'll pay to remove them a second time. Here's hoping they don't grow back a third time. They'll also put more tubes in Carter's ears and the same time. It should be a quick surgery and more time in recovery than the surgery is.

I'll leave some of the Taiwan pictures and more tidbits for Kristi to post.

Parker became a teenager last month so we'll see how the next 6 years go for us as parents. Everyone says it's so S C A R Y! He's pretty excited about being "thirteen" and driving in 2 years...yes...he is counting to his learner's permit which he says he will get at 15. We'll see. Ashleigh turns 7 next week and wants to be so grown up. I hope she doesn't grow up too fast. She is a treat to have around the house.

We also spent the first part of August in Yellowstone with Kristi's sister and her family. Carter was able to splash in Yellowstone Lake which he loves. (He loves bath time too and can splash with the rest of them.) We saw lots of deer and buffalo around Hayden Valley but did not see bears or fugitives this time.

We enjoy these little getaways and our cell phones don't work in the park except for around Old Faithful. It's nice when you can't be reached. Do you remember when vacations didn't include cell phones or the Internet?

As you'll see, the ride home lulled the kids to sleep, the boys in the back and Ashleigh in the middle. They sure are cute when they are asleep.




Some of you may already know but Carter has a new nickname...Tornado... He scoots around the house from place to place and tears it apart. Whether it is a garbage can, DVDs, newspaper, mom's work, dad's work, the kids homework, unloading kitchen drawers, throwing toys, dolls, dad's things and mom's things down stairs, etc. I think we spend more time cleaning up after him than pretty much anything else. And just like a tornado, portions of the house get thrashed and other parts untouched.

We went to the state fair earlier in September and got a picture of all three Anderson "carrots." What a cute bunch of kids.

Carter is now in nursery at church (at least during non-RSV season) for now and he enjoys playing with the other kids. The bubbles and the songs are his most fun things. He has a helper for him to make sure he doesn't get trampled by the others and since he loves to keep putting things in his mouth, the helper "helps" him pace his food intake.

Well, I think that is enough from me. We are grateful we still are working and looking for the economy to rebound. We're doing our share by finishing our basement...for the 7th or 8th year now. I'm committed to getting it finished while the snow flies and keeps us more indoors.

Love you all,
Alan & Kristi and the kids

Don't fall off your chair - it is an update

I guess I have been on a blog vacation. What with it being two months since I last posted. I didn't mean to go on a blog vacation - it just sort of happened with everything happening around here. A nice friend reminded me that I do indeed have a blog and it was in need of some attention - so here we go!

We have been busy. Places to go, people to see, things to do, appointments to keep and everything in between.

Parker with his 6th grade teacher Mrs Casdorph

Parker is happy to have finished sixth grade and is even more excited to enter the world of Junior High. While he is still going to the same school - he does get to switch from a white uniform shirt to a blue uniform shirt to signal the big change from elementary school to junior high. We are proud of his grades - he did much better fourth quarter than in previous quarters so that is GOOD!

Ashleigh with her kindergarten teacher Mrs Odulio

Ashleigh with her kindergarten teacher Mrs Cope

Ashleigh finished Kindergarten and is thrilled that she will get to go to school ALL DAY next year. Mom is kind of mixed on that feeling - I will miss the times we had just her, Carter and I. But she is excited to learn more things, eat lunch at school and stay all day. I will not miss the 11 am pickup every single day - that gets old really fast because it breaks up the day so much!

Carter has just been keeping us on our toes. We have had liftoff in the walking department. He can now stand up in the middle of the room and then take steps. So far about 10 steps is the farthest he has gotten. (There are two short video clips at the end of the blog post where we tried to capture him walking - he of course will not show off while the camera is rolling!!) While this is so good for him to be learning - we are having to childproof even more because when he stands up he is much taller and can reach stuff on the edges of tables and counters. He still specializes in making any and all sort of messes around the house. I have yet to have a clean house when anybody happens to stop over. Please don't judge my cleaning abilities on the way my house looks on any given day. I once saw a sign I think I need to hang in my house. "My house was clean yesterday - sorry you missed it!"

The CPAP thing is not going well at all - we are to the point we are going to ask for a sedative. He will only wear it for an hour and then as soon as he realizes it is on - he takes it off. He almost goes through an anxiety/panic attack when trying to get the thing off - it is kind of scary. But we are still trying......

We finally got a passing hearing test in his right ear - that is quite an accomplishment for him. He has failed several over the last couple of years. He is still failing in his left ear - but the hearing technician measured fluid in there and suggested we go back to the ENT to check the tube. The left tube is gone - so he drained out the fluid from the ear and we have an appointment in the middle of September to go back. If fluid has built up again in the left ear we will schedule another surgery to place another tube. While at this doctor appointment we also found out he had an ear infection in the right ear - didn't even know it!

Alan and I had the opportunity to spend 12 days in Taiwan without kids and it was wonderful. We were visiting a sister city there and we had a great time. I will post another several updates with pictures from that vacation - I only took 1200 pictures so I will have to find the best ones to post.

My last instruction to Carter was, "Please don't get sick." My parents were so nice to take all of our kids for the entire time - I just hoped Carter would cooperate. He is so much harder to take care of when he is sick with his oxygen needs and alarms. Well a few days into our vacation, we found out Carter had been to the doctor and had been diagnosed with pneumonia. (This and croup are the two hardest illnesses to manage with Carter). A round of antibiotics and breathing treatments were ordered and we were assured we shouldn't worry - that he was doing fine. I of course knew that this meant his pulse oximeter would have been beeping several times a night as his oxygen levels would have been all over the place. I felt bad for my parents because it is not easy. We talked to them several more times over the course of the vacation and when we saw him (we were skyping with cameras so we could see our kids and they could see us) we could tell he was not feeling good - his eyes looked sick.

On our flight home we had a layover in Los Angeles and we called my parents from there to tell them we had made it back to the United States. We couldn't get a hold of anyone, but my Dad called right before we boarded the plane and told us that Carter had to be taken to Primary Children's Medical Center that day and that he had been admitted. His diagnosis was viral pneumonia and bronchiolitis. They had admitted him because his oxygen levels were too hard to maintain and he needed to be watched.

We flew our last two hours back to Salt Lake - got off the plane - claimed our luggage and drove straight to the hospital. After spending 21 hours either in the air or in an airport we were exhausted. I decided to spend the night with Carter in the hospital - I already had all my luggage so I grabbed a few necessities and proceeded to have a sleepover with Carter. Except that I couldn't sleep because I was still on Taiwan time (14 hours ahead of Utah time) - I was exhausted. Not to mention that in two rooms by us there were newborns who cried all night and we were also behind the nurses station so we listened to alarms all night. The next morning the doctor came in and said he wanted to watch him a little longer and then he would discharge him - that was great news! I sat in that small room most of the morning and I was going stir crazy - I had been cooped up on an airplane for so long and then to be stuck in a small hospital room was almost too much for me. Add to that six hours of sleep in the last 48 hours and it was not a good combination. I had to get out of there. When they came in at 2:00 in the afternoon to get him ready for discharge I was more than ready to run out of the hospital doors into some fresh air.

The next few days were hard. He was back on oxygen 24/7 and his alarms would beep at least 20-25 times a night. I couldn't get my body switched back to Utah time because I couldn't sleep - I was averaging 4 hours a night of very interrupted sleep. After feeling like a zombie for a week and not being able to function very well - I asked Alan to please take one night so I could sleep and get my body clock turned back around. That night I was able to sleep for seven hours straight and when I woke up it was so much better. That was all I needed!

Carter is doing much better now - we have managed to get him off oxygen during the day. He is still sleeping with a cannula in his nose - we cannot do the oxygen tent when he requires more oxygen. We can't wait to get him back to normal. Last night he only beeped twice and it didn't beep long enough to have to get up to check on him! Slowly and surely he is improving and we are grateful that the hospital stay was brief!

It might be a while before my parents want to have a sleepover with Carter though! They were such good sports to have to go through all of that with Carter. They have now done most of what I have done - hospital stays, multiple doctor's appointments, arranging home medical equipment and the very sleepless nights! Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts for taking such great care of our kids and for allowing us a vacation! Sorry Carter didn't obey my instructions - I will have a chat with him about that before we have him come stay with you again! What would we ever do without parents?

Video clips
First one is what happens when you would like him to show off his walking skills and he decides to be a clown instead - typical Carter!!
Second video is a very short clip where you can actually see steps - not like the long walks he can do - he wouldn't cooperate with the camera on!!




I have been reading some blog posts by all of you - I have some serious catch up to do but I will get to all of them soon!

Utah Weather???

Yesterday

24 hours later

Given the choice - I think I will take option two!
My kids are out of school in 5 days - we do not need anymore snow! They want to wear shorts and go swimming!

I looked out the window and what did I see?

I looked out the window while I was on the phone with my sister and what did I see? Something big running across the brick ledge on my house. Scared me to death.

Let me explain: I don't do rodents of any kind, anywhere near or in my house. The few times we have had a mouse is certainly a cause for alarm. Last time we had a mouse come in from the garage, myself, Parker and Ashleigh all ended up standing up on our kitchen counter while we watched the mouse try to get out the kitchen door which was closed. (It was a scene that if captured on video probably would have won the $100,000 grand prize on America's Funniest Home Videos). They scare me - I do not like them at all.

I didn't know what I had just seen - all I knew was it was big, had a long tail, and I didn't know where it had gone. So we sat and watched and pretty soon he was camped out on my van tire. He would sit there and sit there - if someone walked past or a car went down the street he would run up into the engine and then would come back to the tire when he felt safe.

We watched him for the longest time before we went and checked to see if our neighbor knew what it was. I thought it looked like a very large pot gut that you normally see in the mountains. Except those guys don't have long bushy tails. Then we thought gopher - but it was also the wrong tail. Parker guessed a big fluffy rat (are there even such things? I hope not). We weren't sure what we had.

When Alan got home and he was still hanging out in our van we decided to call animal control. Course by the time they showed up an hour later he had deserted his post on the tire. We did show the animal control guy the pictures and the verdict was:

A VERY LARGE SQUIRREL (who must have had a broken tail because it never curled up against his back like normal). It was by far the largest squirrel I have ever seen.

See that long tail? The picture just doesn't really show how big he was. But when he came over to eat some of my flowers is when I began to think he might be a squirrel - he just kind of had a squirrel pose there.

Certainly made for an exciting afternoon. I think this is the first time in all my years living here that I have seen a squirrel - we don't really live in a place you would see squirrels. Of course with that being said - we do live next to a field where a red fox lives. He is cool to see - but it is odd even to me to see a fox on the way to school in the mornings.

Anyway, if you live in my neighborhood - there is a very large squirrel out there lurking somewhere.

A New Day ...... A New Piece of Equipment

The CPAP machine was finally ordered and dropped off today. What a mess of insurance hoopla to finally get it here - but it is here and Carter already hates it. We tried it on for less than 30 seconds and he immediately screamed and cried and pulled it off his face.


This is the update on what we have been told:

It is going to take him 2-3 months to even tolerate this machine. (Can you see why???)



It is going to be very tiring and time consuming to get him to tolerate this machine. We are going to want to quit - but we can't. The doctor said to be prepared for a lot of frustration. And she said one of the best times to get him to put it on and leave it on is while he is watching TV - guess we will be watching a lot of TV in the near future. You can't just put it on them at night because when they wake up they will be scared of it - so you have to get them to wear it while they can see it and get used to it.



Either I am camping out in his bedroom or his crib is coming in to ours (our doctor said I will probably be up every 15 minutes putting this thing back on his face). Sounds like fun!! We are also constructing an oxygen tent over his crib which includes a nylon or silk sheet, a funnel, duct tape (lots and lots) and oxygen tubing. I will have to post pictures after I rig up the crib to the specifications we have been given.



If we cannot get him to tolerate the machine in one or two months the doctor will prescribe a sedative to give him in order for him to leave it alone for any period of time.

If this doesn't work and we cannot get him to tolerate it the only option we have left is to trach him. The series of three surgeries told to us by our ENT has been nixed by two doctors after him. They said it is too risky and there is not a big enough chance that it could fix him to even entertain the idea of doing them.



Please pray that he will be able to tolerate this - we need this to work. And if you read this blog and have been through this with your child - please let me know of any advice you can think of that helped you get through this. We really really could use the help!! Thanks so much for loving and praying for our little guy!

Also, Carter's friend Ella is in need of some special prayers too. She was diagnosed with leukemia a week ago and has already had her first round of chemo. She is the cutest little thing - go check out her blog. You can click on her button on the side of this blog! You will just fall in love with her - she reminds me so much of Carter and his silly faces and endless smiles!