tumor or humor? (no, nobody has cancer)

When Aiden was only about 8-9 months old, we had just moved to this new town and new house. It was a whirlwind of a couple of weeks as we got settled in, found our jobs, Target, etc. It had been about three weeks when Aiden started doing this "weird thing". I mostly noticed it when he was sitting in his high chair, eating, though he did it at other times too. He would be sitting there smiling and laughing and eating, then his little face would contort a little, his head would turn to the side, his eyes would roll back into his head and his head would twitch just a little. It would last about 2-5 seconds, then he would snap out of it. The first couple of times, I thought hmmm, that's kinda weird. Then it started happening a LOT. The thing that scared me the most, was that I couldn't make him snap out of it in the middle of it. I would clap my hands, call his name, nothing would get his attention until he was done.

We were so new in town, we hadn't even found a pediatrician yet, so we hurried and made an appointment with anyone we could, and took him in. I had just happened to catch a little shot of him doing it on our video camera, so I showed the doctor, and he said exactly what a was thinking. "Well, that looks like a little seizure."

He had us take him in for a sedated MRI and EEG to see what, if anything, was going on. I had nightmares of epilepsy, and what scared me even more, brain tumors. It reminded me of the little kids I took care of for a short time at Primary Children's who had shunts coming out of their little heads because of the tumors in their brains. We did the tests, it was so sad seeing him sedated, he looked lifeless. A little funny seeing him come off the drugs, however. At the time I was upset with myself that I forgot my camera, and I didn't take any pictures, but I'm glad we don't have pictures of that experience. It's one that I don't mind forgetting.

The MRI was completely negative, and the EEG was "slightly abnormal" but the neurologist couldn't find any real problem. Then I found out that EEG's in kids that little, no matter what, will read as abnormal because they are designed around adults brains, and kids brains are not nearly as developed, and thus they are different. So basically, they found nothing. Then, the "siezures" slowed, and then stopped completely. I was very glad that they stopped, and that nothing was wrong, but oh my goodness, that was an expensive little adventure!

Lately, Aiden has learned some new faces that make us laugh, or that at least get a reaction from us. This is one of them.

It starts out just like thisThen turns into a little bit of this,

Then this. Kind of freaky right? It's pretty similar, though not the same, as the "siezures". It's a little funnier in person, and now that we know it's nothing but our kid being wierd. He does it a lot when something is bothering his eyes, like in these pictures, the sun was shining in his eyes, and he said "momma the wind is blowing in my eyes!" (He doesn't know everything yet) then he made this face.

Now I have to wonder, was that just a face he was making way back then, and when he got a reaction from me, he just kept doing it till it got old, or was it just some wierd thing that he grew out of really fast. I guess we'll never know.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my handsome, sweet husband's birthday. I bought him a gun for his big day, in honor of the face that his birthday falls on the same day Barack Obama gets inaugurated into office as President. Seemed fitting. I gave it to him (he actually bought it himself with my permission) a couple of days ago, so I wanted to write him a little note on his big day.

Happy Birthday sweetheart! I love you, and hope you have a great day. We've been through a lot together, good and bad, and thank goodness it's all just made us stronger as a couple, and we love each other so much more because of the challenges we've faced. I love my life with you and Aiden. Thank you for everything you've given me, and for all the happiness we've shared. We have a good life. I love you.

By the way, neighbors, did you see the fire truck pull up in front of my house today? It's not anything to worry about. I was cooking a chicken (boiling a chicken, how do you burn a boiling chicken this bad?) and I fell asleep when Aiden went down for his nap because I've been sick. Don't judge me. I woke up to all of the smoke alarms in our house going off. The house was filled with THICK smoke. I can't believe it didn't wake me up! Now, when we first moved into this house, this guy came to our door and talked us into getting an APX alarm system. Everything was free of charge, it was a promotional thing or something, we just have to pay monthly for the service. How stupid are we? So we signed a three year contract. Three years! Anyway, one of the features is a fire alarm that is monitored by the alarm company, and if it goes off, they dispatch the fire department. I wasn't a big fan of that, but they always call first, when it goes off, and make sure it's legitimate. Well, they called Kenny's phone today, when the fire alarm went off, and he didn't answer, so they dispatched the fire department, THEN they called my phone, and by the time I told them it was a false alarm, it was too late to undispatch them. So at least I was informed before hand, that the fire department was coming to my house. How embarrassing!! The smoke alarms were still going off as we stood out in the front yard (in our pajamas, I've been lazy and have now paid for it) as we explained to the nice firemen that there was in fact, no fire. They were very nice, and even offered to bring their big fans into our house to blow out the smoke. I declined, because I was SOOOO embarrassed. I took the opportunity to introduce Aiden to the nice firemen. I think he liked it. What an adventure! So, neighbors, sorry if we scared ya. It scared us too.

the other day . . .

Aiden and I decided to walk over and get some doughnuts from our friendly neighborhod . . . Maverick. What can I say, we don't have a kripsy kreme store here, so we go to Maverick. They have krispy kreme's there. Aiden loves doughnuts. They make his world go round. There is a Maverick store pretty close to where we live, so I decided (at Aiden's insistence) that we could walk there, get our doughnuts, walk from there to the park to eat our doughnuts, and then walk back home. Not too far right? Well, It's not that far driving. It's a little farther to walk. With a two year old. On the way, Aiden taught me how to skip "Aiden style".

Then, when we got close enough that he could see the top of the "doughnuts" as he calls it, he started to run. There it is! We went in and I got three doughnuts. One for him, and two for me. I'm a hungry girl ok? Don't judge me. I however decided after the first doughnut that I didn't want the second one, so we saved it for later.

Aiden sure enjoyed his doughnut.

And he lusted after the one that was left.

After we finished our one doughnut each, we walked to the park. I know the original plan included us eating at the park, but Aiden couldn't wait. He insisted on carrying the last doughnut, and had it with him at all times. Down the slide, on the swing, everywhere he went he clutched that little bag in his sticky little hand.

Then it started to get dark, so we headed home. Aiden ditched the bag somewhere along the way and just carried the doughnut, till that was too much temptation and he ended up eating it before we got home. That was okay with me, because as long as he was preoccupied with eating the doughnut, he wasn't concerned with how far he had walked, and that he had never walked that far before.

The only hitch came when we got to the fence that we used to just step over, but it had been fixed up all nice and tight with barbed wire and everything. I had to decide if I wanted to brave the barbed wire, or walk a longer distance, probably in the dark along a busy road. I forgot how skinny I am not, and tried to shimmy my way through two of the strands of barbed wire. I got stuck halfway, pinned on both sides by barbs catching my jacket, and my pants. It was at that point that I thought about how cows sometimes get stuck in barbed wire fences and die, and that was all it took. I forgot about ripping my pants and jacket, and just forced my way through. Aiden was easy I just made him crawl on his face under the fence. He's much smaller than I am. We got home just fine before dark even. I only ended up carrying Aiden for five minutes of the whole endeavor. He was a pretty tough kid. It must have been worth it too, because every day he asks to walk to doughnuts again.

We had a pretty good day.

a child's dream, finally come true

Oh, did you think this was going to be about Aiden? No, no. Kenny's dream for, like, years at least has been to have one of these suh-weet big sized remote control car-truck whatevers. I wouldn't let him spend our money on one cause they're expensive and just a titch childish. So, he bought one for himself with his Christmas money. It made me laugh, but oh my goodness look how stinking happy he is! On a separate, more interesting and blog-worthy note, Aiden got TONS of presents for Christmas. We got this one out and put it to use the other day, and Aiden loves it. Kenny's parents got him this little riding bulldozer that has a little bucket and trailer. He has so much fun on it.

Here he is "bullin da dozer" as he calls it. Get it?Great present Grandma and Grandpa G. He loves it!

Stuff about 2008

I stole this idea from Michelle and her sister, it is a "things I did in 2008" list. I couldn't really figure out where they got their numbers from, so I just did as many as I could think of. My mom and sister also did a "favorites in 2008" post, and because I want to be just like them too, I'll post a few of my favorites.

Things I did in 2008:

• We celebrated our fifth year of marriage
• and Aiden's second year of life
• Went to Mesa Verde for our anniversary vacation. It was the first anniversary vacation we ever went on, so it was kind of a big deal.
• I read all of the Twilight books and watched the movie. Liked most of the books, not so much the movie.
• Read 18 books
• Worked full time for three months while my husband was out of work.
• Worried a LOT about, apparently, nothing
• Bought my first fancy pants camera and got two new lenses for said fancy pants camera.
• Learned what aperture means (kind of)
• Took lots of blue pictures, till people told me how to fix it.
• Started my very own blog
• Took Aiden to see Disney on Ice
• Voted for the losing team, John Mccain and Sarah Palin
• Sent Aiden's "rags" off to the sky with lots of balloons and got rid of them forever. Aiden still asks for a "clean rag" sometimes.
• Had a live in babysitter for two weeks while Kenny's sister Karrina came to stay with us. I wonder if she'll ever come back.
• Took Aiden camping in a tent
• Enjoyed the opening of our community center and went swimming there 47,000 times
• Made my first ever "by myself" quilt
• Bought Aiden his first big boy bed and potty
• Potty trained Aiden in less than a week-or, I should say, Aiden potty trained himself in less than a week.
• Bought and used our first "liberal tree"
• Joined a book club, and though I have read all of the "required" books, I have yet to go to a meeting.
• Went trick-or-treating with a monkey
• Lost and FOUND lambie. Quite a few times, actually.

These are a few of my favorites from 2008:

Favorite place to eat: like Michelle, Texas Roadhouse. The ribs. The rolls. The everything. It's just delicious. Yum.

Favorite movie: Hmmm, I know I saw some movies this year. I'll have to come back to this one. Hmm. Still don't know. I guess nothing really stuck out.

Favorite book:I know it's sad, but I'm going to have to say Twilight. The first book.

Favorite new toy: My camera of course! Photography is sort of my new favorite hobby too, but I'm not that good yet. I have a long way to go before I will be shooting "awesome" photos of things and people, but I'm loving the learning. Most importantly, I AM learning!


Favorite photo that I, my very own self took-

This one. You've seen it before, his face makes my heart happy.

Favorite new treat:
These lovely little delights make my heart happy too. Does anyone know where I can get more of them? Anyone? Anyone?

And my favorite song of 2008 is . . . I love to see the temple. It is Aiden's favorite, so it is my favorite. It's not one that I heard for the first time in 2008, but it is definitely my favorite this year.

Oh where, oh where can he be?

These lovely little guys are Aiden's nighttime pals. He's had Monkey (yes, they all have names as original as Monkey's) since his very first Christmas. Giraffie was meant for Aiden's little brother, Kendall, but Kendall didn't come to us, so Giraffie became Aiden's. To Aiden, Giraffie is just another stuffed toy, but for me, Giraffie is the only tie Aiden has to the brother he almost had. And Lambie is the newest comer, Aiden got him for this last Easter. He's the current favorite, and he's missing at this time. Poor Aiden's little heart is broken. I'm sure he's in our house somewhere, so Gramma's don't need to ransack their houses looking for him. Since Lambie is MIA, Giraffie has taken the temporary spot as Aiden's favorite. Luckily he has so many stuffed friends to comfort him when he needs it (like his rags, these guys can comfort him better than I can sometimes, whether I like it or not).

One of Aiden's current favorite songs, that he and I sing over and over all day long, is the one that goes "Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone, oh where oh where can he be?". Aiden calls it "Dog Gone", but lately he and I have been wandering around the house singing a different version. Ours is similar, and goes "Oh where, oh where has our little Lambie gone, oh where, oh where can he be?"

in a word-trained

The other day Aiden decided that he was ready to be a big boy, and he now exclusively uses the toilet. He has been wearing big boy undies every day since Monday, and hasn't had an accident (Except for two of the past five mornings the diaper that we put on him while he's sleeping was wet-I am not ready for a bed wetter) yet. I am waiting for a big relapse, because I hear it happens. But for now, I'm just going to say it. He's SO potty trained. This child just loves to learn, and try new things. Now, I know that he's not the first or second or third kid to be potty trained at two, but man, he just really took to it fast, and way before we expected.

When he is done he insists on pulling up his undies "all by myself" and his little bum is left hanging out every time. It's so stinking cute. Sometimes I leave him to wander around like that for a while before I pull up his pants the rest of the way for him.

This is his sticker board. For every time he pees or poos in the potty, he gets a sticker. For the first month or two that we had the potty there was one sticker up there, then eventually two and now he's got a whole collection. That sticker board is one of his very favorite things in our whole house. Every time he gets a new sticker he counts them which doesn't ever come out right because he counts them randomly and he can only count to 16 before starting over. He usually just counts to six and then he's done and he tells me there are six. I think he'll be a mathematician when he grows up.

To Aiden, the best thing is that he is a big boy now, and that is almost be incentive enough for using the potty without the stickers. I can't believe how big he has gotten, and how smart he is. He knows the alphabet all the way through, with the exception of L and N. For some reason, they never make it into Aiden's alphabet. He can recognize almost all of the letters too, by sight. He knows B, C, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y and Z. His very favorite letter is W followed closely by M of course, because it looks just like W. Who has a favorite letter?

He loves to sing, and is actually pretty good and can almost hold a tune. He's got a list of his favorite songs that he has memorized and sings to me whenever I want.

When we drive down the street he knows all of the places we are passing, and he can usually figure out where we are heading. His favorite store is Target, because of the wall of Vacuums. We almost never go to Wal-Mart, but he knows right where it is, and that it is followed by Home Depot, and Petco. He remembers where we went to vote, where we went bowling once in Moab, and can tell us turn by turn how to get to Gramma's house.

I am beyond proud of the little boy he has grown into, and I am wishing he would stop for just a little while so I can catch up to him. He is the love of our lives, we are so lucky to have him.