Next month it's been a year since I updated this blog. I left on a pretty negative note, so here is one final blog post to end things more positively. I've given up my blog for Instagram. A lot of my immediate family are on there, so they actually see what I post, unlike here. I think my mom was the only one who read my blog, which was fine when we all lived in the same city. But now that we live in a different city than my parents and siblings, it's nice to give and get updates without sending out an annoying mass text.
We have lived in Spanish Fork for almost a year, and we love it. My kids' school is so close that they walk there and home every day. Rebecca takes a dance class once a week, William plays basketball twice a week, and Braden starts soccer next month. Kevin really likes his job. Lia and Lucy are just little, and it's weird to think that they will never think of Las Vegas as home. If all goes as planned, they will grow up in Utah. Who knows what will happen in the future. A year ago, I did not expect to be living here, but if it is up to us, we plan to stay.
William is doing SO well. His hair is back, and for a while it wasn't red, but it has started turning red again. He loves playing basketball, and it's been really great for his self esteem. He does well in school and has had no problems getting caught up in 2nd grade even though I pulled him out of school in the middle of 1st grade. He goes to Primary Children's Hospital every three months for a CT scan to make sure he is still cancer free. So far so good.
We did not end up suing the hospitals in Las Vegas. We thought about suing and putting the money towards better cancer care because right now treatment there is a joke. Most of our friends being treated in Vegas eventually have to go to Utah or California for better care. Ultimately, we thought a lawsuit would be a big headache for money we may or may not win. We had a year to file, and that year just passed at the end of January, so even if we did want to sue now, we've missed our chance.
We are in a good place right now. Last year, I did not feel that way. We found out about William, and I found out I was pregnant with Lucy about two weeks later. I was so shocked by everything going on that I didn't tell most people I was even pregnant for a while. But Lucy is here and a lot of fun, and William acts as if he didn't go through hell last year. They told us kids are resilient, and we definitely see that with him. Things are good, and we are happy. And on that note I will say goodbye to this blog. I will always cherish the memories I've recorded on here.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Grateful
Two weeks after leaving Sunrise, William was in even more pain than he had ever been. He had to sit up to sleep, and even then he didn't sleep well, and he wouldn't let us touch his stomach at all. We had CPS calling us to set up their own medical exams for ALL of our kids, not just William. They were also dropping by for random visits in their government car letting all of our neighbors know we were under investigation.
William's urologist, the one doctor I actually trusted out of all the doctors I'd seen at the hospitals, happened to be out of town when William was in so much pain. His nurse advised us to take him back to the ER. We knew we never wanted to go back to either Summerlin or Sunrise because all they did was treat us like criminals. Their focus was not on what was wrong with William - it was on what we were doing wrong as parents. We also didn't want to risk getting our kids taken away by Nevada CPS because William seemed to be even worse than he was after his second visit to the hospital.
The only other place I knew that treated trauma patients was Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. I'm sure there were hospitals in between Las Vegas and Salt Lake that had trauma units, but I didn't want to go searching for which ones did, so I packed up a few things and drove William all the way to Salt Lake City to see why he was in so much pain. At that point, I believed William's urologist when he told us that William had a giant blood clot that needed to shrink, so I was hoping Primary Children's would check him out and give me a stronger medicine to take care of his pain.
At first I was terrified that Primary Children's would be suspicious of me too. I was scared to answer too many questions. I was quite distrusting of medical professionals after our previous hospital visit. When they asked why I came all the way to Salt Lake, I told them we were staying with my parents in Utah, and we were told by his nurse to take him to the ER. This is actually true. We were staying with my parents for the weekend, but I did not tell the hospital that my parents lived in southern Utah - four hours away. We were actually closer to Sunrise from my parents house.
But the way this hospital works is so amazing. All departments got involved and worked together to figure out a diagnosis. They kept asking me what his diagnosis was in Las Vegas, and they would give me funny looks every time I told them what it was. After about two or three hours of waiting, the ER doctor came in to tell me that they thought William might have cancer on his kidney. I was shocked. That was not was I was expecting to hear at all. He told me they were going to get oncology involved, and I had to ask him what oncology was. He said they were the cancer doctors.
It was one of the surgeons who recognized the kidney tumor. He had seen it before. See what great things can be done when all of the different departments at hospitals cooperate with each other to find solutions to problems? In Las Vegas, the different departments would all contradict each other, and no one would ever tell us which department was actually in charge. I don't think they even knew.
But I'm grateful that Summerlin and Sunrise are disorganized disasters. It lead us to where we needed to be. William's tumor got a little out of control by the time it was diagnosed. His visit to Sunrise in November was the start of the cancer, so it went undiagnosed for three months. Because his tumor had grown so rapidly, Primary's decided to shrink it for six weeks before taking it out surgically. He just had his sixth week of treatment, so next week they will decide if he's ready for surgery. And every week since his diagnosis I see him getting better and better. It's so amazing.
Primary's asked if we wanted to transfer his remaining treatments to Las Vegas, and we said no. We immediately started working on moving to Utah to be closer to the hospital. We moved the Spanish Fork last week, and we have really liked it so far.
Some people have asked us if we are going to sue Summerlin and Sunrise. I don't know yet. Kevin's dad works as a medical expert for a malpractice law firm, and they want our case. They told us to call them when we are ready. Kevin wants those two hospitals held accountable so they won't do this to another unsuspecting family - they can't just call CPS every time they make a mistake and a child ends up back in the hospital. Sadly a civil suit is the only way to have the hospitals investigated. I'm not sure how I feel, but I'm mostly leaning towards letting it go. We'll make a decision after William is completely finished with his treatments.
William's urologist, the one doctor I actually trusted out of all the doctors I'd seen at the hospitals, happened to be out of town when William was in so much pain. His nurse advised us to take him back to the ER. We knew we never wanted to go back to either Summerlin or Sunrise because all they did was treat us like criminals. Their focus was not on what was wrong with William - it was on what we were doing wrong as parents. We also didn't want to risk getting our kids taken away by Nevada CPS because William seemed to be even worse than he was after his second visit to the hospital.
The only other place I knew that treated trauma patients was Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. I'm sure there were hospitals in between Las Vegas and Salt Lake that had trauma units, but I didn't want to go searching for which ones did, so I packed up a few things and drove William all the way to Salt Lake City to see why he was in so much pain. At that point, I believed William's urologist when he told us that William had a giant blood clot that needed to shrink, so I was hoping Primary Children's would check him out and give me a stronger medicine to take care of his pain.
At first I was terrified that Primary Children's would be suspicious of me too. I was scared to answer too many questions. I was quite distrusting of medical professionals after our previous hospital visit. When they asked why I came all the way to Salt Lake, I told them we were staying with my parents in Utah, and we were told by his nurse to take him to the ER. This is actually true. We were staying with my parents for the weekend, but I did not tell the hospital that my parents lived in southern Utah - four hours away. We were actually closer to Sunrise from my parents house.
But the way this hospital works is so amazing. All departments got involved and worked together to figure out a diagnosis. They kept asking me what his diagnosis was in Las Vegas, and they would give me funny looks every time I told them what it was. After about two or three hours of waiting, the ER doctor came in to tell me that they thought William might have cancer on his kidney. I was shocked. That was not was I was expecting to hear at all. He told me they were going to get oncology involved, and I had to ask him what oncology was. He said they were the cancer doctors.
It was one of the surgeons who recognized the kidney tumor. He had seen it before. See what great things can be done when all of the different departments at hospitals cooperate with each other to find solutions to problems? In Las Vegas, the different departments would all contradict each other, and no one would ever tell us which department was actually in charge. I don't think they even knew.
But I'm grateful that Summerlin and Sunrise are disorganized disasters. It lead us to where we needed to be. William's tumor got a little out of control by the time it was diagnosed. His visit to Sunrise in November was the start of the cancer, so it went undiagnosed for three months. Because his tumor had grown so rapidly, Primary's decided to shrink it for six weeks before taking it out surgically. He just had his sixth week of treatment, so next week they will decide if he's ready for surgery. And every week since his diagnosis I see him getting better and better. It's so amazing.
Primary's asked if we wanted to transfer his remaining treatments to Las Vegas, and we said no. We immediately started working on moving to Utah to be closer to the hospital. We moved the Spanish Fork last week, and we have really liked it so far.
Some people have asked us if we are going to sue Summerlin and Sunrise. I don't know yet. Kevin's dad works as a medical expert for a malpractice law firm, and they want our case. They told us to call them when we are ready. Kevin wants those two hospitals held accountable so they won't do this to another unsuspecting family - they can't just call CPS every time they make a mistake and a child ends up back in the hospital. Sadly a civil suit is the only way to have the hospitals investigated. I'm not sure how I feel, but I'm mostly leaning towards letting it go. We'll make a decision after William is completely finished with his treatments.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Keeping Up With The Blog
*****Warning: This post is super long, and not very happy. It's more for me to remember, so don't feel obligated to read on.
I've come to realize that I don't blog when I'm truly unhappy. 2012 was one of those years for me. A lot of hard things happened that caused me to make some changes in my life, and my blog suffered because of those hard times. Having Lia at the end of the year motivated me to keep up with the times in my life that need to be documented. I think I did pretty well with the blog updates in 2013.
I'm afraid 2014 is starting out more like 2012, and it's causing me to shut down and not keep up with the blog again. William was in the hospital for another week last week, and the experience was not only worse the second time, I'd say it was probably the worst week of my entire life.
On a Friday William's PE teacher told me that William didn't feel well enough to participate in PE that day. Hearing that made me worry. A lot. I started watching him more closely, and after that day, I could see he was in pain. By Tuesday, he came home from school and lay on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, so instead of taking him to school on Wednesday, I took him to his pediatrician.
The PA who works with his doctor thought William looked fine after doing a physical exam (I let him know the history with his kidney). He wanted a urine sample just to make one last check on him. He found blood in the sample, and said that because of William's recent hospital stay and the abnormal sample, I should take him to the hospital to get some more thorough tests. I asked him if it mattered where I went because I was not happy with Sunrise last time we were there. He told me Summerlin was fine.
So we went to Summerlin with a note from the PA about the recent lacerated kidney and abnormal urine sample. The note is important here.
I checked in at Summerlin Hospital, and the guy checking me in, who spoke bad English, kept my note. I asked if I should keep it to give to the doctor, and he said no he would keep it.
We sat in an pediatric er room for a while until a Russian woman came to get William for an ultrasound. She asked about his liver, and I told her he lacerated his KIDNEY. I thought maybe her bad English caused her to misread her notes, until the ultrasound tech told me they were getting an ultrasound of his liver. WHY?! He had a lacerated kidney!! I told her that also. Then for his ct scan, they were also concentrating on his liver. I was starting to lose it! Are all hospitals really this bad with communication! Where's my freaking doctor's note that says the boy has a lacerated kidney! I also told the ct scan people it was his kidney, and they said the scan should show both. So when the er doctor came in to tell me they could see a laceration on his liver, I was angry, and told him there was never a lacerated liver - it was always a lacerated kidney! And he told me, "well there's a lacerated liver now also." What the heck was going on with my poor William!
The next day, we had a lot of people in and out of our room. All of them asked me how he lacerated his liver, and I had no idea. Finally his doctor came in with about six other people dressed in scrubs to ask me questions. All of them took notes. My senses were screaming at me that something was wrong, but I had done nothing wrong, so I could trust these medical workers, right? The doctor kept asking what happened between now and two months ago for William to lacerate his liver. And I kept telling her I had no idea. Then she did a small exam on him, and noticed a wart he has on his upper leg. She said, "Have you seen this before on him?" I told her yes. "This is genital warts." She said. "This needs to be looked into. I'm going to have you talk to a social worker because I can see this is very hard on you."
So I talked the social worker who asked me the same questions about the liver and now about his wart. When we were done she said, "We have to call CPS about this." I was a little more worried about William's wart at this point. But I don't use babysitters, and he doesn't play at other people's houses ever, so if he did have an std, it had to come from school or church, which I highly doubted. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted a test on the wart because I was sure it was not sexually transmitted.
I was given a lame excuse at Summerlin why they wouldn't test his wart - something like they didn't have the right test, but they said he would be tested after he got transferred to Sunrise. That's right. He got transferred back to Sunrise right after Summerlin called CPS on us, like they didn't want to deal with any backlash we might give them. I now hate Summerlin Hospital more than I hate Sunrise. Let's not test anything and make sure it's an std first - let's just call CPS and get rid of these people. There's more damage that Summerlin did, but that will come later.
I was not happy when I arrived at Sunrise behind William's ambulance. I did not want to be back at this hospital that I did not trust. As soon as he got into his room, a resident walked in, and I got angry. Here we go again with a bunch of random people walking in and out of his room all day long. Then they told me he was not allowed to eat until they could figure out what was wrong with him. All the same from before. All he needed this time was too much IV fluid until his lungs and stomach filled up with water. I asked the resident when he could get a test on his wart so that I could show proof to CPS that he does not have an std, and he told me a child advocacy doctor would come in to test him. We never did get that test. Apparently Sunrise doesn't want to check things out for sure either.
A little while later, two Metro detectives showed up to talk to me. I had to go to a special room, and they tape recorded our interview. And guess what? They didn't care about the wart at all. They were concerned about the lacerated liver. They wanted to know what happened to him this time to cause it, and I told them I still didn't know. I then told them about my distrust for Sunrise Hospital, and about William being starved and pumped full of IV fluid until he couldn't breath when we were here before. I told them that if there is a lacerated liver, it was probably there the first time we came, and they missed it because they are such a mess. The two lady detectives seemed to be on my side and were actually very helpful to me after that.
He was monitored for a day or so, and then he was allowed to eat and be monitored some more. We were now under the care of a urologist who was dumbfounded that William was going to school and was only told to take it easy for 6 weeks. He thinks the kidney started to heal but then was reinjured again. I asked the urologist why we didn't see him the first time we came to Sunrise. He has a much better plan for getting William better this time.
By Tuesday we were ready to leave the hospital, and the general doctor came in to tell me that all doctors had cleared William to leave, and he just needed to be cleared by CPS and Metro. So Kevin made phone calls to our CPS lady and one of the detectives to move things along. The detective let us know that she was informed that the lacerated liver that Summerlin diagnosed and that caused me to be interrogated by the police never existed. So a whole case was opened up to investigate possible child abuse and/or neglect because some idiot at Summerlin wrote lacerated liver instead of kidney on William's file, even though I brought a doctor's note in with me that said lacerated kidney on it.
Also, we saw William's pediatrician today. He looked right at William's wart and said, "That's not an std. That wart is very common in little boys." Not sure why the doctor at Summerlin couldn't see that also. I'm starting to think that most of the doctors we've dealt with at these hospitals have very little experience.
But the great news is we are still dealing with CPS! Because William being on bed rest for two months and having to get an ultrasound and see his urologist once a week is not hard enough right now! Even though it's been proven that I don't beat my child and that he never had a lacerated liver in the first place and he doesn't have an std, CPS still has to go through their check list of things to investigate about us before they are done with us.
To say I'm annoyed is a total understatement. We would not be dealing with CPS if someone didn't screw up at Summerlin and also if they would have tested his wart before calling to tattle on us. I thought Sunrise was a mess, but now I'm convinced that every hospital in Las Vegas is a big fat joke. I will never take my kids to a hospital here again. I'll drive to St. George or even all the way to Salt Lake before I let these circuses that call themselves hospitals treat my kids.
I've come to realize that I don't blog when I'm truly unhappy. 2012 was one of those years for me. A lot of hard things happened that caused me to make some changes in my life, and my blog suffered because of those hard times. Having Lia at the end of the year motivated me to keep up with the times in my life that need to be documented. I think I did pretty well with the blog updates in 2013.
I'm afraid 2014 is starting out more like 2012, and it's causing me to shut down and not keep up with the blog again. William was in the hospital for another week last week, and the experience was not only worse the second time, I'd say it was probably the worst week of my entire life.
On a Friday William's PE teacher told me that William didn't feel well enough to participate in PE that day. Hearing that made me worry. A lot. I started watching him more closely, and after that day, I could see he was in pain. By Tuesday, he came home from school and lay on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, so instead of taking him to school on Wednesday, I took him to his pediatrician.
The PA who works with his doctor thought William looked fine after doing a physical exam (I let him know the history with his kidney). He wanted a urine sample just to make one last check on him. He found blood in the sample, and said that because of William's recent hospital stay and the abnormal sample, I should take him to the hospital to get some more thorough tests. I asked him if it mattered where I went because I was not happy with Sunrise last time we were there. He told me Summerlin was fine.
So we went to Summerlin with a note from the PA about the recent lacerated kidney and abnormal urine sample. The note is important here.
I checked in at Summerlin Hospital, and the guy checking me in, who spoke bad English, kept my note. I asked if I should keep it to give to the doctor, and he said no he would keep it.
We sat in an pediatric er room for a while until a Russian woman came to get William for an ultrasound. She asked about his liver, and I told her he lacerated his KIDNEY. I thought maybe her bad English caused her to misread her notes, until the ultrasound tech told me they were getting an ultrasound of his liver. WHY?! He had a lacerated kidney!! I told her that also. Then for his ct scan, they were also concentrating on his liver. I was starting to lose it! Are all hospitals really this bad with communication! Where's my freaking doctor's note that says the boy has a lacerated kidney! I also told the ct scan people it was his kidney, and they said the scan should show both. So when the er doctor came in to tell me they could see a laceration on his liver, I was angry, and told him there was never a lacerated liver - it was always a lacerated kidney! And he told me, "well there's a lacerated liver now also." What the heck was going on with my poor William!
The next day, we had a lot of people in and out of our room. All of them asked me how he lacerated his liver, and I had no idea. Finally his doctor came in with about six other people dressed in scrubs to ask me questions. All of them took notes. My senses were screaming at me that something was wrong, but I had done nothing wrong, so I could trust these medical workers, right? The doctor kept asking what happened between now and two months ago for William to lacerate his liver. And I kept telling her I had no idea. Then she did a small exam on him, and noticed a wart he has on his upper leg. She said, "Have you seen this before on him?" I told her yes. "This is genital warts." She said. "This needs to be looked into. I'm going to have you talk to a social worker because I can see this is very hard on you."
So I talked the social worker who asked me the same questions about the liver and now about his wart. When we were done she said, "We have to call CPS about this." I was a little more worried about William's wart at this point. But I don't use babysitters, and he doesn't play at other people's houses ever, so if he did have an std, it had to come from school or church, which I highly doubted. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted a test on the wart because I was sure it was not sexually transmitted.
I was given a lame excuse at Summerlin why they wouldn't test his wart - something like they didn't have the right test, but they said he would be tested after he got transferred to Sunrise. That's right. He got transferred back to Sunrise right after Summerlin called CPS on us, like they didn't want to deal with any backlash we might give them. I now hate Summerlin Hospital more than I hate Sunrise. Let's not test anything and make sure it's an std first - let's just call CPS and get rid of these people. There's more damage that Summerlin did, but that will come later.
I was not happy when I arrived at Sunrise behind William's ambulance. I did not want to be back at this hospital that I did not trust. As soon as he got into his room, a resident walked in, and I got angry. Here we go again with a bunch of random people walking in and out of his room all day long. Then they told me he was not allowed to eat until they could figure out what was wrong with him. All the same from before. All he needed this time was too much IV fluid until his lungs and stomach filled up with water. I asked the resident when he could get a test on his wart so that I could show proof to CPS that he does not have an std, and he told me a child advocacy doctor would come in to test him. We never did get that test. Apparently Sunrise doesn't want to check things out for sure either.
A little while later, two Metro detectives showed up to talk to me. I had to go to a special room, and they tape recorded our interview. And guess what? They didn't care about the wart at all. They were concerned about the lacerated liver. They wanted to know what happened to him this time to cause it, and I told them I still didn't know. I then told them about my distrust for Sunrise Hospital, and about William being starved and pumped full of IV fluid until he couldn't breath when we were here before. I told them that if there is a lacerated liver, it was probably there the first time we came, and they missed it because they are such a mess. The two lady detectives seemed to be on my side and were actually very helpful to me after that.
He was monitored for a day or so, and then he was allowed to eat and be monitored some more. We were now under the care of a urologist who was dumbfounded that William was going to school and was only told to take it easy for 6 weeks. He thinks the kidney started to heal but then was reinjured again. I asked the urologist why we didn't see him the first time we came to Sunrise. He has a much better plan for getting William better this time.
By Tuesday we were ready to leave the hospital, and the general doctor came in to tell me that all doctors had cleared William to leave, and he just needed to be cleared by CPS and Metro. So Kevin made phone calls to our CPS lady and one of the detectives to move things along. The detective let us know that she was informed that the lacerated liver that Summerlin diagnosed and that caused me to be interrogated by the police never existed. So a whole case was opened up to investigate possible child abuse and/or neglect because some idiot at Summerlin wrote lacerated liver instead of kidney on William's file, even though I brought a doctor's note in with me that said lacerated kidney on it.
Also, we saw William's pediatrician today. He looked right at William's wart and said, "That's not an std. That wart is very common in little boys." Not sure why the doctor at Summerlin couldn't see that also. I'm starting to think that most of the doctors we've dealt with at these hospitals have very little experience.
But the great news is we are still dealing with CPS! Because William being on bed rest for two months and having to get an ultrasound and see his urologist once a week is not hard enough right now! Even though it's been proven that I don't beat my child and that he never had a lacerated liver in the first place and he doesn't have an std, CPS still has to go through their check list of things to investigate about us before they are done with us.
To say I'm annoyed is a total understatement. We would not be dealing with CPS if someone didn't screw up at Summerlin and also if they would have tested his wart before calling to tattle on us. I thought Sunrise was a mess, but now I'm convinced that every hospital in Las Vegas is a big fat joke. I will never take my kids to a hospital here again. I'll drive to St. George or even all the way to Salt Lake before I let these circuses that call themselves hospitals treat my kids.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Celebrity Sightings (Update)
I've seen a couple more famous-ish people since the post I did a few years ago about celebrities I've seen. And they've both been at the salon where I get my hair done.
The most recent happened today when I went to pick up my pricey shampoo from my sister-in-law/hairstylist who gets a nice discount for me. I told her I would be there at a certain time, and I ended up getting there a little late, so I was waiting in the front area for her to finish up with a client. As I was sitting there, I noticed a Mercedes SUV pull up to the front with three uniformed kids climbing out of it. Soon after, the mom got out, and I totally judged her! I immediately noticed her amazing body and thought, "Must be nice to have a lot of money for a personal trainer or liposuction or whatever her secret is." As she walked in with her kids, I actually looked at her face and noticed that she was this pretty lady:
The most recent happened today when I went to pick up my pricey shampoo from my sister-in-law/hairstylist who gets a nice discount for me. I told her I would be there at a certain time, and I ended up getting there a little late, so I was waiting in the front area for her to finish up with a client. As I was sitting there, I noticed a Mercedes SUV pull up to the front with three uniformed kids climbing out of it. Soon after, the mom got out, and I totally judged her! I immediately noticed her amazing body and thought, "Must be nice to have a lot of money for a personal trainer or liposuction or whatever her secret is." As she walked in with her kids, I actually looked at her face and noticed that she was this pretty lady:
I already knew that my sister-in-law Emily cuts Steffi Graf's kids' hair, so I wasn't totally shocked to see her there. Emily told me that when Steffi calls to make appointments, she says, "Hi, this is Stefanie Agassi..." She even started speaking German to her son at one point. She's just a regular mom picking her kids up from school and taking them to get haircuts. I felt bad for judging her since I'm pretty sure her amazing body doesn't come from liposuction.
Before Steffi, I was getting my hair done last summer, and after I got my hair washed, I saw this girl as I was walking back to my sister-in-law's chair:
That's Tierra from Sean's season of the Bachelor. She must live here, or really likes to spend time here, because my friend just posted a picture of her at Cafe Rio by my house. As I was getting my hair cut, I could see her in the mirror, and she kept catching me looking at her.
I should get pictures with the people I see, but I feel bad bothering them. I'm sure Tierra probably loves the attention, but I bet Steffi doesn't. And if I was taking my kids to get haircuts, I wouldn't want some random stranger bothering me for a picture. So instead I write about these sightings on my blog so I remember who've I've seen. It's fun living in Vegas and seeing some famous faces every once in a while, although one of my former students just ran into Brooks Forester in Utah. It would be fun seeing some famous Mormon faces up there. :)
Friday, December 13, 2013
Catch Up
With two trips to Utah, a week-long hospital stay, and a 9th birthday party, November was crazy. But I think I got mostly caught up with this blog today. I have a bunch of pictures from Lia's first birthday, but they will have to wait since six posts in one day is enough for me. :)
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Lia
Lia is 1! Her birthday was on December 10th. I missed writing her 11 month post - November totally got away from me. So here are some new things Lia has started doing in the past two months.
- She waves at you when you tell her hi. She'll also wave when we are leaving somewhere and telling people bye. Sometimes she'll even say "ba ba" (like bye bye) as she's waving and we're leaving.
- She's learned "no no." She'll keep saying "na na na na" over and over again if she's not happy about something that's happening.
- She likes to open drawers and pull everything out of them. Her brothers' bottom dresser drawer is her favorite. She goes in their room and pulls all of their pajamas out of their bottom drawer.
- She also likes to pull all of the toilet paper off the roll. One of my nicknames for her is Busy because she is constantly moving and looking for something to get into or a mess to make.
- My other nickname for her is Dolly because she has looked like a doll to me since the day she was born.
- She still loves to go up the stairs. She's gotten a little better at going down the stairs backwards, but she's still not quite mastered it.
- She has stood by herself a few times, but she has not tried to take a step on her own yet.
- She likes to use bar stools as her walkers:
Here she is having the time of her life after Rebecca's birthday party with the couch pushed out of her way.
- We got her a push toy from Sam's Club for her birthday, and she enjoys pushing it and being pushed on it:
- She's very snuggly and prefers to be held most of the time.
My baby is one, and time went by so fast! But I knew it would just like it did the other three, so I'm glad I took the time to enjoy her as a baby.
Braden
Braden is a hoot! This kid cracks me up every day. Here are some things he's done lately that I need to write down and remember.
Over the summer, I went with my mom and sister up to Salt Lake to pick up some overhead projectors for my sister's school. While we were there we took the kids to Temple Square. Braden DID NOT want to go to Temple Square and protested the entire time walking there from the parking lot saying, "I don't want to go to the Temple." We walked into the Tabernacle, and all of the young readers in our group read the sign outside out loud that says, "Visitors Welcome." And Braden said in his most grumpy tone, "No, it says the Temple is closed!"
He likes to do this with his shirt all the time:
Over the summer, I went with my mom and sister up to Salt Lake to pick up some overhead projectors for my sister's school. While we were there we took the kids to Temple Square. Braden DID NOT want to go to Temple Square and protested the entire time walking there from the parking lot saying, "I don't want to go to the Temple." We walked into the Tabernacle, and all of the young readers in our group read the sign outside out loud that says, "Visitors Welcome." And Braden said in his most grumpy tone, "No, it says the Temple is closed!"
He likes to do this with his shirt all the time:
He reminds me of Beavis and Butthead. "I am the great cornholio!"
He is the only kid who sits in the third row of our car, and he likes it that way. We tried making either of the older two kids sit back there, but they got lonely. I think he finally asked if he could sit in the very back by himself, and he's never complained. On the way to taking William and Rebecca to school on Monday, he asked for a blanket. I got him one, and when I looked back at him during our drive, he looked like this:
I had Rebecca snap a picture.
He adds an s to possessive pronouns. When talking about Lia, he'll say something like, "Lia needs hers bottle." I don't correct him because I think it's adorable.
I didn't put him in preschool this year, and I was offered to join a Joy School co-op, but I declined. I want to enjoy the little time I have left with him before he goes to kindergarten next year. He's stubborn and grumpy, but I totally get him because he's just like me. I've loved being home and being around him all the time.
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