Today was long. The thought of today was even longer. Today I took Dawson for his annual MRI. This meant 8 hours down at Phoenix Children's Hospital and because of "departmental needs" moving James to B shift 2 shifts ago, it meant 8 long hours on my own. I didn't really know what news I wanted to hear and still am not sure what is right. If we stay in this holding pattern I am afraid we may miss a window like I have done with so many other issues (like Colton's potential for ASD) but I really am not ready to put my 4 year old under for brain surgery either.
Anyways, today went good. It started, of course, with no eating, which he did pretty well with. By time we left, Colton was grateful as he too was starving since he was nice enough not to eat in front of his brother. When we got to the hospital things flowed smoothly and our anesthegiologist for the day, Dr. Miller, was awesome. He gave Dawson Versed beforehand which made him stumble around the room like a drunk, but really helped in the process of putting him on the table and getting the gas mask on him. He also gave him meds to not throw up this time which I appreciated.
It was so funny when Dawson was waking up. Last night when my in-laws said they would bring dinner up with them when they came to watch Colton, Dawson said he wanted to carve the "roast beast" (like the Grinch.) So when Dawson woke up and said he wanted to go home, I said "What are you going to cut when you get there?" To which he replied, "the cheese!" Not quite, but sure funny.
Dr. Shafron said nothing really changed and we will just keep monitoring him. I just want to make sure I am doing all for my kids that I can. I want to make sure that I am raising them to be who God wants them to be and not just who I want them to be. I want to help them find their passions and pursue them. I want to listen to what they have to say even when it doesn't interest me. I want to be the best mom I possibly can and I want them to have enjoyed their childhood. It looks like I have a lot of work cut out for me!
About Me
- Andrea
- AZ, United States
- I am a mom raising 2 great boys and I am married to a wonderul man. Although life hasn't necessarily turned out the way I pictured, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Here We Go AGAIN...with a funny moment.
I am back...again...only this time I am not going to promise myself to write more. I am going to be content with when I get here and what I remember.
Today at church it was talking about how to have a peaceful 2009. It really hit me when the pastor kept saying over and over not to worry about tomorrow, that it has enough worry itself. So, that is going to me my "resolution" if you will. Although, I am not going to call it that, but hopefully more of just a change in how I view things. I am also going to try to be more joyful. This one will be hard for me. In general, I am kind of an orderly and sometimes uptight person and I tend to let almost any little thing steal my joy. So this one I will be praying about and hopefully it will develop over time.
So since I am on the topic of church, and before I recall any other great memories, I must remember Christmas Eve. I am not sure I will ever forget it, even if I try, but I want to make sure I have it down for the record. So we decided to go to the 6:00pm service on Christmas Eve. Our church normally has around 12,000 attendees on a regular weekend and well over 20,000 on holidays. Dawson is going through a phase where he only likes James right now and wants nothing to do with me (which after this happened was fine with me.) Anyways, we get to church and walk up on to the large concrete sidewalk area in front of the building. The doors are closed, as they are still cleaning up from the last service, so we are standing outside with about 600 or so people. James says he is going to go to the bathroom and off he heads. Dawson gets upset because he doesn't want to stay with me and says he also needs to go just so he can be with dad. I told him no and that he could wait a minute. That was my demise. Within about 4.2 seconds I hear laughing. I look down to see my four and a half year old with his pants around his ankles PEEING on the church entryway. I immediately pull up his pants, spank him (mainly to please the 100+ people watching since it doesn't phase him) and sit him on a chair to wait for James. Then I proceed to text James, "Your son just freakin peed all over the sidewalk in front of church!" To which he replied, "I'm sorry...do I know you?" I wanted to kill him and Dawson now. Yet all I could do was start to laugh. I don't know if it was Dawson's autism, his learning disability or just his stubborn streak that made him do it, but it was kind of funny in a terribly embarrassing way. Then to add to my horror, more people are now coming in and starting to fill in the holes and before I know it, they are standing in Dawson's pee puddle (of course probably assuming it is water.) There is one gentleman who has watched this entire event unfold. He is now looking from the pee with people standing in it to me and back. Finally the church doors open and we head all the way to the far top right corner. I am talking we are in the last row. However, 5 minutes before service starts, who sits in front of us, but the wonderful gentleman who had watched (and judged) my lovely moment outside. Are you kidding me now? Our church hold 3,000 people and now someone who was a witness to my second most embarrassing moment ever is sitting in front of me. That is a Christmas Eve I don't think I will soon forget!
Colton got braces at the beginning of the month and that has been fun. Not even 2 weeks after they were on, James was playing with the boys and ripped the wire right out. That was fun to get it put back together in our room with a flashlight and pliers! I cannot believe he is half way through 2nd grade. Our little bribery worked though for his behaviors. Ever since he got the game, he has only had 1 yellow. Now he just comes home and tells me about everyone else who got in trouble for the day.
This December has been busy and filled with lots of fun. Although I am a little relieved that the whole holiday season is over, I will miss this in the months to come. There is so much family time, so many parties and so much wonderful food! Here's looking towards a great New Year and the many memories it has to offer!
Today at church it was talking about how to have a peaceful 2009. It really hit me when the pastor kept saying over and over not to worry about tomorrow, that it has enough worry itself. So, that is going to me my "resolution" if you will. Although, I am not going to call it that, but hopefully more of just a change in how I view things. I am also going to try to be more joyful. This one will be hard for me. In general, I am kind of an orderly and sometimes uptight person and I tend to let almost any little thing steal my joy. So this one I will be praying about and hopefully it will develop over time.
So since I am on the topic of church, and before I recall any other great memories, I must remember Christmas Eve. I am not sure I will ever forget it, even if I try, but I want to make sure I have it down for the record. So we decided to go to the 6:00pm service on Christmas Eve. Our church normally has around 12,000 attendees on a regular weekend and well over 20,000 on holidays. Dawson is going through a phase where he only likes James right now and wants nothing to do with me (which after this happened was fine with me.) Anyways, we get to church and walk up on to the large concrete sidewalk area in front of the building. The doors are closed, as they are still cleaning up from the last service, so we are standing outside with about 600 or so people. James says he is going to go to the bathroom and off he heads. Dawson gets upset because he doesn't want to stay with me and says he also needs to go just so he can be with dad. I told him no and that he could wait a minute. That was my demise. Within about 4.2 seconds I hear laughing. I look down to see my four and a half year old with his pants around his ankles PEEING on the church entryway. I immediately pull up his pants, spank him (mainly to please the 100+ people watching since it doesn't phase him) and sit him on a chair to wait for James. Then I proceed to text James, "Your son just freakin peed all over the sidewalk in front of church!" To which he replied, "I'm sorry...do I know you?" I wanted to kill him and Dawson now. Yet all I could do was start to laugh. I don't know if it was Dawson's autism, his learning disability or just his stubborn streak that made him do it, but it was kind of funny in a terribly embarrassing way. Then to add to my horror, more people are now coming in and starting to fill in the holes and before I know it, they are standing in Dawson's pee puddle (of course probably assuming it is water.) There is one gentleman who has watched this entire event unfold. He is now looking from the pee with people standing in it to me and back. Finally the church doors open and we head all the way to the far top right corner. I am talking we are in the last row. However, 5 minutes before service starts, who sits in front of us, but the wonderful gentleman who had watched (and judged) my lovely moment outside. Are you kidding me now? Our church hold 3,000 people and now someone who was a witness to my second most embarrassing moment ever is sitting in front of me. That is a Christmas Eve I don't think I will soon forget!
Colton got braces at the beginning of the month and that has been fun. Not even 2 weeks after they were on, James was playing with the boys and ripped the wire right out. That was fun to get it put back together in our room with a flashlight and pliers! I cannot believe he is half way through 2nd grade. Our little bribery worked though for his behaviors. Ever since he got the game, he has only had 1 yellow. Now he just comes home and tells me about everyone else who got in trouble for the day.
This December has been busy and filled with lots of fun. Although I am a little relieved that the whole holiday season is over, I will miss this in the months to come. There is so much family time, so many parties and so much wonderful food! Here's looking towards a great New Year and the many memories it has to offer!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
It's Been A While
Well it's been 4 months since I've been on here. I swear I always have the best of intentions to journal, or in this case blog, but life just gets away from me and I never seem to do it. There have been SO many things that have happened, so many funny moments and so many memories I wish I had posted...BUT this is not going to be a blog of regrets. I am going to move forward with today and recall what I can. Then I will try to be more diligent about posting more.
So, let's start with James. He passed his engineer's test. He not only passed it, but was #1! I was so proud of him and all of his hard work. I often wonder if he ever thought he'd have got this far when he didn't finish high school. He is such an amazing man. He is so willing to try everything he can to make me happy (and Lord knows I am not easy on him.) Right now he is in the middle of back to back 48 hour shifts so that we can finally buy a mattress for our new bedroom set. The bedroom set he bought because it was on such a big sale and I had wanted it for so long, only to realize it was a Cal King and our current bed is a King, so we have been sleeping in a bedroom with 2 sets of furniture. It has been good for us though to wait to spend and I think we will appreciate the new set that much more when we actually get to sleep on it!
Colton is good. Second grade has been a little rough. We were having almost weekly yellows until I bribed him with a video game. He just earned it the other day and now I am curious to see how the next week goes. He is almost done with soccer and has been having a good time. He is pretty good, but still really cautious about "getting in the mix" of people. He is a very sweet, compassionate boy who is growing up so fast.
There are no words for Dawson. He is his own person for sure. His expressions are priceless and his face speaks a thousand words. I wish I could remember some of the things he has said lately, but of course, my mind is drawing a blank. One thing I will never forget though is that we started talking about what the boys want from Santa last night. Colton started with, "A DS, an IPOD, Crocs, ..." Then comes Dawson, "A DS, bowling shoes, ..." Wait a minute! Bowling shoes?!?! Dawson has only been bowling 3 times in his entire life and he wants bowling shoes for Christmas? Yep, that about sums him up.
One funny thing I do remember about the boys is that last week I was so tired and I told both of the boys to go around the house and "get all the socks and underwear and put them in the washer." I told them this because it never fails that when I am done with the load, I find a dirty pair somewhere. Well I went in the garage for a minute and came back into the house to find my oldest leading the way and both boys loading all of their clean socks and underwear from their drawers into the washer. I couldn't help but laugh. I guess I need to be more specific and say "dirty" next time!
I am good...ups and downs happen, but overall life is good. This month I did the 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk. In those 60 miles I heard some amazing stories of triumph and heartache. We have so much to be thankful for. A home, a family who loves us, God, friends, our overall health and the list goes on and on. I am hoping to add to this more and more and look back and see all the daily blessings I take for granted.
So, let's start with James. He passed his engineer's test. He not only passed it, but was #1! I was so proud of him and all of his hard work. I often wonder if he ever thought he'd have got this far when he didn't finish high school. He is such an amazing man. He is so willing to try everything he can to make me happy (and Lord knows I am not easy on him.) Right now he is in the middle of back to back 48 hour shifts so that we can finally buy a mattress for our new bedroom set. The bedroom set he bought because it was on such a big sale and I had wanted it for so long, only to realize it was a Cal King and our current bed is a King, so we have been sleeping in a bedroom with 2 sets of furniture. It has been good for us though to wait to spend and I think we will appreciate the new set that much more when we actually get to sleep on it!
Colton is good. Second grade has been a little rough. We were having almost weekly yellows until I bribed him with a video game. He just earned it the other day and now I am curious to see how the next week goes. He is almost done with soccer and has been having a good time. He is pretty good, but still really cautious about "getting in the mix" of people. He is a very sweet, compassionate boy who is growing up so fast.
There are no words for Dawson. He is his own person for sure. His expressions are priceless and his face speaks a thousand words. I wish I could remember some of the things he has said lately, but of course, my mind is drawing a blank. One thing I will never forget though is that we started talking about what the boys want from Santa last night. Colton started with, "A DS, an IPOD, Crocs, ..." Then comes Dawson, "A DS, bowling shoes, ..." Wait a minute! Bowling shoes?!?! Dawson has only been bowling 3 times in his entire life and he wants bowling shoes for Christmas? Yep, that about sums him up.
One funny thing I do remember about the boys is that last week I was so tired and I told both of the boys to go around the house and "get all the socks and underwear and put them in the washer." I told them this because it never fails that when I am done with the load, I find a dirty pair somewhere. Well I went in the garage for a minute and came back into the house to find my oldest leading the way and both boys loading all of their clean socks and underwear from their drawers into the washer. I couldn't help but laugh. I guess I need to be more specific and say "dirty" next time!
I am good...ups and downs happen, but overall life is good. This month I did the 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk. In those 60 miles I heard some amazing stories of triumph and heartache. We have so much to be thankful for. A home, a family who loves us, God, friends, our overall health and the list goes on and on. I am hoping to add to this more and more and look back and see all the daily blessings I take for granted.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Days Go By
This is such a busy time in our lives. School starts for the boys in 2 weeks. James is studying for an engineer's exam and is occupied with that almost all of his off time. I have been doing some side work here and there. My half sister Jackie is coming to visit Monday and I haven't seen her in 8 1/2 years since my wedding. I feel like we run around most days with our tails cut off and yet I don't think I would trade it.
On our vacation we went on I enjoyed a great book and the boys played together really nicely. The thing I realized was how little we need T.V. and how much of our lives it fills. Right now I can hear the boys playing in the other room with trucks and fire engines that they haven't played with in at least 6 months. We have a train table that stores all of these things and I swear they haven't gone near it in forever, but since we have been home from our trip they seem to be playing more. It's really nice.
Of course they still love video games and my favorite right now is the Wii. I actually just got Wii Fit today after searching for over 3 months to find it! I sure hope it proves to be worth the money and time. Anyways, for his birthday, Dawson got the Lego Indiana Jones game. He goes around saying he wants to play "Indian Jones." No matter how many times we tell him it's Indiana, he says, "I know...Indian Jones." So now the entire family calls it that. Isn't it funny when a little kid makes up a word and the rest of the house picks up on it.
So not much to say, just realizing that the days go by faster and faster and I don't really know where they go, but hope to remember the fun bits and pieces along the way.
On our vacation we went on I enjoyed a great book and the boys played together really nicely. The thing I realized was how little we need T.V. and how much of our lives it fills. Right now I can hear the boys playing in the other room with trucks and fire engines that they haven't played with in at least 6 months. We have a train table that stores all of these things and I swear they haven't gone near it in forever, but since we have been home from our trip they seem to be playing more. It's really nice.
Of course they still love video games and my favorite right now is the Wii. I actually just got Wii Fit today after searching for over 3 months to find it! I sure hope it proves to be worth the money and time. Anyways, for his birthday, Dawson got the Lego Indiana Jones game. He goes around saying he wants to play "Indian Jones." No matter how many times we tell him it's Indiana, he says, "I know...Indian Jones." So now the entire family calls it that. Isn't it funny when a little kid makes up a word and the rest of the house picks up on it.
So not much to say, just realizing that the days go by faster and faster and I don't really know where they go, but hope to remember the fun bits and pieces along the way.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
My 1st Day
First let me share a disclaimer...I never thought I would be in blogland. I have many friends who have blogs for various reasons and I just didn't think it would be something for me. However, I have 2 young boys and a wonderful husband and I am finding that moments are passing me by and I am forgetting the "little things" that really make up my life. So this blog is more for me than anything, kind of as a journal. I am not telling anyone about it and whoever finds me...well, so be it.
So, to introduce myself, I am Andrea. Like I said I have a great husband of 8+ years, James and 2 kiddos, my 7 year old is Colton and my 4 year old is Dawson. We live in Peoria, AZ where my hubby is a fireman and my kiddos will be in 2nd grade and preschool this year.
We just got home from a wonderful, yet always stressful, vacation. It was 12 days long! With our kids for 1900 miles and that many days has made me crazy. I mean even crazier than normal. Over the weekend, James asked what day the 4th of July fell on next year. My response after looking at the calendar was, "The 4th of July is on the 4th next year." He looked at me and said, "You are kidding, right." This trip has sucked all of my braincells dry. Our original destination was South Lake Tahoe, which we made it to after stopping through Hollywood and San Francisco. Then we came home through Las Vegas, which I can honestly say is not a place for children. I always swore I would never take my kids there, but the idea of a 14 hour drive home from Tahoe made it a possibility. Never again! The things they heard and saw were things I was not prepared to talk about for at least another 5 years.
So anyways, this is me. I will have lots of random posts I am sure, but I hope I can look back and remember something I may have otherwise forgotten along the way. For example, tonight I took my kids to Chick-fil-a for dinner (James was on-shift) and we got a shake to split. I specifically asked for 2 cherries so that my kids would not fight in the car on the way home. What happened though was that Dawson ate the cherry immediately while Colton decided to save his. So the entire 5 mile ride home was filled with begging, teasing and lots of noise until I finally turned around and said, "Eat the stupid cherry or I will throw it out the window!" Maybe next time I will be smarter and will order it with no cherries.
So, to introduce myself, I am Andrea. Like I said I have a great husband of 8+ years, James and 2 kiddos, my 7 year old is Colton and my 4 year old is Dawson. We live in Peoria, AZ where my hubby is a fireman and my kiddos will be in 2nd grade and preschool this year.
We just got home from a wonderful, yet always stressful, vacation. It was 12 days long! With our kids for 1900 miles and that many days has made me crazy. I mean even crazier than normal. Over the weekend, James asked what day the 4th of July fell on next year. My response after looking at the calendar was, "The 4th of July is on the 4th next year." He looked at me and said, "You are kidding, right." This trip has sucked all of my braincells dry. Our original destination was South Lake Tahoe, which we made it to after stopping through Hollywood and San Francisco. Then we came home through Las Vegas, which I can honestly say is not a place for children. I always swore I would never take my kids there, but the idea of a 14 hour drive home from Tahoe made it a possibility. Never again! The things they heard and saw were things I was not prepared to talk about for at least another 5 years.
So anyways, this is me. I will have lots of random posts I am sure, but I hope I can look back and remember something I may have otherwise forgotten along the way. For example, tonight I took my kids to Chick-fil-a for dinner (James was on-shift) and we got a shake to split. I specifically asked for 2 cherries so that my kids would not fight in the car on the way home. What happened though was that Dawson ate the cherry immediately while Colton decided to save his. So the entire 5 mile ride home was filled with begging, teasing and lots of noise until I finally turned around and said, "Eat the stupid cherry or I will throw it out the window!" Maybe next time I will be smarter and will order it with no cherries.
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