Pizza Night!!

In response to an episode of Caillou Carson watched last week during one of the many snow days he had, we mixed dinner up a bit. All Carson has been talking about since seeing Caillou and his friends make pizzas with toppings in the shape of spiders and flies, is making his very own bug-filled delight. After Al came home from work yesterday we packed up the boys and headed over to the store for some grocery shopping. I decided to surprise the boys and let them pick out all of their own ingredients for baking pizzas! Carson was "super excited" and in no time he was calling himself Caillou and Eli, Rosie (Caillou's little sister!). They had a blast going through the grocery store pretending to be television characters and choosing what they needed to make pizzas. We ended up with black olives for spider and fly bodies and almond slivers for the legs. They insisted on a giant bag of cheese because then the spiders and flies would *stick* better to the pizza and not escape in the oven. We came home, unloaded our supplies, washed our hands, and started putting together pizzas like only little boys know how.



It was one of the best times we all have had making dinner in a long time. Al and I let them do everything themselves. Carson helped explain to Eli that the sauce went on the pizza crust and then the cheese. Seeing the different ways they each made their spiders and flies was fun too. They decided it was time to cook the bugs and eat so I popped their masterpieces into the oven (with a warning from Eli not to burn myself), and 10 minutes later the boys were gobbling down their dinner. See......watching TV can be good for kids.... :)

Semi - Speed Racer

Instead of spending my rare free time while the boys are napping today cleaning the house and getting dishes done, I played on the Internet and found this test. It is fun and had the added bonus of boosting my bragging rights when competing for the "Fastest Typer in the House" award***

How fast are your typing skills?

71 words

*** this award does not actually exist but the verbal boasting and bragging may ***

Profiler--updated

I was re-organizing my computer photo albums this past weekend in between work shifts (yes, I'm back to work...post on that later) and chasing the munchkins around and found some striking similarities in past pictures. Carson and Eli definately look similar from the front but their eyes are not only different colors (C-blue, E-hazel), but different shapes as well. Then in almost every profile pic I saw from Carson's earlier days I saw Eli's profile staring back at me. Here are two pics from the boys taken when they were both 29 months old.

Carson

Elias

After reading Billie's comment this morning, I decided to add a baby picture of myself to show everyone who the boys look like instead of just telling you. What do you think....do they look like me?

Me

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I have a lot to update on but for now I will just post two Vday pics from my two sweethearts. I'm being spoiled by construction paper hearts, incredibly tight hugs, and millions of kisses. This is what life is all about. What a truly blessed woman I am to have three amazing boys to love and to love me back!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

It's a WRAP

Eli had his esophageal manomatry testing today at Childrens as a follow-up to his impedence probe from the middle of December. The poor little man cried and I don't blame him. The tube for the probe was an 18 Fr (about the size of a pencil in diameter!) and he kept saying, "I don't want the tubie in my nose". I felt like the worst mother in the world. We made it through the 1.5 hours of testing and his motility team gathered the important information they were searching for. He definately has a delayed swallow with both liquids and solids but it looks like his motility all the way through his duodenum (the upper portion of your small intestine) is okay. With solids Eli cannot form a single bolus and swallow. He delays, forms 3-6 small swallows, and then takes forever to get them all down. This is leading to aspiration. He usually can get his liquid down in one bolus but the swallow is delayed.

I left the appointment trying to hold back tears so the boys didn't think mommy was crazy or that anything serious was wrong with Eli. I knew this moment was coming but it was SO HARD to actually HEAR it from the doctor. After compiling Eli's impedence probe results that did show aspiration with his reflux (yes, I did say reflux), his decrease in respiratory status since the early fall, the upper GI that showed no evidence of his fundo being intact, and the results of his esophageal manometry today......they are recommending Eli get his Nissen Fundoplication re-done as soon as possible. :( :( :( :( :( I knew those words were going to be spoken months ago. I knew Eli was refluxing again. I knew Eli's lungs were getting worse again. I knew Eli was choking, coughing, and wheezing. I knew I didn't want to ever hear those words again.

But I did. And it is a sad truth. But a truth we had to deal with because there is nothing left to do. Why does this have to be so hard? Another 5-6" incision down his abdomen through already scarred tissues. His surgeon will have to take out the mesh that is holding his abdominal wall together from the incisional hernia that developed after his first Nissen fundoplication surgery. Will they have to move his feeding tube site again? How will he react to anesthesia this time with his respiratory comprimise? He almost died from FTT after his last fundo, will it happen again?

All these questions and more won't stop running through my head. I just want to make everything better. But unfortunately a hug and kiss won't fix it all this time.

Get out your tissues....

... and go over to Bread Crumbs in the Butter and read this post on a mother's love for her children. It is beautifully written, touching, and yes....it might make you cry and go hug your kiddos even if they are already in bed for the night.

I am continually amazed at the amount of pure love I have for Carson and Elias. No one can prepare you for it. Explain it. Describe it. Until you have those perfect little human beings to call your own. Your children. Even when they aren't acting so perfect ;)

I love you boys. Forever and Always.

Being a mother has brought so many emotions from my own adoption up from the basement of my mind. I can't imagine how hard it was for my birth mother to make the decision to give me up for adoption because she knew she couldn't provide a good life for me. Does her heart still ache like a mother who can't hug her child? Or has she long since forgotten that 7lb 4.5oz baby delivered on February the 25th? The love my own mother has for me always astounds me as well. To wait for a child for 11 years through infertility, surgeries, and adoption processes is a pain I will never know or want to know. I can't imagine the emptyness longing for a baby and the overwhelming joy when that baby finally enters your life. My mother gave me a poem when I was young about adoption. It is one of my favorite poems and most treasured gifts. I believe the message holds true because a mother's love is endless and unable to be contained.

Not flesh of my flesh
Not bone of my bone,
But still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute,
You didn't grow under my heart
But in it.