4 Month Appointment

Lincoln had his 4 month appointment today ... and Schuyler insisted she go ... she said it was to be there for Lincoln ... I think it was for the stickers ... but needless to say it was so cute how she kept telling him she loved him and that it would be OK ...

He weighs 17 pounds which is the 90th percentile and is 25.5 inches long which is the 75th percentile ... so he grew an inch since last month and gained a pound and a half ... measurements were good for his head and chest ... eyes responded well to light ... ears and mouth looked good ... he smiled and cooed the whole time ... had 2 shots and an oral vaccine and cried for only a second ... was just a total champ ...

Then I asked the doctor about some birth mark looking things that have sprung up on him in the last month or so ... there was one or maybe 2 at his last appointment but I didn't think anything about them ... but now there are 5 possibly 6 so it made me wonder ...

Our always easy-going doctor started checking him out everywhere and counting the spots ... called them cafe au lait spots ... he said having more than 3 is a sign of von Recklinghausen disease or as it is more commonly known now as Neurofibromatosis.

Neurofibromatosis is a genetic disorder of the nervous system that causes benign tumors to form on the nerves anywhere in the body at any time. At least eight varieties of NF exist and can range from very mild to quite sever. Having one to three café-au-lait spots is quite common, present in as many as one in five healthy children. Each spot of significant size after the first three, though, is increasingly uncommon and increasingly likely to be associated with NF or with one of the other neurocutaneous syndromes, including neurofibromatosis type 2, segmental neurofibromatosis, tuberous sclerosis, McCune Albright syndrome, Fanconi anemia, Bloom syndrome and ataxia telangiectasi. Many of these findings do not show up in early childhood. Thus, any child with six or more café-au-lait spots that are more than 5 mm in diameter should be monitored and treated as having NF. This means a baseline examination by an ophthalmologist and audiologist (including vision and hearing tests) and a visit with a geneticist. It also means considering a baseline EEG and head CT or MRI, as well as a skeletal survey radiograph. Each parent should have these same tests performed on him or her; siblings may be evaluated as well. NF is often so mild that a parent isn't diagnosed until café-au-lait spots are found on his or her child. Often, a child's course of disease follows that of his or her parents. Those with a presumptive diagnosis of NF need annual vision and hearing testing, as well as an annual neurologic and skeletal exam (in addition to a regular physical). Children with NF1 should have their growth followed on a special growth chart. They should be monitored for high blood pressure. Over the course of a lifetime, patients with NF1 need to be closely followed because of the higher risk of several rare types of cancers.

So he had me document the spots ... took photos of them all tonight ... need to do it again this weekend in the daylight ... made notes of them and said we are going to have to keep an eye on them ... I hated reading the "one in five" up above ... that is what I was told last time there was bad news on the horizon and it turned out we were the one ...

So I am trying not to freak out about it right now ... keep an eye on it ... see what happens just like the doctor said ... but at the same time be diligent so if there is a problem we are ready ...

How to Respond?

So what do you tell your child when they ask to see a friend of theirs when you are no longer friends with that family? It is such a difficult situation ...

I've tried saying they live too far away ...
The response was that we needed to get in the car and go there

I've tried explaining it is too far away to go by car ...
The response was we could use a plane

I've tried we can't take a plane trip now, mommy and daddy need to work and you need to go to school
To that I was handed the phone and told to call so she could talk to her best friends ...

There is no way to explain to a 3 year old what happened ... and why you no longer see your best friends ...

It has been over a year since she has seen them and a good 10 months since she spoke to them on the phone ... hasn't deterred her want to see and talk to them ... it breaks my heart ...

She got teary when I told her we couldn't call them ... her bottom lip pushed out and she told me she needed to go to her room and be alone for a little while ...

When I went up to see her she told me she was sad and that she was just going to lay on her bed and hug her kitty for a while cause that made her happy ... she said she would be happy again tomorrow at school when she could see all her other best friends ...

Poor thing ... I hate seeing her this way ...

Lincoln at Work

Lincoln came to work with me today ... and I just love when I get to spend the whole day with him ... it is only better when I get to spend the whole day with both kids ...

He is such a good kid ... hardly cried ... hangs out in his stroller ... smiles a lot ... you wouldn't even know he was there most of the time ... I'm lucky that I can bring them in when I need ... and it is nice for me getting the extra time ...

Email blogging

So I have set up my blog to accept email posts ... which means I could very well keep up with everything much better ... in fact this weekend I figured out lots of stuff that should keep my goals in the forefront ...

I resigned up for Jott.com ... I used it all the time when it was a free service to send myself email reminders of things I wanted to do ... it was great in the car during traffic to call in and set up all the reminders ... well now it is a pay service and I figured out the 3 something a month was worth it ... not only can I rattle off all the things I want to remember to do ... I can add things to my google calendar by calling into jott and I can even change my Facebook status ... pretty cool ...

I also figured out how to snap a photo on my phone and upload it right to facebook ... which is a great feature ... the more time I take to figure out how all my technology can work for me the more efficient I am becoming ...

Girls Afternoon

This afternoon Schuyler and I decided to have an afternoon just us ... so we headed to Barnes & Noble ... first we had a coffee (well chocolate milk for Curly Top) and sat and talked ... then we explored the store ...

I found a journal called "Listography Your Life In Lists" created by Lisa Nola and Illustrated by Nathaniel Russell that is just awesome ... it is a journal that helps you create kind of a biography all through creating lists ... and since I so love creating lists I thought it would be quite a fun project that would give me force me to take moments for myself ...

After I finished in the journal section ... or more like when I couldn't take hearing Skye say, "come on mommy ... come oooonnnnnnn ... lets go  up the sclator ... come on come on mommy" anymore we headed upstairs to the kids section ...

She checked out the train first but there were a bunch of people over there so she asked if we could get some books and read on the other side ... once she saw the stage though reading took a back seat ... I found myself a seat and she got up and put on a dance show for me ... it was FANTASTIC ...

Once she noticed the Eloise cut out she wanted her photo taken ...

Then she said, "Wait I want to stand just like Eloise. Take another one please." ...

After dancing around with some other kids we headed to the train table where she could stay all day long ...

I was so proud of her ... while we were at the store she asked to use the bathroom twice and did a great job ...

Once we paid for our stuff and got in the car she said, "Mommy I had a great day." ... I got all teary ... she just says the sweetest stuff and she has no idea how much it means to me ... every moment I spend with her is fantastic ...

Amazing Spider

This morning I saw the most amazing spider web in our backyard I thought it warranted a photo ... probably have to click to enlarge to really see it ... it just looked like it was suspended in mid air ...

Stop, Drop & Sleep

Most nights Skye stays up for WAY too long after she goes off to bed ... the bonus for us is she usually falls asleep within a split second when she is finally ready ... the great part is the way she crashes when she sleeps we get some pretty funny photos out of it ... :)

Bumbo

Lincoln got to sit in his bumbo today and he seemed to really like it ... I of course loved it because I can finally take photos of him in the sitting position ... Skye thought it was great being able to interact with him ... and they are all just so dang cute ...

Tuna Fishing

Yesterday David left at 1 in the morning to head to Ocean City Maryland to do some tuna fishing with several of his friends ... they had been looking forward to it for ages that he couldn't even snooze a bit before leaving ...

The drive was long but the excitement fueled them all ... by the time they got there they were ready to catch some big fish and set sail at quarter to 5 ... they sped out about 40 miles from shore ... David couldn't believe the size of the waves, some even coming up on deck and how fast the boat could go ...

The early morning wake up call ... the fresh air ... the speed of the boat ... the excitement to catch fish all caught up with most of the group ... naps were plentifully and there was even a bit of sea sickness ... David said he felt a bit queasy but did alright ... and slept like a log during his nap ...

They caught 1 tuna ... 2 mahi-mahi ... and 1 wahoo which is what David caught ... their boat caught the most that day ... he was so excited about all the fish ... unfortunately as they were getting off the boat the 1st mate dropped one of the mahi-mahi into the water and lost it ... kind of a bummer ... but they still had plenty of fish for the 5 of them ...

There is a "fish cam" at the doc that David had been watching for days before hand to see what people brought in ... so we had it on throughout the day ... I knew he wouldn't be in till late afternoon/early evening but checked it every once in a while ... and as I sat down to give Lincoln a bottle at 5:30 I suddenly saw their group and started calling up to Skye, "Daddy is on the fish cam ... Daddy and Norbert and Aric are on the fish cam come see" ... I was able to grab the 2 screen shots of them bringing in their fish ... it was just so cool we caught them on cam ...

David didn't get home until about 22 hours after he left and he was just exhausted ... so no fish for dinner last night ... but tonight he made the most gorgeous plates ... the tuna steaks tasted like fillet Mignon ... it was amazing ... I can't wait till we get the rest of it ...

Now Skye wants to go fishing with her daddy ... I am thinking they need to start off going to a lake or the Potomac ... but she so wants to spend the day fishing with her daddy ...

The Playpen

Yesterday while David was fishing Schuyler and I spent the day cleaning the middle level of the house ... we picked up ... we swept and vacuumed ... we mopped ... we rearranged ... we got the playpen out of storage and cleaned it and then got out all of Schuyler's old baby toys and cleaned them ... she had so much fun setting up everything for Lincoln ...

So the fact that today we finally got to put him in to "play" she was beyond excited ... she thought it was so great that he was looking all around ... and liked the mirror ... and grabbed onto some toys ... he seemed to really like being in there and was all smiles ...

She so badly wanted to get in with him ... who know that years later she would actually want to get into the playpen ... but she settled on just showing him the toys and posing for pictures with him ...

The last photo of Skye is one of my new favorites ... she was singing and performing and I just love the image caught ...

Garden Delights

Schuyler and her daddy have been working on the greatest garden this year ... it is beautiful and this was a recent big haul they got ... everything they have grown so far has been so delicious and Skye is just so proud of it all ...

BTW the new umbrella in the photo ... well she has wanted her own umbrella for some time ... when we were in Target the other day and saw these adorable monkey ones I told her she could pick out her very own to get ... since we didn't have to buy pull-ups anymore because she is a big girl that uses the potty we could afford the umbrella ... she thought that was an awesome trade ... and of course proceeded to tell me over and over how she likes using the potty ...

Cupcake Decorating

So we all got together at my parents house to celebrate my mom's birthday ... I figured it was much easier to transport cupcakes that weren't decorated so the first thing the girls did was decorate Grandmommy's cupcakes ... it was a perfect activity that they literally dove into with both hands ... and Ellie and Skye were just adorable to watch ...

Since Abby is still too little to enter the decorating world she spent her time wandering the house and giggling at Lincoln ... she just loves him and it is so cute watching her around him ...

And of course Grandmommy loved having help from two of her granddaughters when it was time to blow out the candles ...

It was a very fun birthday party ... and the cupcakes were extra special since the girls decorated them ... I think it made them taste better ... and I know Ellie and Skye would agree with that!!

Making Cupcakes for Grandmommy

Today Schuyler and I baked cupcakes for Grandmommy's birthday ... Schuyler did all the work ... she put the mix in the bowl ... poured in the water and oil and eggs ... and then turned on the mixer ... it was all very exciting ...

Lincoln on the other hand wasn't old enough to help but he did sit in his highchair in the kitchen ... and smile and giggle constantly at everything Skye did ... he is just so enamoured with her ... it is great ...

But of course one of the best parts was licking the bowl ...