ECI Visit and The Pediatric Opthamologist

Last week was a busy week for Conley. Long story short, Dr. Nail suggested two things at Conley’s 15-month checkup. The first was a consultation with Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) for his developmental delays (not saying enough words, wouldn’t walk by himself). The second was a visit to a pediatric ophthalmologist as part of the screening strategy for the Neurofibromatosis (NF) in order to check for things called Lisch nodules that can appear in the irises of the eye.

So the ECI consultation was on Wednesday of last week and there were different therapists present to observe different developmental areas. Based on their observations, Conley is delayed in three areas (and this is with a 3-month delay in their scale, since all children develop at their own pace). In these three areas, he as at a 12 month level and he is 16 months old now. So, we have decided to enroll him in the program , which means therapists will come out to the house to work with him in these areas and teach us how to work with him. The scary thing is that NF can cause developmental delays, so you don’t really know if he is delayed because that’s just his pace, or if it’s potentially caused by NF.
The visit to the ophthalmologist was not too fun, since they had to dilate Conley’s eyes. In order to do this, Jon had to restrain Conley while the nurse pried open his eyelids in order to put the dilating drops in. I think it traumatized him a little because now when I lean him back in the bathtub to rinse his hair he starts getting upset, which he never did before. Ultimately, we received good news. Nothing appears in his eyes at this point, but the doctor made a point of telling us that if he were in our position, he would probably get an MRI done. Just because he can’t see anything in the eye, doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything going on behind the scenes. He seemed pretty knowledgeable about NF; apparently he has treated patients with NF before.

Since NF is caused by a mutated gene, Jon looked on our insurance plan and found an pediatric geneticist at Cook’s Childrens in Denton. We plan to make an appointment to discuss our options and see if it’s possible to have him tested for this particular gene mutation. It would just be so much better to know, if possible, than to play out this waiting game with the screening strategy, since some indicators won’t show up until they are 7-8 years old and some even into puberty. That way, if he does have it, at least we can prepare ourselves and know what to watch for.

BUT, good news - Conley did start walking all by himself over the weekend and he is EVERYWHERE! There's no stopping him now! And he is starting to say more words...so we're moving in the right direction.

Grayson's Den and His First 3-D movie

Yesterday the boys were playing upstairs in the gameroom while Jon assembled the new IKEA bookshelf and Grayson proceeded to pile up all of the pillows in there to make a little "den" for himself in the corner of the couch. When it was time to take a nap, he wanted to nap in his den instead of his bed. And he really did conk out! Too cute!






After his short nap (we had to wake him up in order to make the 3:00 movie time), we took Grayson to see the movie "Up" in 3-D. It was a great movie and Grayson was totally engaged the whole time. He had a bit of trouble with the glasses at first, but he did really well. And this was his first time in the big theatre, other than the two other times we took him to the Studio Movie Grill.





The only drawback was the cost of our outing...we had to pay a premium on the tickets since it was in 3-D, so that was $30...throw in a hot dog (Grayson didn't eat lunch before we left), a drink for Grayson, a large diet coke, and ginormous bucket of popcorn, and some sour patch candy and we're over $50! Geez, Louise!

Why does my house smell like bleach????

So, this event actually happened a couple of weekends ago, but I just now realized I forgot to include it in the last post...

Rob, Zack, Hailey, and Ana were still here on Sunday morning, but I had to make a quick run to IKEA because they had the bookcase I wanted for the play area upstairs on sale for almost 1/2 the price it ususally sells for. We had gone to IKEA the night before, but they had already sold of out their stock for the day, leaving me to have to return on this Sunday morning. It was a madhouse! This particular bookcase is so popular that they were giving out vouchers for them at the door, and once the vouchers were gone, that was it. Lucky for me I went a little early. So, once they unleashed the masses, I made my way to the cashier, paid, and wheeled the bookcase out to the car, all the while thinking, "this bookcase is a lot heavier than I thought it would be...how the heck am I going to lift it up into the car?" Right about the time I made it to the car, two guys were making their way through the parking lot to enter the store. I asked them if they could do me a huge favor and help me lift the box into the car, and they gladly obliged - thank you, two bulky guys in the IKEA parking lot!

So, I get back to the house and walk in through the back door...the house smells of bleach, like someone spilled it everywhere or something. I am thinking, "what the heck happened here?!" About that time, Jon comes running into the powder bathroom with a kid under his arm. I assume it's Grayson, but it turns out to be Grayson's buddy, Hayden, who we had invited over to play. Jon proceeds to tell me that Grayson was playing with the little rake in the gravel outside and Hayden wanted a little rake, too, and it was apparently a good idea to Jon to get the little rake we use to scoop dog poop and give it to Hayden to play with, but only after disinfecting it first with bleach. So, Jon went and got a bucket, filled it with water, and then started to pour some bleach into the water. About the same time, Hayden walks up towards Jon to see what is going on. As Jon pours the bleach, it splashes up (was he holding the bottle of bleach way up hig as he poured it?), gets all over his shirt, Hayden's shirt, and in Hayden's eye. Hayden tells Jon that his eye is burning - GREAT! Just blind our neigbor's child, why don't you? So Jon grabs Hayden and rushes him into the bathroom and proceeds to flush out his eye - for 15 minutes. Apparently this is what it says to do on the bottle if the bleach should somehow come in contact with your eyes. Jon then calls over to the Ruster's to let them know an "incident" had occurred, but that Hayden was okay. Erica was cracking up when she later relayed to me that Jon sounded like a little kid who was in trouble. She said, "I think he actually referred to me as 'Mrs. Ruster'". *LOL*

My response to Jon's genius idea - WHY, for the love of God, would you think it's okay to let the child play with a rake that we use to scoop the dog poo? I don't care if you freaking disinfect it, it's still used to scoop poo - it's a poo rake! This whole situation should have never even happened! Leave it to a guy...

Here's the aftermath of what happened to the shirts that Jon and Hayden were wearing.

Helllllooooo, anyone there??

OK, so I have to be the WORST blogger in the history of all blogs! I just can't seem to keep up these days (okay, for the past 6 months or so), but in my list of priorities each day, it just doesn't seem to make the cut. By the time I get done with everything else AND get the boys to bed, the last thing I want to do is be on the computer. BUT, I am back and I am going to make a very valiant effort to keep this gosh-darned thing updated. Especially because if I don't, I'll truly regret not chronicling all of the funny things that the boys say and do.

So the last couple of weekends have been pretty busy. We had family in town for both of those weekends...throw in a soccer tournament, a cookout, and a pool party and that's just the tip of our busy iceberg. But, we LOVE having our family visit and the boys really enjoyed seeing their Aunt Kelly, Uncles Chris and Rob, and cousins Hailey and Zack (and Ana!) Here are some pics from all of the fun!

Good Times Cookout at Trey and Melissa's House

It was nice to finally get together with everyone. Now that we all have kids, it's so hard to find the time on everyone's calendar. Heather was going in for a scheduled c-section the next day - what a trooper!

Memorial Day Summer Kick-Off at the Perhala's

Our awesome neighbors, Scott and Tiffaney, host this annual summer kick-off and it's always a great time! Grayson and Hayden really had a blast now that are at an age that allows them to really play and interact with the other kids.

Still Catching up...December and Christmas 2008

December was a super busy and super fun month for us....here's the rundown.

We finally made it to Sheri and Shawn Garber's annual Holiday Party this year...we had been MIA for the past three years due to pregnancies and babies. It was so much fun catching up with everyone and meeting some new friends.

We went with Erin and Thatcher to get pictures of the boys with Santa. Conley did great! I think since he was watching Grayson and saw that Grayson was fine, he was fine. Although he did give Santa a once over, like "what the heck is this?"

We were supposed to go out t dinner with a bunch of old friends from EDS since Dwight was in town for a few days...it takes an act of God for all of us to come together now since we all have little ones. So what happens right as the babysitter shows up? Conley (under Jon's watch - suspect? Just kidding...or am I? hee hee) falls and smacks his forehead on the tile. A ginormous goose eggs erupts from his forehead. Needless to say, we missed out on the dinner that we had been looking forward to for a week....nevermind the fact that it took me 4 days to finally find a babysitter for the occassion. Oh well...that's life as a parent...rule #1 - always be flexible and plan to cancel at the last minute!

The Rusters hosted a Christmas Pajama Party for the kiddos that was super fun. We had a special surprise guest show up, much to the kids' delight. Justin, Hailey, and Michael came up to visit us that same weekend...we really enjoyed their visit. The boys love them! Conley was a little cranky (ok, a LOT cranky) that Sunday...little did we know that he had a double ear infection - his first one!

Grayson had his school Christmas program and he did SO much better than he did at his Spring program earlier in the year. He really got into it and he had the privelege of shaking the jingle bells center stage. He was such a ham! All the kids were so cute! Afterwards, his class had their little Christmas party together. Grayson really loves his teachers, Mrs. Tonya and Mrs. Betty.

We had Grandpa's (Great-Grandpa) birthday party and the ADR Inc. (family company) Christmas party. And somewhere along the way, Grayson decided to try on one of Mimi's high-heeled boots.

We had so much fun at Christmas this year! It was the first year that Grayson really, really anticipated Christmas and showed no fear of Santa. He told Santa exactly what he wanted for Christmas - a big, big truck and cars, of course! This was also Conley's first Christmas, which made it even more special for us. Grayson and I made cookies for Santa for the first time this year and Grayson was very excited to see that Santa had come and gobbled up almost all of the cookies and milk we left for him. The boys were on present overload - there were so many presents! (Good thing Grayson helped me pick out stuff he wanted to donate to the kids without any toys beforehand - what a sweet boy!) At one point, Grayson just stopped opening presents because he was too busy playing with the stuff he had already ripped into to care about the remaining unopened presents. And that was just at our house! We still had more to come at Mimi and Grandpa's house. Conley, on the other hand, had just as much fun with the paper and ribbons...good thing since Grayson ended up taking Conley's new toys as his own. When we told Grayson that the toys were Conley's, he responded by saying, "he's sharing them with me!", to which we had to laugh since we are always telling Grayson to share.

Sweet-mares, Mommy

Lately, Grayson has been waking up crying and when we go up to check on him, we ask him if he had a nightmare or a bad dream, to which he usually replies, "yeah", between the sobs. So pitiful. So now when we put him to bed, after we say our prayer together, we tell him to have sweet dreams. He responds by saying, "No, have sweet-mares, Mommy!", and starts cracking up. How funny is that? I love it.

Lecture audio for Jon's MBA MicroEco class

All, there are three different links for the class audio (3 sessions). Just click the links in order to hear the audio. You should probably ignore my notes (not great), although they will light up according to the timeline. Given the size of the room, the audio is not that great, but you should be able to hear it.

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=Z9GLqCq1CkXR

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=Hg5hBPJVRBWS

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=G5Kn8BrDnnn8