2011 in Review

I tend to feel a bit nostalgic the last few days of the year, and really think back over the year to remember what we did and if it was a good one. It wasn't until November or so that I finally got used to writing "2011" - and now I have to start fresh with a new number tomorrow!

This year has been a potporri of everything - from incredible joy like the birth of our beautiful boy, to heart-wrenching moments like the passing away of my beautiful Auntie, I can look back and say we are blessed and God has been with us every step of the way.

The challenge for myself in this blog is to come up with twelve wonderful moments from the year to share with you:

January - I had a terrific visit with my Aunt & Uncle when I took them some meals. It was such a blessing to visit with them both one more time before my Aunt's bone marrow transplant.

February - our beautiful boy Willem Bruce joined the family.

March - Mark was home with me and the new baby for a month.

April - We were able to fly to Vancouver and celebrate the wedding of one of Mark's cousins. We were also able to see Mark's folks and sister and introduce them to Baby Will! (they live in the USA and UK respectively).

May - Will started sleeping for 8 hours at night - glorious! I got to say good-bye to my Auntie one more time and introduce her to my son.

June - We celebrated the achievement of my Bachelore of Management degree as a family - even though it was a year late, it was wonderful. We also celebrated the life of my Auntie who passed away at the end of June.

July - Life continued to settle into a routine, I got a new client, was able to attend a scrapbooking workshop, and watch my little family grow.

August - We experienced two asthma-related trips to the ER with Ellie which included an ambulance ride to another hospital and an over-night. This event made me start to push for more tests and investigations into her health and development.

September - Probably the darkest month for me/us - we had test results early in the month to know that her chronological age and developmental age were significantly apart. We also were told that there was an issue with her bones - waiting for the next appointments was like standing on the edge of a great chasm of blackness. We had no idea what was coming or what to expect.

October - Ellie was diagnosed with severe speech and language delay and we were able to get her into a special needs school. While it was difficult to experience this instant change without having time to think, for me, it was good that we had a plan.

November - We went to Edmonton as a family to celebrate the wedding of one of my cousins. Mark and I also went to Banff for the weekend whithout kids!

December - We enjoyed a week-long visit from Mark's Mom, Christmas, and more developmental advancements from both of our kids - Will's cut two teeth (#4 and #5) and is taking a few nervous steps here and there; Ellie's singing, dancing and walking on her tip-toes!

Jasmine the Chipette

I've been thinking about blogging for a few weeks now, but last week was brutal as the whole house came down with the latest-and-greatest flu. What made this so brutal is that it took out each of us one by one, and while we aren't all back to 100%, we are on the mend and for that I am thankful. We spent last Christmas in the ER with Ellie's asthma, so it has been a fervent prayer that we are healthy this year.

Ellie got glasses about a month ago now, and while it was yet another "thing" on our list of growing "things" we are dealing with and getting taken care of, we realize it's really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme. But, like anything, you have to pause and go "hmmm, this is not what we planned for our 3-yr-old". Since there are many generations of glasses wearers in our family's, we knew our kids would eventually get glasses but we hoped it would be at age 5 or 6, not age 3.

The optician's at our eye doc's office were great, though they did make me nervous (ok, and a little ticked) with all the dooms-day predictions of how Ellie would trash her glasses and we'd be in every weekend, and how it's so much easier explaining to a 5-yr old kid the need to wear and protect these things, blah, blah, blah. Ellie is my fearless kid - everything she has ever done since birth has been without hesitation, so I knew that as soon as she could see the difference glasses made, there wouldn't be a problem.

I think we had her wearing them most of the time within three days, and her teachers at school had her wearing them without issue the first day I sent the glasses to school. Slowly, we have been increasing the "venues" for wear, so that Ellie gets used to having them on in the car, grocery shopping, church, etc. A few weeks ago, we had a kids Christmas party after church with a potluck lunch and a visit from Santa - I thought this was the perfect opportunity for Ellie to wear her glasses at church - she'd be in a new crowd but still under my care (as opposed to the Sunday School teachers care).

What was amazing to me was how shy she was with them! When people would say "nice glasses Ellie!" she would whip them off her face and not be interested in wearing them for a while. That hurt my Mommy-heart because I knew that she knew something was different for her than the rest of the kids.

So then I ramped up my search for a cartoon or character in a book that wore glasses - surprisingly, there are none! I have been watching and looking for a while, and realize there are many cartoons that meet the various aspects of a child's life - absentee parents (where are Max & Ruby's parents?), younger siblings (Caillou and Dora), etc. but there are no kids that wear glasses (at least none that I could see in the times of our Treehouse TV viewings).

Daddy Pig is the closest character I found. He's from Ellie's favourite British cartoon "Peppa Pig", and thanks to her Auntie's who live in the UK, we are huge fans. While Ellie can relate more to 3-yr old Peppa and her baby brother George, Daddy Pig often gets admired (by me) for wearing glasses in hopes that Ellie would see them as normal.

 Then today's miracle happened. We went for a treat for lunch and got a McDonald's Happy Meal. Alvin & The Chipmunks is the current box and the toys, and when you order a Happy Meal they just ask if you want a girl toy or a boy toy. Usually we don't bother with the toys but today I said a toy for a girl - to my amazement, it was a girl chipmunk named Jasmine. Ellie was playing and playing with her and then all of a sudden, we both saw that she was wearing glasses! Ellie said "hey, I wear glasses too!" to Jasmine, and has been inseparable from this little toy (even taking her to bed at nap and bed time).

This has been my miracle today, and while there are miracles every day, I had to write about this one. God has blessed me with a cartoon character who wears glasses! God is so good!

Welcome To Holland

Welcome To Holland
by
Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.  It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum.  The Michelangelo David.  The gondolas in Venice.  You may learn some handy phrases in Italian.  It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You pack your bags and off you go.  Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy!  I'm supposed to be in Italy.  All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan.  They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease.  It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language.  And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place.  It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.  But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips.  Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.  And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever  go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

*     *     *

©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved.  

The Evolution of Leaf Raking

2008

 

2009

2010

2011

The Power of "MINE!"

When Ellie was a baby in the early-moving stages of baby-hood and toddler-hood, my cousin-in-law (who had two boys) would often remark at how she would just sit and play with the toys around her while her boys would roam while they played. We would chuckle and move on, enjoying the moment with our little ones. Now that I have a boy, however, I realize there is most deffinately a difference between the way boys play and the way girls play! Before Baby Will started to move, I would only have to clean up the toys once a week - things honestly didn't get that bad. Now that he's on the move, I am constantly tripping over or stepping on various items he spreads around the house.

My conclusion - this is one of the innate features of little boy's.

I have enjoyed watching both my kids grow and learn and explore the world around them. When Will came along, I worked hard to make sure there wasn't sibling rejection by making sure all the "new" baby stuff wasn't always referred to as "that's Will's". Of course everything was Ellie's - not only did she come first and everything was bought for her or given to her, but loving Auntie's bought a TON of stuff in pink, so the pink Play Gym and accessories was deffinately NOT Will's.

Fast forward to a very mobile boy who will be 8 months on Saturday. He loves following his big sister around and she loves running and saying "come on Will!" as if he's chasing her on his chubby little hands and knees. Will has figured out what is most precious to Ellie and like any good younger sibling, has already started to squeeze his way in and bug her. I find it amusing to watch him make a beeline over to Ellie's Dora doll as soon as it is dropped - he has no idea who Dora is, just that this little doll is one of Ellie's most prized possessions!

I have concluded this as another innate characteristic of children.

Providence

One of my favourite songs from my youth was performed by Michael W. Smith on the album called "I 2 (EYE)" released in 1988. This record (as they were called back then) was likely the first one I ever bought, so it's imprinted in my history as a pretty huge deal, and I love all the songs on the album. My favourite song is called "Hand of Providence" and starts out with a really cool harmonica intro - to which my Dad loved too, and we'd listen to it over and over.

Last week, I had the opportunity to experience the "Hand of Providence" in our life and this song kept coming back to me and thanks to my iPhone, I listened to it many, many times without having to waste walkman battey-life on rewind!

Monday: Ellie and I went for a follow-up speech assessment as part of her whole-body review the pediatrician has ordered. Her Speech Pathologist assessed her a year ago and said there was a speech delay but nothing significant. This day, however, the Speech Pathologist did some testing and said that Ellie was border-line severe language delays. She sent me home with a 300-question test to assist us in obtaining PUF Funding for Ellie - which stands for Program Unit Funding which would pay for special programs that would be available to her.

Tuesday: As I was mentally drafting an email to close family to update them on this and ask for prayer for funding and a programming spot, the Speech Pathologist called and said that Ellie had qualified for PUF Funding! She then gave me a list of six agencies to contact immediately to see if there was a programming spot available for Ellie - programs run on the school year and can be hard to come by as there is more need than programs available.

I called the first three places, was put on a wait list, left two voice mails and one called me back and booked us in for a tour the following day. The lady said that a spot had just opened up the previous day - my mind was reeling with the speed this was taking.

Wednesday: Mark, Ellie, Will and I toured this school and made the decision to place Ellie there. We completed the paperwork and she started the following day! The name of the school? Providence...

I had to look up what the word "providence" meant, and according to Mr. Webster, it means "divine guidance or care" - how true! We were living out the definition of the word! I then had to look up the words to the Michael W. Smith song that came coming back to me, and the words just overwhelmed the emotions in my heart:

Providence, Providence

See it laying down the cornerstone

The Hand of Providence – it’s evident

For we could never make it on our own

Apportioning the power

Weighing all that it entails

Giving us the fulcrum

And a balance to the scales

Oh, the Hand of Providence

Is guiding us through choices that we make

Oh, the Hand of Providence

Is reaching out to help us on our way

Providence, ever since

Any thesis ever entered man

The Hand of Providence

Has been our best defense

Tho’ his ways are sometimes hard to understand

From the dying of a heartbeat

To another soul reborn

From in between and circling

Our thoughts of love and war

Oh, the Hand of Providence

Is guiding us through choices that we make

Oh, the Hand of Providence

Is reaching out to help us on our way

A new road to travel

Copy of an email I sent to family on September 23, 2011.

Hello to our lovely sisters!! (and parents)

I am sending you all a joint-email because it'll be easier for me to just keep you all informed in one fell swoop. (and I decided to add our parents as an after-thought even though I've had telephone conversations with parents)

To provide a quick bit of history, Ellie was in the hospital again in August for another asthma attack. As usual, we then went and made the rounds to her doctors to make sure everything was okay once we were discharged. She had lost a fair amount of weight (7% = 1.5 lbs) so I raised this as a concern from my perspective and her pediatrician decided to re-run some tests.

In Alberta, when a baby is born, they do a whole raft of genetic-type tests (don't even know them all) with a simple heel-prick blood test. She had these done again in fall of 2009 - Cystic Fybrosis and Failure to Thrive tests were part of the deal. Her pediatrician said he'd do them again just to see if anything had changed - he was pretty sure that this was highly unlikely, since they had already been done twice, but he was just being thorough. What he did order was a bone age test, which was a simple x-ray of her wrist to see how old her bones are. Ellie and I spent one afternoon last week at the Children's Hospital going from clinic to clinic to get all these tests done, and while it was just tiring, it was a lot of fun to hang out together and she did great.

So all the bloodwork came back fine - all organs are functioning well and there's no absorption deficiencies or issues. What he had wanted to see in the bone age x-ray was a bone age much younger than her chronological age. Ellie's developing as what he calls a "late bloomer" so on the slower side of "normal" - she's walked later, talked later, gotten teeth later etc. than her age-group. He's not been concerned about this at all because she seems to be developing fine - but what we were hoping was if her bone age was younger then we'd be able to benchmark her height, weight and developmental skills against kids that are that age instead of the kids that are 3 because she doesn't compare with kids that are 3.

Well her bones have come back at 3 years old, so he was disappointed in that (with the other news he gave us I forgot to ask any questions along this line of what does this mean, etc. so don't ask me anything about this because I have no answers!)

What her wrist x-ray did show was that her bone density is not where it should be. There are also marks on her wrist (he said similar to rings on a tree) that would suggest she has stopped growing during times of illness. He read the x-ray report and some big fancy word was said which I never wrote down and can't remember the ending but it started with "osteo-..." I asked if this means she's likely to develop osteoporosis as an adult and he said "well, this is sort of what we're saying she has now".

He's concerned as to why her bones aren't as dense as they should be and that is what we have to find out now. There are side-effects from being on inhaled steroids for long periods of time (her puffers) and she's had not an insignificant amount of oral-dosed steriods when she's had her trips to the ER for her asthma attacks, so this could be part of it even though her dosages are extremely low.

So we are now being referred to the Endocrine Clinic at the Alberta Children's Hospital, where he said they will likely do a bone density test and figure out what is going on with her bones. It will take a few months to get into this clinic, so until then, it's just life as normal for us.

Everyone keeps asking me "how are you feeling" - it's hard to say really. I don't think Mark and I are in shock - likely stunned is a better adjective to describe what we're feeling. I don't think either of us are overly worried at this point, just looking at this as another path in this world of Sick Kids that we have be travelling since Ellie was born. I think Mark put it very well yesterday when we came away from the appointment - he said "it would be really nice to go to one of these one day and have them say 'we didn't find anything wrong' ". True, true, true.

At this point, the information I have communicated in this email is all that we have to share. We are fine to field questions as people have them, but there's nothing more we can add to the above information. Her pediatrician said it'll take a couple months to get into the Endocrine Clinic, so we just wait. A blessing we have is that my cousin's husband is a doctor in the Endocrine Clinic at ACH, so I know if we have any questions or need someone go over things with us again and help us come up with questions, he'll be a good support for us. It's also tremendously less scary knowing we're going to his clinic!

I would like to just ask that you keep us in prayer and that Ellie stays safe. Her pediatrician said that she's more suseptible than the average kid to break a bone - her favourite toy is the playground and she's quite the dare-devil so while my response is to completely protect her, I know that is not the correct action to take!!

Thanks for all your prayers and support - for the local family, I may need Will-care when it comes to the next round of tests. We'll keep everyone informed as we have info to share.

Love & hugs,
Lori, Mark, Ellie and Will

Hospitals and Angels

We have been in and out of various ER's and hospital clinics with our children to know that there are angels among us with each trip. I mostly try to watch for the opportunities to encourage other parents but often times it is me who is being encouraged.

Last week we experienced two trips to the ER with an asthma flare-up for Miss Ellie. The second visit resulted in another over-night hospitalization and another pneumonia diagnosis (well at first anyway). The Children's Hospital was full, so Ellie and I experienced a new adventure - an ambulance ride across town in rush hour to the Peter Lougheed Hospital. Enter a set of angels -- our EMS guys.  It's difficult to pin-point exactly what they did, but Ellie bounced back during the ride and chatted away to them. They enjoyed her "cuteness" and her cheerful chatter and we had a wonderful visit while we sat in traffic.

The doctor we saw at PLC suggested that perhaps the pneumonia wasn't pneumonia after-all - he said that's a difficult diagnosis for asthmatic kids to begin with. It looked like we were only going to be in one night which was a relief.

The reason this hospital night was more difficult than the past ones was because Ellie knew she wasn't at home, and she knew things weren't right. Perhaps I've been naive to think that Ellie and her love of all things social wouldn't be affected by all these visits to the doctor. I remember being very upset that we had to be at a hospital across town in a district of the city where we knew no one and had no family. I had to constantly remind myself that we would be okay.

It was amazing to see our family and friends rally around us yet again as we charted through waters never traversed. My underlying thoughts rolling through my head was "how do I do this with a baby!" Yet we did, and we're stronger for it.

One of the most wonderful parts of this story is that of another angel. She was my best friend from Grade 3 to Grade 6, and while we likely tried to remain friends through the changes of schools and the inevitable growing up that Jr. High brings, time passed and we grew up. The cool thing with Facebook and other social networking sites is the ability to reconnect with friends gone by, and we had the privilege of "finding" each other in Facebook land. (In the interest of divulging our ages, I won't confess how long it has been since I've seen her, but it's been at least 20 years).

Well this friend of mine messaged me and was willing to help in whatever way I needed - what a blessing! Just knowing that she was nearby was comforting since my family and friends were on the other side of the city and I was feeling very alone. I asked her to bring me lunch so I wouldn't have to leave Ellie, and she said it would be no problem. It was phenomenal - we haven't seen each other since we were teenagers and in that ugly/akward stage of life. While we've both grown up, have straight teeth and (thankfully) straight hair, truly time had not passed.

I've heard people say that true friends are friends for life and until lunch on Friday, I don't think I ever really understood the meaning of that. I was so blessed by a simple act of my friend bringing me lunch and visiting with my daughter and I - I pray that we all have friends like this.

Adventures in Rolling

About three weeks ago, Will started the "I'm-about-to-roll-over" process, and it has been a lot of fun watching him learn this first momentous step of mobility . He would lift his legs straight up in the air and throw them down to the left, looking like the letter L. Eventually his shoulders caught on to the flip and there he'd be, stuck on his shoulders and shout till we helped him.

One night when I checked on him before going to bed, he was sleeping on his side - I pulled Mark in and we enjoyed watching our boy sleep. As we prepared for bed, we laughed at the thought of the potential reaction for when he actually did flip onto his tummy

July 1, 2011 - 1:35 a.m. I rushed into my shrieking baby's room to discover that indeed, he had flipped onto his tummy in his sleep. Oh the trauma!

The last two weeks have been a fun learning experience for me as much as for Will. He's progressed from taking several minutes to complete the roll-over to doing it in seconds - back-to-tummy. He's enjoying his belly time and tries to reach for things - already pulling his knees under his belly and pushing with his feet while pulling with his hands. For me, this experience has been completely amazing. Since my first baby was harnessed/braced until she was 6 months old because of her dislocated hips, she never did anything like this till she was 8-9 months old because she simply couldn't! I have no idea if Will is on target, ahead or behind in this, but I think he's brilliant.

Of course if he wasn't my second baby, I would be wondering if he was ever going to figure out how to roll towards the right or if he'll figure out how to roll from his tummy to his back. Mark assures me that he will figure out this rolling business by the time he gets married.

In the meantime, I have enjoyed going into his room in the morning to find the unique nooks and crannies of his crib he has jammed himself up into - his favourite is beneath his little aquarium.

Mother's Day

She squeal's "Mommy!" whenever I come home; she shouts "HUG!" whenever she wants one; she thanks God for chocolate milk at bedtime prayers. He smiles whenever he sees my face; he coo's and waves his arms to catch my attention; he loves to snuggle. They have made me a Mom and I am blessed.

 Perhaps the memory I will never forget about Mother's Day 2011, is seeing Ellie watching a video before church naked. When I asked Mark if there was a reason for the nudity, he looked quite stunned - guess she stripped all on her own. Who knew watching a Dora show would be much more comfortable in the nude!

Happy Star Wars Day!

Years ago (like over ten), my younger sister called me up on May 4th and said "may the fourth be with you" - it took me a minute but then I got the reference and nearly died laughing. Therefore, each year as the 4th of May rolls around, I remember that phone call and have a little chuckle to myself.

Perhaps the thing that is the most humorous is that I really like Star Wars and that style of movie or TV-show (I was a huge Battlestar Galactica junkie right along with my husband). Mark thinks it's awesome that I like a good Action or Sci-Fi film, but the downside for me is that I have absolutely ZERO leverage to get him to see chick-flick's with me. I will point out that he has done his husbandly duty and watched the full six hours of "Pride & Prejudice" as well as my favourite musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" without complaint.

I look back to the "I-want-to-get-to-know-you-more" dance that we did in April/May of 2005 with pride. I got this guy, who hardly ever spoke to me, to ask me to the movies (one in particular) - I basically told him I'd say yes if he asked me. While the lines of who asked whom out on the first date are often disputed with much love, I holdfast to my defense that I merely gave him the solid invitation that asking would result in success.

Our first date was May 20, 2005 and the movie we saw was "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" on opening weekend. It was a terrific night and six months later he asked me to marry him, so I ask you, does it really matter who asked whom out? I say no, it really doesn't (though it wasn't me).

We have held fast to our love of Star Wars, and in March, Mark bought me the Lego Star Wars game for the Wii (we gave away our Play Station version last summer). Ellie is now getting lessons on the game - with her favourite character being R2D2 and the fun sounds he makes. And Baby Will? Well he's not too young either, but I'll let the photo do the talking.

So forgive me when I say: May the Fourth be with you!!

All things Princess

Unless you’ve known me since childhood, you likely don’t know that I adore the British Royal Family and grew up with this secret desire and belief that I would one day become a real princess. (This was interrupted for a year or two when the New Kids on The Block came around and my heart was with them).

My elementary school BFF Jesse and I used to parade around the playground at recess with this terrific game we’d dreamed up that we were royal princesses. We dreamed up our kingdoms and adventures that were executed with perfect British accents and it was a game that lasted years. My Grandma and Grandpa had collector magazines and tons of articles that they gave me to start my first scrapbook (which I still have), and I saved my allowance money and faithfully bought the monthly Majesty magazine issue. 

Looking through the wedding photos of Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson’s weddings fueled my princess dreams and my determination that I was going to have a ball gown wedding dress with a veil the length of my train just like them.

Now I must pause and borrow a statement from my dear friend Jesse’s blog – we did have other friends in school and have grown up to become successful and well-adjusted adults.

As I have gotten older, I still have a deep love of all things “princess”. I think I surprised my in-law’s the first Christmas we spent with them as I would randomly burst forth into song from the movie “Ever After” that had just been released. However, they are used to my frilly side and just smile when I tell them of my Pretty Princess Tiara that I would wear during the final stages of any University course (it seriously helped me study), or if I tell them of the Tiara bowl I refrained from buying at the Disney store (I would have had to share with Ellie or bought two, but I’m sure Cheerio’s would have tasted sublime). 

Thankfully I have been blessed with a husband who, after 5 years, is starting to get used to this side of me. While he was surprised that I was going to blog about the Royal Wedding, he wasn’t as surprised as when he found me watching TV one night wearing sweats and my wedding veil (something every girl needs to do).

Watching William and Kate’s wedding was so exciting for me and while I wasn’t able to share it with my BFF Jesse or my sisters, I did get to share it with my own young Prince Will and I tried not to complain too much about how tired I was the next day. 

While I didn’t become a princess on my wedding day, two things did happen. First, I married a man who adores me and treats me like royalty every day. Second, my veil was longer than my train….

Paying it forward

My first child was born full term, incredibly small and was diagnosed with hip displacia at birth. I remember someone coming to my face in the O.R. and telling me my brand new baby's hips dislocated even before I really saw or held her and not having a clue what that meant.

Very quickly, my husband and I went on a crash-course in hip displacia and through the haze of sleep deprivation and new parenthood we learned what we could. At 8 days old, we took our little baby to the Orthopedic Clinic at the Alberta Children's Hospital (ACH) and she was put in this completely barbaric looking body harness to keep her hips in the position they needed to be in so they could finish growing properly. We were told by the nurse as she strapped our daughter into this, that this brace would never come off and we were left with an uncertainty of the future that we had a difficult time describing to anyone.

We adjusted to our new normal which included regular trips to the Orthopedic Clinic at ACH, and got to make lots of friends along the way. Two things frustrated me the most - first, when people would ask if my 3-month old was 3 weeks old, and then the "what's wrong with her?" question when I would respond her true age since it didn't correspond to her size. Second, once I was changing her diaper in the ladies room at the mall and a stranger came and discussed her experience with hip displacia when she saw Ellie's body harness.

After one particularly tiring visit to the Orthopedic Clinic with Ellie, we sat in the caffeteria area at the Children's and listened to the Choir sing Christmas Carols to all who were there and I cried. A stranger came up to me and asked how old my baby was. When I told her she was 3 months old (she was about 8.5 lbs at that point), the woman gushed over how beautiful she was and how she just knew that she was an older baby even though she was small. She told me that she'd had a small baby too and that Ellie would eventually catch up - I left with a lighter heart and thankful for the encouragement.

Ellie was pronounced healed at 6 months old, and I went away from the experience deciding that I would use our experience to be there for someone in the future. Fast forward six more months and the shocking phone call from my little sister that my niece who's the same age as my daughter had just been diagnosed with hip displacia too! What a ride that was, never EVER did I think that my first support role would be to my own sister!

As a result, our Orthopedic Doc (who just happened to be the same guy for both these little girls), put a screening plan into place for all of our subsequent children since it was now obvious that hip displacia was a genetic trait in the family.

So last week, Baby Will was 6 weeks old and sent for his hip ultrasound and tomorrow we back to the Orthopedic Clinic to hear the results. I have learned I am incapable to attend any clinic at the Children's Hospital without a level of anxiety and stress, but I am trying not to overly worry about tomorrow's appointment.

What I am trying to focus on is the opportunities Will and I will have to meet new people and who we will be able to encourage tomorrow. Last week both my kids had ultrasounds at the ACH Imagining Clinic, and thanks to the assistance of my parents (yay for retirement!) I was able to be in two places at once.

As my Mom and I came out of Will's appointment, we were met with Dad visiting with a family in the waiting area while Ellie played with a little girl who was built in miniature form just like Ellie. The mother told me how encouraged she was to see a miniature child that was several months older than her own, who was talking (well sort-of), walking, alert and interactive, and hitting developmental milestones. She quickly told me of the worry the doctors were putting her through because her daughter was small, but after seeing Ellie she said she wasn't going to worry any more.

I left feeling exhausted and blessed at the same time and it reminded me about the visit I had with the stranger when Ellie was three months old. I am so thankful that God puts people into our lives to encourage us and for us to encourage - the trick is to recognize the opportunities we have to encourage those around us, something I am going to be more attentive to, especially in the realm of the big scary Children's Hospital!

The iPad 2

I'm sure every household has one of these - a jar for collecting loose change.

Prior to my marriage, I never really put much thought into my loose change, and would try and pay for things when my coin purse got too full. I had a piggy bank that I decided my loonies and twoonies would be saved there, and a Tupperware container in the kitchen for quarters (thanks to my apartment-dwellers laundry requirements).

So when I got married, it was a bit of a surprise to me to see this massive jar of coin in what was to be my new bedroom. Mark eventually spent several nights rolling it, and then proceeded to instruct me of the benefits of saving loose coin.

We were given a beautiful vase as a wedding gift from one of the little old ladies at church that was made by another lady in our church who does gorgeous pottery work. This vase was not water-proof, and my new husband, who had previously lived in the a-typical bachelor mansion, had a hard time understanding why things like this would be pretty decorations - until he started chucking his coin into it.

So there it sits on our dresser, I love the colour of it as well as the style of the piece. It reminds me of this lovely lady who has passed on, as well as the friendships we've developed with the lady that made the vase. And it works as a perfect coin collector! When it gets full, Mark carries it to the basement to empty it into his original massive jug and then returns it to its place of honor on our dresser. We have a similar piece of pottery (made by the same lady) in our kitchen, so I am now a regular contributor to the coin collection.

Preparing for our second baby's arrival that was expected for March 6, 2011 (he arrived 2 weeks early), gave push for the both of us to go through the house again and do antoher "purge" of our precious junk as we made room for another resident. And so for the second time in my marriage, the Coin Jug made it's appearance and my husband spent several nights sorting, stacking and rolling coin. The grand total was quite a shocking figure and I asked Mark what we were going to blow it on ("found" money like this always buys something off our list of things we need to replace or purchase).

And then he told me he was thinking of getting an iPad - I had my opinions about the purchase, really not going one way or another. My biggest hesitation was that our 2.5 yr-old daughter is addicted to our iPod Touches and her Grandmother's iPad, which I don't particularly like for whatever reason. (though it is amusing that she can play "Angry Birds" and get better scores than Mark).

I then proceeded to go into labour and give birth, never really giving it another thought. Fast forward several weeks, the money is in the bank just waiting for that perfect purchase, and Mark says the new iPad's are getting released and he's thinking of hanging out at the mall to get one. I originally thought "yeah my husband, who thought I was crazy for getting up at 5 a.m. for Boxing Day door crasher sales, is going to stand in line for HOURS for the chance to get an iPad 2..." I was a little doubtful.

So the morning of the release arrives, he does all his research for wait times and then decides he's going to do it. Baby Will and I drop him off at the mall with his backpack full of reading material, water and snacks. We kept in touch for the afternoon via text messages and the occaisional phone call - he felt his odds were "pretty good" that he was going to be successful.

He later explained the process to me - the Apple stores received their shipment of iPad's but weren't allowed to open them until 3 p.m. so they had no idea how many they had or the specs of what was shipped to them. He said the store closed at 4 p.m. to get everything ready, and then at one point, a staff person came through the line and started handing out tickets to people - if you got a ticket that meant that you got an iPad. The last time we spoke, the ticket distributors were about 40 people ahead of Mark. As I was driving to pick up Ellie, my phone chirped with a text message "I GOT A TICKET!!"

The kids and I got to the mall and made our way to the Apple store. It was neat to see Mark near the front of the line and then when we arrived, he WAS the front of the line. Ellie did her little cheer "Hi Daddy!" which made her a favourite among the Apple staff who were pumping up the line to keep everyone revved up. We all kissed Mark and waved him off into the store to get his iPad - it was very exciting.

The following morning, this is the sight that graced my living room. At least it was paid for with our loose change!

Family Moments

Mom & Dad Ratzlaff brought Ellie to the hospital Wednesday afternoon when Will was about 36 hours old. I am not sure if she totally understood that Baby Will was here to stay, but she enjoyed meeting him and touching his face and hands.

The feelings and emotions that swirled around me are completely indescribable as I watched Ellie hold Will for the first time. It was a wonderful moment for our family.

And a Boy makes two

Willem Bruce (Will) was born on Tuesday February 22 at 1:25 in the morning. Weighing in at 8lb 4oz and 20 inches long. Everyone is doing great.

A new era - new bed and new room!

At the beginning of January, we started the process of getting Ellie's new room set up. We started with clearing out the bed Grammie and Papa Butter had used when they visited in September, then put all the Christmas decorations back in the attic. We then assembled the bassinet and Ellie was a HUGE help to Mark - he quickly learned where he can and can't put his bowl of screws!
Ellie was very excited about the "pretty" bassinet and seemed to understand that it was for the baby. When she went over and pulled herself up to peek into the cradle, she seemed quite disturbed that there was no baby actually in it yet. We went and got one of her dolls and put it in the cradle and that was a sound solution to her problem!

The next step was finishing her valance - something I made without a pattern. It was scary becuase I drew out what I wanted from my head and wasn't entirely sure if it would look as good in real life as it did in my mind! I get the feeling that my husband shakes his head when I get nervous with my sewing - until I reminded him how nervous he gets with his wood-working...it seemed to speak his language. Although I was nervous, the valance came together very quickly and I am very proud of how it looks and the little finishing touches I did to make it look professionally made that only I know about (or someone who is a better seamstress than myself).


The fun part came the day we brought Ellie's new bed up and got it all assembled. Again, she was in there like a dirty shirt climbing all over everything and being of great assistance to her Dad.


I found this bed last Spring at the awesome second hand store in our neighborhood and since it came with a mattress that was in really good shape, we snapped it up. Mark was a little unsure of the loudness of it, but I loved it - I especially loved that it was made from wood (versus plastic) and would appear to last. Ellie laughed at all the animals and talked about each one and the sounds they make. As soon as Mark brought the mattress up and put it into the bed, she climbed on and exclaimed "bed!" This was the first time we thought that it would be a fairly easy transition.

That very night, Ellie came down with the stomach flu and graciously passed it along to myself and Mark. We spent the following weekend in Radium recovering (while Ellie played at Grandpa & Grandma's), and then had a weekend at home and then finally last Friday decided it was time for the big move.

Ellie and I started moving all her clothes from one dresser to the next - which took forever because my fashionista daughter needed to try on EVERYTHING. It was fun though, and once Mark got home he started helping too and I think Ellie enjoyed it. I had made her a new quilt for her new bed, so after supper we gave it to her and then we made the bed together - she kept saying "oh wow!" over and over and then jumped and played on the bed.

The hardest part for me was when we moved the bassient into the baby's room and told her this was now the baby's room - she pulled her footstool over to the crib and tried climbing back into the crib crying "bed!" over and over. We weathered that storm fine and while I hid my tears till after she was asleep, she was very excited about her new bed.

As of this morning, she has had three successful nights and two successful naps in the new room and bed. We are very proud of her and hope that the transition is exciting and not overly stressful.

6 weeks and counting!

Today is 6 weeks until our due date, according to what the doctors say (I'm sticking with my on-line calculator thingy that said March 6th (not the 7th) was the official due date). It's hard to believe that we're in the final stretch of Baby Project#2!

So far things in preggie land have been good, aside from the normal malady's that strike a woman when she's building a baby. The big watch lately has been my blood pressure - it was an issue with my first, and likely contributed to Ellie being so small at birth (4lbs 11oz, or 2138 grams).

Since Ellie was so small, she was placed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) immediately after birth. They called her a "feeder-grower" in that they just wanted to watch her closely to make sure she gained weight and grew properly. She was short (only 17" tall), so she never looked scrawny like the majority of the NICU babies did, and she soon became the favourite NICU baby to care for. They rated her size as "<<<3rd percentile" - I wondered how many "less than" signs could be put in front of a percentage to make it reduce to the next-smallest number! Though we had excellent care from our nurses and doctors, there was a lot of emotions for us to deal with because we didn't know when we were going to take her home, and thanks to the kindness of my nurses on Post-Partum, I wasn't discharged until Ellie was so we were able to go home as a family the first time.

Very early in this pregnancy, I was on the maternity floor at Rockyview Hospital and walked past the NICU and emotions surfaced from Ellie's birth that really surprised me. Who knew that two years later things would surface that could surprise you! Mark and I started praying that this baby would not be little or need to spend time in the NICU at all - I forget that sometimes when you pray, God answers you quite literally.

So at my ultrasound two weeks ago, when the doctor met with me after to review the results, I burst out laughing when he told me that this baby was rating in the 95th percentile for size. Uh, wow!! Of course I had to explain myself to this kind doctor, so since he found out that our fist baby was a miniature one, he wanted to see me again just to keep an eye on Baby's growth.

I am very thankful that we appear to be having a baby that will not need to spend time in the NICU, and am humbled again by God's sense of humor to our prayers. I guess I'll be tucking away all my preemie-sized baby clothes that I was going to have ready "just in case" we had another miniature baby!!