The Easter of a Million Pictures

Easter Weekend started on Good Friday.  Spencer was already in Tucson.  It was the 6th, so I made my mom take his picture, but then I forgot to get them from her.  Oh well.  At least I know his 4 year 7 month picture exists.

Elliott wore his Peter Rabbit onesie.  It used to be Spencer's and it was second hand when he got it.  Lots of babies have probably worn this thing 1 time each.

It's really cute.  And totally appropriate for Easter.

On Saturday morning I nursed Elliott around 5 am.  Then we threw him and Ginger in the car and drove to Tucson.  It took him 1/2 an hour to fall back asleep and then, with no traffic, we got to my parents house in 75 minutes.  He didn't sleep nearly enough and it sent him into a tailspin for the rest of the weekend.  He was as cranky as I've ever seen him.

Spencer got up 2 hours after we arrived.  I am jealous of my 4 year old son for how much uninterrupted sleep he gets.

Later in the afternoon on Saturday Spencer and I planted jelly beans in the tree well in my parents back patio.  I got this idea from......wait for it......pinterest.  I told Spencer that I had emailed the Easter Bunny (easter.bunny@yahoo.com) to tell him we would be in Tucson for Easter.  He wrote me back to confirm and told me that you can plant jelly beans the night before Easter for a special treat.

This only works the night before Easter though, so forget about trying it at other times.

In our family, Mom and Dad do the baskets and the Easter Bunny hides the candy.  We got the baskets ready before we went to bed.

Oh, and checked on the buried jelly bean progress.

Spencer woke up at 7 A.M. this morning.  He didn't even wake up that early on Christmas morning.  He came running across the house (where he saw all the candy we the Easter Bunny had hidden) to wake us up.  He was so excited.  And we were so mean and made him wait until 8, because there was no way we were getting up at that hour.  He's such a good kid because he was totally fine to cuddle with daddy until we were ready to go.

The first thing he did was run outside to check on the crop.

He let out a huge gasp.  And then just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then it was time for baskets.

Spencer got to do Elliott's too.  He's in for a rude awakening when Elliott develops the ability to open his own presents.

Elliott just hung out and watched.

Then it was finally, finally time for the candy hunt.

Elliott hung out and watched.

The Easter Bunny was, once again, pushing an agenda of diabetes and cavities.

Elliott was in a good mood, so before he lost it, we took some pictures.  This is just a small sampling of all the pictures we took.

My mom bought Spencer his Easter outfit.  It makes him look about 12.

After pictures, Grandma and Papa arrived with more presents and candy.

Then Jerry and Lois arrived with more candy and presents.

Then Aunt Karen and Uncle Terry arrived with more presents and candy, but I didn't get a picture.  Perhaps because I was in a sugar coma.

Then I retired to a back bedroom to nurse (there is no public nursing with the supplementer, not like I was a big public nurser without it).  Everyone ate without me.

Then more group photos.

I was just delighted at Spencer for his refusal to smile.  We took 8 pictures.  He looks like this in all of them. 

And then he put out the world's best smiles for the grandparent photo.

All the men (minus Michael) were wearing loud, large print Hawaiianish shirts.

All in all it was a very nice Easter.  I missed my grandma.  My grandma only came to our house like once a year, so it's been easy to not miss her because I don't really associate her with being at home. 

Being at my parents house for a holiday- that's a different story.  All day I kept thinking- I wonder who is picking up Girl.  It was weird to have a holiday without her.  I told my mom that our holidays are kind of lame now.  Everyone is gone.  Nathan and Kendra don't live here.  Nick is out to sea.  My cousins have moved away.  My grandparents are dead.  We need to rent some new family.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about Elliott today- specifically how much more fun he will be next year and how excited I am to see him hunting for eggs with his little basket.  He'll be 15 months next Easter (I googled it.  Sunday, March 31st).  It's going to be awesome.

Hepatologist and Epileptologist

We had double appointments at Phoenix Children's Hospital today.  In anticipation of this big day my mom drove up last night, spent the night and took Spencer back to Tucson with her this morning.  They went shopping for new summer clothes and made Easter cookies today.  Much more fun than hanging out in the gastroenterology and neurology departments.

We'll start with Dr. Miloh and hepatology, because that is where we started today.

Elliott gained 10.5 ounces in 2 weeks.  You would think that would be cause for celebration.  We were pretty thrilled.  What did the nutritionist have to say about that gain, which, by the way, is considered perfectly average?  She brought up the possibility of a feeding tube.  It's not enough that Elliott is gaining normally.  She wants him to gain normally and do all of his catch up growth immediately.  Never mind that it is acceptable for a premature baby without any medical issues at all to catch up by their first birthday. Never mind the fact that Spencer gained weight in the exact same way (slowly) and they are almost the exact same size at the same age and nobody ever thought a feeding tube was necessary for him.  Never mind that Spencer didn't make it on the growth chart until he was 9 months.  Never mind that Spencer didn't finish his catch up growth until he turned 1 (again- normal!).  Never mind that even now, at age 4, Spencer is pretty tiny.  Oh no, let's ignore all of that and expect a premature baby with liver disease and a genetic disposition to be smallish during childhood to just magically be in the 50th Percentile by next week. 

We have Elliott's 4-month well baby appointment next week.  I will be discussing this with our pediatrician because she was very supportive of Elliott continuing to gain normally and slowly doing his catch up growth over the next year, which based on his trend, he will do.

There was some good news from that appointment.  We had blood drawn on Monday.  The last blood draw we had was 3 weeks ago and Elliott's direct bilirubin was at 1.8.  Now, wait for it.............

it's .5!  Normal is .4 or less.  I'd venture to say that he is finally normal.

The bad news is that his GGT was still over 1,000 (down from 1,500, but still way higher than the 100 we want) and Dr. Miloh is once again talking liver biopsy.  That had been off the plate for a while, but a biopsy is really the only thing left to do to determine what is causing his liver enzymes to be all messed up.  We're going back in 2 weeks and 4 weeks and doing blood before the appointment in 4 weeks.  Pray, pray, pray that his GGT is down by a lot when we do the next round of labs.  Otherwise it looks like we'll be admitted to the hospital and Elliott will once again be going under general anesthesia.  Big boo.

(Tuesday night)

(Wednesday Night)

(Don't worry. We don't wash Elliott with Palmolive.  We do bathe him in the kitchen sink though)

(Thursday night)

After our high blood pressure inducing meeting with Dr. Miloh and nutrition we booked it over to the Neurology Department.

We met with Dr. Williams, who is an Epileptologist with Barrow Neurological Institute.  He has an M.D. and a PhD.  He's plenty qualified.

We spent a long time going through Elliott's personal history and family history.  He asked a lot of questions about different conditions that family members have.  He was fascinated by my adult onset night terrors, sleep walking and physically acting out dreams.  For a minute I forgot we were there for Elliott because he started asking so many questions about me.  All of my weird sleep stuff got so much better after Spencer was born either due to exhaustion or hormonal changes, otherwise I would make a pretty good case study.

Anyway.  We talked a lot.  He did a very comprehensive evaluation with Elliott.  He checked a whole bunch of reflexes, looked at his strength and was impressed with his strength.  And then he dropped a bomb.  A good bomb.

He said that he had reviewed all of the stuff sent over from the previous neurologist and based on the EEGs he said that Elliott never had seizures.  What the EEG showed was that his brain activity was not entirely normal and he had a greater tendency for the POSSIBILITY of a seizure, but there were no actual seizures. 

Can you believe it?

He told us to stop giving Elliott the keppra (we have to slowly wean him over the next 3 weeks) and that we don't have to come back.  He's considered a normal, healthy, regular brain developing kid.  He also said Elliott is totally fine to start getting the DTaP vaccine.

We were floored.  I have spent HOURS worrying about Elliott growing up with epilepsy.  And now I'm told that there were no seizures at all.  I'm thrilled.  And again, angry.  He's been on seizure medication for 3 months.  We haven't seen many side effects, but I'm sure it is better to not be on medicine than be on it.  Right?  We asked Dr. Williams why the neurologist said Elliott was having seizures when he really wasn't and Dr. Williams said that 1) it is hard to read the EEG of a newborn and 2) he probably just didn't explain it well to us.

This is exactly what the EEG reports say.  What do you think?

EEG #1- Abnormal electroencephalogram for bitemporal spike slow and sharp slow-wave complexes consistent with an epileptogenic focus in these regions.  Background is within normal limits.  Clinical correlation is advised.

EEG #2-Abnormal EEG for sharp wave activity bitemporal area, right more than left, consisent with an epilptogenic fous in this region.  Focus is less active than previous study.  Clinical correlation is advised.

EEG #3- Abnormal electroencephalogram for bitemporal spikes and left parietal spiles consistent with an epileptogenic focus and tendency for seizures.  Clinical correlation is advised.

Overalls

I love a baby in overalls.  It's such a cute look. 

I did a 10 minute sweep of my photo archives and found these pictures of Spencer in overalls.  Can you imagine if I had looked for 20 minutes?

This was right after his first birthday.  He got really chubby after he started eating a lot of solids and was actually in the 50th percentile for weight.  That lasted about a month.  Then he started running everywhere and he was back down to the 20th where he has remained to this day.

Right after he had been potty trained, when he was 2 1/2, I tried to get him to wear these monkey overalls.  He refused and said they were for babies.  I remember 1) wondering where he had gotten such an idea, since he hadn't really spent any time with other people/kids who could have told him such a thing, and 2) that my baby was no longer a baby and my overall days were over.  I was a little sad.

But no more. 

There's a new baby in town and he has no opinion on the clothes he wears.  I just bought myself 2.5 more years of overalls.

He's pretty happy about it too.

These are not hand me down overalls from Spencer.  I actually cannot remember for sure where they came from.  I think Erin gave them to me.  They look a little big, but that's only because of Elliott's skinny little chicken legs.  They actually fit pretty nicely.

See the extra hand in this picture?  See the horse it is holding?  Yeah, Spencer insisted that Elliott needed that horse in the picture.  He still has very specific ideas about things: overalls are for babies, Elliott needs my horse in this picture.  It never ends.

I saw an adorable pair of overalls at Carter's the other day.  I was thinking that Elliott could wear them for Girl's memorial service, but then I convinced myself that denim would be too casual.  I've been reconsidering it though, because I reminded myself that Girl, too, was a big overall fan.  She gave me a pair of 12-18 month overalls for Spencer at my baby shower.  There were little things, toys and such, in the pockets. 

I think overalls would be a nice tribute to her.

Lemon Harvest

When John and Maryellen had us over for Super Bowl, Spencer picked 3 lemons off of their backyard tree.  They sat on the counter for a few weeks and then I tossed them.  When they had us over for St. Patrick's Day he picked about 20 lemons.  We made strawberry lemonade with those.  Spencer had been bugging me to pick more lemons, so yesterday we invited ourselves over and picked 3 big bags full.  We didn't count, but I'll bet it was about 50 lemons.

To thank them for their lemony generosity we had them over for a lemonlicious snack while Elliott napped today.

We made lemon bars, regular lemonade and blueberry lemonade.  I'm not a huge blueberry fan, but the blueberry lemonade was mighty tasty.

I used my very best, gold rimmed dessert plates.  And served the juice out of plastic pitchers.

Keeping it real.

Spencer brought out all of his hats and insisted that John wear the bunny ears.

And little baby Elliott napped for 2.5 hours and didn't wake up until they were leaving.  I was so very pleased.  I thought for sure he would wake up after 30 minutes because we had the gall to try to entertain in his absence.

During the lemon feast of 2012 we had an entire conversation about the Easter Baskets that I put together yesterday and hid.  I had to spell everything because Spencer was sitting right there.

If you promise not to tell him I will tell you that the baskets are in the guest room closet.

Under a beach towel. 

Elliott's basket may or may not contain some jars of baby food to be consumed in 2.5 months and this teeny tiny bathing suit to be worn in the ungodly summer heat.