Brock is so funny

Brock is in love with the human body. He loves anatomy so much. We went to the book store once and there was a life sized book of a little boys insides He flipped out. It took an hour to remove him from the book. His curiosity has always been there as long as I can remember. he loves the pictures on the doctors wall showing what the inside of the ear looks like. When I was studying the heart he was learning it with me. He knows the valves and at one point knew whick way the blood flows through the body. He wonders why valentine hearts are not shaped like real hearts. He knows proper names for most of the body parts. He has told me in the past that his esophagus needs chocolate!

I am all for teaching my boys about the proper names of 'those parts' too. The other day I laid down on the couch and told him I was not feeling well. He laid down next to me and said he was ill too. I asked him what was wrong and he said "I think if I stand up my testicles will drop off." I laughed so hard and he got mad and told me, with the most serious face, "I am not joking Mom, It will be bad if I stand up. It will make a huge mess." We then cuddled in to watch a wonderful episode of Pheneus and Ferb!

Indian Names

If I had to choose Indian names today for my children they would be 'Whiney-whoa-whoa' and 'Cries like Banshee'. Mine would be 'Needs-alot-beer'. Its been a crazy day on the home front but then again they all are lately. I just wish we could incorporate duct tape into our parenting. Maybe I should become a psycologist and write a real parenting book. It could be titled something like "Practical Parenting, 101 torture devices that are CPS approved!" Sounds like a best seller to me. There could be a chapter on mother time...like how to successfully use the john alone. That is still something after 8 1/2 years that I can't seem to master. Don't get me wrong I LOVE my boys but some days it takes all I have not to ask them things like "what are you thinking?" As Brock is strangling the poor defenseless BIGGER (by at least 35 lbs.) brother Chase. Would it be ok to tell Chase to knock his block off and I bet he won't do that again??? This seems wrong to me...tell one kid to hurt the other one hard enough that he will never forget it...BUT it seems like the best solution. I can't get them to quit wrestling and it ALWAYS ends up with Chase in tears and Brock left wondering why he can't take it! Secretly I have always wished Brock was a girl...its true, I wanted a daughter with all of my being. After watching the boys try to kill each other today I decided it was a good thing Brock was a boy! He may be the only thing that can toughen Chase up a little! Of course if the wrestling escalates and one of them gets injured it could ruin my chances of a grand daughter! lol.

Oh and Joe...his Indian name should be 'needstodoalotalaundry!'

If you need a good laugh!

Brock update

All is good here! The surgery was a success and we were home by 9. After the update with the doctor he told me they would call me in 20 minutes to go back to recovery. As soon as I sat down the beeper went off. They rushed me back to recovery to help tame the beast. He woke up thrashing and pulling his IV out. When I came around the corner three nurses were hold him down! Seems I have forgot alot of things from his past surgeries or I would have remebered this happened everytime. He finally calmed down after every IV, bandaid and ID bracelet was removed! What was I thinking going with out Joe? Thank God my friend Maureen showed up. She was really able to calm him down. So he was crying that his ears hurt and the nurse said she could give him some tylenol with codine before we left. I just wanted the pain to stop for him and agreed. What in the world was I thinking! He always gets amped up on codine and I knew that. We came home to bounce off the walls for 5 hours! This is how he finally crashed out and I was not far behind him!

Always time for fun!

The New Year has brought many changes for us this year. I have been very busy lately with school starting again. I have three classes this time History, Nutrition and Chemistry. I have Chem at night and the other two are online classes. Online classes are alot harder for me. The quizzes an exams are timed and you have weekly projects on top of term papers. History will be my biggest struggle. I love to read and I love to learn about history but I dont like to read history! It is very dry. Night classes are working out well for us. Joe gets some good quality time with the boys. Last year Joe had to use alot of PTO time to stay home with sick kids while I went to take exams. So this way should work out well.

Chase is still doing cub scouts and loving it. Here are his newly built bookends. This is a great project for my little bookworm. Chase can knock out a novel in a week. He is reading 5-6th grade material. We are very proud of him. It is so hard to make him stop reading at night and go to sleep! He is also doing great at basketball. He has come such a long way. He is going to take a little break so that Saturdays are freed up for him and Joe to go fishing. He just started Chess club and loves it. I can't believe how fast he is growing up.



Oh little Brock! He has never really played with toys much but he does now! He is crazy about pirates and knights. This is how I found him sleeping last week. When he was put in to bed his toys were put away. I was just in the next room and never heard a thing! Brock is growing so fast.

We had a four day weekend and so I decided it should be super fun! We started the day with Brocks Pre-opp all is a go for Wed...yeah! Joe has always been at every surgery but this feels like such an old hat for us I have asked him to go to work and help me out by being home on Thursday. I am sure Brock and I will be just fine. Next we headed to the craft store to get 29 cents worth of felt for the air hockey paddles. We left with $20 of models, modeling clay, knights and a plastic shark.

Next we headed to Incredible Pizza for some good ole' fun with the Brautigam boys, Tyler and Ryan. Mini golf was a big hit. Chase is finally old enough to drive the go carts alone...sniff sniff. This makes me feel so old! lol. So I took Brock for a spin. We had a blast. I also got hit on by the HOT go cart attendant (Erin no comments here). So we got an extra ride! lol. It felt great to know that I have options...no really I am joking here. Go to Incredible Pizza and you will know what I mean. Here are our handsome boys.


Joe and Brock snuggling in for a bedtime story!

Brock update.

We have been relatively trouble free with Brock..medically speaking. His behavior lately is horrible to say the least. I have grown tired of traveling to the medical center for Brock to see certain doctors on the "cleft team". Now that he is older we decided to branch out and see if some local doctors could help him. I took him yesterday to the ENT who saw Chase through tubes and a tonsilectomy. He was great with Brock. He has had several patients with clefts and understands the difference. The big difference right now is that Brock needs his adnoids. His last ENT told me before that his large adnoids are the reason he has no speech issues. This ENT also agreed. I just want him to put tubes in his ears and leave the rest alone. He agreed but he wants to scope his sinus cavity and make sure it is clean and the palate is completely intact. The tubes can't happen soon enough. Brock has significant hearing loss due to thick fluid in his ears. I have been reassured that his hearing will return to normal once they are cleaned out. This was a little troubling for me because 6 months ago we were told that due to the shape of his ear canal he heard actually better than most people...now we are all underwater to him. No wonder he is such a bear lately. He said his ears were hurting today but there is no current infection. The doc explained that he is feeling the pressure change from the rain...my poor little boy! So he goes in the 21st...which cant come soon enough!

Today we found a dentist a short drive from us that used to work on the cleft team. They also do sedation dentistry in the office so that was a bonus. She was awesome with Brock. He went right with her and was a superstar patient. We got excellent news today. Brock has all four of his front teeth. This is a big one as they were not able to see them on Xray 6 months ago. Some are sideways but that can be fixed! He had one small cavity in the front tooth right in the cleft spot. She is trying to restore the tooth with out a filling. It is very important to save these teeth as they help to create bone in the future.

All in all this is great news. He will still need to see the plastic surgeon and speech pathologist in the next six months for a check up. I dont anticipate them to want to correct anything yet. We are just praying that we can stay surgery free until he is 7 and needs a bone graft in his gumline...even then the Lathem device he wore my help prevent that. It is just wait and see.