video mania

i have recently realized how easy it is to shoot a 10 second video with my camera and post it so WATCH OUT. these are so funny to me.
video #1- grayson spent some time with my mom the other day and came back doing this funny thing with his hands. i later realized (after my mom mentioned that they had done this) that he was doing patty cake. and its too funny. except that sometimes when he does the "roll 'em up" part, he remembers that he'd rather be scratching because his hands are so close together...

video #2- aislyn is learning her abc's. that's all i really even need to say. this cracks us up to no end...

my sweet anonymous commenter

just wanted to tell you that no, you didn't "provoke" my post where i was ranting and raving! i read your sweet note and just wanted you to know that i enjoy your comments very much and i'm glad you read my blog! that's all...

grayson learns a new word

so, grayson learned a new word/motion this week. he hears "no scratchin" all day long and he says mommy shaking her head. he finally caught on to it, and anytime he hears "no", this is what happens. lyss caught it on video with her snazzy new phone. :)

walkin with sydney

this weekend, my brave alyssa, went under the ... what is it that they use for tattoos? NEEDLES. she went under the needle in memory of her sweet baby girl sydney who was born still in the fall. she had her sweet footprint, actual size, tattooed on the top of her foot. and it is just absolutely beautiful. its perfect. i can't stop staring at it when she's around. i took a couple pics yesterday, just quick ones so she could show friends and family afar... i wanted to post them here as well. (lyss, hope that's ok :)) its really breathtaking. i absolutely love the idea. the pic below is of liam's little 'i've been playing in amy and kenny's dirt' foot.:)

return a blessing with a curse...

is satan's motto i think. man, has this week been trying! and it shouldn't be... i mean, we were so blessed this weekend with new floors for the downstairs and grayson's room, and we've just been showered with blessings! i think i was expecting the best week ever, clear skin and no itching, and just everything to go well. but man, it hasn't. monday was awful. it was the first day of no breastfeeding grayson at all, and man that can mess your hormones up. i was seriously in a comatose depressive state all day long. just feeling guilty, which is dumb, for stopping with the breastmilk a month earlier than i had planned. how dumb! some people can't even breastfeed at all because their milk won't come in, their kiddo won't latch or rips them apart when they do latch, or they just don't want to which is SO fine by the way. but anyway, grayson was still itchy of course. its not like laminate flooring is an overnight complete cure. so the day was bad, and when kenny got home, i just collapsed on the couch for awhile with my sweet husband asking "whats wrong" 4 billion times, and all i could say was "hormones and i don't know." around 7:30 we went up to give the kids baths, and while i was picking out grayson's pj's before bath time (are they tight enough? can he get the pants off? can he get his arm out of this neck hole? its a chore...), he was playing next to me. he crawled towards the stairs (where our gate had not yet been put back up) and sat there staring at them as if they were calling his name. i said "no sir" and went to go get him away from the stairs, and he DARTED full speed ahead and took a flying leap off the step and continued to roll all the way down to the landing. i ran screaming, picked him up, was shaking so bad and just sobbing that i had just let him do that! kenny kept reassuring me that he was fine, and it was ok. (he also got a carpet burn on his face and head, we all know how good that is for him). i could barely hold him i was shaking so bad, but 10 minutes later he was ready for a bath and laughing at his sister, while i was still paralyzed with fear. at one point, i was back by the laundry room, trying again to pick out his pj's from a laundry pile, and aislyn came up to me. she brought me a toy to play with and when it made noise she would go "oh, fun mommy! this make you feel better? its ok mommy, don't twy (cry)! baby grayson's ok, daddy's ok, i'm ok, and you're ok!" she proceeded to recap the events saying "and baby fall down stairs, and daddy run and baby and mommy twying but its ok, cuz... MORNING!!!" and i said, through tears and a fake 'mommy's ok' smile on my face, "aislyn, what comes in the morning?" she thought about it a moment, and replied with both arms in the air, "JESUS!" wow. profound. yet again. she's right. Jesus always comes in the morning for a new day. truth is, He never left. and yet , the next morning came with Jesus and a head to toe rash on grayson from a new soap kenny and i had tried the evening before. oh, and a broken down car. and yet Jesus is still the same right? i know that He is. i read that recently in a mother's blog about her sweet baby girl who was born with a condition that only allowed her two hours of life with her mommy and daddy and then she went to be with Jesus. the mom writes that at the ultrasound where they told her that something was very wrong with her sweet audrey, that all she could physically do or say was "Jesus is still the same, no matter what." isn't that the truth? our circumstances change, but our Jesus does not. but we fight it. we fight to believe that He hasn't changed. i was not convinced of it earlier this week. i was letting the circumstances get the best of me, and still am for the most part i think, but i do know the truth. so while each day brings new hardships in our lives, Jesus remains. He remains our Healer, our Protector, our Provider, our Peace, our Comfort, our JOY. that's one i should focus on, JOY. i so easily let satan steal my joy sometimes. that brings me to the title of this post. as i learn what it means to return a blessing for a curse, i have realized that satan does the opposite. he returns blessings WITH curses! not that satan gave my son a rash, i did that just fine ALL by myself. but he messes with our heads and when our circumstances change and appear to be going downhill, he tells us that joy is no longer within our grasp. but it is. i think now i need to really figure out what that means. its hard to have joy when ALL you freaking do all day long is hold your son to keep him from scratching until he bleeds. (he got an arm out last night and tore up his hand by biting chunks out of the top of it and his pointer finger, it looks so awful today- when i put him down for a nap, i noticed that his sheets and both blankies were blood stained. neat). its HARD to have joy, man, when you get so caught up in that! every time i don't hear him crawling or babbling or rolling a car across his new itch free floor, i know that he is scratching skin off. so i go find him and rescue him. this is about an every 4 to 5 minute occurrence as of late. my son might be gaining alot of weight here pretty quick because i've learned that snacks take his mind off of it if only for a moment!! listen to me, i sound like its the end of the world when there are people EVERYWHERE dealing with so so much worse!! i don't mean to sound that way really. but i do think that God teaches me as i write, so i would like to continue without judgement that i'm being ridiculous. i KNOW that in someone's eyes, i am being ridiculous. because my kid does not have cancer, and my kids are alive and well. but like i said, each person's issues are just that...each person's issues. so mine really are small, but God does teach me through them. when did this post become a novel? gees. so, if anyone has any advice on keeping hold of your joy, let me know. :) i would love to hear it. and by the way, our new floors are STILL amazing. again, thank you. we love them. grayson loves them. he loves that his cars roll so easily across them! and i think he'd be less itchy already if i hadn't poisoned him with my soap experiment! there is officially no soap that doesn't break the boy out. so he might have a stinky adolescence....watch out. i hope your day is joyful, i challenge you in that, as i challenge MYSELF in that. :)

project grayson: the actual slideshow :)

project grayson: the slideshow

first of all, the slideshow is in the post above, it uploaded without a picture so i redid it.... so, i have to say, alyssa's face is blacked out of the first picture because she had chewed up pizza hanging out of it and i was scared she would be angry with me for posting. :) at any rate, here are some pics from the big event. enjoy...

little sad today...

but NOT because of the new floors. :) more to come on that. i have lots of pictures to post, but stuff is still everywhere, so that will be later. :) i'm sad because i think its over. i have been weaning grayson for a couple weeks now, dr's orders, trying to get him on neocate only and off of breast milk, as they think it may be contributing to his issues. i have fought them on it since october and i finally decided that we need to do it. i was going to wean when he was one anyway, and thats only 5 or 6 weeks away (holy cow). but i had to start a little early, and i never imagined it would be so hard. any breastfeeding mom knows what a strong bond that creates...i didn't get to do this with aislyn..she was in the NICU and extended stay nursery for a week after birth and would NOT latch on to me because they had to bottle feed her right away. so i pumped for six months so that she had breast milk, and i was even sad to stop doing that for her, but six months of that was all i could take. and my milk started running out too. but its just different when they latch and they look at you and they fall asleep on you and you just kinda bond. and the weird thing is, i had been excited to wean because of my diet restrictions. no wheat, no milk, no soy, no nuts, very few eggs, very few tomatoey items, no citrus. its been a bland year to say the least, but as much as i complain about it, i really didn't mind it at all. it was for my kid you know? any mom would agree. i found ways to still eat ALL the time. just healthier! that can't be bad! this last week, grayson has been on formula 3 times a day, and on me in the morning when he wakes up. kenny goes and gets him from his room and brings him to me and we sit in my bed and snuggle and he nurses and then inevitably falls asleep for another half hour until aislyn wakes up and yells for daddy through the monitor next to the bed. this morning, i sluggishly went and made a bottle, just sad, feeling numb. i took him and offered it to him, and he arched his back and cried. so i offered it again, and he gave up and took it. i was sad. he was almost finished when he insisted that i switch him to the other arm for the last couple ounces of the bottle. he didn't go to sleep. we didn't snuggle. he was wide awake, ready to start his day. (he then, fell asleep on me an hour later because of his lack of early morning nap, which was ok :)). so, all that to say, i think its over. i think we're done. my baby is growing up. i think i'm dietarily free to eat what i want. but i don't want to yet. the hormones are getting the best of me. i mean, i had to do this sometime. and it gives me so much more freedom. but there was something about being a "cow" that i liked. i mean, it was free nutrition for him! unfortunately neocate isn't the cheapest thing in the world. but thanks be to God for blessing us through our friends and strangers this week with new floors and leftover cash for the formula made of gold. you will never know what a blessing and what perfect timing this has been. i think this post was alot of ramble, not sure if i even finished a thought. but i wanted to document how i'm feeling today. its a weird weird day. there is milk in the fridge, and i have been craving it so, and even though i'm technically free to drink it, i just don't want to. is that so weird? i am so weird right now. i'll feel differently tomorrow, maybe even tonight.

moderate to strong

this is how ian describes how "project grayson- floor 1" went yesterday! i wish i could post pics, but my stuff is all over the place and i can't upload at the moment! but seriously, it went really really well! i did nothing but run errands and take care of "g" all day so i was feeling kinda worthless. really i was just in awe at how beautiful it was looking so fast! ian and lyss, courtney and chris and steffan and kenny all came over at 8 a.m. while rachael made YUMMY breakfast burritos and watched all the kids. what a lifesaver she was. kenny's mom brought over all the fixin's for sandwiches for lunch and kenny's dad got the super fun job of scraping up linoleum while he was here. lyss and ian brought burgers, fries and veggies for a quick cook out that ended with a amazing sunset and kenny executing the most perfect breakdance move (i think it was the backspin) that beautifully ended in him lying on his side, head in hand with a smile on his new "not" hardwood floor. i would give anything had we caught it on camera. when all of us were in shock at the randomness, kenny simply declared "i've always wanted to do that, but i've never had the chance." well, here's your chance baby! break it up. grayson loves his new floor. he drives his cars around saying "vroom vroom" and he even is doing GREAT on his walker without carpet to slow him down! he chased a ball around all evening last night because it just kept rolling! we noticed also that while he was still scratching his wrists, it was aLOT less. there is also tons of sawdust still on the floor. that's my job for the day, at least i have one! so we'll see! today is project grayson- floor 2 (grayson's room). we're gonna rip the carpet up in there too. again, thank you to ALL of you who participated in whatever way. we cannot say it enough, though we will say it again. thanks for lovin' my boy! pictures to come.

extreme home makeover: eczema edition

i have been pondering what i would write in this post for close to 24 hours now. the words 'thank you' do not even scratch the surface of how we feel right now. most all of you who read my blog will not be puzzled by this post, but for some who may not know the story... in previous posts, i have ranted and raved about our sweet boy who has severe eczema. i've complained about our allergist who suggested that we rip up our carpet. yes, lets think of a way to try and afford flooring right now. of course, like sarai when God told her that she and abraham would bear a child, i laughed. what a crazy idea. never in our wildest imaginations did we dream that we would get a floor. my sweet alyssa, who herself is grieving the loss of her daughter sydney in the fall, came up with the idea to throw out a fundraising email, fall to her knees in prayer, and ended up collecting enough to rip up our carpet and put down flooring. unbelievable. ian came up with a very in depth explanation (or just plain "lie") as to why he needed to come over and measure my floors. never did i suspect a thing. ian says "they gave me measurements in inches for a house that's exactly like yours, just flipped. i need it in feet so i'm gonna come measure yours." ok dude. 12 inches in a foot. i can help you with that. but man, i didn't bat an eyelash. ok whatever. never did i suspect a THING. after a makeshift quick meal that lyss and i came up with last night (we are so good at those), ian stumbled through a speech of why they were having us open a gift bag with a piece of wood in it. tears were streaming down my face, as kenny was declaring that we can't accept it, that other people have it so much worse. ian changed kenny's mind. we had no words. we still have none. we are so overwhelmed with the people that love our boy, people we don't even KNOW and people we do. i got an email from a church in KENYA that is praying for grayson, and who have a special prayer meeting set up for saturday morning, the day the floor is going in! i mean, when God's people come together, they really come together! so, to all of you who have had ANY part of this, prayer, donating money, time, whatever, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. may God bless your lives as He has ours, with friends who love you. we are so excited to see God work through this, teaching us lessons in humility, and then how He heals grayson. we know that this isn't a cure all, that on sunday morning, he'll wake up eczema free, but we really do believe it will be a big step towards a itch free boy. as a side note, it has been so bad this week, that he was biting his hands so hard they were dripping blood at one point, when i had turned my head for a thirty seconds. he has teeth cuts now on his hands in addition to the fingernail shreddings. so, this really could not have come at a better time. i will definitely post pictures as we're going and when we're done. again, thank you doesn't do it, but its all we can say. we are so thankful to the Lord for using you in our lives. God is truly working in our lives and we are so glad you are a part of it.

about the pic below, one reason our carpet is so nasty is that crawling 10 month olds with acid reflux do not mix with carpet. he spits up constantly all over the place, and i just chase him with wet wipes to try and get it up. yesterday, as i was wiping some spit up off the floor, grayson grabbed a wet wipe and started rubbing the floor just like mommy. it was great, what a smartie. but you know what little boy? you spit up ALL you want now. Jesus got you a brand new itchless wipeable spittin' ground.

watch out tati and nono

our newest addition to the family happens to be french and has greatly influenced our recreational activities. our brother in law arnaud has brought with him to the states a game called petonque (NO idea if i'm spelling it right). basically you throw a small bright ball (the koo-shi-nay; i'm not even gonna try to spell that in french, so there it is phonetically). and then you take giant silver balls that are very heavy and you throw them at the small ball. and whoever is closest after a few tries, wins the points. there is more to it, but i won't go into it. it sounds fairly boring, but its actually quite fun. kenny and his dad were playing a game the other night and aislyn desperately wanted to join in. she had a small nerf ball and a football at first and would just throw them and run after them cheering for herself. then daddy decided to give her some lessons. i couldn't help but steal a camera. so watch out balats, this girl is out to get you. she might be the champion of the next petonque tourney. she also might cry if you don't let her decide who gets to throw the "koo-shi-nay". :) also, carey and arnaud, note the new petonque watching benches that barbara created on theh sides of the "field"! much more enjoyable to sit and watch then lean and watch in my opinion. grayson thought so too. he'll be throwing the balls next year.

doctor schmoctor...

is how i feel.

we had a surprise appointment today with the allergist, it was supposed to be 6 weeks from now, then moved up to 2 weeks from now, and then they had a last minute cancellation. so we were going to do some skin tests, try to get some questions answered, find a plan to get grayson sleeping through the night instead of trying to claw himself all night long. but none of that happened. first of all, we find out after we get there that "oh, we can't do skin tests on him because of the medicine he's on." really? why again am i here? so bag that. instead it was things like "i just saw this ad for a new moisturizer, i'm not sure if its a prescription or what it has in it, but do you want to try it?" sure. thanks. then it was "try vaseline instead of aquaphor after the bath". "but dr, what about the new moisturizer you just prescribed?" "oh yea, well try that in the mornings." ok. "dr, what about singulair? how do you feel about that?" "eh, it can't hurt. give it a whirl." ok. "dr, should i have him on zyrtec, benadryl, hydroxyline, which one for his itches?" this turned out to be a very long answer which changed in instruction and dosage about a dozen times. what was SUPER neat was the nurse who came in three times to remind the dr that other patients were waiting. oh i'm sorry. let me pick up the blood and dead skin off your carpet and take my cracking child out of here..( he was crawling around on the ground). i asked if we needed to do more blood testing. in a rush, she said "yes, talk to your pediatrician about it, he can order all that." order all WHAT? oh my gosh WHAT do you want him tested for? give me some kind of instruction please! what is wrong with you? i got out of her that we should retest him for the things that he tested positive for last time, plus anything more that i'm feeding him. she also told me to stop drinking my yummy creamer in my coffee in the morning because he could possibly be allergic to casein, one of the 29 different types of milk proteins (he is allergic to milk, just not sure which proteins). do you know that i look so forward to my morning coffee with creamer? oh well. its not like i'm a stranger to sacrificing my tastebuds this year! its seriously no big deal, i just want to whine about everything right now. i feel defeated. i feel like i'm on my own here, trying to figure this out. i told lyss earlier today, "i feel like he has been prescribed 387 medicines and i can't give them all to him at the same time so its totally my discretion to figure out what he needs and when. and i'm not capable. i don't trust myself. i think it MIGHT be the lack of a medical diploma that crushes my confidence. she also said for me to wean him now and give him neocate (approx $1000 a month formula that our insurance has denied twice). that went over really well this afternoon when he drank half an ounce, threw the bottle at me and screamed so loud that aislyn woke up. oh, she also said to rip up our carpet. i think we'll get used to living on the DIRT at some point since we cannot afford to lay anything on top of it once we rip it up. so she said "just keep him off the carpet". ok. i'll do that. do YOU have a ten month old son? clearly you don't. i'll just hold him all day and set him on the counter when i'm tired. when she did the exam and looked at his skin, she said "you should make another dermatologist appointment". really? cuz this is what he says. "good job mom. don't feel bad. its eczema. you're doing everything you can. thank you for the $30." i asked her about our amazing backyard that kenny built for the kids with lots and lots of grass. "yeah, i would keep him off of that. and since there really isn't a sunscreen that won't break him out, then you should dress him in long sleeves and long pants and a hat with a big rim on it every time he is outside, which should only be in the mornings and evenings. insert cussword.

caveat- i do really like our doctors. they are nice people. but sometimes i think that they don't know what to do with him, and thats just that.

at any rate, my kids are beautiful, healthy besides this, and super fun. so even though i still want to throw up after my not dr visit this morning, i will resort to continue to praise God through circumstances not understood. i will do what i can, research what i can, try to protect him and keep him away from foreign detergents (ha) and pray that this too shall pass. i leave you with a pic i snapped the other day of both of my kids at the same time kind of smiling but not lookin at me. g's face looked ok that day so i'm really excited about this one. it might be the only one i get this year, so expect to see it again on your christmas card.

pullin' up

found him in the fridge this week. never seen him do that before! and it was just too cute.

we see alot of grayson's back these days because he is constantly crawling away and pulling up on things. he loves to watch his daddy work in the yard (oh my gosh pardon the nasty window). i keep him inside because of his allergies, but we make it out there every once in awhile. the boy DOES need some fresh air and sunshine. i think. we got the blood results back at the end of last week and man... they were discouraging. one good thing is that his immunities are good. we were worried about that. but the dr. said that grayson basically has more allergies than any kid that he has ever seen. there were two tests that came back off the charts. the first one should have been between 0 and 5% and his was 35% or more, can't remember. the other should have been between 0 and 40. grayson's was 1100. what? i mean, how frustrating. so, the next step is to meet with the allergist, do more tests (skin and blood) and to wean him from breastfeeding which i am so sad about. i feel like they are just guessing that it might help, so if i wean him early and it does nothing, i will be sadder. plus the stuff he has to be on is super expensive and breastmilk is free. :) we attempted to put him down last night without pinning him, and i ended up having to pin him down around 1 a.m. i could hear him restless and scratching, and he just wasn't having it. i pinned his arms down and he shut his eyes and was out until morning. i went back to bed crying because my 10 month old can't sleep without being pinned down which should be a crime. guess we'll try again in a few weeks. i can tell he got to his eye, its pretty red today. one thing to be thankful for is that developmentally he is right on track, if not ahead. so that's good. at least i know that i'm not making him slower by pinning him down. we think its making him stronger because he is doing bicep curls every night trying to get unpinned! anyway, wanted to share that, and a few more pics. the last one, don't worry, his head really isn't THAT big, its just the camera angle. i mean, his head isn't SMALL, but its not that big. :)