Scary Stuff, Hiking, Bubba Loves

The other day Noah came over and forced his way onto my lap.  He then quickly fell asleep.  I sat and held him for a long time because he is getting big enough I don't know how many more times I am going to get baby loves like this.  I enjoyed every minute of my Bubba Loves!!

 Last Saturday we had a family day.  We did a few errands in the morning and then we decided to go hiking after lunch.  We headed over to Waterfall Canyon and started up the hike.  We followed the initial signs and kept hiking.  Somehow along the way we got onto the wrong trail.  DOH!!  We hiked almost a mile before we realized our mistake.  When we turned around we found this tiny little stream.  We stopped to soak our feet for a bit and the kids thought that was fun.

 Then Josh and Daniel went ahead and just laid down in the stream to cool off.

 We even coaxed Matthew in to sitting in the stream which is a big thing.

 Since Josh can't sweat we made sure we got his shirt all wet to help keep him cool before we started hiking again.  Sarah wanted to be just like Josh and took off her shirt and dunked it in the stream and put her shirt back on too.  She just thinks she is one of the guys--poor thing.  I guess that's what happens when you are the only sister.

By the time we reached the trail we were supposed to take, we were done hiking and chose to go back to the car.  We will try this hike again at a different time and hopefully make it to our destination without getting lost.

 Sarah found this pair of sunglasses and has them with her at all times.  When she is not wearing them in the car she has them up on the top of her head just like mom does.

Noah got into the Oreo cookies and judging by his face he seemed to really enjoy them.

This past week has been a little crazy.  We were supposed to have a six month follow up visit with the neurologist a couple months ago--oops.  I finally called last month and got an appointment for yesterday afternoon.  However, when I called they let me know that his previous provider was no longer seeing pediatric patients and had moved on to seeing adults.  Well that's not cool.   That meant I had to play Russian Roulette and pick a different doctor that I really had no idea about.  At Primary Children's Neurology Clinic there are at least 10 providers so ended up picking the doctor that saw him for about 15 minutes back when he was first seen at 18 months old.  Aaron decided to come along with me and wait out in the waiting room with the rest of the kids.  When we got down to Primary's and checked in Aaron told me that since I am always the one who goes into these visits, he wanted to go to this visit while I stayed out in the waiting room with the kids.  I was fine with that only if he followed my one instruction--DO NOT CHANGE MEDICATIONS!!  While we were waiting to be seen Sarah went over to a corner and started pulling the I need to go stinky face.  Aaron grabbed her and took her back to the potty, but she only insisted she had to go pee.  They came back and again five minutes later she started pulling the I need to go stinky really bad face and started doing some power squats.  It was my turn to take her.  Now every time you take her to try and go stinky she fights you tooth and nail screaming the whole time she doesn't need to go stinky, however, once you sit her on the toilet and walk away for a few minutes she will take care of it.  She must get stage fright because she will not go if you are looking at her.  I had to take her to the family bathroom, but I wasn't about to leave her in there by herself so she wouldn't have to deal with the stage fight.  I just sat her down and turned to face the wall so I wasn't watching her.  She was adamant that she didn't need to go, but I wouldn't let her get off the toilet until she had taken care of business.  Finally she calmed down and she actually went stinky!!  YAY!!!!  This is the first time she has gone stinky in a public potty which is cause for much celebration.  I couldn't get too excited because the bathroom was adjacent to the very quiet waiting room to the neurology office, but there was much celebrating to have!!  YAY again!!  She was pretty proud of herself, too.  When we got out of the bathroom she walked over to Aaron  and he asked her if she went stinky.  She shyly shook her head, but you could tell she was proud of herself.  About that time they took Josh and Aaron back to a room to be seen.  I told Aaron again you can go back there only if you MAKE SURE THEY DON'T CHANGE ANY MEDICATION.  He assured me he understood and went.  After waiting a long hour in the waiting room they came out.  Aaron nervously came over to me and told me they are going to be changing his medication up.  I was not too happy, by after he explained what him and doctor had talked about, it made sense.  While up at the family reunion Aaron and I shared a cabin with Josh and neither one of us slept that night.  While we were awake we think we heard Josh have a seizure or two, but we weren't able to actually see them.  We do know for sure that Josh had a seizure back in December because we did see that one.  After telling the new doctor this, she told us she didn't think Topamax was working since Josh has had multiple seizures while taking it so she wanted to increase his Trileptal and wean him off his Topamax.  This is really scary for me because Josh is really sensitive to medication changes.  I just hope his seizures don't get out of control to the point we need a hospitalization again.  This might be a blessing because a side effect of Topamax that Josh has is he can't sweat.  Seeing as he is getting old enough that he will soon be going into Boy Scouts with Scout Camp, etc. this lack of sweating was really going to impede his experiences.  I am just hoping this transition will be smooth and simple.  I have been really worried about this, but hopefully this new doctor knows her stuff and things will work out for the best.  We are increasing his Trileptal this week and then starting to wean his Topamax next week.  Please keep us in your prayers because this is going to be scary. 

After the visit I was talking to Josh about what he thought about the new doctor.  This is how our conversation went:

Me:  So Josh what did you think about the new doctor?
Josh:  She was nice, but she was a senior citizen.
Me:  A senior citizen?
Josh:  Yes, her hair was all gray.  You must get that a lot mom.
Me:  Um, thanks a lot buddy.  I am not even close to being a senior citizen.
Josh:  Yes you are!  You are 35! 

I think I have kids to keep me humble.  Maybe it is time to start coloring my hair....

Speaking of scary things....two weeks ago I found a large grape size lump in my breast.  I saw the doctor who referred me to have an ultrasound.  When they called to schedule the ultrasound they told me that I was close enough to 40 and that I would need to have a mammogram as well.  WHAT?!  I am not that close to 40!!  Anyway, last Friday I went in for the ultrasound and mammogram.  Thankfully they didn't see anything that looked suspicious, but they told me to keep an eye on things and come back in if I saw any changes.  That was really scary.  The whole week I had to wait until I was seen was horrible!!  I just kept thinking about all the what ifs.  Thankfully I won't have to face those what ifs right now and hopefully I won't ever have to face all those what if scenarios.  However, I will be faithful in keeping my yearly physicals and gynecology visits.  I am sure that earned me some more gray hairs to say the least!  Oh well it will make me look more senior citizen in Josh's eyes...