Quiet Please!

I took Ellie to the ENT last week. After Dr. Smith spent 5 loooong minutes with a flexible tube shoved down the back of Ellie's throat, he gave me the news: her paralyzed vocal cord is going to stay that way. The nerve has regenerated enough to provide closure with her other vocal cord, but the left vocal cord still will not move. Typically, complete function returns within a year, but of course, Ellie's doing things her way again. It looks like she will have a softer voice for the rest of her life. In a family with four kids, even a slight decrease in the overall noise level is a good thing! However, I have heard her get plenty loud when she doesn't get her way. As long as she is able to talk on the cell phone, I don't think this voice thing will slow her down at all. She's starting too young!

These next 3 pictures are from my birthday trip to San Francisco with my mom and my oldest daughter. My husband planned the trip so I could finally see Wicked. It rained the whole time, but we still had a blast searching for a fortune cookie factory in an obscure alley in Chinatown, eating yummy sourdough bread at Boudin's, riding the trolley, and watching a fabulous play! Thanks KD!

Happy 1st Birthday!

We celebrated Ellie's first birthday a few days ago. Our little birthday girl started out happy when she got her way too pink car seat (fourth children get practical birthday gifts at our place).

Then it was time for cake (fourth children with feeding problems and an overwhelmed mom get cupcakes). Ellie wasn't quite sure about this situation.

She got sticky frosting on her hands and all the happy feelings went away.
Next, we loaded up the family to go see Christmas lights at Thanksgiving point. As soon as we got into the lights, Ellie was so excited that she promptly fell asleep. The end.

Ellie's birthday celebration seemed a little anticlimactic after all that our family has been through during her first year of life. The past few days I have been thinking about all the years we waited for her, her three surgeries & recoveries, her developmental delays & feeding challenges, the long nights spent sleeping (sort of) by her crib, the tears, the prayers, the uncertainty of her future. The emotion that comes as I reflect on her life is surprising to me. It is gratitude. I am so thankful for this little person who turned my life upside down! I am thankful for the love she has brought to our family. I am thankful for the person I am becoming as I care for her. I am thankful to know that no matter what happens, she is a part of our family forever. I could go on and on, but I think I'll go to bed instead! Maybe going to sleep will help me forget that she officially said her first word today. It was "Dada." (So much for all the time I spend with her!) Then, I think about the smile this word brought to her dad's face. Maybe I can continue to be grateful after all...

Phew!

I took Ellie in for another hearing test today. She passed! Her eardrums still don't move as well as they should, so we'll just keep watching that. She also pulled herself up to standing in her crib this afternoon. We'll have to keep watching that too.

Here's Edd, walking the baby. Our little one crawls fast and quickly reaches the end of her feeding tube. She's only on the pump for 35 minutes now (every 3 hours), but she can cover a lot of ground in that time. Good thing big sisters and brother are on top of it!

I was looking through old photos last night and found this lovely one of our third child. It brought back some fun memories. You can tell by the hair that she and Ellie are sisters. I'm not looking forward to the toddler years, but, bring 'em on anyway! Bath time anyone?

Halloween

Here are a few pictures of our Halloween happenings:

We grew these monsters (both the orange ones and their carvers)!

Grandma and Papa came for trick-or-treating and for scaring our poor little heart baby half to death with their masks.

Big brother drew stitches on Ellie's skeleton heart.

Edd wanted to be an anime character. She wanted her makeup done so that when she closed her eyes, you would see big cartoon eyeballs.

For school, the kids had to go as a character from a book and bring the book to the "literacy parade." I didn't know Halloween also had to be politically correct. Can't people just celebrate holidays like they used to? My little ham here decided to go as Calvin (with Hobbes, of course) 2 days before the shin dig at school. This was the best I could do. Drawing black lines on a red t-shirt is, however, one of the easier requests he has made. He acted the part of his character well (note the tape to upturn the nose).

Our Hermione, who also decided last minute what she wanted to be. The other option she presented to me involved a big box and training wheels (???), so I'm glad she chose this one.

Cardiology Visit

We took Ellie into Cardiology on Tuesday. She is looking good from a heart standpoint. The cardiologist took her off 1 medication, so now we're down to only 3. Yay! We're still working on gaining a little more weight and eating orally, but our little one is doing very well overall. With all the flu stuff going around, the cardiologist said to keep Ellie away from crowds. We'll be sticking close to home until Spring. I guess I'll spend my winter noticing everything in my home that needs cleaning and then ignoring the task list to go play with the baby! We'd love healthy visitors though!

She's Mobile!!!

Ellie started crawling this week. At first, she'd tire after going about 2 feet or so. She'd lay her head down to regroup for a minute and then keep at it. I could keep up with that. Today, she is all over the place. It looks like it's back to regularly mopping the kitchen floor for me. Sigh.... The good news is that she is only on her feeding pump for 50 minutes at a time (with just over 2 hours off) so I don't have to move her pump around all day as she reaches the end of her leash. Yay!

This dog is the reason our little one is all over. If you look closely in the picture, Rosie is jumping to get away from the latest Ellie attack. Ellie laughs and then follows the dog some more. Then, the process begins again. Rosie gets exercise (or maybe some type of baby-induced psychosis), and Ellie is amused for a long time.

Hear, Hear?

Ok, so I am waaaay behind in this blogging thing. We found out a couple of weeks ago that Ellie can't hear in her right ear. She doesn't have an ear infection or fluid in her ear, so we're not sure what's going on. We'll follow up in a month or so and see what happens. I get frustrated sometimes with all the things that seem to go wrong for her. Heart babies should not have all these little extra things to deal with! Then, I'm reminded of how many "big things" have gone right for her. She's happy and, most importantly, alive!

On a different note, we thought we needed a break so we packed up the kiddos and headed for Moab this past weekend. I had never been to Arches or Goblin Valley. The scenery was breathtaking! But, when you need a break, it's not a good idea to take the things you needed a break from with you (and to sleep in the same room with them)! We had fun anyway! I really do have great kiddos.

My husband paused to think about what he wanted for dinner (fast food again?). Our oldest called this rock formation at Goblin Valley "The Hamburger."
In almost every picture, our son was at least 5 feet off the ground--often more.

Someone had enough of hiking.

Goblin Valley was like something out of a science fiction movie. Way cool! My husband informed me that part of Galaxy Quest was filmed here.

Our family at Delicate Arch. Was it worth the 3 miles of whining? Yes!!!