Christmas

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We had a right good one ourselves :-D

Saturday morning found me being the first one up... amazing if you ask me! I was able to get dressed, hair fixed, etc and downstairs to see how good of a job Paul did at wrapping presents ;) Then I started the cinnamon rolls as all the kids started making their way down. The boys were up first and then the girls slowly trickled down followed by Paul - who was only up to see the kids unwrap their gifts as he had been up all night on a call and desperately needed sleep before another call came in.

Each of the children received an outfit and a sleeping bag - well actually the four oldest did while Morgan Haley got a bed tent since she so loves to get into things like that. She'll get a sleeping bag when she gets a bit older. Christian's is sports, Toree's is cheerleading stuffed into a megaphone backpack, Madison's is Disney princesses, Bailey's is Kermit the frog w/ little hands and feet and the bag stuffs into a Kermit face backpack and Morgan's tent is ladybugs, bees and flowers. They all also got a wagon. It's pretty neat with seat belts, storage and flip up seats. Morgan Haley also got several kinds of books cause she loves books and pretends to read them, Leap Frog magnetic letters and a Leap Frog video. Bailey got his own fort that he can color! When he's finished coloring it we'll set it up in his room. (I had one of these as a child... it was a house though... mom and dad have pictures of me in it, too.) Let's see, he also got a construction vehicle book, Percy train, Dinosaur Dominoes and a Jay Jay the Jet Plane Leap Frog game. Madison got a princess tiara/ear ring set, Snow White dressup outfit, a "make-up" case with some "make-up," a Scooby watch and a Princess story-book that plays little CD's. Toree got a Lizzie McGuire game that we have to exchange cause she already has it, a Hillary Duff watch, the newest Hillary Duff CD, A Cinderella Story movie and some jewelry. Christian got a watch, Radio Disney CD, a book, a Bionicle movie and a comic art book.

After presents and eating cinnamon rolls the kids got dressed in their new clothes and got to play for over an hour before we had to head out to Nanny and Papa's for Christmas dinner. Unbelievably, we arrived at 2 after 1! Normally we're so late that everyone worries we have been in a car accident or something. I was the 2nd of the 5 grandkids to arrive! That felt oddly strange. Anyhow, the great-grandkids barely ate a thing hoping to bring present time closer! It never worked with us grandkids, and it didn't work with the great-grandkids either :)

I tell ya what, I saw so many presents for all those kids (11 kids plus 1 in utero - 12 if Emily could have made it) that I can't keep up with who got what!!! The kids know what they got though, I'll have to ask them ....
Okay, Christian got baseball cards, a Spiderman game/joystick that you plug into the TV and a doodle draw thing like the Spiderman game only it's just art stuff. Toree got a Scene-It game and some make-up. Madison got a Leap Frog letters thing and some "make-up." Bailey got a Caterpiller bulldozer and a steering wheel thing where he can pretend he's driving. Morgan Haley got a little ATM machine this little electronic baby/tot toy. Whew!

Well, after all the kids played with their toys and ran outside for awhile and the adults visited a little more, we all departed. The six of us went home so that we could share our day with a friend of mine that had no family here in town. We played Scene-It for a good portion of the night.

Sunday morning found us getting ready to head out to Mom and Dad's for our Christmas with them. If it weren't for us having to stop for donuts and drinks (or should I say, if it weren't for the very long lines in these places!) then we would have been a few minutes ahead - but as it is, we were 20 minutes late. Hey, at least it wasn't an hour or more! This time we did something different with the kids opening presents. We started with the youngest child (well we tried but McKayla was sleeping ;) ) and had them open their gifts individually so that decent pictures could be taken.

Pictures can be found here Christmas2004

Christian got a triology book set and the game Sorry: Sweet Revenge. Toree got a gorgeous jewelry box and a locket. Madison got a big book of princess stories and another "make-up" set. Bailey got a Dinosaur movie and some dinosaurs with lace-up dinosaurs. Haley got some wooden puzzles and a touch'n'feel animal book.

Christian got me to play Sorry with him and the rest of the kids ran around playing with their things. When McKayla got up, she opened her presents before we ran out the door to make it to Aunt Doris's - who had called wondering where we were! When I left I only had two children with me - Bailey and Morgan! Christian wanted to ride with Uncle Jeff and Toree and Madison rode with the grandparents.

Jeff and I spent a lot of time outside with the little rascals :) Jeff was worried about what Marshall would pull on the other kids while I was just craving some kid time with those kids I rarely get to see anymore. I really missed the seven that weren't there :( But I hope to see them all very soon! All in all there were 15 4th generation kids, 12 and under, plus an extra (step-sister to two sibs). Those kids are just getting waaaay too big too fast! I spent a lot of time helping Bailey and Cody make piles of leaves to jump in. Justin made me want to cry everytime I looked at him - and only because he is a little carbon copy of Ron. Ya know, our family is filled with little beauties and handsome fellas. It's amazing that the 8 of us 3rd generation grandkids, in the span of just over 15 years created 22 such beautiful children.

Our Trip

This past weekend found us traveling to Louisiana to pick up Christian and Toree! Instead of heading out early Saturday morning as originally planned, we headed out Friday evening.

All in all Mom and I were suppose to leave at 5:30pm from her house. But I didn't even get in until almost 6:00pm and we did pull out just a few minutes after 6:00pm so we were only 30min "behind" our original schedule. Well we hit rush hour traffic in Birmingham and soon after that there was a wreck on the other side of the highway that in no way affected our side of the highway --- but of course all them people had to majorly rubberneck and waste some of our precious time. After that though we had smooth sailing with no traffic problems.

I was extremely pleased to find Paul's little Corrola got excellent gas mileage - between 27 and 30 miles to the gallon!! We had been expecting to hear from Matt between 11 and 11:30pm. Just as we were getting ready to call him - near 12:30am, he calls to let us know that they just got in to the hotel. We were only 20 miles away so they all stayed up and waited on us to get there and pick up the kiddos.

It took an hour or more for everyone to settle in to sleep. We only slept for 6 hours before we got up and got ready to head out. We took a little more time by getting out of the car to eat our meals and of course had a couple more bathroom breaks - but other than that we made good time on the road with no heavy traffic. Of course I wouldn't really know seeing as how I slept most of the way home!! We beat Deddy to his house by just a little bit and stayed around there for about an hour to let him and the kids visit for a bit.

Then we headed out and got home before 10pm. It was nice to be home, though it did take a really long time to get all 5 kids settled down to go to sleep. The youngest three were sooo excited to see Christian and Toree that they were just beside themselves.

We'll be heading back to Louisiana on Jan 2. So make your calls and visits before then or else it'll be the summer before you see them again!

Audiology

I had my audiology appointment on Tuesday. As expected I failed my hearing test AND I most certainly qualify for a hearing aid. Both ears have gotten much worse since my last check 5 or so years ago - with my left being the worst. The only bad thing is, hearing aids are not covered by my insurance through Paul's work.

Anyway, I've also got two other problems going on, on top of the Meniere's, one of which I mentioned in the Ear Appt post (my eustachian tube problem - which by the way is getting better). I also have calcium crystals in my inner ear which causes dizziness any time I move my head (as Seth kidded to mom, "She didn't know it wasn't normal to be dizzy?"). So during my next appointment I will have a test done for that and hopefully the treatment done at the same time PLUS some pretty extensive balance tests done --- all which will last about an hour and a half. THEN I will go in and see the audiologist for about 30 minutes for some other stuff. Between me and Bailey, we're going to get to know the audiologist and ENT so well that they'll probably be on our Christmas card list next year!! ;)

Sand in My Eyes

Yesterday, Madison watched a movie with me that I had Tivo'ed last week or so. It was called "A Christmas Memory" with Patty Duke. Towards the end it got emotional of course and Madison's eyes started to well up with tears. So she tells me while I'm fastforwarding through commercials that she has some sand in her eyes. I just grin and say "really now?" She nods solemnly. So we go on watching the movie. A couple of times I hear her mumble something about sand and finally at the end of the movie she tells me, "Momma, that sand just won't go away!"

It was so cute. She finally looked up at me and saw that I had some tears on my cheeks, so she cuddles up on my arm and lets her tears fall.

Oh and I've discovered that Madison is really listening to songs now. She's finally at that age where she follows what a song is about. During the Christmas season I listen to 104.7 The Fish exclusively because they play nothing but Christmas music thru Christmas day. Well, the song "The Christmas Shoes" by Newsong came on - it is the most requested song - and if you've ever heard it, you know that it just gets ya everytime. As we were turning into the neighborhood, she tells me that she really likes "that shoe song." Her little voice was just so sweet that you wanted to grab her up in a hug.

Well I guess I have one more thing to add but it has nothing to do with that ole sand that gets in our eyes! Morgan Haley got her very first ribbon in gymnastics yesterday!! The little girls were so adorable getting up there and getting their ribbon and the lollipops their instructors gave them. Morgan Haley got up on the block, grabbed the lollipop and jumped off as Pam was trying to hand her the ribbon! One of the little girls (whose name is Morgan as well) took both the ribbon and lollipop, turned for a picture, threw the ribbon down and started opening the lollipop! They were all adorable with whatever they did though :)

Of course during Mommy&Me and TumbleTykes these ribbons are just a symbol of being in the class. With K-1 and higher classes they are accomplishment ribbons w/ *y* out of *x* skills they've mastered listed on the back for each Olympic event. Madison will get hers on Friday during her make-up class (she was throwing up on Monday when her regular class is).

Otherwise our day was spent going to storytime, surprising a friend for lunch, stopping by another friend's house for some playtime and picking up some prescriptions. You know, every day stuff :-D

Ballet, Ear Appts, Gymnastics

Hello family and friends!

Sunday, December 5, found Madison and I watching the Nutcracker performed by the local Ballet Theatre. We loved it and Madison dearly wants to be in the Nutcracker next year. So I've been looking into the ballet schools around here. For now the plan is to let her continuing learning the foundations with her current teacher until next August when the Ballet Theatre's school opens up for new students.

Oh, Madison will be in the Lilburn Christmas parade with her ballet class (Debbie's Dancers). So if y'all wanna come on out and see her then please do :-) It's Saturday, Dec 11 @ 11am on Main Street!

Bailey and I had our ear appointments yesterday and this morning. Bailey's dr took a look and decided that since the fluid/goo is getting worse in his ears that he was going to prescribe antibiotics but he wasn't too thrilled about it UNTIL he found out that Bailey had never been on antibiotics before. Not only did that mean that his little system wouldn't be overrun with antibiotics but he was also able to prescribe the lightest one available since Bailey's body wouldn't be resistant. For some reason this type of fluid in his ears responds to antibiotics even though it is not a bacterial infection. Since Bailey has had this fluid for at least 6 weeks already and it was getting worse and not better as do over 90% of cases do (also another reason to have the antibiotics - instead of riding it out), Dr. Goldberg had us make an appt for 6 weeks. IF this is not cleared up by then (indicating something more going on such as a eustachian tube problem), the doc is going to immediately schedule him for tubes (I don't know if I'll word this where anyone can follow --- but he'll schedule him on the fast track instead of the normal surgical rotation that most tubes patients go on).

After either the appt, or tubes if they are necessary, then we'll be scheduled for the first of the two sets of hearing tests. From what Dr. Goldberg saw, Bailey may have nerve damage. He also said that with the pattern Bailey showed, it has nothing to do with my Meniere's (since it is genetic and I was worried about having passed it on). BUT the one ray of hope to hold on to is that it could possibly be that since Bailey is a typical 4 year old boy that is hard to keep on task (hence the reason they do these tests 3 times in different orders in order to get the best results possible and compare all the tests against each other) then it could just be he was not paying attention and missed the sounds or simply didn't respond.

Dr. Goldberg also said that he thinks the fluids and Bailey being a typical 4 year old are playing a part in making it appear as if he has nerve damage as he hasn't seen this type of nerve damage show up in children that passed the hearing exams at birth and in subsequent years. He's hoping that once the fluids clear that Bailey will either be able to hear correctly OR that he'll find something going on to explain the test results.

As for my appointment this morning... I got my referral to audiology/ENT and find out about my appt on Thursday. BUT Dr. Livsy did figure out something else going on besides Meniere's. She started asking these questions after examing my ears (a must for a referral even if previously diagnosed). She's pretty certain I have a eustachian tube problem (sound familiar?). So she's prescribed me to take a decongestant and analgesic (tylenol sinus or the like) and gave me a nasal spray. I'll have to take this spray for 2-3 months and it takes a couple of weeks to get into the system - but then I should notice no more headaches and neck tension that I've come to live with. I also have a lot of fluid in my ears - but considering I just got over a bout with a double ear infection, I don't doubt it!

I just had to share about Morgan Haley and gymnastics. She's only been going to class for a month and she's already doing so great! We only put her in the Mommy&Me class because she was imitating everyone so perfectly - doing Madison's cheers (minus words of course) and gymnastics with her, doing my bellydancing moves and copying dances she saw on commercials. Pam (her instructor and the lady that scopes the young ones for great promise) thought it a wonderful idea to get her into class. Anyway, she's already jumping on the trampoline and doing seat drops that takes most little ones a long time to figure out how to do (cause jumping on a bed is a lot different than a trampoline!!). Valerie, her other instructor, says she'll make a great gymnast cause she is so fearless. She also talks about her strength and intuitive abilities. Morgan is just catching on so fast. Not to mention she is the youngest one in the class by just over 6 months (the class starts at 18 months and they move up sometime after their 3rd birthday - when ready but definitely by 3 1/2). So anyway, at this point in time, she is showing a lot of promise, whereas, by the time she hits TumbleTykes, she may just be average ;-) Pam doubts that'll happen though :)

So anyway, that's our updates!