sweet home

Lewis has accepted a one year fellowship position for craniomaxillofacial surgery at CAMC in Charleston, West Virginia. He will start after he is done with residency here next summer. I am so proud of him, he has always wanted to do cleft lip and palate surgery and has pressed forward even though it has been a long road. What's one more year? :) It also is good because it gives us another year to figure out where we want to go permanently!

especially for a girl who wears at least 4 outfits a day.

 It looks like Abs has febrile myoclonus like the rest of our kids so I thought I'd take this time in the middle of the night to post some more pictures.  Febrile myoclonus isn't anything bad, but it can be scary, especially for the baby.  When Aiden was a baby and she had it we were so scared we took her to the emergency room and followed up with her pediatrician who had us do an EEG at the children's hospital and see a neurologist.  All showed that she was fine. We have seen it in all of our kids and as a result whenever they start to get a fever we try and use tylenol and advil, cool baths, etc. to keep the fever down and avoid the jerks.  Myolonic jerks are that jerk that sometimes happens right as you are falling asleep but they keep happening even when you are awake.  They scare the baby which makes them upset and tense which seems to make them worse, stronger, more frequent.  Abigail had a low fever this evening (she is teething) and woke up at about midnight screaming her head off, when I went in to get her I noticed that she was having the myoclonic jerks.  She didn't feel warm, but I gave her some more tylenol and as soon as she has calmed down and back to sleep I can go to sleep too! In the mean time, I thought I would post these pictures of Cate in the popcorn tree.
 Springtime in Alabama is the most beautiful I have ever seen.  There are popcorn trees all over the place.  Cate loves to point them out and sing the popcorn tree song so I thought it would be fun to put her in one and take some pictures.  She was so excited about it until she actually got up there and remembered how afraid of heights she is.
 She was mad at me when I first got her down.
 But eventually I got her to smile at least a little bit.
 Sweet girl.
 Popcorn popping!

 Dear Abs,

Can you please slow down for a few minutes?  We sure enjoy watching you grow but I'm afraid we've forgotten about being babyproof. Plus, I'm not sure I'm ready to have you be anything but a sweet little baby.  At least you are still squishy.






You are a wild woman and we love you.

love, Mom

Lewis was chastising me tonight for not blogging and this is the thing, I used to do most of my blogging (and whining about his schedule) while he was on call at the hospital.  For a couple of weeks now he hasn't been on in house first call (hallelujah) and as a result, my blogging regularity has suffered. Also, I haven't had much to say.  And we've been really busy, blah blah blah.

Soccer is back in season.  This year, A, B and C are playing.  Can you believe little tiny Cate the Great is playing?  The ball is almost as tall as her legs and she just chases the other kids while giggling, but she has been begging to play and we finally gave in.  And she is loving it.  She has pretty much been wearing her soccer shirt every day since she got it. I haven't taken any pictures because last week was her first game and it was pouring rain and I was trying to keep the baby trapped in the stroller and sort of dry.  Also, I was trying to run between her game and Brooks' game because they play on the same night and Lewis was in the OR at the moment. But you betcha I will get some pictures of that cuteness up here soon.

This season is busy for our little Brooksie, he just started t-ball and soccer.  He is loving soccer and playing really well, he scored in his first game and wasn't overly sad when the other team scored.  He has a friend on his team from school and they have a blast running around acting like wild manics when they aren't in the game. He also loves t-ball even though everyone else on his team is in kindergarten.  It just works out that way because of his summer birthday but he's such a laid back kid it doesn't bother him. He really loves t-ball so I'm excited for him. He wanted to do some jokes for the church talent show so we compiled a bunch and he got up there and did a great job.  My favorites were: "What do you call a fish with no eyes?"  "A fsh."  and "What did one fly say to the other fly?" " Fly, your dude is down! "

A is number 11 wearing her fashionable sweatband.  Bad picture, best I could get.  I had 3 extra kids with me that night and it was freezing.

Aiden is playing the piano still, and loving it. She got to do a song in our church talent show and also a skit with the activity days girls, she loved performing!  She is also playing soccer with her same team from the fall and doing a great job.  She really lucked out with her coach and teammates.  One dad is an ENT, one is an occuloplastic (eye) surgeon, and Lewis is OMFS,  and they were laughing the other day about how if anyone gets hurt from the neck up we are covered.  The occuloplastics dad came in handy recently when my eye decided to get all crazy.
 I woke up and it was so swollen.  Apparently I have another lovely autoimmune condition called blepharochalasis that makes my skin around my eye attack itself and get swollen and then the skin gets rough, like cigarette paper and then it makes my other skin condition flare up.  It took about 2 weeks for it to run its course this time and he said I will just have to deal with it for life.  No steroids or anything works to help it.  And I forgot to mention that it makes me look super
hot.

notice the lovely wrinkles courtesy of the steroids I've had to use to control my "atopic dermatitis" also, my eyebrows are looking pretty ragged these days.  Lewis was calling me Quasimoto.

A and B had dance day at school last week.  Every year their PE teachers teach them all of these dances and each class gets to do one for the parents. Preschool through 2nd grade does 50's songs and dances and 3-5th grades do country line dances.  My awesome friend Natalie offered to let A borrow her daughter's cute cowgirl outfit and it made her day.  She got to do the Electric Slide and that made my day.

B dancing to "Charlie Brown"

With his class, showing off his awesome Mom tattoo.  I try to scare them about real tattoos by explaining how they get there.  WITH NEEDLES.  LOTS OF NEEDLES.

Cate found A and had to sit with her, she wanted to go on stage and it was quite the scene when I had to drag her away.  Of course the baby was screaming and arching her back too.

A and her best friend Rebekah. Is the height difference funny to you too?  A is older.

As usual, the baby is the main event.

A with her class.

Tonight B and C missed soccer because it was the 1st grade music program.  We had to be there a half an hour early and we got a little stir crazy, as you can tell from the picture above.   A was busy looking for her friends to go sit by.

Lewis was attempting to entertain the busy, tired, loud baby.

And Cate got creative with her hairdo.  Daylight savings time has thrown her off, she didn't take a nap today (good) and by the time the music program started she was at the end of her rope (bad).

 

Getting ready to sing, Lily won't stop talking!

Brooks was so cute, smiling at me so big when they sang "You are my sunshine" and added "you'll never know, MOM, how much I love you" at the end.  He is such a sweetheart. Here are a few pictures of his show:

Now he is a little seed.

And now he is a flower!