Out Of The Mouth Of A Preschooler

Tonight Noah was eating dinner when he said that he needed to go poop. We are really trying to teach him not to blurt that out but we are still working on it; obviously.

Anyway I asked him to finish dinner since he was almost done. Plus he's more likely to finish supper quickly. He finished up and I sent him on his way while I cleaned up his plate. He went to the bath room and then I hear "MOM, I frew up!" I quickly make my way to the bathroom but do not see where he threw up. I asked him "are you sure you threw up?" Noah said "Yes, I frew up with my BUTT! See it in the potty!" I then proceeded to explain the difference between throwing up and diarrhea. It is never a dull moment with Noah.

Difficult Day, Difficult News

I'm not sure where to start and I'm not sure that I have the energy to tell the whole story so I am going to be brief as I can. This story is longer and more complicated than I am about to share.

When we went to my sisters house in December for Christmas we became aware that one of my nephews was ill. He had been sick for some time and the doctors were not able to give them any diagnosis. The doctor actually told the family that they believed that my nephew was faking it and that he was depressed. This did not make sense because he had been running a fervor for an extended period of time. He had many other symptoms and all were too real to be considered fake. While we were in LA for Christmas they almost put my nephew in the hospital. Instead they sent him home and said he should see his regular doctor at home. That Monday they returned to KY where he had a scheduled procedure done. After this procedure he became even more ill. The doctor said that it was normal and then sent him home. He continued to go down hill and came to a point where he was not able to eat at all and was loosing a lot of weight. He even began to loos muscle mass. Eventually he was sent to Children's Hospital where he spent almost a month. At the time he was admitted he could not walk or stand on his own. When he returned home they thought that he was doing better. They soon began to see that he was still not able to use his right leg and that he was delayed in speech and response. Over the last few weeks he has continued to go down hill again. At one point they believed that he had suffered a stroke.

Fast forward to the last couple of days; It is now believed that our 10 year old nephew had undiagnosed viral minigitus. He presented with all the symptoms but no spinal tap was ever performed. He now presents with all but one symptoms of post viral minigitus complications. Translated this means that because he went undiagnosed that he has developed complications from the minigutis. Some of the complications that they have found are brain damage, loss of speech, loss of full mobility and loss of eye tracking. He is unable to make eye contact and he has lost some of the use of his leg and arm. He continues to loss strength weekly and they have not been able to determine the extent of all the damage. He went through more diagnostics testing today and next Wednesday he will see a neurologist to see how much damage has been caused to the brain. Until then we will not know if any of these things are correctable.

We serve a mighty God and our hope is in him. We know that God can preform miracles in this little boys life but it was a difficult day and we are deeply filled with sorrow. Please pray for Austin and for his family. The past 8 months has been a difficult journey and it has only begun. He is very frightened by doctors and has already been through so much. Our family is discouraged and angry and trying to process this news. Please pray for answers, for comfort, and for peace.

Life With A 3 Year Old

Easter 2009
"Doing School Work"

Yea, Army Men!
My Clean Boy
My Sleepy Boy"Look Mom! I Have Sprinkles On My Hands!" (also known as wrinkles)
Helping Dad
If you click on the picture and look closely you will see that his pants are on backwards!
Ridding On The Tractor



It has been a while since I have stopped to post. I spend most of my time keeping up with friends on Face Book now. I have needed to post so that I would have these memories preserved. I love looking back and remembering things that I tend to forget. Lately I've just been enjoying my little man. Here are a few things worth remembering.

One morning Noah asked for a pop tart for breakfast. I asked him to sit at the table and went to help him get into his chair. I had the pop tart in my hand while I was helping him. He made it very clear that his first thought was that I was going to give it to him straight out of the package as he quickly and very firmly stated "You need to iron it first!" (obviously he is used to having his pop tarts toasted)

A couple of Saturdays ago we spent the whole day working out side. Noah played and helped us with a lot of out side chores. One of the chores was to put new tires on the"new to us ridding lawn mower". After they got the new tires on the mower Noah got his first ride on the "tractor" which he really enjoyed. At some point Noah and I came inside to make lunch. I heard the mower stop but did not think much about it. Then I heard Noah scream out the back door "hey dad why you sleeping on the tractor?" This got my attention and I admit that my first thought was that maybe he had had a heart attack. Yea I know I'm such an optimist. Thankfully I heard James respond with "I'm not sleeping!" I went to the door to see James laying under the mower. Little man thought that dad had curled up under the mower to take a quick nap.

At the end of the day I brought Noah in for a bath. We cleaned his nails and the things growing behind his ears. I guess when you give little ones showers instead of baths the ears tend to be neglected. He was spic and span clean by the end. He then wrapped up in a blankie since he was cold and I made him some juice. I went outside to ask if James was ready for some dinner. It was about 7pm at that point. By the time I came in Noah was asleep on the love seat. I would have put him to bed but he had not had dinner. After I had some dinner together I woke him up so that he could eat. That is when I discovered that he had peed all over the new love seat. Thankfully it is micro suede and it cleaned up really well.

Monday evening Noah reported to dad as he walked in the door from work "Mom burnt the pamonies and then it went beep beep and we had to touch the lotter stick and the big fan made all the smoke go away and I cried!"

Any guesses as to how that really translates? Here's what he really meant to say. Since mom burnt the peperoni the smoke alarm went off. We had to go outside and meet at the seasonal water stick. After we talked about it we came inside and I showed Noah the smoke and we turned on the attic fan. I showed him that it was safe but he was still scared and started to cry. The good news is that our fire drills have paid off and when he heard the smoke alarm he knew exactly what to do. The bad news is mom can't burn lunch with out getting narked on.

This Easter Sunday marked a first in my life. I found myself telling my son the Easter story in a way I have never told it before. I reminded Noah that he would hear people talk about the Easter bunny and that the Easter bunny is pretend. I told him that Jesus is real and that even though we we can't see Jesus we know he is real. We told Noah that Easter is special to us because it was the day that Jesus got to go to Heaven. He asked if Jesus was dead and we said that some bad guys killed him and then three days later he got to go to Heaven. Of course we had to talk more about the bad guys and the Easter bunny being pretend. When I looked at Noah and said "you know the Easter bunny is pretend just like batman is pretend." Noah got this very disturbed look on his face and said "what?" Then I asked him "who else is pretend?" He responded with a huge sigh "spider man!"

I'm sure there are so many more stories. Life with Noah is always exciting. He is always getting hurt because he thinks he can fly. So far he has had to learn the hard way that he is just not equipped for such transportation. He loves to pray. He prays every day "help mommy to play with daddy." The other day he thanked God for mommy playing with daddy. I think that James is slipping the little guy extra dessert so that he will continue to pray for this. Yesterday Noah prayed that we would give him a bird and then he prayed "help mommy not be afraid of sissy." We are not sure where these things come from but we spend a lot of time snickering behind his back. Today while we were at the park he was making some bad choices. I talked to him about his behavior and explained to him how he was acting and that I did not like it. He simply responded with "your welcome."

Here are a few pictures of our Noah man. He sure is growing up fast. He even knows all of his colors; including extended colors like pink and purple. He working on his letters and he loves to sing.