Counting and Kisses and Jesus Loves Me

Garrison is learning his numbers. He can count 1...2...3...and then if I say what comes after 6 he says 7. If I say 8, he will say 9! I think that's pretty good!

Kisses....last night I wanted to kiss Garrison and he apparently thinks 2 kisses is plenty. When I asked for another kiss he said "that's enough mama!" :(

Lately, Garrison has been wanting us to rock him at his bed time and then he wants me to sing to him. His favorite song is the Itsy bitsy spider which he will do most of the motions to and whisper the song along with me. One night last week, after I sang the itsy bitsy spider Garrison said "Now Jesus Loves Me." This made me really happy to see him starting to love this song and he even sang along with me at certain parts! YAY :)

Garrison's first really bad "boo-boo"

Last weekend, Garrison was outside my parent's playing with one of their neighbors, a 5 year old boy. Garrison and this boy were playing in the dirt. Garrison was laying on his belly and the older boy was sweeping up dirt piles when he accidentally tripped and fell. He fell right on top of Garrison's head, causing Garrison's head to slam into the concrete. Garrison's had some minor scraps and cuts but nothing this major. He was bleeding from him mouth and nose, and had a bump and scrap on  his head. There was so much blood that I thought for sure we had knocked a tooth out. After I got the bleeding to stop, I realized he had just busted his lip, and his teeth were fine thankfully. His lip was so fat, it was the fattest lip I've ever seen. He was definitely hurting and went to bed shortly after that and let me rock him to sleep. I kept an eye on him til about 11pm and then finally let him go sleep in his own crib. (Yes, my 2 year old still sleeps in a crib!! Don't judge....he is the BEST sleeper and so easy to put to bed, that I don't want to change one thing!) He didn't look as bad the next day but I still felt so bad for him. He said "Mama, take my booboo off" :) I wish I could take it away!

Eosinophilic Esophagitis

Being a mother is the most amazing part of my life but has also been one of the toughest. It's one of those things that, until you experience it, you can never fully understand that unconditional love for another life. Adam and I are so blessed with Garrison. He is the easiest baby (yes, I know he is 2, but he is still my baby!). He has been the light of our life for right at 2 years. Beginning in May, we started noticing symptoms with Garrison, that alarmed us. He had tummy problems, a deep chest cough, a constant runny clear nose, and occasionally would complain of back pain or stomach  pain. As parents, you have to be the voice for your child when they can't as well as be attentive enough to notice they aren't 100% well. We took Garrison to our pediatrician many times with these symptoms only to be told that Garrison was extremely healthy and growing on track. After the symptoms continued to get worse, we finally pressed our pediatrician to be told that we needed to see a specialist. We took Garrison to a Gastrointestinal doctor, Dr. Annette Whitney. She went over all of his symptoms and agreed that further testing needed to be done. The first was just a series of blood work.

 This was our first sad day as parents. Dr. Whitney is at Children's Medical Center and it's overwhelming all the "sick" kiddos down there. You don't realize how blessed you are with a "healthy" child until you are looking at other sick children, and it's overwhelming. I don't know how any parent deals with chemo or other life threatening procedures on your baby. They are suppose to be healthy and running around without a care in the world, and yet they deal with this stuff. I don't know how. We simply took Garrison for blood work, where I had to bear hug him so he couldn't move, and Adam  had to hold his arm above and below the elbow straight. Of course, Garrison screamed and said we were hurting him. Horrible. Adam even commented that this was the worst day of his life. Seems minor when there are children doing other serious procedures but for us, in our small perfect bubble, life was not great at this moment. The results came back a week later and even the Dr. commented that the results were surprising to her. His platelets, white blood cell count, and ESR (sedimentation rate) were elevated. His ESR at a very high number. His number came in at 88, where normal for his age is 0-10. On the phone with the Dr., I lost it. I apologized and of course, she said there was no need to apologize, that she understood, and for me not to worry, that she would get to the bottom of this, and get him fixed. I guess it was reassurance for me that I knew my baby, I knew his little system wasn't 100%, even when everyone else around me seemed to think it was all normal and that he would outgrow it. Reassurace to a Pediatrician that kept calling my child "the healthy kid" and making me feel like a hypochondriac mom that WANTS something to be wrong with her child. Dr. Whitney said his ESR rate indicates a couple of things and she was leaning toward an auto-immune disease or some major inflamation somewhere in his body. We had to schedule an endoscopy and colonoscopy for the following week so she could figure out what was going on inside his little body. Yep, we seriously had to wait a week to figure out what was causing this. The entire time obssessing about all the horrible possiblities that could be determined.

Procedure Day. I can't even describe how horrible this day was for Adam and I. Earlier that morning, I had explained to Garrison what the Dr's were going to be doing, and that he would be asleep for a little while, and that he may feel some pain afterward, but it was all to get him better. I explained that we needed to hear what the Dr. has to say so that we can get him better. Of course, a two year old doesn't undesrtand, any of what i'm telling him but somehow I felt better explaining it to him rather than letting the Dr's sneak up on him. We took him to Cook's Children's Suregery Center and couldn't have had a better experience, all negative things considered. The staff was wonderful, the center was very clean, and it all turned out to be great. The anesthesiologist was wonderful with garrison. Adam and I were able to carry Garrison back to the OR and I set him on the table. I don't think he ever even realized they had put a mask on his sweet little face because he was too busy "blowing up balloons" on the anesthesiologist iphone. Cool app. Again, roller coaster of emotions, as we had to walk out of the OR room with our little guy asleep and being hooked up to machines, to go sit in a lonely room and await results. 20 minutes later the Dr. came out and talked to us and said everything went really well and that was she saw was very minor and fixable. She sent of some stuff for biopsies and said she would have the results in a week or so but that all things considered his GI tract looked really well and didn't indicated any of the bigger diseases we were scared to death of.

All of that to lead us to....EE...Eosinophillic Esophagitis. Garrison has a very mild case of it, thankfully, and it's still possible at this age for him to outgrow it. There is a lot I could explain, but in as few words as possible, he basically has multiple allergies that are causing his GI issues and then causing white blood cells to build up in his esophagus. Multiple severe allergies is what I have read, but I believe his are mild. He has been on a steroid ever since and on prevacid and within a couple weeks, we were already able to see a change in our little guy. We have had to make a couple diet modifications and with the medications, he seems to be "healing." The Dr. wants to continue the steroids for another month and then remove him from medications. She believes that we can monitor his symptoms clinically bc obviously I'll see teh symptoms return if he needs to stay on medication. Obviously, I don't want him on steroids forever, but if it makes him better then I guess I can't complain.

I didn't post all this while it has been going on the last 3 months or so because of all the uncertainties. I'm just so thankful that we know what was causing his problems and that we seem to be on the road to recovery. It's a horrible feeling as a parent to think your child is sick and its' beyond your control to make him better. All we could do was love on him and continue life as normal until we had an answer. Thankfully, an answer that we were "ok" with. Hopefully this is our first, and last, medical scare. Even though it's looking like it will be something we have to always monitor, all things considered, we will all be ok!

See if you can guess what is wrong with this picture.....

Today is "daddy daycare" as Adam likes to call it on the two or three weekdays when it's just him and Garrison at home. The weather has been surprisingly nice in the early mornings and Garrison and Adam have been going to the park often. Adam called me at 11 and asked if I wanted to meet him and Garrison at Chick-fil-a at 11:30. Of course!! So I show up and this is how Garrison is dressed!! Kind of embarrassing for a mommy :) Here is how mine and Adam's conversation went...

me: Baby, what is Garrison wearing?

Adam: What are you talking about?

me:  He doesn't match!

A: Yes, he does it's blue and blue ( I just ignored this...its NAVY and BABY BLUE...doesn't match!!)

L: He can't wear two different patterns. He has a solid baby blue shirt that matches these shorts. You are going to make him that dorky kid in school bc of his clothes!!

A: Oh, well it matches to me. (He looks down at his own clothes) Do I even match??

Ohhhh my life is comical! I wouldn't trade it for the world!!

Family Pictures

Getting a two year old to cooperate...sit still....smile....say cheese....can you put your arm here....well needless to say all that didn't happen. Garrison wasn't in a smiling mood, probably bc he was so hot, but I still think we got a couple of really cute pictures. My family is so gorgeous and I am one blessed woman!!

The sayings of a two year old

Some days Garrison loves our puppy; other days he screams and runs from him. Hank is already a pretty big dog, and he is only 3 months old. I think pretty soon he may be bigger than me. Oh boy! I try and walk Hank a couple times a day. Garrison has fun going with me and calls Hank's leash "a draggin" It took me a while to figure this one out. I kept thinking Garrison was talking about Dragons. I finally figured out he says this when he wants to walk Hank outside, and more importantly when I saw him pointing to the leash saying "hanks draggin" I guess because some days it seems like I'm dragging Hank around the street although I'm pretty sure pretty soon it will be Hank "a draggin" me around!

The days Garrison doesn't like Hank really give me a headache. Garrison has this high pitched scream and anytime Hank gets close, Garrison screams and goes running. Which of course Hank interprets as Garrison wanting to play. Then I hear crying "puppy bit me" or "puppy push me" Of course, Hank doesn't bite, but he does have some seriously long claws. He needs a vet trip I guess.

Testing

I've downloaded blogpress to my iPhone...let's see if my updates on our blog become more regular. Testing 1....2....testing!



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Location:Matador Dr,Garland,United States