noggin troubles

We have had a minor health scare this week with Cooper. (Everything's ok - read on.)

It started when Gabe accidentally left the basement door open and Coop tried to crawl down the stairs. It didn't work out so well for him. You'll be happy to know that we installed a pneumatic door closer thingy that evening, so this won't happen again. Anyway, on with the story. By the time my grandma got here to watch Gabe while I took Cooper to the ER, all 3 of us were crying. Craig met us there and Cooper had an X-ray and a CT scan of his head. Nothing was broken (yay!) but they did find a cyst in a part of his brain. The ER doctor said it wasn't anything acute, but should probably be followed up on yearly. We asked our pediatrician to review the reports and scan, and she did. She also referred us to a neurosurgeon in Columbus.

We saw him today. He said everything is ok. Apparently people can be born with these types of cysts (3-4% of the world's population), and Cooper is one of them. His health or development isn't being affected in any way right now. But, in a year, just to make sure, we're going to do an MRI to check on it again. The only issue that we may have is that the cyst is against an area of the brain that controls memory. The dr said that he may have some subtle memory issues, but he doesn't expect that he will. Fortunately, for babies the "hardwire" in your brain isn't set in stone yet. So, if the right side of his brain has a cyst, the left side will almost always rewire to make up for it. He is going to do some neuropsych testing (memory, and vocabulary type stuff) when he's around 3 years old, again just to make sure.

So, we all breathed a BIG sigh of relief, and got back to living life. Felt like we were on pause for awhile. :o) Well, not Cooper. He never stops moving or eating, lol, that's probably why he's such a good sleeper at night.

new tricks!

Cooper is now playing peekaboo himself with a blanket, or a towel, or whatever he can get hold of. It's really very cute. He laughs even when he's still under the blanket like he's playing the biggest joke ever, it's hilarious.

Gabe also taught him a new trick - blowing raspberries with your tongue out. They do this at each other over and over and laugh and laugh.

At least entertainment is cheap around here!

food

Wow.

So, I've been precepting our new respiratory therapist, Doug, at work. He said he tries not to eat any processed food, and I thought to myself, "well that's a little odd, but to each his own." Over the course of conversation I asked him what helped make his decision to eat this way and he said he watched a documentary called FoodInc on Netflix. He strongly encouraged me to watch it too. He mentioned it a couple times, so I watched it. I like documentaries in general, so I figured it would at least be interesting. I'd like to say................ thank you Doug for scaring the ever-living crap out of me about the food my children are eating.

Big changes coming for our house. We definitely eat on a budget, but I will also be exercising my right to be choosy. This family is the most important thing in the world to me, so what they're eating is, by default, also going to have to be important to me.

A New Year

Well, last year was certainly one heck of a year. It was just one thing after another, some good, some bad. I'm kind of glad it's all done. Good news: We received Cooper's FINAL ADOPTION DECREES in the mail! Hooray! He's officially official! I'm so glad!

Cooper's officially part of our family forever. Well, he was anyway, but now we have some paperwork that says so too. :) Gabe's winter program for Tuesday School is next week, I start precepting our new hire at work tomorrow, and we're having our first professional family picture taken tonight. I'm really hoping the boys are cooperative and we can get at least one good one. I think Cooper's at the perfect age for it right now.

So, to sum it up, we've recovered from the holidays and we're off and running again. :)

Christmas Day

These are just some of the pictures - I have a ton! But, it seems to take forever to upload on here. Christmas was so much fun this year! We got to do all the Christmasy things - Santa's lap, leaving cookies and milk (and carrots, celery, and water for the reindeer), making the Christmas list..... and.......... matching Christmas pajamas! woo hoo! Oh, and we made Christmas cookies and peanut butter balls too. It all just felt perfect this year. It was our first Christmas as a whole family, and it was awesome! The boys seemed to like what they got, Gabe started playing with his train right away, and Cooper just crawled from toy to toy to toy and played all morning. Craig's family came in the afternoon and we ate lunch and watched a movie. (The movie Despicable Me is soooo cute!) It was a great holiday. I'm kind of sad that it's over actually. Tonight, my family is coming in and we're all going to grandma's to do the family Christmas thing, so I guess it's not totally over. :) which is good - I get one more day of Christmas spirit.

SANTA!!!

Please ignore the fact that Gabe doesn't match in these photos. He dressed himself, and in his defense the shirt sleeves are gray camo and the pants are green camo -so technically he matches. :)

still sick

I know I've been posting a lot about the boys being sick, but they still are! It's been over a month with one or the other, or both being sick. Last week, right after Cooper finished the second antibiotic he got a yeast infection (poor guy). He's fine now. Then he went in for his well-check up 2 days later and he had a rash and a fever. They tested him for strep, but decided it was viral. So, he carried a fever through the weekend. Then Sunday Gabe turns up with a fever and it doesn't go down for 3 days, so yesterday he was off to see the pediatrician. Turns out he has a double ear infection. Guess who's back at the doctor today with a high fever? Cooper. They couldn't find anything wrong with him today though. Again - they think it's viral. sheesh! I just hope that both are feeling better by Christmas morning. It's our first one together as a whole family and I really want it to be special. I'm so excited!

I have all the presents wrapped and labeled, and cleverly disguised as a big pile of something with a blanket thrown over top. lol :o) They're still little so I can get away with that I guess. :o) Also, since the boys haven't really been able to be out and about this season with all this crud they've been dealing with - SANTA IS COMING TO OUR HOUSE TO VISIT THEM TONIGHT! At least this way Gabe will get to sit on his lap and tell him what he wants for Christmas. Cooper will probably sit on his lap, but will look confused. That kid has the funniest facial expressions :o)
Craig and I celebrated 6 yrs of marriage on December 10th. It sure has been a whirlwind year for us!