Soon-to-be toothless!

Eli is losing teeth!!! He has many that are lose (and has for a while), but he is one that REFUSES to wiggle them out! He lost one on the bottom on Tuesday night while eating some bread. I noticed it later on in the bathroom when he was going to brush his teeth. We started to look all over for his tooth. Then he said, "Mom, when I was eating my bread, I had something crunchy in my mouth."
I asked, "What did you do?"
Eli said, "I didn't know so I just chewed it up and swallowed it." Oops!
He lost his second tooth this morning while he was eating his pancakes. This time though he realized that his tooth had fallen out and spit it out.
Eli may be singing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."

Slept through the night!!!

ALERT.....CAMDEN SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!!

Can you believe it??? I can't! I didn't think this day would ever come. Camden has been sleeping so wonderfully during the day. He is now a finger sucker and can soothe himself with this. I woke up Thanksgiving morning to him fussing and I looked at the clock--it said 4:58 a.m.!!!! Woohoo! This morning he slept until 6 a.m. I fed him, put him back to bed and he slept until 9 a.m.!!!! Of course, Logan was up at 6:30 but that's life with kids, hey?
Camden will suck two or three fingers and as to which ones they are, it just depends on which ones he gets in his mouth. I'm happy about this as I was pushing for thumb or finger sucking. It's so much easier than the nuk. They can self-soothe themselves and they never loose their fingers!
He's really been doing good the past week. I'm almost afraid to say that for fear that we'll go back downhill but I truly BELIEVE he's getting better and going to stay better!
Hooray!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving.
We celebrated Thanksgiving early with the Harts. It was the Saturday before at our house. It was very nice, especially because Gramma and Grampa Hart were here for it.
On the actual Thanksgiving day we had two down with the flu bug. Logan started two days before Thanksgiving with throwing up. I started feeling sick the night before Thanksgiving and Isaac was up that night throwing up. We didn't so much feel like eating a big meal but we pulled ourselves together and went to "G" and Grandpa's. I think being there helped take my mind off feeling sick. We're all better today (the day after Thanksgiving), but I know it's just a matter of days, minutes, seconds before Josh or Eli says they don't feel good.
This Thankgiving the most important thing I'm thankful for is mine and my family's health. We hear all too often of so-and-so getting diagnosed with cancer (or something else) or so-and-so getting injured or so-and-so dying from this or that. I am so thankful God has blessed all my boys with HEALTH. I pray that He continues to keep us healthy. I'll take a lil' ol' flu bug any day over some more serious disease!!!

Pink eye

I have not been good about posting. I will blame it on my latest obsesstion, Facebook. I post more there than here. It's fun and consuming at the same time. I'll try to be better. I also started working again which makes it hard to find free time to blog.

Any way, last week wasn't too eventful anyways, besides the GI appointment for Camden. I woke up Sunday morning with pink eye. Nothing too bad so I went to church. It actually cleared up as the day went on and looked better. By Monday though it was back and bad. By Wednesday it had spread to both eyes. I looked like a scary mask for Halloween! My eyes were swollen, all red/pink, teary, and really just freaky looking. I stayed home all week. I wore sunglasses when I had to go into school to pick up the boys. I tried to hide out basically. It was bad.
Eli prayed for me for 16 minutes on Saturday night. Finally, Sunday morning I woke up and my eyes didn't hurt. By Monday the redness was starting to go away.
Thankfully, no one else has gotten it. I hope it stays that way!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

What Respect Is
"Respect means a lot of different things. On a practical level it seems to include taking someone's feelings, needs, thoughts, ideas, wishes and preferences into consideration. We might also say it means taking all of these seriously and giving them worth and value. In fact, giving someone respect seems similar to valuing them and their thoughts, feelings, etc. It also seems to include acknowledging them, listening to them, being truthful with them, and accepting their individuality and idiosyncrasies.
Respect can be shown through behavior and it can also be felt. We can act in ways which are considered respectful, yet we can also feel respect for someone and feel respected by someone. Because it is possible to act in ways that do not reflect how we really feel, the feeling of respect is more important than the behavior without the feeling. When the feeling is there, the behavior will naturally follow."



Why aren't kids respectful anymore???

Respect is something that I feel is very important to pass onto my kids. But I have learned through working with kids and now having my kids in school that kids today are not respectful of each other or their elders. This drives me nuts!!!!

I teach my boys to be respectful of others. Treat others as you would like to be treated, right?

But what do you do if others aren't this way? If being respectful and "nice" makes you lose out on things. It seems as if the bullies and mean, tough guys get first place. How is that fair?

Gastroenterologist appointment

Yesterday I took Camden to his GI appointment at Children's. First let me say that I didn't call until Monday at 3 p.m., after much urging from my two sisters, to get an appointment. I was able to get in the next morning at 9 a.m. due to a cancellation. The nurse on the phone stressed that that NEVER happens. I really felt that we were supposed to be at that appointment then. I had to race there after I dropped I and E off at school. Grandma H. came to stay with Logan--thank goodness!
We first met with a nurse practionier. She has been in the field of gastroenterology and nutrition for 28 years so I felt like she probably knew quite a bit. I was very disappointed within 20 minutes of talking with her though. She criticized me for not vaccinating until my babies are a year old and then told me that Logan was not allergic to dairy because boys do not get yeast infections! I said, well, that's what he had, the doctor diagnosed it. And he had ear infections. She said that's not an allergy symptoms. WHAT?!?!?!?! I felt almost like bursting into tears thinking we had made a senseless trip in. Things did get better though.
Basically, Camden does have gastroesphogal reflux disease. It peaks at four months of age, which may explain why Camden is struggling now (he'll be four months on the 20th of this month). He has many symptoms and all the choking, difficulty breathing is just that, a symptom of the disease. The fact that his "spit up" goes back down and he chokes on it and it could aspirate into his lungs and cause pheumonia is just a symptom and something you deal with. This was very frustrating for me to hear!!!! I wanted to cry for my lil' guy. I guess part of me was hoping for some miracle, which is crazy, I know. Reflux also gets worse whenever he's sick so he'll struggle more when he's got a virus .
Most babies are taken off of their reflux meds after two months. They highly suggested I not take Camden off of his Prevacid any time soon. It will be two months that he's been on it on the 25th. She actually increased his dosage to see if it helps with the amount of choking episodes he has.
We are also supposed to keep a log of all his choking/spit up episodes for a week and then report in to her every week for the next three weeks. If he is still having a considerable amount of "episodes" after the three weeks, then they may do a swallow study with a speech pathologist and radiologist to be sure nothing is physically wrong inside.
She suggested giving him a tablespoon of cereal at night to help calm his stomach and keep things down so he'll sleep better. We're also supposed to give him a bottle once a week. He shouldn't choke with a bottle, but the few times he's gotten one, he has. If that continues, I'll have to report that too.
They were more than willing to do a upper GI on him but didn't recommend it. It will show that he's refluxing and how often for an hour, but it wouldn't help us in our treatment of him. I opted not to do that. I didn't see the point of putting him through something miserable when it wouldn't help us out in the end.
So all in all, I was frustrated but I did learn some things. It seems there's conflicting information among some physicians regarding reflux and I think it's because much is unknown, like why it's caused.
I continue to pray for Camden and continue to do all I can naturally for him. I hate having him on meds but he really needs it. I know God is the ultimate physician and He can heal him. Until then, I keep Camden close and I am learning to enjoy it. Some day I will look back on all this and maybe actually miss it as Camden is running around me like crazy! :)

Chester's dead!

Warning: For all you city folks out there, this is not a post you want to read!

Chester's dead. Today was "D-day" in Hart Country.....the killing of the cows. Chester was the second one to die. I'm a bit sad by this (and I know my boys are too). Logan is in bed and I'm refusing to get him up until I know they have Chester completely gone from the premises.
Isaac and Eli wanted to go out and see the whole process. I was a bit reluctant about this but Josh explained that this is life in the country and how we feed our family so it's important for them to experience it. I agree but it's still hard. They didn't get out there in time so they had to wait until the shooting was over with. They were watching from the window when here comes the tractor with a cow hanging from it. I didn't even think about Logan until it was too late. He saw it. I grabbed him right away and tried to direct his attention to something else, but no luck. He started crying and crying. There was no calming him down. "Cow...tractor...hanging down." Oh, boy. I'm so sorry, Logan.
Josh felt absolutely terrible too. He came in after the first one was "put away" and warned me they were doing the second cow, which was going to be Chester. I had already made sure that Logan was napping and I am refusing to get him up until Chester is gone.
Iknow he'll recognize right away the next time he goes out to see the cows and he'll ask about Chester. He LOVES those cows!!!
Eli was pretty sad too when he realized Chester was dead and kept asking why they had to do Chester next. I explained to him about this whole thing and he said he knows, it's just still sad. I totally agree!!! I'm in tears. :(