Christmas Cards

Can You Hear Me Now???

For some reason, writing on my whiteboard is not working with Rowe. He never follows the directions I put on there. I wonder why!

A Quiet Update from Me

I am so behind on updating my blog, so I am going to slowly try to get back to updating.

Well, as many of you know I am fighting vocal nodules on my vocal cords and losing. The ENT prescribed medication, speech therapy, and voice rest. Can you guess which is the most difficult for me??? I stink at the voice rest!!! Please pray I close my mouth and quit talking and get well so I don't have to have surgery. Surgery is not even always effective, so I really don't want to do that. Honestly, surgery scares me to death after what I went through when Rowe was born.

Update on Lee:
Lee and I had plans for a fun night out of town with friends on Tuesday night. Lee was really excited about it, and talked about it for days. Tuesday afternoon, Lee called and said he was not feeling well and did not think he could make it to the gathering. I knew something had to really be wrong because he was never sick nor did he want to miss this event. When he walked in the door, I was speechless. His coloring was terrible, his eyes looked sunken in and crossed, and he was hardly able to stand up straight. He was cramping from head to toe, and wincing in pain. His voice was hoarse, and he began throwing up.

I immediately took him to the emergency room. They gave him to liters of fluids, and did blood work. His blood work results were terrible and showed he was suffering from extreme dehydration. After the second bag of fluids, Lee looked much better, and his cramps were gone. We were only there about two hours, and then headed home. Lee was told to rest for 24 to 48 hours, but his stubborn self went back to work 24 hours later. He is feeling much better, and hopefully taking much better care of himself. Please pray he will do better taking care of himself.

Update on Rowe:
He is wonderful, talking up a storm, always giving kisses, and asking for hugs. I am going to cry, cry, cry when school starts back!!!

A Burdened Heart

As some of you know, Lee and I sponsor a child in Guatemala through World Help. His name is Melvin, and he is about six months older than Rowe. We have been sponsoring Melvin and sending him monthly gifts for almost two years. In fact, many of you made generous clothing donations to him and his family.

Unfortunately, a little over a month ago, tropical storm Agatha devastated Guatemala and some of its surrounding areas. It killed over 150 people, many are missing, and it caused a giant sinkhole in Guatemala City. We have been praying for Melvin, his family, and his community since we heard, but sadly we still have not received any answers about Melvin and his family's safety. We pray they are alive and well, but my heart has been so heavy over this. The last we heard from him, was a homemade Easter card with his hand prints drawn on it from him in April. Of course it hangs on the refrigerator as a constant reminder to pray.

I encourage you to google tropical storm Agatha and Guatemala to learn more. There is so much flooding our media right now such as the terrible oil spill and the ruins and recovery of Haiti. I believe we should also be praying and doing what we can to help with the recovery of these disasters also. Unfortunately there was little coverage of tropical storm Agatha.

I am asking that all of you take the time to pray and consider helping these communities affected by tropical storm Agatha. There are several different ways you can help these families and those who are working to restore Guatemala. You can make a one time donation towards the recovery effort, you can sponsor a child there for about $30 a month, you can pray, and you can spread the word.

Click here to learn more about helping the communities of Guatemala during this great time of need.

If you make a donation or decide to sponsor a child, please leave me a comment. In two weeks I will use a random number generator to randomly select a winner of a $50 gift certificate for any of my personalized Stationery Fairy products. This includes anything from wedding invitations to luggage tags, and more!!! You can visit my site at www.thestationeryfairy.net for ideas on how to spend your gift certificate.

Rowe's Test Results!

Praise the Lord; we received great news today while we were in Jackson at Rowe's pediatric neurologist appointment. He said that Rowe is having motor tics and night terrors. This what we were praying it would turn out to be if it were something. Thank you God, and thank you to our prayer warriors out there.

Rowe's doctor was fabulous, and super child friendly. Rowe loved playing ball with him in the room. He asked questions and listened very well to our questions and informing him in what has been going on with Rowe. We took with us the c.d of Rowe's CT Scan, EEG, and videos of Rowe's episodes. He was super impressed with our video footage and wants to use our c.d. in teaching med students about tics. He told us that it the night terrors are Lee's fault, since they are in the same family as sleep walking/talking, and Lee has been known to catch a pass, drive a boat, give lessons on Bodock trees, and run from a snake in his sleep. (Side Note: It is not a good idea to wake someone while they are having a conversation in their sleep. It is an even worse idea to laugh at them. They get really angry and fuss at you. Then you will wake up with your feelings hurt while the other person (LEE) has no recollection of why you are upset or the previous night's events. I'm just saying.) The tics were passed down from his ADHD mommy. Rowe does not necessarily have ADHD, but it is in the same family as tics and obsessive compulsive disorder, so he may only experience the tics and nothing else.

I will post lots of pictures from our eventful day tomorrow. Rowe is calling me at the moment. I just love his sweet voice saying, "Coming mama, in here. Come in here mama." Once again, thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. It is unbelievable the peace that we have experienced throughout this whole ordeal thanks to your prayers.

Rowe Bug

We did not have the strep test run this week, because I decided to wait until we go to Jackson to do it. The tests will be more detailed and accurate there, so I felt this was best. Plus, (big praise here) Rowe has not had any symptoms this week except a few outbursts at night. No blinking episodes in the last few days!!! If strep is the cause of all of this, then he would only experience symptoms when the strep is present. Therefore, the strep test will come back positive only when he is having his blinking episodes. I am praying that everything will show in the tests that needs to in order to get a proper diagnosis. Strep may not be the cause of any of this, but I don't want him checked. There was a condensed version of the article that I previously posted from the Clarion Ledger in the Commercial Dispatch on Wednesday of this week.

Rowe's appointment in Columbus for tests is Tuesday, and in Jackson on Wednesday for our first consultation with the neurologist. We are planning to take Rowe to the zoo after his appointment Wednesday morning. He loves animals and has never been to a zoo before, so I think he will absolutely be in awe of it all!!! The only thing that may disappoint him is that there will not be any dinosaur exhibits. Poor kid doesn't know they are extinct, and I don't have the heart to tell him or the patience to explain the word extinct to a two year old.

Potty Training

We are about to start the joyous fun of potty training. He likes to sit on his potty, but that is about it thus far. I had planned on waiting until we had moved into our new house to start the training, but I decided to do it now since I finished school today, and he has been asking about the potty a lot lately.

Any and all suggestions are welcome. I know a lot about the potty training in three days strategy, but I'm not sure if that is what we'll try yet or not.