April

These two play so well together!

A homemade drum set.

Lip meets gravel:(

Self feeding fun!

"Mommy!  I caught a lizard!"

Helping daddy.  Her barbie flashlight came in handy!

Jaxon is getting more interested in books!  His favorite book is Thomas the Train.

A singing princess.

Snuggles before bed!

Sierra has been practicing her "underwater" skills.

I took about 30 percent of the normal amount of pictures I usually take this month.  I don't have enough hands for a camera!  Jaxon is on the move and into everything!  Sierra was very obedient and less independent which meant that she was stuck to me like glue and rarely out of eyesight.  Jaxon on the other hand requires LOTS of reminding to NOT open the cupboards, go up the stairs by himself, play with the cat food, play with the toilet, etc, etc.  He loves to be held and cuddled but is very good at entertaining himself with toys (or things other than toys) for a long time.  This means that when I hear his cars quit banging against the wall, the blocks not being flung around, I run to find out where he has gone.  It's a whole different ball game with child #2!

Jaxon still isn't saying much.  He prefers to grunt and whine:)  Both of those can sometimes mean no and sometimes mean yes.  He is very good at getting his point across, and we communicate pretty well without words which is probably one of the reasons he doesn't like to use them.  He can say quite a few words but he is not at all the conversationalist that is sister was/is. He has started pointing to his eyes and nose this month and can say both body parts well.  He says up, down, eat, yes, all of the basics.   He is starting to really enjoy books and I love to see him come at me with a book and start backing up to find my lap.  I remember the same little backward shimmy from Sierra.

As Jaxon is getting more and more mobile there are definitely more clashes between the siblings because Sierra is bossy and expects to be dominate, but Jaxon doesn't take her bossing.  He lets her have it.  Really for the most part, I am pretty blessed because my two littles get a long pretty great.  Sierra continues to be a wonderful big sister and makes me very proud. 

Sierra has started struggling with allergies this year.  As a toddler she would always sneeze when smelling flowers but once she put the flower down was fine.  This year she has a really itchy nose, it runs if we go outside, she's constantly sneezing, and is congested pretty much every day.  That might not sound like a big deal, but it is EVERY day!  We will have to see how the rest of spring and summer go, but I might take her to an allergy specialist to get some more information.

Sierra is really enjoying art projects right now of any kind.  She writes her name without any help and is getting good at writing most letters.  Numbers still are trickier for her.  She still loves to sing and has sang some solos at church!  I am still constantly awed at her outgoing personality!  She also started sleeping in a little all of  a sudden.  After her strep throat she was really behind on her sleep and she slept in for several days.  I kept thinking that she would go back to her 5am wake up time, but she is consistently sleeping until at least 6 sometimes 630.  Isn't that pathetic that that is sleeping in?  Jaxon on the other hand is still a 5am riser.  Now that she is sleeping a little longer we also had a few days without an afternoon nap.  Evenings on those days are scary.  I was hoping she'd sleep in even longer if she skipped her nap, but that hasn't happened.  I realize the time is coming when she will be done with napping, so I'm trying to be grateful of the 30 minutes to 1 hour of nap-overlap (on a good day!) that I have to myself.  

Jesse has been back to work all month without any hospitalizations.  He has a follow up appointment next month at OHSU with the gastro team.  I'm still having a hard time feeling secure at all right now.  Every time Jesse has a restless night I lay awake wondering if we'll be right back in the ER.  Sometimes if the phone rings at an abnormal time during the day I have to force myself to breathe because I'm hoping he's not calling to say he's headed to the hospital.  I'm tired of sickness.  And I'm terrified of it too.  Every time the kids get sick I panic.  I can't handle it.  I'm ready to move on and maybe after Jesse's appointment next month we'll get some good news and we can put the last 8 months behind us!

March

We took a four day trip to the coast right before Jess went back to work

Both of the kids had a blast!

Sierra chose a cricket lolly after watching an episode of "How it's Made" with her daddy.

Family picture fail.  Thanks Sierra!

Quite a view!

Sierra still talks about the "orange moving van" as her favorite part of the whole trip!

Tillamook Cheese Factory icecream!

Tillamook Air Museum

Big boy!

Helping plant peas

They share so nicely!

Oh, wait.....

Maybe they are just normal siblings after all!

It's mine!

Mommy, Jaxon's not sharing. 

Giant Easter bunny cookies!

He loves pushing his sissy around on the firetruck!

Spring daffodils are so beautiful!

Must pick all the flowers.

It may be a few years before my flower beds look pretty again.

Did I do that?

Happy boy in the wagon.

Peas!  They are coming up!

Rhubarb will be ready to harvest soon.

Sierra's Easter basket

Jaxon's Easter present in lieu of a basket.  I got this for $5 at Kmart (Regularly $50)!

First taste of a peep

Easter pics

Jaxon's eggs were filled with yogurt melts!  He figured out how to open them very quickly!

With Jesse feeling well after surgery and about to go back to work, we took a trip to coast with Jesse's parents the first week of March.  We stayed in a house on the beach in Lincoln City.  Sierra was in heaven!  She loved everything about the vacation and every night told us that she wanted to stay for lots and lots more days and didn't want to go home.  She slept on a mattress on the floor in our bedroom which was SUPER special to her and she loved the house, the beach, an all parties involved.  Jaxon enjoyed it too but it was a little more difficult for him to adjust to the change of scenery.  There were lots of stairs and the home was not baby proof, so we really had to keep a close eye on him and he had trouble falling asleep.  But other than that he did great.  I got sick the day before we left and didn't sleep well, but did have the luxury of not having to get up with the kids:)

Jesse returned to work on the 12th. The week before, Jesse, Jaxon, and I all ended up getting the stomach flu one day apart.  Sierra was spared.  We sent her away for a night with my parents in hopes that she would would avoid the evil bug and I cleaned the house up as best as I could.  Jesse got sick first and I was afraid something was wrong with his guts, and then when I started getting sick, in a way I was relieved but also terrified that the kids would come down with it too.  Jaxon had a mild version of what us adults had and he handled it very well.  Sometimes it seems like we keep getting repeatedly kicked while we are down.  But we survived and Jesse went back to work.  It was a big adjustment again.  The kids and I got used to having him home!  This time around, he felt so well after surgery that it was like having the old Jesse back.  Despite his lifting and bending restrictions, he was still a huge help with the kids and I missed having backup on a daily basis!  The kids missed having a 1:1 parent-child ratio. 

After two weeks of being back at work, feeling like life was headed back in a somewhat normal direction, Jesse started having stomach pain on a Saturday, in the same exact area as all of the times before surgery. And then he got a fever.  We decided to wait overnight and see what happened.  His fever continued through the night and the pain didn't change so I called the surgeon Sunday morning and the on call Dr told us to go to the OHSU ER.  Post op complications are very rare this long after surgery (2 months).  Usually if you are going to "spring a leak" or get an infection it's right after surgery.  But it's not unheard of.  We dropped the kiddos off at my parents and headed up to Portland.  After Jesse's many hospital stays over the last 7 months, I have seen him low in spirits, but this brought him to a new low.  After surgery, this was supposed to be it!  He was supposed to be as good as new.  This brought the Crohn's fear back into our life and more questions than answers.  It was devastating.

After some testing in the ER (blood tests and a CT) they determined that he had another micro-perforation in his small bowel and an infection that included his liver this time.  The pain was not as severe as it had been in the past, this was a blessing.  They checked him into the hospital and put him on more high doses of antibiotics and said that we would go from there.

We saw three teams of Drs.  The surgical team (the same team that performed his surgery).  Basically his surgeon came in and said, "You have Crohn's.  There's no doubt in my mind.  But you do not need surgery at this point, so you are released from my care and will be seeing a very good Gastro specialist who will be your diagnosing Dr."  More devastating news, but news we had expected, and at least it was an answer with some known courses of action.  We also saw the internal medicine group and the gastro group.  Both of these groups were not convinced that it was Crohn's.  They said usually Crohn's flares do not get better with antibiotics.  And each time Jesse has been in the hospital, after getting antibiotics he starts to get better.  They tested him for parasites, asked if he had ever had Tuberculosis, did more blood testing, and nothing came back conclusive.  They also said that Crohn's patients do not usually have a healthy looking ileum and when Jesse was in the hospital for a week down here, his colonoscopy showed a normal looking ileum despite the other inflammation in his bowels.  The thing is, if it's not Crohn's, they have no idea what "it" is.  After 4 days in the hospital, Jesse's fever went away, and his pain was minimal, so they sent him home with a course of antibiotics (5 pills a day for a month) and he will have a follow up CT scan in a month, and then a follow up appointment with the gastro team.  The uncertainty of life has returned.  I guess this is our new normal.

The good news is he made it home in time for Easter.  The bad news is the day that we returned home Sierra started getting sick.  I took her to the Dr on Friday to find out she had strep throat.  Remember how I was bragging about neither of my kids ever being on antibiotics last month?  Well that is no longer a fact I can claim.

After taking so much time off of work, he was unable to take any more, and he went back to work the following Monday (he came home from the hosp on Wed).  To be honest I don't know how to feel or how to pray.  We obviously want answers.  Crohn's is a serious and life long fight, but at least it is a diagnosis and there is a coarse of action we can take.  Unknowns are terrifying!  Sometimes I feel so frustrated that we have had to have so many other sicknesses on top of what Jesse is going through.  I mean it seems like our family should be immune to this crap when we are dealing with other major medical issues.  I realize that is not how life goes, but I'm tired.  And I'm angry.  And I'm trying not be to be these things.  I'm trying to be a strong wife and a strong mother.  What good would I be as an emotional mess?  That would not helps things at all.  But in an effort to be strong, and turn certain feelings off, more anger seeps in.  You know that saying, this too shall pass?  I'm really starting to wonder if ever will.