Cancer

i just... Yeah.

This is going to be our life now. Doctors and hospitals and medicine and insurance and infections and not knowing from one day to the next.  And it's not even me.  I have to watch my sweet brave little 4 year old boy suffer and know that I can't make him better with a kiss.  In fact, we will have to do things that hurt and make him sick to try and heal him.  And even when (when not if when not if when not if) he is successfully through all of this, the fear will never leave, the tests will be there for the rest of his life, and he will only have one kidney.

Tonight my heart is breaking.

Statistics

In the last 18 days, here are some statistics from our family:

2 people hospitalized for 3 days each (Michelle and Emma for Emma's birth)

14 vomiting episodes (1 for Aidan, the rest for Ethan)

10 or so episodes of diarrhea (all Ethan)

5 blood draws (Emma)

1 ER visit (Emma)

1 EKG (Emma)

10 additional doctor visits (Emma, Ethan, Mike), requiring a total of 27 bodies to be put in and out of coats, boots, cars, etc.

We have had a rough few weeks!  Prayers would be greatly appreciated that we can all be healthy and be done with doctors for a while!

Emma Joy Steele

born Tuesday March 10, 2015

9 lbs 6 oz

21 3/4 inches long

Aidan at 5 1/2

Having missed his birthday entirely, here at least is a picture of Aidan at the moment:

Height:48 inches (several inches above the other kids in his class)

Weight: 50 pounds

LOVES:

art - could create all day long, always chooses the art center at school when given a choice, often comes home and makes up projects for himself

Legos

playing outside in the snow

being read to

playing in ant hills in the summer

playing with Ethan

babies

building forts

pancake day when there's no school

potty words (sometimes this gets out of hand!)

LIKES:

doing math

doing the reading himself

writing

playing science

playing with pretend swords

playing with animals

playing pretend

DOESN'T LIKE:

practicing the piano (we started real lessons at the start of kindergarten)

being interrupted in the middle of something

SKILLS:

is very responsible about cleaning up his things, obeying

dresses himself every morning, likes to brush his teeth and comb his hair (although I often have to touch those up)

getting very good at school skills (reading, writing, math)

SKILLS HE IS MASTERING:

still struggles with the "r" sound - had him evaluated but we need to wait another year before he can qualify for help

still struggles to stay dry at night, although now he wears underwear and is successful about half of the nights (assuming Mike takes him potty around 10:30)

FOODS HE LIKES: 

ice cream, cake, cookies, candy (ALL sweets)

PBJ

chicken nuggets

chicken n stars soup

scrambled eggs

noodles

macaroni and cheese

pretzles

hamburger with just meat and cheese

hot dogs with ketchup

tacos

spaghetti

carrots with ranch

olives

chocolate milk

strawberries

honeycrisp apples

string cheese

gogurt

FOOD HE DOESN'T LIKE: (although Aidan will eat basically anything without complaining)

mushrooms

tomatoes

Overall, some words I would use to describe Aidan are: sensitive, sweet, artistic, responsible, smart, energetic, funny.

I sure love being his mom, and what a wonderful example he is as a big brother!

Ethan at 3

So I have really given up on blogging, and I'm not sure I'm even committing to get back into it.  But I have enjoyed going back through the milestone posts about my boys.  I have missed some, and with another little person's set of milestones coming up soon, I thought I would play a little catch-up.

Ethan turned 3 in December.  At that visit, he was 40.3 inches (putting him in the 96th percentile for height) and 34 lbs (75th percentile).  I had always thought he was short since he hadn't grown tall quite as fast as Aidan... but apparently Ethan is tall, too!

When he turned 3, he still showed no interest in potty training.  However, he did say that he would wear underwear when the baby came, so I decided to try potty training again the last few days of January.  It was really rough - for about 2 weeks I honestly couldn't decide if it was time to quit or keep going forward.  He would make tiny bits of progress, but nothing truly notable.  Luckily he seemed to turn a corner after a few weeks.  So now almost a month later, he wears underwear all day.  He can stay dry for long periods of time, including naps, and will pee on the potty when asked.  However, he still won't tell you that he needs to go and is scared to poop in the toilet.  He has stayed dry through a few complete nights, so I am hoping to keep him in underwear at night soon, too.  We take the ninja turtle backpack full of spare stuff EVERYWHERE!

Ethan joined Primary a few scant weeks after his birthday, and that has been a rough transition, too.  He often asks to go back to nursery, says he doesn't like Primary, etc.  He also has a very difficult time sitting in his chair and is always up and down, walking around, etc.  However, he has an extremely patient, kind teacher and seems to be getting the hang of it now.

Things Ethan LOVES:

the co-op preschool group I help teach

playing

Sands Alive

being read to

helping with grown up things, like cooking

games, especially Pop the Pig and Hungry Hungry Hippos

Thi gs Ethan is mastering:

putting on his own boots and coat

potty training

VERY strong with language - talks clearly, can say all the sounds correctly except for the occasional "L"

obedience - went through a time when it was very difficult, but has made quite a bit of progress over the last few months!

music - can carry tunes very well and remembers lyrics quickly

This Ethan does NOT like:

being woken up when he is sleeping (he still take naps 3-4 times a week)

having someone take a toy or stop him when he is playing

eating new foods at dinner

Overall, I would describe Ethan with words like: sweet, adventurous, independent, kind, funny, ticklish, musical.  He is such a good boy, and I am so glad to be his mom!

Ethan at age 2

So I am beyond awful at updating my blog, but I do enjoy looking back at the boys' birthday information.  Ethan is technically a month past 2, but here's some information about him.

Height: 36 inches (90th percentile)

Weight: 26 pounds (50th percentile)

Loves:

Having you read him stories, especially the books My No No No Day and People

Being silly - chase, tickles, teasing

Anything noisy - banging, toys, etc.

Pouring things - flour into the sugar bowl, salt out of the salt shaker, water or milk out of his sippy cup

His binky for naps and bedtime...although we are weaning him this week and it seems to be going well

Talking - he says a lot!  We will get 5 or 6 word sentences at times!

Singing - remembers many songs after only one time!

Helping me unload the dishwasher - he loves to pull out matching items and stack them

HIding in the lockers at the YMCA (he pulls the door shut and won't answer when you call him, so you have to go down the row opening all the lockers to find him!)

He is:

Still taking naps (hooray!)

Climbing stairs up and down only holding a hand rail

Quite adventerous and independent

Running everywhere

Adding extra "s"s to the ends of plural words: oranges becomes orangeses, princesses is princesseseses (not exaggerating!)

He is not:

Super stubborn yet (we aren't getting a lot of "no" or "I do it myself" yet)

At ALL interested in potty training - diapers all the way!

Hitting very much any more - he seems to have learned not to do that!

He is so fun and easy going - he really makes our family better!  We love this little 

guy!

Aidan at age 4

The visiting teaching message this month was about family history.  One of the things it mentioned was keeping your own journal, and it has given me a renewed desire to keep up with this blog.  Even though I feel like no one reads it much any more, I want to keep the records for ME!  So without further ado,

Aidan at age 4:

Height:  44 inches (into a booster seat - hooray!)
Weight: 42.5

Skills he has mastered:

• Writing Aidan, mom, and dad
• Knows all the letters, can write many of them, knows the sounds for most
• Riding a bike with training wheels
• Washing hands independently
• Using a tissue most of the time (we finally got him stop picking his nose!)
• Drawing stick figures
• Counting up to 20 easily (and sometimes into the twenties), with the exception of "thirteen" and "fourteen" which sound the same when he pronounces them, so sometimes he only says one of those numbers instead of two
• Counting given items, including simple addition and subtraction

Skills he is working on:

• A few sounds are still difficult for him to say (r, sh, ch) - shark sounds like soawk, ouch sounds like outs, etc.
• Staying dry all night (he's working on it!)

Things he enjoys:

• Staying awake during the day (naps are rare to never)
• Art!  This kid could do art projects all day long!
• Riding his bike
• Going on walks
• Helping Mom make pizza
• Going fishing with Dad
• Play with Legos
• Play the Where's My Water app on the iPad
• Digging in the dirt and grass to build an "ant hill" with our neighbor David

Overall, Aidan is a very sweet and happy boy!  We feel so blessed to have him in our family!