Brynlyn's 19 month old - January 2008

Brynlyn was Mugging it up for the camera today. She was in such a good mood today, like she normally is. She's such a happy and good natured baby for the majority of the time. She has a moment occasionally, but then again, I still have my moments also! ha ha

I thought these pictures turned out so cute.

Button Issues - January 2008

Aagh! More button isuses. This silly button is driving me crazy. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that Brynlyn has it because it supplies 99.9% of her daily nutrition. BUT...it can be a real nuisance sometimes.

Right now Brynlyn has some "hypergranulation tissue" which is basically when the body senses there is a foreign object and creates this granulation tissue in order to try to remove the foreign object from the body. It will go away sometimes with the help of a hydrocortisone cream, but often times it has to be taken off with silver nitrate, that basically burns the excess tissue off. We're still working with the cream and we haven't tried the silver nitrate yet, but if it continues to get worse, then we'll just have to resort to that at the DR office.

The biggest problem it's creating right now is that the button does not fit flush against her body and so it's breaking easily, causing me to have to put a new one in. We always have one extra button on hand, just in case the button does break. The stoma hole will close up within 4 hours of the button falling out. So if you don't get a new button in on time, then the hole will close and they have to do the surgery all over again to re-open the stoma opening so you can feed the child. STRESSFUL!!! Serious anxiety about this button right now.

These pictures are what her button looked like after it fell out of her stoma. You can see the balloon part at the bottom of the Nutriport button is stained brown, form the stomach contents, etc. It basically popped and created a slow leak in the button.

Why I Love Being a Mother

I love being a Mom! It is so wonderful and truly my greatest joy in life. My girls are silly and goofy and challenging and fun and stubborn and sweet and full of life and lots and lots of love that they want to share with me at any time of the day. I am not nearly as good as a Mom as I would like to be. That's another goal: Be a more patient and loving Mother! =)

I was reading a friend (Toni's) blog today and she shared some of her favorite thoughts of motherhood and I just loved it so much that I copied it and wanted to share it on my blog with other mothers and women that I know. She posted it on her blog and it's a fun blog, so go and check out Toni's link. Anyway, below is her sweet thoughts and feelings she eloquently illustrated. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Why I Love Being a Mother by Toni Gardner

1. You finally stop to smell the roses, because the child holding your hand wants to smell them.

2. Where you once believed you were fearless, you now find yourself afraid.

3. The sacrifices you thought you made to have a child no longer seem like sacrifices.

4. You respect your old body ... finally.

5. You respect your parents and love them in a new way.

6. You find that your child's pain feels much worse than your own.

7. You believe once again in the things you believed in as a child.

8. You lose touch with the people in your life whom you should have banished years ago.

9. Your heart breaks much more easily.

10. You think of someone else 234,836,178,976 times a day.

11. Every day is a surprise .

12. Bodily functions are no longer repulsive. In fact, they please you. (Hooray for poop!)

13. You look at your baby in the mirror instead of yourself.

14. You become a morning person.

15. Your love becomes limitless, a superhuman power.

16. You discover how much there is to say about one tooth.

17. You finally realize that true joy doesn't come from material wealth.

18. You now know where the sun comes from.

19. You'd rather buy a plastic tricycle than those shoes that you've been dying to have.

20. You realize that although they are sticky, lollipops have magical powers.

21. You don't mind going to bed at 9 p.m. on Friday night.

22. Silence? What's that?

23. You can see the masterpiece in a lump of play-dough.

24. You discover an inner strength you never thought you had.

25. You no longer rely on a clock — your baby now sets your schedule.

26. You give parents with a screaming child an ''I-know-the-feeling'' look instead of a ''Can't-they-shut-him-up?'' one.

27. Your dog — who used to be your ''baby'' — becomes just a dog.

28. You take the time for one more hug and kiss even if it means you'll be late.

29. You learn that taking a shower is a luxury.

30. You realize that you can love a complete stranger.

Thanks for sharing your wonderful thoughts and feelings with us, Toni!

Brynlyn's Photo shoot

After dinner, the girls took hold of the camera and started snapping away. Between Ash, Kate and Lauryn, they all took these pictures of Bryn. Not too bad, eh! She was eating chips with dip on it and was liking it. So that's what's all over her mouth. But Brynlyn quickly tired of "say cheese" and "look at the camera." It was pretty funny to watch them be the photogs. The 4th picture is called "Where's Daddy?" She looked around and got this very concerned look on her face seriously questioning where in the world he went. The girls are honing their amateur photography skills and had a lot of fun tonight. And Brynlyn was a sweet subject to capture on film. She's so much fun and oh how we all love on her! She's simply delicious. =)

Update: At the time of this posting, Mike made it back from urgent care and is safely tucked back in bed with lots of TLC and with azythromicin working its magic on him as we speak. =)

Happy New Year 2008!

So one of my New Years Goals is to be a better blogger this year! Wahoo! My first blog of the new year. Our New Years Eve and Day turned out how most of our holidays have been so far this year: plagued with sickness. What's up with this? I'm sooo disinfecting everything tomorrow. I'm tired of the bugs that we all love to share. Mike came down with that yucky, disgusting, $#&5#*@% cold that I got the week before Christmas. I didn't leave my couch for a week during that week. It was a good thing that I was "prepared" if you know what I mean, because I was so sick and didn't want to do anything. So now MJ has it now. Aagh! I couldn't even kiss him New Years Eve. What a bummer!!!

So last night we were headed to Janelle and Eric's for a fun New Years party. (Thanks for the super late night party guys!) Well, Mike and I had only been there for about 30 minutes and MJ said, "I'm so sick, you have to take me home!" So I took him home. Loaded him up with herbal, homeopathic, AND over the counter drugs. I knew he'd be looped out. So I tucked him into bed and he went to sleep soundly and Ashlyn and I tucked all of the other girls into bed and we went back to the party until 4:00 a.m. Luckily everyone slept at home.

Mike was feeling slightly better today. I did 10 loads of laundry and 2 loads of dishes and cleaned out my fridge and he got to relax and catch up on football. But we were all headed out to go grab some dinner and he decided to head to Urgent Care instead to get some stronger drugs. So the girls and I threw a spontaneous New Years Day party. It was a good thing I was stocked up on good ol' fashioned party junk food! Yippee!!! So these pictures are taken while poor Dad is waiting at Urgent Care for 2 hours. Sadly, the party must go on. The girls had fun, had dinner, and then took over my camera and had a fun photo shoot of themselves and Brynlyn.

I'm hoping we're going to kick this bug real soon! Please please please take extra Vitamin C and Airborne for me. This is a nasty, nasty thing going around and you do not want it. So think of me as you chug some more orange juice. =)

Here's to a HEALTHY and HAPPY New Year 2008! Looking forward to it!