RaNdOm

 Vance finally had his 7 year appointment, after 3 reschedules due to various reasons.  He has a few warts on his right knee, probably from splash park.  The girls both had them around 5-7 yrs old only theirs were on their toes, under their big toe nail, on surrounding toes and it was awful (we spent a LOT of time at the pool). They bawled when they had theirs frozen with liquid nitrogen, so I was fully prepared for a Vance-spectacular meltdown.  I had Dr. Tom show him how it works by first freezing one on my right ring finger that has come and gone a few times (it stung like crazy but I kept a straight face).  Tom also made dragon smoke before he put the gauge on the bottle and putting it next to his profile, Vance thought that was hysterical.  Vance sat up and watched as the warts turned white, he didn't even wince!  It was no big deal.  HURAH!  I was so excited.  I was totally expecting him to freak out.  Whew.  He weighs 52 pounds (which is awesome because he did not break out of the 30's until early last year!) and he is 4'1".  I can't remember what his weight percentile is but his height is 75th and his bmi is on the low end, which is his trend.  My little NICU wimpy white boy is healthy as can be!  I am so grateful.  So very, very grateful.  His behavior is much better.  He is loving school, he knows a lot of his times tables, is a pro at counting money, and writes the best little journal entries.  He's a cool kid.

 

 Alorah is doing great!  Her allergies have kicked up a few times requiring some breakthrough benedryl to get her through.  The other night her eyes swelled up and turned red and she keeps getting hives in the shower if the water is too warm.  Her moon face has gone down as has her appetite.  She is doing wonderful.  I am holding my breath.  Fall and Spring are hard on her generally but I am also pretty confident she is on the right regimen of meds.  She has not been on steroids in 12 weeks!  That alone is worth celebrating  Before that she had gone 8 weeks-before that she had 5 bursts in 5 months.  Definite improvement.  I am keeping a close eye on her but so far she has maintained (with a pre-visit neb and benedryl added to her daily meds) and done well at my mother-in-law's for the first time in years (she has a few cats and they usually trouble Alorah within minutes).  She has also done well with the fire pit at my dad's-it's the first time I let her roast marshmallows since last November.  I gave her 2 puffs from her inhaler first but she did fine (I had everything with me and checked her O2 quite a few times.

Faith is doing fantastic.  She spent almost all day yesterday cleaning her room and organizing (I used to do the same all the time at her age).  She is my most helpful child.  She has gained more responsibility of late.  Helping me with unloading the dishwasher, feeding Toby, putting her laundry away.  She also planted a small container garden in the backyard, it is doing great.  She is SO proud of herself.  She wants to know every detail of every thing we are going to do.  I told them we would walk Toby up to the school this weekend so they could play on the playground and Faith wanted to know which leash we would use, if we would bring a dog poop bag, etc.  She is very much into reading these days and spends a lot of time in her room curled up with a book, almost always about animals.  Right now she is reading a long book about horses.  She loves animals so much, I can see her doing something with animals.  Maybe she will be a trainer or a veterinarian or rescue and help adopt out animals.  I also see her gardening just like my mom.  Or maybe she will make jewelry.  She is so talented it blows me away.

All in all the kids are doing really well.  I am so proud of them.  I love them to the moon and the sun and the stars in the sky forever and ever and a day.

(P.S my blog will not show up on google reader, because it is invite only.  Sorry about that.  I took ads off so I don't get anything for "clicks."  I blog because I love going back and reading about our life and because I want to have all of this for the kids to read some day along with my livejournal which I started in '03.  Most of Vance's life has been written out.  I also work out a lot of my issues through my fingers.  It helps.)