Chicken Owners

We have become the owners of 5 baby chicks and boy are they cute.  Case has fallen in love with them and would probably sleep next to them if he was able.  It'll be quite awhile before they lay eggs, but for now we are holding them and trying to get them used to people.  I wish they could stay this cute forever!

In the ER....again!

It seems as though we can't live a dull, boring life no matter how hard we try!  We just had our 4th visit to the ER in 6 months and this one required an overnight stay!

We went to NE this past weekend for a craft fair.  Saturday was 80 degrees and so nice and Sunday there was a blizzard.  Hello, spring.  Our goal was to leave Sunday after lunch and as we got on the road I was pretty nervous.  It was slow going and shortly after we got onto the interstate, traffic came to a stand still.  We sat there for 30 minutes.  When we finally got moving again, there were 4 semis that had crashed/slid into each other and we began to talk about continuing our trip to Denver.  We decided to turn around and head back to Kearney and 2 hours later we made the 30 mile trip.  As we got back to Kearney, the interstate was shut down and we decided to stay the night and leave Monday morning.

So, Monday morning Jeff was repacking the car and came into the house to find Siahna will a pill bottle in her hand.  A high dose, slow release blood pressure pill!  We fished half a pill out of her mouth but had no way of telling how many more she had eaten.  Jeff called poison control and told them the name of the prescription and they asked how close we were to a hospital.  Jeff said, "5 minutes."  They said, "Good.  You won't need to call an ambulance then.  Get her to the ER."

Siahna had to have her stomach pumped and had a bunch of liquid charcoal put in her stomach to absorb anything they might have missed.  And because it was a slow release pill, they wanted to keep her overnight to monitor her vitals and make sure there wasn't any in her system that would take affect later.

Before they pumped her stomach.

At least we had a room with a view!  The helicopter landed and took off right outside our window.

She thought she was a queen for a day - breakfast in bed and movies all day.

Thankfully, there were no effects from the pills and we got released Tuesday morning.  She is doing well (back to her naughty self) and we have a follow-up appointment with her doctor next week.  The only lasting effects of her stay in the hospital is getting all that liquid charcoal out of her system. 

Apraxia

Can you imagine if it took you 3,000 repetitions of something before you actually learned how to do it or were able to do it?  3,000 repetitions of practicing the sound of "O" before you could say it.  Then 3,000 repetitions of "P".  Then "E".  Then "N".  Then put them all together for 3,000 repetitions to say "Open". 

How frustrating would it be if you could think it in your mind but you couldn't make your mouth form the word.  You couldn't communicate to someone that you wanted something opened.  Or whatever the word was.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)- is a motor speech disorder.  Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words.

This is the working diagnosis for Siahna.  And there may be other diagnosis's for her as well in the future, but this is her speech diagnosis.

How do you "treat" it?  Therapy 2-3 times a week for short intervals.  Repetition, repetition, repetition.  Practice, practice, practice.

We will be starting private speech therapy soon and the cost of doing that 2-3 times a week is overwhelming.  We will probably be getting some sort of electronic talking device and that price is even more daunting.  We are probably starting private swim lessons soon because she can't be in a class with peers and perform the same.

And, thank you insurance for nothing.  These are the things she needs more than a yearly check-up but you won't help us pay for any of it.  And thank you scholarships for being there and for always telling us that Jeff makes too much money and we should be able to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars each month for these things because that's our only expense in life.

Frustrated.

But, despite all that, I won't let apraxia define my little girl.  Above all, she is a Child of God.  Wonderfully made.  Dearly loved and precious in His sight.  Before God made her, he knew her.  There is no one else like her!

Cousins

Katie (my sister-in-law) and I took the kids to a wildlife exhibit here in Kearney and I think the kids could have spent all day there.

Making snakes out of paper plates.

Holding a real snake.

Freaks me out...

Trash art.  The girls could have spent hours at this table.

Ended our day by driving out to Ft. Kearney to see and hear the cranes.

Grandpa Bill

My sweet, sweet grandpa passed away almost a week ago.  I still can't believe it.  He will be missed so much and it hurts my heart to watch my grandma go on without him.  I was honored to be able to speak at his funeral and thought I'd share that on my blog.

On grandma and grandpa’s 68^th wedding anniversary, October 22, 2012, I spent the day at the farm interviewing grandpa about his life.  I would like to share some of his story with you and then share some of my memories.

Grandpa’s parents got married on June 25, 1919 and a year later, on the same day, he arrived.  He was born in the same house that he spent the next 90+ years of his life in.  Many of you know the farmhouse well.  In 1934 he started high school but missed the first week of school because his parents took him to Chicago to go to the World Fair.  When he came back to school, he said everyone knew where to go and he was lost.  He was in the biggest building he had ever been in and had no idea where to go.  He could often be found roaming the halls looking for his classes.  This led to some senior boys finding him in the hallway and they would sit him on the water fountain.  So, he said, for the first 10 days of high school he always had wet pants! 

When he was a senior in high school, he met his future wife, Van.  He asked Van 3 times to go out on a date with him before she finally accepted.  She sure liked to play hard to get!  By the third time of asking, grandpa thought to himself, “If she doesn’t accept, that’s it.  I’m not asking again!”  Good thing she accepted or most of us wouldn’t be here today.  They dated for 7 years and got married in 1944.

After 2 years in the navy, he spent pretty much the rest of his life farming the same 120 acres that his father owned.  He was pretty amazing and didn’t officially retire from farming until he was 88.

If you knew grandpa well, you would know that he was quite ornery and mischievous.  I think this is what led him to such a long and happy life.  He could often be found with a piece of food hanging out of his mouth.  Not because he didn’t know it was there, but to get a reaction out of someone.  If you tried to tell him about the crumb or long piece of spaghetti hanging from his mouth he would wipe at the opposite side of his mouth and tell you he didn’t know what you were talking about.

He could often be found sneaking food off of grandma’s plate at the dinner table and then “play dumb” when she asked where her missing food was.  He kept her on her toes.  Grandma could never take her eyes off of him because he would be up to some trick.

Another little goofy quality he had was the way he would wave goodbye.  I had the opportunity to live with grandma and grandpa many, many years ago for 16 weeks while I student taught in Lexington.  Every morning as I would pull out of their long driveway, he would be standing in the window with one hand holding the forearm of his other arm, limp wrist and shaking his arm up and down to say goodbye.  I’m sure many of you have experienced this goodbye wave of his.  I can still picture him standing in the window waving.

He was also very quick witted.  He would often answer the phone when I would call.  We would always have a short conversation but because of his hearing he would hand the phone over to grandma.  One time as our conversation came to an end, I asked if grandma was around.  His reply, “Oh, she sure is round!”  And in the background I could hear grandma saying, “Will!!! Give me the phone.”

Oh, man he could make me laugh.

Besides his humor, the thing I think I loved most about him was his ability to talk to anyone and make anyone feel accepted and loved.  He was Mr. Social and could carry on a conversation with even the most difficult person.  He was always interested in what you had to say.  Because of his genuine interest in everyone, he seemed to know everyone and something about them.  His friends, whom he would meet for coffee almost every morning, called him The Encyclopedia.  “Ask Bill,” they would say.  “He’ll know what year that happened.  Or who married who.  Or what that person’s name was.”  And sure enough, he most likely did know.  Many of you have shared kind words about him this week with the family and it has meant so much.  Grandpa touched many lives and it has been nice hearing how much he was loved and how much he will be missed.

When grandpa got the news that he had leukemia and that his time here was short, he said to grandma, “We’re going to keep living life.  We’ll pray a lot.  We’ll laugh a lot.  And we will live one day at a time.”  These were the same words that Grandma’s sister, Lindy, shared with them when she told them she had cancer.  These words and actions had gotten them through difficult times before, and these words would carry them through to grandpa’s final days.

Grandpa lived life to his last breath.  He knew who everyone was in his final days and he was very concerned about grandma’s well being.  This is how he lived life.  She was his first priority and he took care of her to the end.   He held her hand and called out her name in his final hour.  Oh, how he loved her.  After being together almost 77 years, a friend of grandma’s put it well this week when she told grandma that the Lord had twisted their hearts together after all these years.

And despite grandpa’s health in his final days, he still made us laugh.  One afternoon as he lay sleeping, he sneezed in his sleep and woke briefly and said, “Well, that was fake!”  And then he fell back asleep.  Two nights before he passed away, grandma was sitting by him on the couch and as she tried to stand grandpa leaned over to one of his grandkids and said, “This is the fun part.”  He pushed grandma up off the couch and tried to pinch her bottom.  Then he said, “Sometimes I miss though.”  These were the things that could make us laugh and were so cute about him and showed his love for grandma.

Grandpa, in my opinion, was one of a kind.  He was genuine, funny and well respected.  He is someone who inspires me to be a better parent and in the future to be a good grandparent.  He was surrounded by many loved ones in his final days because he had invested in all of us.  As he entered the gates of heaven a few days ago, I pictured him standing there in shock and AMAZEMENT and saying, “Well, I’ll be.”

As you leave here today, I’d like to challenge you to take a piece of grandpa with you.  By that I mean to be kinder to a stranger.  Talk to people more.  Listen more.  Love your spouse a little more.  Invest in your family a little more.  It will probably look different for all us because we all knew grandpa in different ways, but I think we can all agree that there is a piece of him that touched us the most and that we can take away with us to keep his memory alive.

Sledding

We had plans to go sledding near Winter Park about a month ago and had some friends that were going to join us.  However, the weather didn't cooperate and we ended up staying home.  But, we made the best of it and found a hill here and went out for an hour.  We had a blast and my friend took a great picture.

Love Their Daddy