This time of the year signals the wind down of summer and the emergence of fall - my favorite time of the year.  I was out running the other day and this is what I was thinking about.  The kids are back in school, the dog days of summer are (hopefully) behind us.  In the distance I can hear the Prospect High School marching band practicing for the football season and the weather is perfect - sunny, pleasant.  Fall is coming. I can't wait.

Happy Birthday to my sweet little man!  We had such a wonderful day today with our family and friends at Nate's party - the second party at the Roth household in 13 days - both very necessary and very special.  Nate had a wonderful time and played hard with his friend Quinn and his new friend Freddie who attendance was such a wonderful and unexpected surprise!  Today also marked the one year anniversary of Finley's first open heart surgery.  We had lots to celebrate today, as always.  More (and pics) to come later - momma is just too tired at the moment.

I've been neglecting this blog of late for a few very good reasons.  I was well intentioned to update over the weekend and nearly the entire Roth household fell ill...with the exception of Mike of course who never seems to get sick.  Which, as some would say is a good thing because the complaining associated with him being sick (his not mine) would be enough to drive me to the edge.

Nate woke up overnight Thursday in to  Friday vomiting, seemed better on Friday and then woke up with the same Saturday morning.  I started to get sick Saturday night and ended up spending the better part of the evening - from about 8:30 pm until about 2 am in the bathroom vomiting.  I would get a 5 minute break or so to lie on the bathroom floor and then it would start all over again.  I am serious.  I NEVER left the bathroom.  I was trying to gauge time by what I could hear was on TV.  I contemplated whether or not I should go to the hospital.  It was brutal.  By far the sickest I can ever recall being.  And then by the time I finally did go to sleep and woke up in the morning, my wonderful husband who had taken all of the overnight feeds told me that Finley had thrown up a couple times overnight.  When that continued in the morning, I switched her feeds to an apple juice/pedialyte mixture and she stayed on that until Monday morning.  And did great.  Needless to say, we've all been on the mend.

And then unfortunately all of that ick in the house means nothing got done on the weekend in preparation for Nate's birthday party this weekend.  That means lots of furious running around in the evenings this week after work trying to get that done.  But, it will get done!  And today starts the first day of Nate's three day birthday bonanza - treats at school with his class, tomorrow is our traditional lunch at The Choo Choo restaurant in Des Plaines (Finley will make her inaugural visit!) and Saturday is his party!  Two other very happy birthday's go out to my dear friend Gina (8/17) and my momma (8/18) - HAPPY BIRTHDAY LADIES!

Finley and her dolly - she LOVES to chew on dolly's hair!

Our big news of the week is that Finley went to the endocrinologist on Tuesday and we are making more progress on that front!  Our big girl is weighing in at a whopping 22 lbs and 9 ozs these days and is at the 75th percentile for weight!!  WHOO HOO!  We've also been able to cut the polycose in her milk down even further - we started at 3 tsps per 90 ml, then went to 1.5 tsp per 105 ml and now we are at 1 tsp per 105 ml.  She has been stable on that for the last two days with blood sugars being GREAT and so now we are even going to go to every EIGHT hour blood sugar testing!!  This is a huge accomplishment from where we started - every three hours!  We hope to further wean the polycose within the next couple of weeks and the endocrinologist has big hopes that in the next 6 weeks or so that maybe we can start doing some bolus (large amounts less frequently) feeds and get Finley off of the 24 hour continuous feed!  She is cleared to eat really anything (puree consistency or very easy to mash) food wise and is doing great on that front as well.  Today we are going to start replacing one of her feeds with one of just apple juice, so we can get her really hungry and hopefully begin to feed her an entire meal of baby food a day!


The other big news - Nate finally got a haircut!  After more than 8 weeks since his last one (since he had a melt down the day he and Mike were supposed to go) he made a trip to the barber.  And my little man came home with his first buzz-ish cut.  It is MUCH shorter than normal - and at first I was sure if I liked it, but after a couple of hours I decided I not only liked it - I LOVED it!  And as a bonus, Nate moved while Joe was cutting it and so he has a very 80's line shaved in one side of his hide!  C-L-A-S-S-Y!

Finley playing peek-a-boo!  She LOVES covering her face with stuff like this!

Today me and my traveling money jar are hitting the office in hopes to fill-er-up even more.  We've been a little slow on collecting change and there isn't much time left so I am hoping that my visit in the office today will yield much generosity!

Hope you have a great day!

Nate LOVES to lay in the crib/pack-n-play, etc. with Finley.  This is them outside!

We've been on a hiatus of sorts this week - decompressing from the weekend festivities and managing a busier than average week with two doctors appointments and a trip to Cincinnati.

First I will start with the birthday party!  Oh what a party we had!  It was so wonderful to have so many friends and family here to celebrate such a momentous occasion!  We thought that Mother Nature might be a spoil sport but after some morning showers, it cleared up quite nicely in time for the party!  Perhaps one of the most special parts of the day is all of the people who were here that had never had a chance to meet Finley until that day.  Finally everyone got to see our little princess.  And although we asked guests to make donations to Children's Memorial Hospital or the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation (and they did!), Finley also got tons of very sweet and very thoughtful gifts - very special gifts that were so touching!  There was the ornament that my cousin's wife Julie painted that had all of the information from Finley's invitation - the number of days in the hospital, ER visits, surgeries - it was just SO beautiful!  One of Mike's friends from work, the Stoebber family, made a card for Finley - it said "Happy Birthday Finley Roth" and each letter was made from something different - popsicle sticks, cotton balls, sandpaper - and it was designed so that Finley could touch it and enjoy all of the different textures!  Amazing!  And then there was this: Finley's Birthday Video  This beautiful video was put together by my dear friend Lynne.  Words just cannot describe how much we loved this (or how much I bawled my eyes out when I watched it the first time).  There were many, many more, very special and very thoughtful gifts, too many to even list here - so a huge THANKS to everyone because again - we truly do have the best friends and family in the world!  And, to top off the most beautiful birthday ever - Channel 5 news ran Finley's picture in their "First Birthdays" segment on Monday morning!

Finley enjoying her birthday cupcake!

Cousins!

On the the Finley updates!  As I mentioned last week, I was stalking the immunologist all week to get Finley's test results.  Well, he finally called me back on Friday at 5:30 pm!  The good news is, Finley's T-cells were at a good level - not as high as most people but well above the level in which they would be considered low - and they had more than doubled since her last test in April which is VERY good!  She did make antibodies to her last Tetanus vaccine - which again is very good and something they were looking for.  Her T-cell response to the Tetanus vaccine though was lower than they'd like it to be and so the doctor still doesn't want her to have any live vaccines until she can be retested - which will be about a month after her next Tetanus booster.  This means that we will have to hold off on getting her chicken pox and MMR vaccines until the retest is complete.

Tuesday we went to visit the ENT.  I had purposely made the 7:45 am appointment because it was Dr. Holinger's first of the day and after last time, when we waited more than 2 hours for him - I thought this made perfect sense.  Umm, not so much - he didn't come in to see us until after 9:30 am!  Needless to say, I wasn't the happiest person in the world but I do love Dr. Holinger and I think he's a wonderful doctor so I am just thanking our lucky stars we don't need to see him more often!  He ended up scoping Finley in the office and remarked that she still had pretty significant inflammation from her reflux.  He wants to do another sedated hearing test in October which will be one full year since her first one and he will also do a bronchoscopy at the same time.  For any other child this would be a simple outpatient deal - but for our Finley - she'll need to be admitted the night before to be put on IV fluids to regulate her blood sugar.

Wednesday Finley went to see the cardiologist.  Mike took her because I was in Cincinnati for a client meeting.  At her appointment she had another echo to check the pressure in her heart and I am SO happy to report that it has gone down even further - 20%!!!  At her last appointment 6 weeks ago it was 27% which was just above normal (normal is 10-20%).  She is finally in the normal range -albeit at the high end of that range - but normal nonetheless!  Her doctor decided not to adjust her dose of Propranolol - in spite of her weight gain (she is weighing in at 22.5 lbs now!).  This was very good and very welcome news and a perfect way to start off Finley's second year.

Finley on her new SoftSpot (or 'lily pad' as Nate calls it)

And one last thing before I go - I find traveling pretty amusing and yesterday's trip did not disappoint.  Why is it that whenever there is a mechanical issue on the plane before we take off, the pilot feels the need to tell us?  Really?  I think the majority of the people on the plane would really rather not know.  And the people who, as soon as the plan comes to a stop at the gate and that little chime sounds, have their safety belts undone and they are out of their seats in the aisle trying to get off the plane.  Seriously?  I don't get that.  Perhaps my favorite thing yesterday though were the two girls who boarded our tiny regional jet, 5 minutes after everyone else on the plane had boarded, taken their seats, and buckled in, a full plane - and these two gals board the plane with two enormous musical instruments - just shy of the size of a guitar - and they wanted to fit them in the overhead bins.  They walked up and down the aisles, opened every overhead bin looking for space - and finally they checked them at the gate.  And all the while the flight attendant refrained from saying "I told you so".  I sat there thinking its no wonder more flight attendants don't snap like that one on the Jet Blue flight the other day - which by the way - I think is an AWESOME story.  Specifically because he grabbed a beer on the way out.  Now THAT is the way to go out!

Ruffle butt!

Nate's shiner from his cousin Gabi!

Finley modeling one of her new hair bows

Therapy on the exercise ball!

I have been horrible about posting this week but it sure has been busy!  Although I loathe having to do all of those things I have put off doing until now - it sure is nice to have them done.  Yesterday I finished cleaning the basement.  Our basement had pretty much been unpresentable since construction started in October.  It became the catch all for all of the things we had to move out of the den.  But with several hours of filing, organizing and purging, I actually don't cringe at the thought of walking down those stairs!

I am still waiting to talk to the immunologist regarding Finley's test results.  I called Monday and left a message.  Called again Tuesday and of course the doctor called me at 5:30 pm - when I had gone to pick up Nate.  He was supposed to call back today - nothing.  Hell - I was hoping he'd leave a message - any message.  I don't care if he gives me the results of the test via voice mail.  I just want to know!

Finley has had a wonderful week.  She is making tremendous progress with her feeding.  This week she's tried little pieces of banana and cantaloupe as well as tried little Gerber veggie sticks and a teething biscuit today.  The verdict is in - this kid is like her mommy - she likes to EAT!  She has been doing amazingly well, doesn't seem to mind the different textures and she's gone from eating once or twice a day to three times!  I owe so much of this to Gigi's persistence with her and her comfort in trying to advance her in this regard.  She is just doing so well.  She's also started working with a sippy cup.  Her feeding therapist was concerned that when given the cup, that she wouldn't know what to do with it - boy did she prove her wrong (see below)!  After Finley gets the cup in her hands - you  literally have to pry it away.  But since Finley hasn't been cleared for thin liquids, we are just putting a couple of cc's of breast milk and juice in the cup - enough for her to feel in her mouth when she sucks on the spout.  Very cool indeed.

Finley and daddy napping together on Sunday afternoon.

The other area of tremendous progress?  Sitting. Finley is now able to sit unassisted for a couple minutes at a time.  Go Finley go!!!


And for the hair picture of the week.  Everyone seemed to really like Finley's headband from the other day, yesterday it was braids.  This I could barely believe myself....


And last but certainly not least, we've gotten a photo of the Loch Ness monster (that is Woody's hat in his mouth)!

One week from today, my baby is one! (And as a side note, its also the day that me and my friend the pump are parting ways...) I haven't had time to post lately because we have been busy trying to get everything ready for the party.  I was telling one of my friends the other day that the worst thing about having a party at home - is doing all of the stuff that you have been procrastinating on doing around the house.  Remember that ceiling in my bedroom I was going to touch up MONTHS ago?  Still hasn't been done.  The basement needs to be cleaned. The stereo that was moved out of our old den last October before we started construction - yep - its still sitting in the dining room.  Its all of those things of course that will drive me crazy unless they get done.  I see this as a perfect opportunity to get them checked off my list - especially because I have the offer of Mike's help - because of the party - so I need to seize the opportunity right???  Well that leaves me with um, pretty much today only, because Mike is going to be out of town all week again.  Horrible timing.

This week we are awaiting the results of Finley's immunology tests - for which I received the EOB from the hospital yesterday.  $1,700 for lab tests.  $1,700!!!  Blood work only - not even doctor's charges.  Fortunately for us, insurance should cover it.  Every time I get these bills, which based on the claims files I've downloaded off the BCBS IL website, would total over $1,000,000 in billed charges at this point.  A million dollars.  I know a lot of people are opposed to health care reform - but I believe it needs to start somewhere.  This might not be the plan that makes the most sense, but it has to just START.  There are too many people out there who have been financially devastated by our medical system - that needs to change.  But I digress...

Did I ever mention that having kids is the best thing in the world?

I love the way Nate puts his sister's arms around him and tells her, "see, I'm teaching you how to hug."

I love this crazy hair.  Which here, doesn't look so crazy - I had it tamed pretty well with a headband.  This is the exception though - not the rule!

I love this first tooth, that is so rarely photographed because she covers it up before I can get the shot.  And now the second one has completely broken through and is well on its way.  The other thing I love about this photo?  The fact that my princess is trying to feed herself!  She has gone from wanting nothing to do with that spoon and turning her head away each time it comes near...to opening her mouth and grabbing it out of my hand!

Every single day, there are so many of these things, that I hear and see that make me laugh. or bring a smile to my face and that make me feel so lucky.  I just love being a mom.