Merry Christmas

A great Christmas morning.  All we were missing were Grandma and Grandpa.  The usual routine is to wait until Grandma and Grandpa arrive to open all the gifts.  The kids are so used to having to wait they don't even bother to get out of bed early.  Well, except for AJ.  Once we got the go ahead that it was just us we sent AJ in to wake up the big kids.

I have more pictures to download, but here is one of each of them for now.  Mckenna enjoying her stocking.

Next up is Ayden Jane excited about her new stuffed giraffe!  We successfully talked her down from the real one.  Woo Hoo!

Kayla some how avoided most of the pictures...

Noah enjoying the view as the younger kids were opening presents.

Noah helping AJ figure out one of her presents.

Our day continues at grandmas house with more presents and more food....  Ayden Jane has continued to discuss Christmas and always comes to the same conclusion....  "I love Christmas"

Fall Fun

I went to download Christmas pictures for the blog.  I ran across these that Mckenna took a few weeks before Christmas in our front yard.  We raked a big pile of leaves and the two of them had a great time.

                           

The Mind of a 5 Year Old

Age 5 is an amazing time in the mind of a child. I remember it being a time of deep questions with all the kids.  Sort of like their minds and hearts deepen, but their literal brains just cannot quite categorize it all.  One of my favorite Noah stories came when he was 5.

Riding in the back of the car he asked me, "Mom, why do we have to bow our heads when we pray?"  I was not totally engaged so I threw out the standard, "it is a sign of respect."  Then he sounded a bit distressed and said, "but I don't want to bow my head when I pray.  Do I HAVE to?"  I answered him with a question.  Why don't you want to bow your head?  His answer: "I hate looking at the devil when I am talking to God."  It came out with such emotion like it had been a struggle for a long time.  I loved it.  The literal side of being 5 mixed with the important and deeper side of growing up.

Ayden Jane has been coming up with some of these lately as well.  Here are a couple.

AJ: Is God big or small?
Me:  What do you mean?
AJ:  Well, He has to be small to be inside my heart, but He has to be big to be everywhere.  So is He big or small?

How did Jesus save us when he was a baby?  Babies can't do anything!

Sadly, the other thing Ayden Jane and Noah have in common is night mares.  Noah had trouble with recurring ones that would last a couple of weeks.  There was no sleeping those couple of weeks....  Ayden Jane's don't seem to be as bad, but she has started telling her brain not to have bad dreams and asking us to help her ask Jesus for good dreams.  You can tell she is genuinely frightened.  It was hard when Noah was little to watch him be honestly afraid to sleep and it is no better now.  Just one of those things a parent cannot fix.

Christmas List

Ayden Jane is really enjoying the excitement of Christmas coming.  She is not driving us too crazy, but is just like any other 5 year old with no schedule, a house full of craziness and Christmas on the horizon.  Yikes!

Mckenna sat with Ayden Jane and they worked on her Christmas list.  Mostly because all Mom could come up with were great therapy ideas!  Here are her top 3.  Big kid roller skates.  Hmmm.  She still has no confidence on the plastic 4 wheel kiddie skates and she wants inline skates like the other kids.  Santa will comply, but I am thinking we will spend a lot more time putting them on and taking them off then anything else...

Next?  A real giraffe.  Yep, you read that right.  A REAL giraffe.  It will be too big for her bed but can fit in mine...  Well, at least until we build it a fence in the back yard.  Ummm.  We have been talking it down so hoping that we will have her backed off to a stuffed on by the big day because that's whats coming!

On the stuffed animal note I have say, it was ridiculous how hard it was to find stuffed animals.  I could find cute baby ones in the infant section, but that was it.  I was the proud owner of a stuffed animal collection and all my kids had a few.  Well, except Mckenna who has a TON.  Anyway, they are just not carried around here anymore.  I remember when I went in Toys R Us and there was a huge wall of them.  Now, a small corner with few.  Of course the electronics section is enormous....  It all just struck me as sort of sad.  There is a small toy shop that still carries lots of them.  It is a long drive but I found the giraffe and was sure to tell them they saved my day.

As for Gary and I, our Christmas list was made yesterday and not by us.  Sewer pipe clean out by the plumber, a new oven (being blessed with a used one) and new brakes and assorted car repairs.  All decided we needed them yesterday.

AJ Quotes

Kayla is home for Christmas break and she and Ayden Jane have talked a lot.  Kayla is great at remembering the crazy things AJ comes up with in a day so here are a few she remembered when I asked tonight.

AJ:  Kayla, what do you call those people we don't know?
Kayla: We call them strangers
AJ: Why do we call them that?  They are not strange?
Kayla:  It's because we don't know them.
AJ:  I can fix that, I can get rid of the strange by asking them their names...


In church they were lighting the Advent candles.  Ayden Jane asked Kayla why they were lighting candles.  Kayla told her because it was Advent.  Ayden Jane then asked if it was Advent's birthday.


I gave AJ a snack before bed and sent her on her way saying, and don't ask for anything else.  As she got to the living room she said to Gary, "Dad, you know peanut butter really sticks to my cheeks.  I would greatly appreciate it if you could get me some tea."


Mckenna accidentally stepped on one of our dogs.  She told the dog, sorry Sadie I didn't see you there.  AJ chimed in with, "well then Mckenna you must need glasses."

My Monkey

Today Ayden Jane and Mrs. Jen did therapy at a local playground.  I missed the start on the video, but AJ started on the ladder and got herself going.  She was so proud to be able to do the side ways monkey bars!!!

More on PharmaNAC

PharmaNAC has been wonderful for Ayden Jane in many ways.  I KNOW that our results are not typical.  That seems to be a recurring theme for AJ...

Here are the good results.  Clear upper respiratory system.  Ayden Jane did get a bit of a cold, like Mckenna, but it was cleared out in a couple of days.  No extended goo, no infection.  Nothing short of miraculous.

The big surprise, however, is that it is causing her brain and mouth to be much more connected.  Basically, AJ has great verbal skills, but when trying to express complex ideas or when a lot is going on around her or she is just surrounded by new people/places she struggles to get those ideas out.  It is not a true stutter, but that is generally what we call it.  Basically she repeats the first few words of the sentence a few times while her brain is working on the second part.  Then throw in some basic pauses and the end result is that it requires a LOT of patience from the listener and determination from Ayden Jane.   After about a week of taking the NAC, I realized that she hadn't "stuttered."  I am not really sure when it stopped because it was noticing something was NOT happening...  I asked Gary and he said he could not think of one time either...

It is like the thoughts in her head now just come flowing out with ease.  Here is an example over breakfast.  Just imagine that there is only a split second pause after each question where you cannot possibly get in an answer!

Was Santa born? If he was who are his parents? If he wasn't born does that mean he was made? Did God make Santa? Why did God make Santa? So we could get presents? How old is Santa? What about the elves? Did God make them or did Santa make them? How old are they? Do Santa and the elves ever die? If they die what will happen to Christmas? Can the elves talk? If they can talk, why does Fiddlesticks (our elf on the shelf) not talk to us? Is it that he can't or because Santa told him not to? Why doesn't Santa want him to talk to us? Is Santa afraid Fiddlesticks will accidentally tell us his secrets? You know, Santa lives at the North Pole. So do polar bears. How do polar bears keep warm when they swim in the cold ocean? That's just crazy! We have a bear cave at school. How many types of bears are there in the world? How come bears look so different but are all bears? ...

And it goes on forever....  It is amazing.

Now the down side (why does there always have to be a downside?).  PharmaNAC was tearing up her belly.  Ayden Jane did not complain, but you could see that her belly was bloated and, pardon the bathroom discussion, but her poop turned to pudding.  I thought that the side effect may diminish over time but it continued to gradually get worse and I was beginning to worry she was going to have problems at school.  I told her teacher of the problem and assured her that it was the result of something we were giving her to help her.  The teacher's response shocked me.  "Is that why she is so much quicker to answer and is able to transition so much easier now?"  Ummm.  I guess so!

Well, with no hope for improvement in sight I decided to try giving her PharmaNAC every other day.  The evening after skipping a dose we were at horses.  Ayden Jane was trying to retell a story and she just got so stuck.  It kept wanting to come out backwards and she kept repeating parts of sentences.  I was getting frustrated and then it hit me.  This was our normal just a few weeks ago!  I just couldn't go back!!!

Faced with the choice of torn up gut or dis fluency in speaking I had to find a different solution.  (By the way, the break took care of the gut)  Dr. Miller was concerned that if I opened the package and used half a tab that the other half may not be useful the next day.  I just was not up for throwing away half a dose a day.  This stuff is expensive!!  She gave me the mission of contacting the company.

Victory!!  The effervescent tab that they make is more stable than powders or powder in capsules.  It was suggested that I snap it in half and save the other 1/2 in the packaging and/or saran wrap.  Basically, they said that it may lose some of it's potency to oxidation but it should be minimal in 12-24 hours.

So, we are currently using 1/2 a tab daily and things are flowing at appropriate rates from both ends :)  (I just couldn't resist)