So grown up

At just before 9:20 pm this day last year, my life changed forever. Little Caden Bradley (soon to be forever coined "Nugget") was born. How that year has flown by. He's faced so many challenges and accomplished so much despite that. He's touched lives of people who only see him once - they see his smile and like a shopper in Wal-Mart told me last month, "That just speaks to a total inner joy." How true she was. Caden's been such a blessing. We've had so much fun with him this year, and he's blessed us in so many ways. I've learned so much about adaptation and perseverance from him. He will always be our happy boy. Happy Birthday, Nugget, Mom and Dad love you so much.

Thanksgiving Day luvins

I know this comes a little after the fact, but here it is. I've never had more to be grateful for than I was this past Thanksgiving. I'm grateful that my Heavenly Father trusted me enough to send me my Nugget and his special needs. I'm grateful I have such a fantastic family and husband to support him. And I'm grateful that Caden's personality is the way it is - for all he's needed done, for all he will still need to be put through, I can say without hesitation that he is a child of pure joy. I hear his laugh, and the feeling I get is what I envision it must feel like to see God smile.
This Thanksgiving, he decided to spread his love with my sister, his Aunt Leicha. She was lying on the floor in a turkey-coma and he waddled over to share his blankie. Every time she'd snug up to it, he'd go "awwww" and snug right down next to her:

Lettin her give him some cuddles:

And him giving snuggles back:

The boy entertained the whole family for a good 30 minutes that night. I have a feeling he'll be doing that his entire life.

Favorite time of day

Caden LOVES bath time. Absolutely loves it, and he has ever since he was teeny tiny. Well it's become such an established routine, and baths have been at about the same time every night, that tonight when mommy was a little slow in getting the bath stuff ready, he decided he would just get himself ready. At about 7:30 pm he army crawled down the hall, poked his head into the bathroom, I wasn't there so he moved across the hall to his bedroom...I wasn't there either, so he moved back into the hall between the two rooms, rolled onto his side, and started trying to get his sock off. I about cried I was laughing so hard while watching him from the other end of the hall. Unadulterated hilarity. Every day I wonder how he could possibly do anything to make me love him more...and then tonight happened and the love-o-meter just shot up a bazillion points.

Mr. Happy Pants in his favorite place to play...the bathtub:

Sock puppets

Physical therapy from Early Intervention came last week. They gave me a pair of socks with little beads sewn into the top cuff, something fun to see and play with to make Nugget more aware of his feet (since they've been hidden in boots or casts most of his life) so he'll play with his toes and get a good stretch on his spine. Well he got bored with them on his feet so I stuck them on his hands:

Cash Cab and not-quite-butterfly kisses

For reasons we still don't understand, Caden loves Cash Cab. It's a show on the Discovery Channel - this cab driver is really the host of a little game show and when you get into his cab, he quizzes you with general knowledge type questions all the way to your destination and you win money as you get answers correct. We don't know if it's the timbre or sound of this guy's voice or the lights in the cab itself, but Nugget will stop EVERYTHING he's doing if he hears the theme song and he'll watch an entire 30 min of it without losing interest. Here he is staring at the host:

And still staring (same episode, 20 min in) as the lights go disco and blink and flash on the roof of the cab:

And new this week; kisses. Or sort-of kisses. When I'm holding Caden...if I chew on something, or even if I have nothing in my mouth and just make the sound and motion of chowin down, he'll open his mouth wide and come in for the lunge. I can't decide if they're kisses or if he just thinks he's a bird and and I'll give him the food in my mouth. If you look close (pictures enlarge if clicked on) you can see his tongue out (and my mouth closed of course). I think in this particular shot, I had some Reese's Pieces in there. Nutjob:

Halloween '09

So, this Halloween was kind of a 'poke fun at' holiday. Some therapists that work with kids with the Distal Arthrogryposis (which is what Caden has) lovingly call them "lobsters" because of the way their hands are kind of stiff and move like little mittens or 'claws'. Darn it all if I didn't find a lobster costume on Babies R Us's website...

This is what the back looked like as he was on his tummy and hands:

And this is the full Halloween get-up at my Mom's house Halloween night; Me and Brando the chefs and our little lobster. YUM. (he's squeal-laughing, by the way, not crying) Where's the butter?

Halloween was so fun. Nugget was so patient. Didn't mind being stuffed into the costume for 3 days, didn't mind sittin in his pot. And actually he thought the pot was kinda fun, just put his hands on the edges and hung out like it was some fun ride as we toted him around. The family loved him, and the pictures turned out so cute. Great day. The holidays are going to be so much more fun now that we have a kid of our own.

Ponseti's Angels

Every once in a while a person of note whom you've never met will fall ill, face a tragedy, or pass away ... and you suddenly find yourself feeling emotions for that person who is unknown to you. When I read today that Doctor Ignacio Ponseti, father of the Ponseti method of treatment for clubfeet, passed away I felt like crying. He was 95 and up until a couple of years ago, was still seeing and actively treating patients. And then I DID cry. I have not been one of the blessed parents to have met him personally, and at first I was a little surprised at the strength of the emotions that I felt toward this man I never met. And yet, in a profound way, he HAS touched my life, and especially the life of my Nugget, in a way that truly is miraculous. When I think of what COULD have been, what his life COULD have been like, and now isn't and won't be because of the tremendous accomplishments and strides Ponseti made in the medical field, I have nothing but overwhelming gratitude for the impact he has made upon, literally, the entire world. I know I will always be grateful for what he has done for me and for the precious children whom he has given a new and normal stride in life....Ponseti's Angels. I fill with gratitude, and a little heartbreak now, to say that Caden is among them.

Bittersweet nostaglia

This may not look like much and in fact from this vantage point, it seems like rather plain old potato soup in a big pot on the stove.

It's my grandmother's clam chowder. I decided it was soup weather a few days ago, and called my mom for the recipe. Decidedly easy to make. Decidedly difficult to get down tear free.
Through no skill of my own, I'm sure, it turned out just like hers. The smell of it brought back memories of her little kitchen with its funky carpet and the wall next to the table that was always warm to the touch (it was actually where the vents to the furnace were, heh). I could smell the house, I could hear the clink of the spoons against the china bowls she'd serve it in, I could see her in the room, sitting across the table watching us eat it with that smile of hers....she always looked so regal, her features so refined in their age, her hair just the right shade of gray.
I didn't realize until tonight how much I actually miss my Grandma Trotta. I was living in Washington still when she passed away, and wasn't able to make it back for the funeral. I had no one to share the grief with, no one to seek the comfort from because they were hurting just like me. Worst, though, I think...I never got to say good-bye. My good-bye came in the form of a few emailed words written by me and spoken by my sister at her funeral, and a few fingers kissed to her gravestone-less mound of grass at the cemetery when I flew down for Memorial Day.
I guess this is as fitting a tribute as any, really. If there was one thing Grandma Trotta loved, it was to do things for the family, to make us grandkids smile. Well it did just that, Grandma, even if there were more than a few tears mixed in, and your little Nugget great-grandson got to try some as well; I do wish you could see him now, but I'm comforted here in knowing that the day he was born, he left your arms for mine. I miss you so much, and love you always. Give Otis a few extra belly rubs from me.

If one were to ask me how my day went, in the spirit of Grandma Trotta, my answer would be a smile and the simple words, "Miserably well."

"I gots rhythm"

Men out there, look away, and my deepest apologies to my brothers; my son is a dancer.

His exersaucer has a tree that plays music if its buttons are pushed enough times. Caden was pushing them deliberately to get to the music, and then as soon as it would kick up he'd start jivin - bouncing his feet, smackin his hands on the edge of the saucer, grinning. I managed to get the camera in time to catch him in the act. He'd stop when the music did, reach up and push the buttons, and then boogie once the music started up again. Absolutely hysterical. Honestly, when does this child not make us laugh?

Bouncy mattress + hilarious 8 month old =

...this. Last night I'd undressed him in preparation for bath time and had him in his crib. Well he discovered that his mattress is both soft and bouncy. He can sit up mostly on his own and now only tips backwards when he wants to. And he wanted to. Every time I sat him up, he'd flop backwards, bounce as he hit, and then laugh. Dunno if you can see it in the video (you can on the camera cause it's a little less grainy) but he's got little ab lines on his tummy from hoistin the casts and now his bar around. My kid is ripped! (and I'm kinda jealous!)

Camping...kind of

So the family camping trip to the cabin came and went a little faster for me and Nugget than it did the rest of the fam. We got the okay from the pediatrician to go up, and on Thursday he did just fine. Thursday night to Friday, not so much. He was up 4 times through the night (for a kid that's been sleeping through the night since he was 2 months old) and then wouldn't nap at all on Friday. After a trip to Mirror Lake on Friday afternoon, he threw up everything so I called it quits and he and I came home Friday night. We did manage to get a few fun shots of him though. This first one is when we just got there and I pulled him out of the car. He loves the outdoors:

This was a little later that day, Thursday. I put him in a back carrier and toted him about. LOVED it...obviously:

Thursday night. Both him and I are beat:

Nugget's nasty week

We've been really really lucky since Caden was born, and he's only had 1 cold since December. Well his luck wore out this week :( Last Monday night he was kinda grump, and Tuesday morning he woke up at about midnight with a fever of close to 101, had a horrible nasty diaper, and was all around just discontent. All that day he kept having nasty diapers, I couldn't keep his fever down, and he was completely uninterested in solids OR his bottles. Took him to his pediatrician and they're culturing for crypto, giardia (or however that's spelled) and rotovirus. Well the diarrhea kept on but by Friday he was KIND of acting better, his fever broke, and he was a little more interested in food. But he's gone back downhill now. The fever's back, the diarrhea's back, and now tonight he threw up twice and I had to force him to take his post-bath bottle, something he NEVER doesn't want. And his little bum is just so raw from it all, the diaper rash is horrible and it hurts him to sit for too long.

Dad and Aaron (thank you!) came over tonight to give him a blessing and he seems to be sleeping peacefully. I'll be calling the pediatrician again tomorrow regardless because after his bath tonight I noticed that his little fontanel is starting to get a little concave, beginnings of dehydration methinks. What a week to fall ill :( If he doesn't vastly improve by Tuesday, I'm going to have to call off camping with the family up at the cabin this weekend and stay home alone with him. No WAY would I be taking him up to the Uintas while he's like this. Poor Nugget. Get better soon, love!

"Tha's mah blanket.."

We discovered a couple of months back that Caden's a blanket baby. He never really took to a pacifier, and didn't stay interested in his thumbs for too long. But he loves him a good snuggle with a blanket. Tonight I went in to check on him around 10, and I just had to get a picture of the way he was cuddled with his blanket. He HAS to have it tucked under one or between both arms, and since my mom got him a seahorse that plays music and bubble noises, he has to be touching that too. I find it hysterically ironic, given everything, that his favorite blanket is his feet blanket.
Sweetest dreams, Nugget...

It's a zoo

We were kind of spontaneous on Wednesday and decided after Caden woke up from his after-therapy nap to go to the zoo. We packed up, headed down. He wasn't too impressed with the bigger animals, the open-enclosure type, because he couldn't really see 'em or understand what he WAS seeing when he did. But he loved the smaller critters. He squealed and scared a porcupine. Loved the leaves in the Madagascar hut. He liked the up close and personal encounter with the giraffe. One was in the barn and we walked in to say hi. His eyes kind of scanned up its legs and then he leaned back to look at the rest of it and his eyes got HUGE. So cute. His hair was also way spiky that day, and you can really see it against the backlight on the fence (picture enlarges when clickied).

We left about 5 ish, maybe 5:30 and realized we'd need gas before going home, so we stopped at a Sinclair in downtown Salt Lake. We filled up, I went in to buy some drinks, and when I came out Branden goes "You're going to love this," gets into the car, turns the key ... and nothing. Totally dead. It's near 100 degrees and Caden's asleep in his car seat in the backseat. Splendid. So in a "oh please oh please have left work late" frenzy, I call my sister. Aunt Sessie and her primo Nissan to the rescue - she was close enough that she flipped a u-ie and came back to meet us. We used her car to jump our (took us about 20 min to get enough of a charge though) and then she followed us home. Who knew a trip to the zoo really would turn out to be a zoo? In the 10 minute drive from the zoo to the gas station, the battery had totally died. Bless Nugget though, he was so patient. Didn't know what the heck was going on, didn't know why we were out playin' in the heat on a street corner but he enjoyed looking at the cars in the intersection and he got to spit-wash his Aunt Sessie's sunglasses, so what wasn't to like about the day?

"I can't stoooooop!"

We put Caden in his bouncer this afternoon....and he would NOT stop bouncing. He just kept going, right in time with the music of the bouncer. I only captured a few seconds of what went on for literally 7 minutes straight.

The "Caden Cuteness Trifecta"

We've discovered a few things about our Nugget. He's cute when his hair is spiky. He's way cute in stripes. And he's cute-coma inducing when he's in bib overalls. What do you get when you put all 3 together on the same day? Behold:

Blowing raspberries at the camera:

Martinis and formula all around!

Caden just rolled over! I've been working with him on rolling him from his back to his tummy, which is hard for him because with his Arthrogryposis, his hips are kind of stiff. Before I knew it, he'd tucked one arm, pushed up on the other, and over to his back he went. I thought, ok was that just an accident? Luck of the balance? Nope. I put him on his tummy again and not a minute and a half later, over he went. And then he did it 3 more times. No accident :D This is SUCH a huge accomplishment for him given the Arthrogryposis. And I found out yesterday that his name is Gaelic, and means "little battle" or "little fight". Little battle indeed :D Way to go, Nugget.

5 month pictures

We had Caden's 5 month pictures done earlier this afternoon. Ordinarily this would have been forbidden (taking a shot with my phone while the photographer was shooting), but I wanted to send a shot to Grandma in Texas and he was being so dang cute with the photographer she let me :D He LOVES his baths, so we had to use a bathtub prop :) More pictures to come, I'll post the link to the proofs when JP Penney uploads them.

900 numbers at this tender age?

Nope! But he's discovered that he can hold the phone for a few seconds all by himself, and he knows that Grandma's voice comes out of it.

And if Grandma won't come out of the phone now, he says, I'll just gum her out myself.

Linkage

So, I've gotten some questions regarding how to get at my book. Here's a link to the Amazon.com-ish site where it's being sold.

https://www.createspace.com/3381464

The price listed was not set by me (mine'd have been much lower!!), but it was the minimum allowed given the paper, the design of the cover, number of pages, etc.

So anyway, yeah. There she be :)

Bookworm

2 years ago, I did this thing called National Novel Writing Month. They hold a contest every November, and the goal is to write 50,000 words of a mini-novel in just one month. Well I won, got my 50k words in. The prize was an offer of free printing by a company that's an extension of Amazon.com called CreateSpace. So here it is, my first published and printed book ever. Was actually quite a rush to get this in the mail :D

Easter, a lazy day, and Mr. Gooey Face

Decided we needed an Easter picture. Caden here is chillin on the floor (still in his casts) in his Easter onesie, clearly not an unhappy child.

Here he is a couple days before that. His grandmother (my mom, bless her) has taught my boy how to suck his thumb. But why suck just one, when you can have both at the same time?

A couple of days after his casts came off, it was too warm in the apartment for snuggy clothes, but too cold for the AC. The solution? Bathrobe and bedslippers all afternoon :D That's a true man.

And last but not least, today we gave him his first try of baby cereal. He looked SO SMALL in the high chair! Little runt. So cute though. He was so patient just sitting there watch us get it ready, and then he nommed away. Only got about one out of every 4 mouthfuls actually in and down, but darn it was fun to watch him try.

Free!

Woohoo! We're out of the infernal casts! Hopefully for the very last time EVER. Here are a couple of pictures of him before his first soaky bath in 3 weeks. Bliss.

Can we all see the "thumbs up" in the one below? Yeah, we were excited. And just look at his beautiful feeties! They're SO straight now, and he can flex them all the way like they should. Amazing.

Ahoy!

So, I got a little trigger happy with the camera today. Bless his heart, he's not had hardly any sleep in the last 3 or 4 days, he's just been so uncomfortable in the casts that he couldn't settle into a deep enough sleep to STAY asleep. Finally last night we got the okay to give him some baby liquid Loratab, and that helped him enough that he slept like a dead thing. When he woke up he was happy, so I took a picture of him in his new sunhat (his one eye is wet looking because he's got a clogged tear-duct, not cause he's crying, hehe).

Took this one below the day before yesterday, when he was wide awake and had been for nearly 12 hours. He was "crabby" (friggin Garanimals onsies...)

He played in Grandma Bylund's swing for the first time the same day as the above picture was taken. Wasn't too sure what to make of it this time.

Knifed!

Ok, so the title makes it sound worse than it really was, hehe, but it was still surgery. Caden had both Achilles tendons cut and lengthened at Shriners on the 31st of March. Bless his heart, he was SO sore the day after, but he's still trying to be a happy boy. Kids are so tough, WAY tougher than mama is through all this, that's for sure!

Just some fun

So I realized I'd not updated this in a bit, at least not as far as putting up recent pictures goes. I managed to take some pretty cute ones in the last week, week and a half, so I'll slap 'em up below. This first one is what his new braces look like, the Mitchell Abduction Brace. SO much more baby friendly, with support that went all the way up the back of his calf instead of hackin at him right at the heel like the others did.

This is what the brace looks like with the bar detached. Yep, it snaps on and off. Again, so much nicer than the others where the bar didn't detach - we got a better fit with these cause we could put him in them just like regular shoes then slide the bar on. Poor kid, 2 months old here and already makin a fashion faux pas; socks and sandals...

This was what HE looked like after I put the bar back ON. His scowl is epic:

I took him up to get the mail again a couple days ago, but alas, in true Utah weather glory, it snowed that day. So I got him up in his Pooh snowsuit. He's a bit bigger than he was last time I tried this!

So there's a few updated pictures of my Nugget. He's getting so big! Early Intervention weighed and measured him on Monday, and he's now 11lbs 10oz, and a whopping 23 1/2 inches long. Heavyweight! Will update again with pictures and progress of Caden's tenotomy.

Little setback

Well, we've had a bit of a setback with Caden's clubfeet. While he was healing from the sores the first abduction brace caused, his feet relapsed. A relapse which was made worse by his Arthrogryposis. His heels tightened back up. We had an appointment at Shriners today, and he'll have to have his Achilles cut. They set us up for it next Tuesday.

It's an outpatient procedure; they'll put some numbing cream on the backs of his heels then let it set for about an hour (which is when the effect peaks), then they take him up to the OR and give a shot of lidocaine (the cream numbs him so he doesn't feel the lidocaine injection), after which they make about a 1/4 inch cut, move aside the tissue and stuff from the tendon, snip it, close it, and then immediately cast his feet to hold them in place so the Achilles can grow back to a longer, looser and proper length. He'll have to keep those casts on for 3 weeks straight, no changing them every week like we did in the beginning.

Poor Nugget, with new casts on it's back to the sponge baths. We won't be able to have fun full-dunking bath time anymore for a little while :( I really believe stuff like this is way harder on mom than it will be baby!

365 days, one little miracle

I was updating Caden's little event calendar tonight and something struck me as I looked at the date. One year ago today, I lost our last little one. That was miscarriage # 3 for us, and I thought for sure that that meant that I just wasn't destined to have children. It was always such a struggle just to get pregnant, and then when we did, I'd lose them within weeks. I almost didn't want to try again; I wasn't sure I wanted to go through the heartache again, wasn't sure that I could. But we did end up trying again, and after a lot of extra care from my OB and some extra medication to help, the gorilla glue finally stuck fast and we were blessed with this a week before Christmas:

Is he not the most yummy baby you've ever seen? Can't tell that I'm biased at all :) I cannot imagine loving something so small so much, so completely, so fast after first meeting him. It took 365 days of pills, some morning sickness, extra doctor's visits, and a lot of worries to do it but he's here, he's ours, and I wouldn't change anything about him, crooked feet and all, for anything in the world and I'd do it all over again just to snuggle him close and have him giggle in my face. I love you, little Nugget!

Blessing Day

I know I've been slacking on updating this. Here are some of the pictures from Caden's blessing day, February 8, 2009:

It was so wonderful. The blessing made everything so much more real. He really is here, he really is ours. It's so humbling to think that my Heavenly Father trusts me enough to send this special guy, with his special needs, to me to take care of for Him. Talk about overwhelmed.

Cheese!

This is the Caden I'm used to, not the sad boy he was a week and a half ago...stupid snowboard. He's my happy boy.

They SEEM innocent enough...

Friday Caden got his last set of casts off and was ready for his boot braces. He got to kick around for about an hour before we were sent over to rehab to have him fitted for his snowboard:

It was incredibly hard to get on the first time, and that night at home was not a good one. He wasn't used to not moving his legs independent of each other and the bar is significantly heavier than what the casts were. The ortho and rehab nurses told us to remove the braces every few hours for a few minutes to check for blisters and play with his feet to get them used to being touched - after 3 weeks in casts, they were hypersensitive. So we did. I bathed him at 9:30 that night, he fell asleep at about 10. Mind you, this was after he'd been crying and was pretty much inconsolable all day. He woke up at 2am to eat, and I changed his bum and took the braces off for about 5 minutes. His feet and ankles were a little red, nothing too serious. Put the braces back on, laid him back down. He slept again till about 7:30, ate, got a clean bum....
...and after only about 8.5 hours, this was what I found Saturday morning:

This blister (above) is what was on his right foot and where my pinkie finger is is a little black pressure sore. Below is what I found on his left foot. 2 blisters on the inside of his foot and that massive pressure sore all around the back of his ankle.

Put a call into the orthopedic surgeon on call and was told the braces stay off until we saw the orthopedic doctor treating his clubfeet on Monday. The blisters only got bigger and the pressure sore never diminished. He was squirmy and cranky all day Saturday (who could blame him?!) but by Sunday afternoon the screaming had turned into that high-pitched "I'm in pain!" chin-shaking, breath-holding wail. We ended up in the ER at Primary Children's getting the blisters lanced and the sores treated and making sure the little infections around the wounds were only localized and not spreading. We got home at about 10, and he cried/screamed until about 4 Monday morning. Saw his ortho on Monday afternoon. Braces are off indefinitely obviously until he fully heals. At that point she said we'll have to go to a plan B in his treatment. He'll probably need a couple of re-castings done to correct whatever margin of curvature his feet re-take after so much time without any support, but after that they'll have to find some other method of treatment since it's appearing he can't tolerate the boots. This doesn't make us happy campers, as it appears (and the ortho that saw us in the ER said so) that the reason he developed such serious sores so fast was that they probably mis-fit the braces in the first place. Grrrr. We were sent home with specialized dressings we change twice a day until we see her again on Friday to check the healing and discuss optoins for the rest of the treatment.

The sores looked better this morning and he seems to be going back to his normal mellow happy self. He's only needed Tylenol twice since early Monday morning as opposed to during the weekend, needing it every 4-5 hours, and he's sleeping a lot harder and falling asleep faster. He's actually doing better than his mama...I haven't cried this hard or prayed so honestly for someone else's relief in my life. My poor Nugget :(