Rockin with Thomas

Caden loves Thomas. There's no other way to say it. He can name the engines in the beginning and closing credits of every video. He can mimic some of the videos and 'say' what the characters say. He parrots with a 'yes sir' (and he says it so clearly, it's hilarious) when the engines talk to the railway owner, Sir Topamm Hatt. The most recent installment of hilarity is the video below - Caden rocking out to a music video at the end of one his mostest favoritest videos, The Great Discovery:

Christmas Eve chaos

What a busy day! But it was so much fun. We went to Branden's dad's in the morning and Caden got some GREAT police vehicles - a jeep and a helicopter - and a super cute outfit. After naptime we went to the Randall Christmas Eve party. It started with some 'look how much room I have to explore!' playtime on the stage:


Then there was some zoning out at dinner while Brad's wife Lori gave him a splendid back rub (something's he's loved since he was teeny tiny):


We had one meltdown which required some away time...in the nursery where he found his bestest train friend Percy:


This find brought much joy:


Which was followed by some 'who the heck are you, mommy says not to talk to strangers' anxiety (this was as close as we could get him to Santa this year. Oh well):


We came home just in time to start making cookies for Santa:


I showed him how to use the dough dropper:


He had to show me my dough dropper:


Had to do some more stirring:


And then had to put the dough globs (from the second batch) on the pan all by himself as well as putting Santa's cookies on the plate:


After all was said and done, he had his bath, sippy cup cuddle, T'was The Night Before Christmas story time, all followed by the quickest and hardest crash since his birthday fun (he was rubbing his blanket wad over his face just as I snapped, so his face is blurry):


And while visions of trains named Percy and Thomas danced in his head, Santa helped me wrap his presents and set them just so under the tree:


I'm so excited for Christmas morning I can't hardly stand it. Whoever says Christmas is just for kids is SO wrong. It's for the kids' parents so they can see their children's faces.

Caden Temple

I turned my son into Shirley Temple. The male version. He had Early Intervention people coming yesterday and his hair was bedhead-y so I spritzed it to tame it...and he sprouted a head full of curls. It's just like his daddy when his daddy was this age, and I love it. Am I a bad mother for being tempted to see what he would look like with a girly headband?


The back:

2 years and a few 'where the heck did the last 24 months go' squeals

Wow, really? 2 already?! It's so hard to believe that my little Nugget is 2 years old today. 2 years ago today (2 years and about 2 hours to be exact) we welcomed our special little boy into our lives. As the days and months progressed, we came to realize just how special he is to our entire family. He has such a sweet spirit, embodies such a pure joy, and I cannot imagine life without him. I can't seem to recall, or understand, how life was before him. He's getting so big (relatively speaking; lil runt barely tops the scales at 24lbs right now, hehe) and so smart and I love it and hate it at the same time.

Birthday hijinks ensued today. He got such fun stuff, and was so excited about the most hilarious stuff. First present he got to he peeled open rather delicately...and then his eyes got so big and he let out this little exclamation of absolute joy when he saw it was a bag of fishy crackers for his very own. His great-grandma Randall couldn't get the bag open fast enough for him, and he thanked her (in his cute sign language) profusely for several seconds and on and off for the rest of the night. He was so patient when we'd stick another present in front of him to open when I could tell all he wanted to do was play with the one he'd just opened a few seconds ago. He wanted nothing to do with his cake because he noticed the Thomas the Tank Engine cake topper on it - which he quickly made off with. He was happy all night, made the rest of us laugh all night, and all around was a very busy birthday boy. Mommy and Daddy love you so much, Caden!

The Thomas cake:


1 lonely unopened present on the coffee table (rest were in the kitchen out of sight still):


And inside he discovered the best present ever, the fishy crackers:


I can open this one too, right?


Taking a break for fishy crackers:


Back at it:


A set of mini Fisher Price's Little People cars he couldn't stop playing with:


This one is SURE to have something fun inside:


Opening presents is hard! (he was making grunting 'heave-ho' noises here):


Thomas pj's!!


Bow-headed:


Cake time!


Ppfftt, forget the cake, I just want the Thomas topper:


Hypnotized...


Such a big boy!

My "Thankful for" 's

Yeah, yeah, I know, I've been like the apostatized blogger with how long it's been between this post and my last. I shall make my "I'm really not that pathetic" pathetic amends with this post.

There've been a lot of people doing this 30 days of Thanksgiving thing on Facebook, using each day to jot down and share what they're thankful for. I've been naughty and haven't updated on Facebook in forever either, so I'm doing 'em here. In no particular order that has anything to do with its level of importance to me (yeah, this is pretty much just a brain-vomit), my "Thankful for" 's. They may or may not have an explanation attached:

~ Family
~ Friends (both here at home and abroad)
~ Modern medicine (and, thanks to said modern medicine, pain meds)
~ My Nugget
~ The way the human brain works in perfect harmony with its body's needs. Caden will be 2 in 3 weeks. His spoken vocab at this point is probably no greater than about 10 words. If even that many. Why? Because of his birth. From Day 1 with him, the almost entire majority of focus in treatment for him was centered on the physical; his hands, his feet, his limbs, his joints, fine motor, gross motor, everything motor, all trying to get his little tight body to loosen up, straighten out, just work properly. Babies and toddlers cannot multitask cognitively. If they're trying to master, say, talking, then chances are their gross motor skills - crawling or standing or walking - will take the back seat. With all the emphasis being on the body, this was what my Nugget's little brain zeroed in on, so it was speech that got stuffed into the broom closet so he could focus, undistracted, on moving. His therapists say that this is the reason he is walking without help, walking at all. Now that he has that down pat, his speech is starting to develop because his little brain can bring it out of the cellar and dust it off. We're in so much trouble. He's going to be rattling off the Declaration in a few weeks.
~ Sign language. With his speech delayed because of what's noted in the paragraph above, I've still been able to communicate with my monster because of sign language. He's been able to tell me when he wants to eat, when he's had enough, when he wants more, what he wants to drink (milk, juice or water), when he wants his bath, and 'say' things like Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and Sessie (Aunt Steph), cracker, cereal, book, train (so he can watch Thomas), signing (so he can watch his Signing Time videos), and so much more. Frustration (and thus tantrums) is virtually nonexistent because communication is still possible. All of his needs can be met when they need to be, with me understanding what he needs/wants when he tells me and he can tell me. All of my adult life I've worked with the disabled, and the vast majority of that was with the deaf. Now I know why.
~ Our new house (which I still need to post the decorated pictures of...)
~ A husband that works so hard to give me and Nugget what we need
~ A close ward
~ Technology that keeps me close to loved ones not nearby
~ Lots and lots of blankets
~ Hot chocolate!!!
~ Specialist doctors. I cannot imagine what Caden's quality of life would be like right now if it weren't for doctors like Ponseti who were inspired enough (and in tune enough with that inspiration) to develop the treatments they did. He'd have had goodness knows how many major surgeries by now, all of which would have been painful and would result in even more restricted mobility later in life, if not for the simple method of casting and with those castings moving the foot into proper place.
~ Therapists. Not going to name names, but they know who they are. To give of their time to come to my home and use their talents to help my Nugget a day 2, 3, sometimes 4 weeks out of the month almost swamps me with gratitude I'll never be able to adequately, or fully, express.
~ Knowledge of the gospel
~ Date nights (when we get them)
~ My sense of humor
~ Being able to keep said sense of humor during crappy times
~ Snow (*gasp* I know. But Caden'll actually be able to really experience it this year, and I'm way excited)
~ Clean water
~ A healthy son
~ Stuff to make him feel better for the times he's not so healthy
~ My skills in writing
~ My lack of skills in winter sports (with how much my body, 'specially the hands, hates cold, I can't imagine biffing it into snow from skis and calling it 'fun')

I really could just keep going. It's amazing how the stuff just starts flowing once you think about life from minute to minute, about what you do or have in those minutes from day to day.

I know I don't have any pictures to go with this update (is that even legal in the blogging world?), so I promise to put some up with the next post. Hopefully some of Halloween, and the house with, y'know, stuff actually in it. Which'll probably be....not tonight. Seeing as it's 2 in the morning, I'm going to hobble my way to bed and crash. Which leaves me with a very big 'thankful for':

~ Look, a bed! *claps hands once and dives on*

He's out!

Shriners appointment today, and Caden's out of the casts! And he doesn't need another set. They still don't know if he'll need the AFO's or not, so they're going to watch him for 2 months, then see him back. If his heels are popping up again in that time, he'll need them. If not, he won't. But between then and now he has feet again! Or rather, he has feetsies I can kiss again :) He's not a huge fan of the actual process of getting the casts off (he's a little phobic of things that go buzz, go figure), but once they were off he was raring to get walking. And it was hilarious. As we were waiting to get him fit for the next size up in Mitchell clubfoot boots, he kept clomping around as if he still had the casts on because he was used the weight. He was a little wobbly for a couple hours (and he turfed it HARD at Aunt Sessie's work), but by the time it was bathtime, he had his land legs back.

The bath. OH the bath. Bath bliss. For both of us. He was a little wary of getting into the tub (we've been having 'lay on the kitchen counter' sponge baths for 2 weeks), but once his feet hit the warm water and the water came up to his knees, he just kinda went "ooooooooo" and sat down like "oh MAN that feels gooooood." He was so relaxed after the bath, he must have felt so much better to have a real soaky bath again. And I know he smelled better, he had stinky cast feet. We put on his new "n-night shoes", had us a good snuggle with the bottle, book, and toothbrush (yes, he likes to hold onto his toothbrush during storytime....nut), and then he was out cold in about 10 minutes flat.

It's days like today when my feelings are at diametric odds. I get so discouraged, so sad for him, when he has to have things done (like these casts), or when I think ahead or even think of now and realize I have to buy shoes that'll fit braces, buy jammies that'll accommodate the Mitchell boots and bar instead of ones that look cute or super warm, or think of the things he might not be able to do later like hold a pencil securely, squeeze the handlebar brakes of his first bike, and can't do now like make a fist. On the same token, it has been so rewarding to watch him adapt through this all. He's writing his own rules to the development book, and those rules work for him JUST FINE. He is the personification of perseverance for me. He doesn't care what's thrown down in front of him. Life tosses him lemons? He doesn't make himself a mere glass of lemonade, he puts up a stand and makes bank off the earnings.

I love my Nugget so much. His journey has been scary, things we've been told during it have been disheartening at times, but I wouldn't change a bit of it. My 19 month old son has shown me what it means to be a real man, and he's my superhero.

New 'wheels'

Not a very fun day for mommy and baby today. For about 2 weeks I've been noticing that Caden was walking on the balls of his feet, instead of his heels coming all the way to the floor. I wondered if that meant a relapse in his clubfeet (which is possible with his Arthrogryposis alongside the clubfeet), so I called his care coordinator at Shriners last Thursday. They wanted to see him as soon as they could, so they made us an appointment for this morning. So me and my mom and Nugget drove down and sure enough, x-rays revealed that it's not just his tendons and muscles that are tight, but his heel bone is no longer where it should be, it's slid up again a bit. Really aggressive therapy just wasn't going to be enough, so they had to put him back in casts. Luckily for us both, they're not the hip-to-toe casts that his initial castings were because they're not trying to correct recurvature of his feet, just trying to stretch his Achilles back out. They also said the reason that he's walking on the balls of his feet is because of his Arthrogryposis - his legs don't straighten so with his knees contracted like they are (albeit not as severe as they could be), the only way for him to find balance in that 'hunchback' position was to pop his heel up and walk on the balls of his feet. He might need some AFO's to correct that after he's out of these casts, but they'll make that determination in 2 weeks when the casts come off.
For viewing pleasure, here's my hero already figuring out how to walk around the house in his casts without holding my hand, not 2 hours after he was casted. I love my man:

We moved! (The "befores")

FINALLY. We're finally out of that awful apartment complex, and more importantly, away from our psychotic violent neighbor. We've moved to a little home in North Ogden on the E side of Washington Blvd, and we love it. It has a huge yard (yay, Nugget's never had a yard of his own!), two massive living/entertainment rooms, an enormous kitchen, great laundry area...everything about it is just fantastic. Caden loves it. He was so sad every time, while moving, we had to leave the house and go back to the apartment at nights....there's so much room for him to grow. Here are the 'before' pictures. I'll put the 'after it's decorated' pictures up as soon as, well, everything's decorated and it no longer looks like we just moved in!

Standing in the back of the kitchen, looking into the laundry/storage area that leads to the back door/carport:

Right side of the kitchen (laundry room door in the corner there), standing at the doorway between kitchen and first living room:

Left side of kitchen, standing in the same place. Sliding glass doors lead onto a cement patio:

Right side of the second living room, looking from about the half-way point. Door leads to the patio off the kitchen:

Standing in the hallway to the bedrooms/bath, looking across first living room into the second. Front door is on the left of the big window, kitchen entrance is to the right:

Flipped around in the hallway now, looking into the bathroom, which is on the left of the hall:

Master bed, right across from the bath. Second bedroom is on the left at the end behind Brando...forgot to get that picture:

The back yard, looking from the driveway next to the back door. Yes that whole thing is yard for Caden (shared with the house to the right - which you can only see the back garage of - that Branden's aunt lives in), complete with a dog named Max:

"Mom" guilt in technicolor

So here are the pictures. Proof of my failed reflexes and of Nugget's trooper-ness through all of this. Took these yesterday, and he'd gotten burned on Thursday night. This one's from the top:

View from the side.

Bless his heart, he's so brave every time I have to change the dressings. If I can distract him with the camera (he likes to thumb through the 'review' feature and look at all the pictures already on the camera), Branden only has to hold him down through about half of the process (the cleaning, re-ointmenting is the worst). I did end up throwing the curling iron out. He's definitely doing better with all of this than his mom.

"Mom" guilt

Right now I am grateful for several things. First thing - adrenaline. Why? It hijacks every other synapse in the brain but 'action'. Second - pure melalueca oil, non-stick Telfa bandages, Coban, and I thank GOD for an aunt and grandmother guardian angels that have faster hands than I do.

I was curling my hair before a family picnic in Kaysville. I finished. I turned the iron off. I didn't even have time to move the cord out of my baby's reach when his curiosity spurned him to pull on it and the iron caught him down the right leg. I've heard that scream before, when he had those horrid sores and pressure wounds from his clubfoot braces, and tonight I heard it again. At first Branden and I couldn't see where it had caught him, and then when I turned him around to check his face, we saw his knee. The iron was so hot still that where it touched him first, it took the skin with it right away, and where it hit him second blistered instantaneously. I had Branden hold him to keep his hands away from it while I dumped out my medicine drawer, scrabbling, PRAYING that I could find some melalueca oil...I wasn't even sure I had any in the house. Found some. Doused a cotton ball, soaked his leg with it, drenched a Telfa bandage and slapped that on the burns, then wrapped it all with coban to keep it on and keep his leg clean. I had time enough to grab a shirt (forget the bra) and the diaper bag before we ran out the house and up the ER.

My little Nugget was SO brave. The oil numbed him enough to calm him down on the drive, and he held my hand while I sat in the backseat with him, eating his cherry puffs and drinking his milk from his sippy cup and playing with his toes. He was even smiling and jabbering as we waited a few minutes in the waiting room. They're second degree burns. Sooo the doctor and nurse put some topical lidacaine on, gave him some num-nums (ibuprofen, he likes it), and let it all peak before they came back and had to debride the skin away. THAT was not cool. He screamed...but the fact that there were no tears associated with it was the dead giveaway with him that he wasn't actually in pain, he was just PISSED as all get out. When they were done and had him wrapped up again, he sat up and started grinning, jabbering, eating more puffs. And as we walked out about 90 minutes after arriving, he told the nurse 'thank-you' (he signs it), and just made the whole nurse's station smile. He didn't cry a bit on the drive home, just snugged his blanket. When we got home I wiped him down with a warm washrag, slathered his favorite lotion on his arms and chest, and we had a bottle and he went right to sleep.

I know he's okay, really...I've had 2nd degree sunburns before, I know they heal and they heal without issues...But the guilt. My word, the guilt. The cruel irony....I curl my hair about twice a year, if even that. I thought tonight it would be fun to have it wavy, look good since I just got it colored. I'm tempted to throw my iron out now, I get sick just looking at it. I know it could have been so much worse....he could have grabbed the barrel with his hand, it could have rolled down his face or his chest, but it didn't. It got the top of his right knee only, where it won't crease in a joint, he won't sleep on it, I can keep him in onesies or shorts for sleep so it won't rub on anything, and his clubfoot braces will keep his legs apart. It'll sting tomorrow, but I know he'll be fine. Now if I could just get rid of my guilt as quickly or as easily....why does your children's growing up have to be so hard on the parents?

Surgery and twice-baked Nugget

Life has been interesting lately. I know I've been slacking in my blogging, and I apologize. I've been having some problems with my left foot for about 2 months. At first they thought it was something called plantar faschiitis. They did an MRI to figure out what they could do. That MRI showed what appeared to be a cyst over the nerve junction on the top of my foot. I had surgery on Friday the 11th to remove it....
...and there was no cyst there.
Yup. Had my post-op follow up yesterday and, long story short, I have a muscle running down the front of my ankle that, instead of stopping there like it should, goes all the way down to my big toe, and the doctor said it's HUGE. It's been basically crushing the nerve into the bone below it, and the 'cyst' he was seeing on the contrast MRI was actually a build up of fluid from the inflamation from the damaged nerve. Owie:

We'll know in about 5 months, he said, whether or not permanent damage has been done; there's no way to tell how long this uber muscle has been squishing the nerve. If the damage is permanent, then the nerve is dead and and he'll have to go back in and resect it, or take it out. Until then, it's a waiting game. In the meantime, I'm off my foot save for potty breaks, only minimal weight bearing for 2 to 3 weeks. It's SO hard. Caden doesn't understand why Mommy won't get up and play with him when he grabs her finger. It upsets him, which upsets me. Luckily for both of us, both Grandmas have been taking good care of him. He's been having fun and knowing that he's taken care of helps me rest easier. I'll have pictures of his hijinks at Grandma Berrett's up in a few days when I get them off the camera.
And speaking of the little monster, a couple of days before the surgery he discovered a wonderful new place to play:

I was washing some dishes and had my back turned to him. He was taking pots out of the drawer in the bottom of the oven, and then I heard 'clank bang clank' and turned around...and nearly wet my pants I was laughing so hard. He had climbed in and had this grin on his face like he was king of the mountain. He played/sat in there for almost 45 minutes. He thought he was so cool. I love my little Nugget. His personality is going to make my recovery so much better.

He's walking!!!

It's been a couple of weeks now, but this is the first time I've been able to get a really good shot of it on video. Caden is walking!!!! We were told so many times when he was tiny that because of his Arthrogryposis that he probably wouldn't be able to without the help of walkers or arm crutches or some kind of adaptive equipment, but my little Nugget just gave all his doctors the royal "I'll show YOU" finger. His legs are still kinda stiff, and he kinda does the penguin as he walks, but he's walking. Not all the time, and not everywhere, but I'm going to take what I can get. Love this man. I'm so proud of him. He thinks he's all bad, and he is :) You go, Monster.

The mohawk hairdo is not his norm, by the way, but it's like that because he was so tired the night before I shot this, that he went to bed without wanting his bath first so he had hair gell in and woke up with crazy-head, hehe.

Fishies!!

Caden LOVES fish. He loves to watch "Finding Nemo" and he makes fishy faces when he does. So with Branden and mine's combined parental genius, we got us some season pass tickets to the Aquarium. We took him today. After we ditched the stroller (he was FREAKING OUT because of the gobs of people and how dark it was) and just had B hold him, he had a ball. He got to touch the manta rays in their pool (drenched his sleeves, didn't care). He squealed and put his face right up to the glass with the coral tank. Made fishy faces and giggled at the ginormous fish in another tank, and had penguins right up in his face next to the glass. We had so much fun. And he crashed HARD on the drive home. This and the zoo passes we got last month are probably going to wind up being the best investments we have ever made.










Lemme in, lemme in!!



These last 3 were in a little boat prop they had in one of the hallways. My little safari dude:


Nugget overboard!