Friday, April 8, 2011

A Family Update

Despite bumps in the road, Elizabeth is doing well and continues to delight us with her sweet and quirky perspective on the world. She was sedated on Tuesday in order to get another set of tubes put in her ears, and after waking...while still quite loopy and lying in bed, she chose a princess crown as her prize for being such a good patient. Without missing a beat, she took it from me, put it on her head, and waved her hands in the air and said, "I'm a princess indeed!"...and went back to sleep. She's the source of much laughter and delight and keeps Ruby on task with many instructions to "say and do this and that" all day long.

Two weekends ago, Matt took the big girls to a children's oriented performance at the Symphony. Both were beyond excited and talked of nothing before the big day and since. Unfortunately the actual performance was only viewed by an enthralled Ruby as she sat under the supervision of an usher so Daddy could comfort Elizabeth who was melting down over who knows what in the lobby. We still don't know what the problem was, but as soon as the whole thing was over and she was home, Elizabeth talked on and on about how much fun the day had been.

Ruby is 3 going on...in charge of the world. She sat down in the kitchen where Matt and I were cleaning up last night and with a huge grin said, "I know, when you are gone and daddy is gone...I'm the boss!" and was completely stumped when we reminded her that no, probably Elizabeth would be the boss if we were both gone. The child was born to rule a kingdom somewhere. She's writing most of her letters now and she and Elizabeth are doing a lot of sounding out words together. She's a shark at the memory game on the ipad and loves taking care of Hannah. This picture was taken when she fell asleep 5 minutes before her quiet time was over...

Hannah is doing great. She’ll have an appointment with an allergist this week and hopefully we can settle things with her rice allergy and start weaning her off her reflux meds. She's popping another tooth, this one on top and is eating all sorts of table food, including green-smoothies! Who knew she'd love kale and spinach and flaxseed oil so much?? She continues to be an angel, and is raising the bar pretty high for Baby Girl #4. She's finally crawling, and may start to walk soon...which would be nice since she's 23lbs now!! She's signing 5 words and saying a bunch including "all done!" which she usually says after I tell her to stop playing with power cords...

The babe is still growing and after a day of some more active contractions following my trip to Children's Hosp. with E on Tuesday, things are more calm and I'm encouraged that I don't seem to be on the cusp of premature labor yet...I've got an ultrasound scheduled for the 20th, so hopefully we'll have some good news then. Until then, I remain on modified bed-rest and though I'm dying to take the girls on a walk or to the park to enjoy the beautiful spring weather we're having...we're doing a lot of backyard play right now.

We did make it out to the park over the weekend....Matt (AKA: Super Dad) let me come and watch. We decided it's a good thing the park has 4 swings...it won't be long until we need all of them!

Finally in HUGE news, Matt has recently discovered 4 more genetic mutations causing diseases in his patients, and received word yesterday that he received the NIH Grant that he wrote last fall. PRAISE THE LORD! We feel like God is pouring out such favor and I can't help but wonder if he's reaping a reward for such faithfulness here at home. He's truly been incredible and at the very time in our lives when he's been most committed to being an excellent dad and husband, he's receiving such blessing at work. (of course it's also no surprise to his wife since he's such a hard-working smarty pants) He's thrilled, of course, and now just has to make it through 2 1/2 more months of 5 clinics a week and the paperwork that goes with them. Starting July 1, he'll have 1 clinic day a week and the other 4 days, will be research days (read: working from home!! ;) totally kidding of course, but he will have a lot more flexibility and THAT is a total blessing.

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