Wordless Wednesday

Monkey see, monkey do:)

Take me out to the ball game!

We spent the a lot of time this weekend watching our nephews play baseball. It was fun to see how much they have improved since last year. Sam is playing "coach pitch" this year and Caleb REALLY wanted to play in his game (7 year olds). He would have fit in except for his size because his skill level is above most of Sam's team. However, I am not sure he'd be able to stay focused for 1.5 hours!

The weather was gorgeous today at Jake's game. Here's some pics:

Caleb, Sam and Isaac

Of course they had to get a little action too! (Yes, I still love to dress them the same/similar.  Not everyday, but I pick their clothes on Sundays and we went to the game right after church.)

Perfect Timing

We sang this song in church for the first time this week.  It was exactly what we needed to hear right now. I got a little sad at the beginning of it, but then suddenly felt peace.  I was reminded that God has great plans for our sweet baby, and even though it's not going to be an easy road at first, Caleb will be okay.  We will definitely be adding this song to our I-Pod!

Catching up

As most of you have heard, Caleb will be having a bone marrow transplant.  We will be leaving July 15th for Houston, TX.  Caleb and Isaac will begin pre-transplant testing on July 18th, and then if all goes well, Caleb will be admitted to Texas Children's Hospital on July 26th to begin chemotherapy.  On August 5th, Isaac will be admitted and Caleb will have his transplant that same day.  These dates may change a little, but this is the general time frame.

C will be in the hospital at least 5 weeks, and then will be seen frequently as an outpatient.  We are likely going to be down there 4-5 months.  Joel will come and stay a while during/after the transplant, but will then travel back to WI with my sweet IZ.  I don't even want to think about that at this point.  It makes me way too sad.

My current stress is figuring out where Caleb and I will stay after he is discharged from the hospital.  Apartments down there are EXPENSIVE!  They do have a Ronald McDonald House, but I have heard it's not a good place for "post transplant kids."  The social worker and I have been playing phone tag, so hopefully she'll have some ideas for us.

So anyway, thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.  I will try to keep this blog going during this crazy time.  We really haven't been up to anything other than playing baseball non-stop!  I have set up a Caring Bridge site for Caleb.  www.caringbridge.org  name: calebryan
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Isaac's imagination is in full force these days.  He has a couple new imaginary friends.  "Pane" is still his best friend and the one he talks about the most.  He also has "Can-Can-Can" "Turkey" and "Callen Blue."  The other night he asked me what we were having for dinner and after I told him, he said "But I HATE that!"  I told him he never had it before and his reply was, "Yes I did! I had it at Pane's house!"

And Caleb picked a movie to watch today that they had never seen before.  Isaac told him, "But I HATE that movie!"  After Caleb informed him that they had never watched it, Isaac replied "I already watched it at Panes house!  And I hate it!"

He's also very quick to blame things on "Can-Can-Can," because "he's naughty".

Contortionist

I bet you don't know anyone else who eats their ice cream like this! He is SO flexible. Because of this and the fact that he has low tone, the doctors in Texas were concerned that he might have muscular dystrophy.  Thankfully those tests came back negative! YEAH!

I am thinking about renting him out to the Chinese Circus! :)

Garden Party

Last Friday was Caleb's last day of school. It was definitely bitter-sweet. They had a "Garden Party" for the mom's. (They had a dad's night in February.) They had the common room all decorated with flowers and butterflies. Each child got to meet their mother at the door, presented them with handmade flowers and walked them to their seat. They were so excited and it was so cute.

They had made cookies during their Wednesday class (and then another mom and I baked them all!) So they got to "serve" us cookies and punch. You could definitely tell Caleb has eating issues as the other kids were up getting their 4th, 5th, and 6th cookies before he had even finished half of one.  I don't think he actually even finished it.  (And I was thinking to myself, "Hurry up! I want another cookie!!!")

Then they sang a few songs for us. Caleb might not appear to be listening during school, but he definitely is as he knew all the words to the songs (It took him a little while to get going, but by the last song he did great!) Here's a little video of 2 of the songs they sang:

Picture of his class:

Two of the nicest, most patient teachers you will ever find:

Caleb with Emily and Abby H. (Isaac's girlfriend)

Caleb with Jake, Noorah and Allison

It was definitely a great end of the year program. I am just sad that he's done with Playschool now! He's been with a lot of the same kids and one of the teachers both years, so it will be much different when he goes to kindergarten. We did find out that Emily, who Caleb adores, will be at his school next year. So there will at least be one familiar face:)

5 and a half

Since Caleb's birthday is so close to Christmas, we started doing a small party for his actual birthday and then a "half" birthday in the summer. It works out great because then he can get summer stuff and the party can be outside. This year, we combined the party with his cousins, Natalie (5.5), Will (4.5) and Jaxon (3.5).  That way Joel's grandparents didn't have to travel for several parties.  Of course the weather was crappy for most of it, but I think everyone had lots of fun anyway. Isaac felt really left out though, so I think we'll include him too next year.  Although he keeps telling me that he doesn't want to be "free and a half or four" because he wants to be "free" (3) forever!

Don't let this purple tongue fool you into thinking he ate a cupcake! That happened from one little lick of frosting! There must have been a ton of dye in them!  I didn't take any pictures of the other kids, but they were all a purple mess!!  Of course IZ didn't have one because they looked too messy:)

He got TONS of presents, but I think this is his favorite. (Maybe we can now throw away his turquoise guitar that only has 2 strings?!) He continues to LOVE music.

Still waiting....

Still no word from Texas, other than them calling me last week saying they were going to call me back this week:(  In the mean time, Isaac is sick again.  It seems like he is healthy one week and sick the next.  Two weeks ago, he ran a 104 fever for 3 days and had viral strep.  This time he was croup, which he also had a month ago.  It came on very suddenly as he wasn't sick at all yesterday. I was on the verge of taking him to the ER last night because his breathing was terrible and he was hysterical which made it worse I am sure.  I ended up taking him of bed and we got cozy on the couch for a 4 hour marathon of "Tom and Jerry."  He didn't sleep, but his breathing/coughing was a little better.  (2AM-6AM). He got a round of steroids today so hopefully tonight will be better than last. His doc told me today that he sounded really bad and since croup is worse at night, he wouldn't be surprised if we are in the ER tonight for nebulizers.  Great.  Hopefully the steroids will calm the inflammation enough to get us through tonight and then he'll get more steroids tomorrow.  And we are hoping that Caleb won't get this crap.  I have a terrible cold too, which is ironic since I didn't have one the entire winter and now that it's nice out, I get sick!

Both boys were weighed while we were in the clinic.  Isaac: 34 pounds, 9 oz.  Caleb: 31 pounds, 8 oz.  Caleb's eating has been terrible lately.  He's back to mixing/mashing all of his food together and taking one bite every 20 minutes and pocketing his food.  Even getting one stinking hot dog into him is a fight.  Sigh.....

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Sporting his hand-me-up-down from Isaac:)

Sporting his brand new suit:)