Photos!

"Life began in a garden."

Oh my goodness! I am so happy :o)

I am such a "work in progress" when it comes to blogging. I love to write! I love to take photos! And I am proud to say that I finally took the time to learn how to put photos on my blog! Yep - there's a button you click on. Not too difficult. I feel like going back and adding photos all over the place, but I'm not going to. I will start adding them now. I am also proud to show off one of the two pumpkins the Sherman Farm grew this year. Woo Hoo! Not bad for our first year. Every year we say we're going to make a jack-o-lantern for Halloween, and we don't. No excuses this year!

I haven't been on here for a little while. I meant to get on for our second son's birthday last week. We now have 2 built-in babysitters! Happy Belated to our "Eepy!" I'm not sure where that nickname came from. But we like it. Plus, he would like to be an author someday of "scary" children's stories. He is a big fan of Goosebumps. And his books are going to be "Eepy's Creepies." Nice. Look for them in the next few years.

Two of our homegrown pumpkins.

So our son, Noah's, teacher sent me an email. Noah is a little tired of his classmates asking him about his tics so she asked him if he'd like to teach the class about Tourettes. He would! Awesome! His teacher ordered a book to share with the class about Tourettes and accepting other people's differences. Sharing with the school and his classmates, was the biggest help to our oldest son who has Tourettes. B is a wonderful role-model for Noah. B handles his tics very well and is great with teaching others about TS.

Ok. My little "Noah humor" this week...Noah was upstairs and yelled down to me and my husband, "What is the password for the computer? I wanna play a game." We told him to wait and one of us would be there in a moment. After a minute, Noah impatiently asked again. So Tom says "It's supercalifragilisticexpealidocious." There was a 5 second pause, then we heard, "How do you spell that?" He cracks me up.

Tourettes Uncovered

"Life is simple, it's just not easy."

Please spread the word to watch Tourettes Uncovered on Monday night at 8:00pm on the Discovery Health channel. The more people know, the more they will hopefully understand. Our oldest was diagnosed a few years ago, but looking back, we knew early on that there was something going on in his little body. He is now a teenager and is very positive about his TS. I'm sure there are moments when he really wishes he didn't have his tics. There are places he can't go, things he can't do, and people that don't understand and think it is something to make fun of. He does have "friends" that joke around with him, and that seems to be something he doesn't mind. When it's done with kindness, it's not a bad thing. If it makes my son smile, it's not a bad thing.
Our 2nd son had an eye tic a couple of years ago, but we never pointed it out to him. I'm not even sure if he noticed it. The tic has gone away, but OCD has welcomed itself. I also have OCD, so we talk about it together and even joke about it. It helps us both.
But now our 8 year old is struggling. He started having terrible headaches and tics over a year ago. He would come to us crying and screaming that his head hurt. Scary. Then he would shake his head and cry because it would make his head hurt more. And he couldn't stop. We took him to a neurologist who set Noah up with a bunch of tests. They found a cyst in his brain, but didn't think it was causing any of the symptoms. They did find through one of the tests that he might have seizures someday. I still don't know what that means. But thankfully he has never had a seizure and the cyst has not changed. We are still dealing with headaches and increasing tics.
Last year Noah started slapping himself. His teachers told me they thought it was to get attention. Honestly, that made my heart sink. The people that are with my son 5 days a week thought that what he was doing was something he could control - and I knew it wasn't. I tried to explain to them that I believed it was a tic, but I had to get a note from his neurologist to give to them - because I'm just his mother right? I don't know anything about my own child. Frustrating. So here we are starting a new school year, with a new teacher and in the upper elementary school building. I am once again going to try and educate about TS to those that spend all day with my son. I am trying very hard to keep the "Momma Bear" side of me calm. It's a bit difficult because they don't see or hear everything I do. They don't know that when my oldest started having full-body tics and cursing at a young age, his younger brothers were scared asking me if that will ever happen to them. And I couldn't give them an answer. We needed to wait and see. They don't see my little boy struggling to read and write his homework while his hand has to touch his face every 2 minutes and his head shakes and nods uncontrollably. They don't hear my child cry that he can't stop shaking his head even though he wants to because his head really hurts.
Noah has always had a lot of energy and has always been a tough little kid. But he is also very loving and caring. He is creative. He is fun. Anyone who has ever really gotten to know him, loves him. And man, is he honest! I am going to write a book with all of his quotes someday. It will make you laugh.
And after 3 little sisters, Noah finally got a little brother - and he is amazing with him. Jacob is like his best little friend right now. Everyday, Noah gets out the dinosaurs, the transformers, and the power rangers and shows them to Jakey. Noah gets so excited to show Jacob all the great boy toys around our home.
So next week I am hoping that many people watch the special about Tourettes on Monday night, and I am hoping that I have people with open minds and hearts at the meeting I am going to at Noah's school to discuss his IEP and schoolwork. I pray that they are understanding of what Noah needs to succed this year.

Get going!

"To get something you never had, you need to do something you never did."

Has anyone noticed the date today? It's 90210 day :o)
It's also - get going day! Today I am cleaning out the closets. What a job! And now that I have started it, I can't quit. Right now you can't even walk into our boys' room. I am waiting for my 2 youngest ones to take their naps so I can get back to work. 1 down, 1 to go. Trying to fit 3 girls into one room is not too bad. Trying to fit clothes for 3 girls into one closet - nearly impossible! The boys are even tighter. 4 boys in one room. They don't seem to mind. I am just tired of trying to fit baby Jakey's clothes in there. We could turn our loft into a bedroom, but our children said they don't want to. The loft is their hang-out room. Their bedrooms are just for sleeping. We did find the most awesome beds for them. Our girls and our boys have bunkbeds w/loft bed. Three beds that take up only 1 bed space on the floor.
With school starting and 5 children gone most of the day, I am also trying to do some things for myself (during nap time of course.) Crazy right? I am trying to convince myself that I can do whatever I set my mind to. I am really good at giving the motivational speeches to my children - to my husband too. Why is it so hard for me to listen to myself? Maybe I should record my voice - or look into a mirror. Remember that character from SNL that used to do that? Ha! I have a picture of me from my wedding day where I am looking into the mirror. We had a good laugh when I started quoting the SNL character: "I am good enough and people like me."
Lots of decisions being made around our home. Lots of prayers. I need to feel very comfortable with any decision I make. I don't like to force things to happen - still trying to figure out if that is a good thing or if that's how I allow myself to stay in my comfort zone.
Gotta get going! Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Our little peanut

"Celebrate the little things in life."

Happy Birthday to our little peanut Sarah. 3 years ago she came into our world weighing only 4 lbs. She did very well being so small. She came out screaming. They let me give her a quick kiss, then they took her to the NICU. Tom followed. After I was all taken care of, my Daddy came in. My friend had brought my daddy to the hospital - and my camera. I was put in a wheelchair and taken to meet my daughter. It was difficult seeing her all hooked up in the NICU, but we knew she was being well taken care of. I spent as much time as I was allowed in the NICU. There was one doctor that took a great interest in Sarah. He was amazed at how well she was doing. When he ordered tests for her, he would call down to the lab to make sure they did it immediately. The first night, she did stop breathing once and there were some concerns and thoughts of having her moved downtown to the Children's Hospital. But little Sarah was strong. She loved having her little feet rubbed. She would straighten her leg and stretch out her little toes. The lactation consultant came in on the first day and asked me if I wanted to try feeding Sarah. She told me that I should tell the nurses that I wanted to feed my baby. The nurse I had was wonderful. She helped me to hold my little bitty baby and helped me get her to latch on and nurse. She did great!
Later, Sarah's brothers and sisters came to the NICU and took turns holding her. Most people would be nervous holding such a little baby, but each of our children were very comfortable holding their baby sister. Brandon even gave her a bottle.
My mother and father came to visit. They were only in town for a couple of days. I guess Sarah wanted to make sure she got to meet them before they traveled overseas. And we had a few friends and neighbors come meet Sarah at the hospital too.
We had an idea of giving our baby the name Sarah if our baby was a girl. We still didn't have a middle name. The hospital kept telling us we had to pick a name soon. They kept coming in to have the Birth Certificate filled out. We thought we still had a few more weeks to pick a name, so there was a little bit of pressure. But then I decided I wanted her to have my name - and Tommy agreed. Sarah Christine.
The day I went home, I was miserable. I remember pacing my room and I started to panic. A nurse went and got my doctor. He came in and helped to calm me down - then the "tough love" happened. He looked at me and just told me straight that I had to go home. My other children needed me and Sarah would be just fine in the NICU. I could come visit her every day. Which I did. Tom drove the 30 minutes every morning before work to sit and give Sarah a bottle. When I could find someone to watch my other little ones, I would go for Sarah's 2nd feeding. I would also go at bedtime to feed her and tuck her in. Taking care of 5 children at home and driving back and forth to the hospital for Sarah, and getting up every 2 hours during the night to pump - was exhausting! I did have one night where I finally brokedown. I was leaving for the bedtime feeding when I just fell to our laundry room floor and cried. I was so tired, but felt the need to go see our baby. Tom told me it was ok to just stay home and take care of myself for one night. Tom called the hospital - used our password "precious" - and spoke to the nurse who was taking care of Sarah that night. I got on the phone and she reassured me that Sarah was ok and that she would hold her and cuddle with her for me. Nurses are the best.
The song "Sarah Smile" by Hall and Oates came on 3 different times while Tom and/or I were in the NICU feeding Sarah. Great song. Perfect lyrics. I had never really paid attention to it before. One of the nurses was sitting with me when it came on once. She said "Just wait until it is her wedding day and she has her Daddy-Daughter dance to this song." Wow.

Small movement, Huge relief

"Sometimes it is the little things that mean the most."

3 years ago today was one of the scariest days of my life.
I was pregnant with our 6th child and due mid-October. The night before, I was sitting on the couch and was realizing that I had hardly felt our baby move all evening. I drank some milk, ate a snack, and just sat still. Every once in awhile I would feel a little nudge. I figured that maybe there was just not a lot of room left - or maybe the baby had been moving a lot earlier and was now resting. My parents had been over visiting, so I figured I just hadn't been paying close attention and didn't notice. I went to bed.
When I woke up, I was immediately nervous and scared. Our little baby always kept me up or woke me up during the night from all his or her rolling around and kicking me. Nothing. I went downstairs to get my oldest children off to school and to tell my husband about my concerns. Again, I drank some milk and ate a little something to try and get our baby moving. All I felt were little nudges here and there. Something was just not right.
After my husband left for work and our older children left for school, I called my doctor's office and spoke to his nurse. She told me I needed to come in. I told her I would have to call my husband or my parents and see if one of them could come & watch our 1 1/2 year old daughter, Leah. I told her maybe I could come in in a couple of hours. The nurse told me - No, you need to come in right now. That is when the panic set in. I told the nurse I would have to bring my daughter with me and hung up. Just then, there was a knock on my door. My friend's little boy was at my door checking to see if Leah could come out and play. Wow! God works fast :o) I grabbed Leah, went outside, and told my friend what was going on. My friend took Leah from me - Leah was in her diaper only - and told me not to worry and to just go. I know God puts certain people in our lives for a reason.
I grabbed my purse and left. I called Tom on the way and through heavy tears told him I was on my way to my doctor's office, the office near the hospital. Tom met me there. They set me up for a non-stress test. After an hour or so, the doctor was not comfortable with what he saw. Our baby was being very "lazy." He sent us over to the hospital for an ultrasound. One of the scariest moments of my life. The ultrasound tech put the sensor on my tummy and we all stared at the screen. There was our child. Amazing. Beautiful. But completely still. His/her heart was beating, but there was no other movement. The tech started poking my stomach, trying to get our baby to do something, anything. Nothing. Tears were streaming down my face as I closed my eyes and prayed. The tech continued to search for movement for about 15 minutes - though it felt much longer. He continued to poke my stomach, I continued to close my eyes. Suddenly I heard the tech yell - Did you see that?! I quickly opened my eyes, tried to focus on the screen, and said - No. He then told me that he saw our baby's foot twitch. Then I saw the little foot inside of me move. A slight movement, a huge relief. I then closed my eyes again and thanked God.
Our doctor came in and, needless to say, told us our little baby didn't pass his/her test. At first they were going to just keep me overnight and observe, but then decided that they weren't comfortable with that plan and I would be induced right away. As long as our baby's heart tolerated the induction, they would not do a c-section. I got hooked up and then the pediatric specialists came in to visit with me and Tom. Our baby was going to be 6 1/2 weeks early. We needed to hear what that meant for our child's health. They made sure we understood everything. Then we waited.

Jacob is 1

"I celebrate you"

Happy birthday to our littlest love, Jacob Edward.
Jakey wanted to start his day off right - with Mommy :o) At 11:45 last night, Jacob woke up. At midnight, we were downstairs together. I did a little videotape then we cuddled on the couch until he fell asleep in my arms. One year ago today I held Jacob in my arms for the very first time. Jakey is a beautiful, amazing little boy. He has brought much love, joy, and care into my life and into our family.
And now the birthday day is coming to an end - just as it started - with Jacob in my arms. Sleep tight little one. May you always feel the love, care, and comfort you do right now. Mommy loves you.

Love is Waiting

"May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams."

Wow! That quote makes me think of my Bench Dream. (I wrote about that in an old blog.)
One year ago, Tommy and I were very excited. We went to my OB appointment and were told I was 3 cm dialated and asked if we wanted to have our baby the next day. What a feeling - to know you are finally going to meet someone you already love so much.
We went to the music store with smiles on our faces and just walked around looking at music we might like to listen to at the hospital. Of course, we always do this, but have never played music in the delivery room. There are a lot of things you think you might need or do in the delivery room, but once you are there you just kind of "go with the flow." At least I do. After the store, we had lunch at Ruby Tuesdays.
We went home and asked my parents if they would like to meet their newest grandchild tomorrow. I don't remember how well I slept that night, but it was comforting to know my mother was staying the night and we would be going to the hospital in the morning.