Snow Day

We finally got some snow! Actually it was more ice than snow, but it was fun. Here are pictures and a couple videos from our winter walk.

The Dudes

We spent the weekend playing Lite Brite, taking walks, going to the movies (Hotel for Dogs for Daddy and Seamus and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for Me and Ga,) and hanging out with the Dudes, a lot.

You can download different Mii characters that other people have made into your own system so now besides the four people who live in this house, Spiderman, Scooby Doo, Mickey Mouse, Tigger and a slew of others also play Wii with us. Seamus calls them his Dudes.

Yesterday, I finally tore him away from the Wii and we decided to have a tea party. He invited some of his stuffed animal friends (also called the Dudes): Barney, Curious George, Spiderman, and Andy the Handyman. Seamus knew tea parties were fancy so he asked me to wear a dress. When he said he wanted dresses for all the Dudes, I told him boys wear suits and ties so we invaded Daddy's closet.






I have a potty training story, so I'm warning you, if you don't have a toddler, you might want to skip the rest of this post. As I've written about in earlier posts, Seamus has been making great progress but CF really throws a wrench into things, as many of you are aware. He goes through phases when he's getting blocked up and he won't poop because it hurts too much. Then so much pressure builds up...

We've started a funny little thing that has helped and maybe it will help somebody else. At least I think it's a funny story to tell his kids one day.

One day he was sitting on the potty not going but I could hear his stomach churning so I knew he had to go. I said "Your poop is saying "Let me out of here, I want to get out""

After giggling a little, he was able to go a small amount and said "Now what's it saying?"

"Woo hoo, let's have a party. And the poop still inside is saying "I want to party too, let me out!"

He kept going and wanted to know what they were all saying so I started singing all the songs about parties I could think of.

So now every time he goes we sing party songs, like "Let's Get it Started in Here" by The Black Eyed Peas, and "Get the Party Started" by Pink, and "Who Let the Dogs Out."

I'm running out of song ideas. Anybody have any good suggestions?

Inauguration

I've been meaning to write about the Inauguration. We live just a few miles from the Capitol building but we decided it was going to be too crazy to try to go down there. I watched it on tv with Ga and Seamus and Daddy went to a neighborhood party to celebrate.

Seamus has known about Barack Obama for a long time. I didn't know how much to get into it the importance of the occasion with him because as far as he's concerned there's nothing that needs to be discussed. He sees absolutely no difference between Obama and any other man so of course he could be president. We live in a very diverse area and Seamus has friends of all colors and ethnic groups. He has good friends who have parents from El Salvador, Nigeria, Latvia, and Korea.

He did understand something big was going on when Pete Seeger started singing "This Land is Our Land" at the concert at the Lincoln Memorial and Mommy and Daddy were both crying. (That was awesome, wasn't it?) He came in sat in my lap and said nothing, which is very difficult for a three year old.

One day we will talk about the significance of the first African-American president and what that means for all of us but for now, I want him to hold onto his innocence and to believe anyone truly can be what they want to be, including kids with CF. I can learn a lot from a three year old.

Thanks for the Award

Courtney, Tooter's Mommy has given me a blog award! I am to send it to my new blog friends, and they are to pass it along to their new blog friends. It should go to those who step outside their comfort zone, and make new bloggy friends.

I send it to:
Marcus at RT Student Blog who doesn't have CF or have a family member with CF but has quickly become a friend to many in the CF community. He is getting the word out and raising money for us all.

My mom at Donna and Terry's Adventures in Maryland who is definitely out of her comfort zone. She is not very tech-savvy but has jumped right into the blogging world. She's had a tough year and I'm very proud of her.

From the Brain of Seamus

"I have a brain."

"You sure do, honey, a big brain."

"If somebody climbed into my ear, they could go for a ride on my brain."

Can't argue with that.

Ladies' Man

At first I thought this was cute, but the more I thought about it, I think it's a real problem.

Seamus is so cute and charming that all the girls at pre-school keep kissing him. They fight over who can get his coat for him when they go out to the playground.

I'm no prude so the kissing itself doesn't bother me and I'm glad he's so popular but they are germy little three year olds! We've fought hard to get the school to understand the importance of hand washing and keeping Seamus shielded from sick kids but I don't know what they can really do about this.

He's too young to understand and he likes the attention. I can see this is just the beginning for my little ladies' man.

Dealing with questions

I was reading another CF mom's blog yesterday. Her 5 year old daughter has started asking questions about CF and why she has to do her treatments every day. The mom's not sure how to handle them.

I suggested this book, Little Brave Ones:For Children Who Battle Cystic Fibrosis.. It's written from a little girl's point of view who has CF. There are lots of pictures of her doing her daily routine as well as other kids with CF from all over the country, having treatments but also just being regular kids. Seamus loves it because he knows they are real kids just like him. We talk about how some kids, like Krista from the book and him, need to do certain things that others don't to stay healthy.

We also spend time surfing the blogs. There is a great community of CF families who blog. I used to think it was a great support for James and me but now I realize, Seamus can get a lot out of it too. He loves to see pictures of Samantha, Phoenix, Lil' Chris, Olivia, Seren and Dylan, and lots of others. So keep up with the pictures, CF bloggers. Seamus loves it!

Quiet

Not much going on lately. Seamus had another home clean out last week and an appointment with his GI doc. He has some concerns that the flovent treatment he's been on for his EE for almost a year is now causing fungal esophagitis. His episodes of DIOS seem to be happening more frequently, and although his food allergies and EE aren't directly related to his DIOS, anything that affects his upper GI tract seems to have an impact on the lower GI tract too. He has to confer with Seamus' allergist but it looks like another endoscopy is in the near future.

Although Seamus still mentions that pooping hurts and has a stomachache most of the time, he still is in pretty good spirits. He went back to school today which makes him very happy. It's really easy to make Seamus happy. I wish I could have the same attitude.

Finally, Christmas pictures

We finally got our computer back so I could upload the pictures from our camera.

I also wanted to post about New Years. The four of us went to dinner and then Ga went to church so the Colemans had a little celebration at home. We all made hats (that seems to be a big thing lately) and had sparkling grape juice in wine glasses. Seamus really liked his glass because when we went around and made toasts about things we liked, he kept saying "Here's to Cups!" Then we all clinked our glasses and said "Cheers!" After about ten rounds of that with increasingly harder clinking, we had a little countdown and he went to bed in his brand new big boy bed. He really felt like a big kid.



On Saturday, we had a big party to celebrate our new addition. Seamus was in heaven again. He just loves being around people and being the center of attention. He's such a ham.

Breath-ing

It's been a while since I've posted because we've been very busy at our house. We had a nice New Year's, not very eventful, and then on Saturday, we had a big housewarming party to celebrate the new addition to our house finally being done! I'll post more about those later, with pix, but I wanted to write a quick post while yesterday was still fresh in my memory.

The last couple days have been rough with Seamus' GI issues. His DIOS symptoms (Distal Intestinal Obstruction Syndrome) are back again even after spending a night in the hospital three weeks ago for a clean out. Even though he has not been feeling well, we needed to get out of the house. We decided to go on an adventure yesterday to a local nature preserve that has lots of trails where he could ride his scooter.

It was a short car ride but he was very tired by the time we got there. After riding his scooter for about 5 minutes, he was exhausted so I started carrying it. I noticed he started to lag behind so I said, "Are you too tired?" and he responded, "No, I'm just happy."

The air felt really good so I showed him how to take a deep breath through his nose and let it out with a deep exhale through his mouth. He liked the feeling of the cold air so he repeated it over and over saying "The fresh air is nice. I'm breath-ing."

As I watched my beautiful boy, I literally lost my breath knowing I could never take this simple act for granted. "Breathe, my love, breathe."