Popcorn Popping, Blossoms Bursting?....It's Autumn isn't it?

Kaylyn, our 22 month old daughter has, just in the past few weeks, fallen in love with a song. "Popcorn Popping"
It's a fun little children's song and the words go something like this;

I looked out the window and what did I see?
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
Spring has brought me such a nice surprise,
Popcorn popping right before my eyes.
I could take an armful and make a treat.
A popcorn ball that would smell so sweet.
It wasn't really so, but it seemed to be,
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.

There are corresponding hand and body movements and we sing it every week in the nursery at church. We also sing it at home, and have done so with all the children when they were little. Along with 'Old McDonald', 'Wheels on the Bus', 'Patty Cake', 'Five Green Speckled Frogs' etc.
For the past week or so Kaylyn will call each of us by name. Whoever happens to be nearest to her usually. "Way Wes" (Weston), "Nyay Nyay" (Jameson), "May May" (Megan), "Mo Mor" (Morgan), or "Det Det" (Jensen), (We have no idea how she came up with some of those pronunciations.) Also, 'mommy' or 'daddy, and she will say with resolution or sometimes questioningly, "Cop Cop" opening and closing her fists like two little 'jazz hands' (the movements for the popcorn popping). This is her way of asking whomever she is addressing to sing the 'Popcorn song' with her. Just this morning she actually said "Pop Pop", she is making some improvement on enunciation! :D
I am blogging about this(more to help us remember than anything), not so much because of Kaylyn and the 'toddler things' that make her so adorable to us, but to put down how impressed I am with the other children.
Kaylyn will often want that same song done as many as a dozen times in a row. Barney, or Mr Rogers I am not! I love children and doing things with them, but repetition gnaws at any thread of sanity I may have left. I still sing the song, I think 8 times in a row is my best with her, before I move on to at least another song. I have also added exaggerated movements, sniffing at the 'smells so sweet', pausing and bugging my eyes at 'spring has brought me such a nice surprise'. To the point that the song surely bears little resemblance to the one with the same title in the song book at church. :)
Kaylyn is just SO enthusiastic and loves that song so much right now! Every one of her siblings has 'performed' for Kaylyn every time she has requested that song. I am not kidding. Every time. Even when I have been the driver in the car, thinking, 'if I turn the radio on, pull over to ..., put in a book on tape, throw a toy at her(reading this through I had to edit this to say a toy for her to play with, not to knock her out!), etc, maybe she will get distracted and move on to something new. But Kaylyn's siblings adore her and have the patience I no longer have, or never had in the first place.
Bless their ever loving hearts! :D

Kaylyn tells 'Doctor Dad' she thinks she is sick.

Thomas sent this photo to me a few mornings ago. I had taken Jameson to his early morning seminary class and Thomas was at home getting the others ready for school.

We have had a virus in our house since last Saturday, beginning with Jensen and Megan having sore throats and fevers that day. The virus has been moving through every one of the children this week. Megan and Jen missed 3 and 4 days of school due to the fever. Anyway, there has been much temperature checking and pampering of those who 'do not feel good' in our house this week. Kaylyn, 22 months old will not to be left out of anything that goes on. Being a through and through younger sibling she laid her little body in Mom and Dad's bed and put the thermometer in her mouth in true imitation of so many of her siblings. She was telling her 'Daddy' that she was sick...

She did end up getting sick(maybe from sticking that germ infested thermometer in her mouth-who knows!), but is doing better now.

Jensen and Those Pesky Head Bumps

So today I took Megan to see her oncologist for a scheduled appointment. Megan continues to do great! I took Jensen as well and just asked the doctor if he thought the 'bumps' on her head are something I should be concerned about. Should I have her seen again or to stop stressing over them. He proceeded to give her a full physical exam and ask me questions.


"No they have not always been there."


"No she is not running fevers, or having problems with bruising, or headaches etc."


Of course he then, in giving her the exam, discovered her shin bones with their numerous bruises and mentioned them...Jensen is a busy rambunctious girl and has those normal shin bone bruises associated with her level of activity. She doesn't have any bruises that don't want to heal.

He checked her lymph nodes, her spleen, liver, etc. and seemed to find, or not find, pretty much what I had or had not found. He then told me that they were probably benign lumps but that he was going to contact Jensen's regular pediatrician and share with him some things about the examination today. He did have a name for them but I can't remember off the top of my head. He wanted to get an x-ray. He also told me to call him if there were any changes; fever, more/bigger bumps, bruising etc.
He said to Jensen to try not to think about her bumps. Our six year old then responded with obvious exaggeration and sighing; (For those of you who know Jen this will make perfect sense.) "It's hard not to think about the bumps when my mom feels them every day-ay!" Holding back his laughing the best he could the doctor then told her, "Well you just try not to think about them and I will talk with your mom!" So much for my telling her to let me do the talking to the doctor! That whole 'children sitting quietly' idea would be incomprehensible to our Jensen!


So, we will see the oncologist again in two months. Our pediatrician may see her again between now and then. I am supposed to check the bumps on Jensen's head when I wash her hair.


The doctor talked to me about our insurance. (He wanted to make sure that adding her to his clinic(She has never been seen there before.) is something that would be covered by the insurance and he had her name added to their records.


All in all I feel much better. I feel better because the bumps were given at least a potential name with that wonderful 'harmless' word attached to it. I feel better because I know the doctor gave Jensen a thorough exam. He is a thorough doctor.

I no longer have that phrase, "I have no idea what they are." running through my brain. Not to mention that the doctor also did not make me feel foolish for being concerned about the bumps on her head.

Now, on to the next few days and Easter/soccer activities. :D

Today has been a good day.

Fun Looking Easter Recipe

The children are all out of school Thursday and Friday this week. We also have one extra child with us on most of the days the children have no school. I was thinking tonight that I need to come up with a project to do with them. I think we are expecting rain then so we really need a little structure if we are all going to be inside together...
I received an email which included several Easter recipes.

http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes.php?categ=87%2C182%2C161&ls=p&nl=RZ-040709-eaters-digest__main-link-url-1

I think I have decided on a version of the following recipe with the 'nests' made big enough to sit little 'peeps' chicks on them. I thought I had an original idea until I saw someone else has already used the peeps in a different nest recipe. Oh well, maybe I will have an original idea tomorrow! ;)

http://www.recipezaar.com/Easter-Nests-with-Jelly-Bean-Eggs-87879

They look fairly easy and I think the children will have fun making them. There are additional recipes with rice crispy treats etc. for the nests. I just liked these because they look a little more like a nest, at least in the photo. I will post later with photos if we actually accomplish this goal. :)

Jensen

So here I am, stressing out about something that is probably nothing. A few weeks ago we found some bumps/lumps on Jensen's head. Jensen, our six year old daughter, who is acting fine for the most part, had a few lumps on her head(around 4 or so). I phoned the clinic and took her in to our pediatrician feeling a little silly for doing so. Initially he thought they were something that had always been there. I assured him that while I am a busy mom, I do wash my child's hair on a regular basis, not to mention that we sometimes snuggle and I rub her back or the back of her head and I know that these lumps are fairly new. Not new enough though, that they are from bumping her head, which was his next thought. (Also wouldn't it be strange for her to have multiple bumps from trauma on her head. I would probably suspect abuse if someones child had numerous bumps on their head from trauma.) So then he decided that he didn't know what they were and he was going to have an x-ray done. We talked a little more and I asked him what the x-ray might show him. He then decided that maybe we would not expose her to radiation now and we would just wait and watch.

That worked for me for about a day.

Since then I have googled bumps, lumps, lesions, cysts, etc. and have found nothing that might explain these things on her head. I also discovered a few more, albeit smaller, ones last night.

-GROAN-

I have also palpated her lymph nodes of which a few are larger than normal. (Which I know is not uncommon in a 6 year old child.) And I have been reassessing her recent personality changes. She has been much more whiny and a little more tired than usual. I am the first to admit that these last things can be chalked up to my overactive imagination. That they could be a manifestation of a 'stage' (to my personal horror, that was always what my mother called it when I was an unreasonable child-not that I was EVER an unreasonable child) she might be going through. That she is a little more tired because she is in the midst of a growing spurt, etc.

I know having had Megan diagnosed with leukemia and subsequently in chemotherapy treatment for 2.5 years is part of what is fueling my paranoia. However, when a doctor tells me "I don't know what it is." I cannot help being frustrated. Knowing would allay my fears. When a trained professional doesn't know, how can that be a good thing? UHG!

So, there it is. My best hope, now that I have this off my chest, is that 2 weeks from now I will feel silly for actually putting this in writing.

Below are some photos of Jensen

Photos of Kaylyn 16 months old.

The title of the blog 'splains the photos.

Not a whole lot to blog about. Getting little sleep zaps my creativity I guess. :D I am hoping to get some photos up soon of the children's soccer games... Thanks for checking in!

March 25, 2009

So, I have had a bit of a reprieve from insomnia, until the last few nights. Here's my whine..."It is so aggravating!"
Today/yesterday really. Thomas had an appointment to: adjust the settings of his cochlear implant, receive and set up a new FM/blue tooth system for his cochlear, and to be evaluated for the need for a cochlear implant in his other ear.

My side note here is that the appointment took two hours and I forgot to bring a stroller for Kaylyn. Kaylyn, has become a busy explorer. It was a long two hours...

Anyway, Thomas was able to get the FM system for his cochlear and he is so happy about it. The FM system works with blue tooth compatibility with his cell phone. so that when he answers his phone, he can now hear whoever calls directly in his cochlea. The device can also connect wirelessly to an mp3 player and any electronic device with an ear jack(I think that's what they are called.) He also has 2 different microphones, with different ranges, that he can use in groups, or in a meeting at work that should help improve how much he is able to hear during a group discussion. This is all very exciting for him.
Because Thomas speaks so well, even I forget often just how much he misses. Without the FM system today, he scored 0% when he was tested on how much he could hear with background noise. When tested with the FM system, he scored 73%. For a person with normal hearing, that's not so great. That is a person missing over a quarter of a conversation. For Thomas, that number is HUGE!
It's so fun to see something make him so tickled and happy. Right now, he is kinda like a kid in a candy store. :D Try calling him sometime! He might just hear you!