Science Olympiad

Yesterday was the Science Olympiad for J. It was a lot of fun!. J was in Time Machine first. This is the Rube Goldberg like device. I'm proud to say that for 2 years in a row now - J, his friend Jordan, and Brad took first place. I have to include Brad as he's the one doing the work with the kids. Next event for J was Mystery Engineering. They had a few supplies and he and his partner had to build something that would let marbles roll down. J thought they did really well but they only mentioned 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and he didn't take any of those places. The last event was a spur of the moment event and J and his friend Jordan did science password. I have to say that I knew this was a bad idea as I had seen the 2 of them do blind basketball and that was pretty hysterical - but we made up some notecards for them to practice throughout the week. Basically, partner A is given a science word and has to give partner B only one or two worded clues. Partner B has to than guess the word. If partner doesn't know the answer, he can say any word to get another one or two worded clue. Let me say that the words were very hard and they got zero words. Let's just leave it at that.

Overall, we had a lot of fun. We weren't expecting the first place in Time Machine either as there was a lot of great machines there. I think it boiled down to following the directions to a T. The directions were very specific and Brad and I had read and re-read 100 times to make sure the kids were following all the rules. We also got the machine to go on the first try!!! Posted to the left is a pic of J and J with their 1st place device.

D updates

I've delayed on posting about D's test results from the holter ECG, because mainly I've been in shock. Thursday it hit me driving back to work and I have to thank my friend, Brandy, for letting me vent for a little while. We found out Tues afternoon that the 24 hr testing showed lots of PVC's and inconsistencies - not what we were expecting or hoping to hear. I really wasn't expecting this. We are scheduled to see a specialist in electrical pathways down in Charlotte on April 7th. We'll see what happens than.

Kids Songs

Ok - while I'm thinking about I want to write down the songs that I made up for each child when they were little. I had to think back to remember J's song as I haven't sung it to him in a long time. D's song, I still sing occasionally to him and we're still going strong on AB's song.

J's Song:
I Love You. I Love You. Let's get up and play.
I Love You. I Love You. Let's play catch today.
I Love You. I Love You. Maybe we'll get some ice cream today
I Love You. I Love You. Let's get up and play.

D's Song:
I Love you in the morning.
I love you in the evening.
I love you, I love you - all of the tiiiiimmme.
Bum, bum, bum. Cha, Cha, Cha.

AB's Song:
Baby Belle, Baby Belle
I love your dark hair and chocolate eyes.
I love your sweet kisses and hugs all the time.
Baby Belle, Baby Belle
I love you, yes I do
Baby Belle, my Alyssabelle

Always Something

I guess in the midst of dealing with AB and her "special needs" I haven't thought about the boys being sick or having "special needs" as they appear healthy. Unfortunately, last week at the boy's yearly physical - the dr. detected a heart murmur in D. Our dr was very encouraging and I tried not to worry as much about it. Wednesday, we had an appt with a pediatric cardiologist and the great news is that the heart murmur is what they call an innocent murmur and structurally his heart is fine. Unfortunately, during the EKG they detected an irregular heartbeat. I still don't really know what all this means. We went home with a holter ECG (portable heart monitor) for him to wear for 24 hours so they can determine if its a "consistent" or "inconsistent" irregular heartbeat. Is anyone else as lost as me???? Apparently - a consistent irregular heartbeat is a "low serious" abnormality whereas an inconsistent irregular heartbeat is a "high serious" abnormality and requires further testing. Also, D's heart is smack dab in the middle of his chest directly under his breastbone - not common but not unheard of either (fortunately no issues associated with this).

I have to say that the dr was great and she was wonderful with D. Why do they have to say "low serious" and "high serious" - isn't serious, serious???? I don't understand. Basically, what I do understand is that I know nothing. And another thing, while I'm at it, what 5 yr old complains of chest pains. The dr kept asking us if he was complaining of chest pains - he doesn't like swimming class now, why, does its hurt? I don't freakin know if it hurts - I thought he was just being a typical 5 yr old and didn't want to do the swimming strokes - now I don't know. Than let's follow up with "do you have any questions". I have no freakin clue what you said - I just found out my son who has always "appeared" healthy and active now has a heart problem and I just found out 2 minutes ago - no, I have no questions. Someone please calm me down.

"Several deep breaths later". OK - I'm not a bad mom. A few hours later, I came up with a whole bunch of questions and when we turned the portable monitor back in, I left the questions with a nurse asking her to have the doctor call us to answer our questions. I guess I was in such shock and still am that I just didn't know what to ask or where to start at. I don't want to overreact but I also want to know what we're dealing with as well and know what to look for. It's going to take a week or so to get the results back from the 24hr monitoring and we should know more than. Till than - it's just worrying for me.

Updates & Surgery

Well first off, I need to say congrats to Brandy and Jerry on the recent wedding. We had a blast at the wedding and reception. The kids all got out and danced and had a great time - even J was dancing.

Well we have AB's next surgery date scheduled. It will be May 27th. Hopefully this one will take and it will be the final one. Also, on a brighter note, we've discovered that AB looooves Strawberry Ice Cream.

We did however have both boy's yearly physical's yesterday and it was discovered that D has a heart murmur. We are going to have an ultrasound down locally with a pediatric cardiologist to be sure that it's nothing serious. We're trying not to worry about it right now and just waiting to see what the ultrasound says, but I guess it's normal for mom to worry. It if was me, I wouldn't think much about it - but with it being one of my babies I just can't stand it and wish they could have done the ultrasound the same day so we would know for sure.

Happy Birthday Boys!

Happy Birthday J and D!!!!! Both boys had a great time at their bday parties despite the persistant cough and the snow.

I'm not sure if the adults or the kids had more fun at J's party. We had a UNC/Gaming party and played 5 minute mini games from 7p to 1a every hour for UNC prizes. The 3 legged race that resulted in one team purposely running into another team was quite hilarious and the Blind Basketball at 10p was almost more than I could take in laughter. All in all, I think J had a great time and he's now a pre-teen. I can hardly believe that my baby is 10 years old now. I remember him being 2 years old and putting VeggieTale VHS cases on his legs and saying "Look Mommy".

D had a StarWars/Darth Vader b-day party at the Dock play place. Unfortunately, it snowed - this is a rare occurance in NC. This resulted in many people canceling but his 2 buddies and his friend from school still came and he loved his Darth Vader cake. We also played lots of games, went on the bumper cars and Grandma bought dipping dots ice cream for everyone! I think he had a lot of fun too. He also loved his games that he got for the Wii and he won a toy water gun from the game playing so that was "pretty awesome" too. He's also now a big boy at 5 yrs old and the best part is he loves that mommy came to his school and had lunch with him. He can also do all the morning neccessities by himself now - since he is 5.

Well I'll post some pics later tonight or tomorrow from the parties. Definitely before we leave Thursday AM for Brandy's wedding this weekend.