Cheeky Antics

Over the last two nights Lucas has done something at dinner that we only laugh about :)

Last night, Lucas was mucking around and talking while Chris was reading the Bible and praying. So after he had finished, Chris pulled Lucas close and told him off for doing that. The cheeky monkey decided that he would put his fingers in his ears so he didn't have to listen!!

Then tonight, we started to get Lucas to repeat his prayers. Chris was trying to get him to say "Jesus" and repeated the name a few times...Lucas responds with "DADDY" and a cheeky grin. I couldn't help but laugh and that was the end of it...Lucas wouldn't stop giggling either :)

I'm sure we will be sharing many many more cheeky stories of Lucas and his antics over the years to come. And his latest play area is the bottom of our pantry...he loves to crawl onto the shelf, get my attention and give me a cheeky smile. Gotta love that boy...life is definitely not dull with him around :)

Thank You

♥ THANK YOU ♥

We just want to say thank you to everyone who has and is supporting us through this uncertain and difficult time. We certainly appreciate all your comments on our blog, on facebook, emails and cards. We also apprecaite those that have come to speak with us directly.

We also want to thank those that have made us meals and those that have offered us meals and babysitting. We appreciate all the contact, offers and prayers :)

KEMH Appt & Albany Trip

A chilly good morning to our blog readers :)

Its been pretty cold so far this morning...and I'm really feeling the effects of not having warm, winter, maternity clothes!! Since Lucas was born in February, i didn't have a need to buy winter clothes, as i could get away with my "normal" clothes. But in my defense, the shops aren't stocking winter, maternity clothes yet..well the shops I've visited anyway! Over the weekend i finally bought a jumper from a normal shop. Its a knit, so will stretch with the ever growing stomach, and its a bigger size. I don't care cos its WARM :)

Last Friday we had another KEMH appointment. There was a mix up, so we ended up seeing another sonographer specialist. She was good as she reaffirmed what our normal specialist has been telling us. The baby continues to do well, despite having CDH. As of last Friday, it appears that no other organs have moved up into the chest cavity which is good news. The baby also continues to track along the same percentile line for weight, which is also good, as it means the baby is growing consistently. We also received quite a few print out of the photos. Unfortunately they don't scan in very well, so I've just added the one photo, of the babys' face in 3D. Its looking straight at you :)



"Hi everyone"

After our appointment, Chris and I hit the peak hour, freeway traffic to head home, pack up the car, pick up Lucas and drive down to Albany. Even though the weather had been pretty wet and miserable in Perth for most of the day, we were fortunate that it only rained off and on for the last 75km or so of our trip down. And the roads were very quiet, making it an easier trip. However, our little man isn't the best traveller and he only slept off and for the last 75km too. Its quite hard to entertain him when its dark outside and its hard to turn around and offer him toys, food, drinks and dummies. But we managed :)

On Saturday, I had a friend and her daughter come over to visit. Our kids are very close in age, and it was great catching up with her again. I have no photos though as i forgot to take the camera along :(

After coffee, my mum, sister and us 3 headed into town for a coffee and to do some maternity clothes shopping!! I successfully bought a jumper as i said earlier and a long sleeve top that was on special. We spent the afternoon at home, playing Wii.

Dinner on Saturday night was lasagna, salad and chips...yum! Then, after we all pitched in to clean up, we played games.

Sunday was uneventful. We had church in the morning, coffee, cake and lunch at mums, before my aunty and one of my cousins who was in town for the weekend popped in. It was nice to see them again, especially as its highly unlikely we'll see them again before the baby is born.

Now its Monday morning and I am attempting to "catch up" on things that weren't done over the weekend. The household chores of washing and folding, plus cleaning up everything we took for our weekend away.

Hoping you all have a good, enjoyable and busy week. For us, the actual weekdays aren't busy (yet) but we have busy weekends coming up. Bucks parties, weddings, soccer games, visiting with friends, a trip to Busselton, birthday parties...and for me, the dreaded pregnancy, glucose test...ugh :( and its the 2-hour one! But oh well..needs to be done, part and parcel of being pregnant i guess..and it means that we are another week closer to meeting the new baby :)

p.s. and i just realised by looking at the pregnancy countdown clock on our blog that we have less than 100 days to go now!! YAY we are down to double digits :)

Lucas & Baby

Lucas is starting to develop a fascination with "bubby". Throughout the day he will come up to my tummy, calling for "bubby". When he wants to talk with the baby, he thinks he has to lift my shirt to do so. And he loves to give the baby cuddles and kisses. So much so, that when Chris was taking photos of me at 24 weeks pregnant, Lucas insisted on being in the photo.

Italy and Holland

I came across this story/description on the CHERUBS USA website and thought it was very poignant, not just for our family, but for every family who has a child who is "different" through a disability, a health condition, a learning difficulty etc. I especially love the last paragraph, which I have bolded.

For another touching poem, refer to the poem entitled God's Loan, found here on our blog.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

Poem by Emily Pearl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a wonderful vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After several months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go.

Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in a says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say, "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy. I'm supposed to be in Italy! All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."


But there's been a change in flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would have never met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills; Holland has tulips; Holland has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.  

Baby & Family Update

Last week we had another visit the our specialist at KEMH. We are happy to report that the baby is growing well and still looks to be a bigger baby!! Also, the heart appears to be coping well, albeit it is a bit squished up. We were also told by the specialist that aside from the CDH our baby is pretty unremarkable and normal, for which we are very thankful :) It means that other abnormalities that can be picked up on an ultrasound have not been detected...yet.

During the ultrasound, our specialist commented that our baby is a bit camera shy as they refused to take their hands away from their face. I apologise for the photo below as it is very poor quality due to my scanner. However, it is possible to see the hands on the left hand side of the image, one near the forehead and the other near the nose. You can also see one eye socket in the centre of the image. Don't worry if you can't see it, as I often struggle to "read" scan images too :P (i used to feel like i was looking at magic eye pictures, where you needed to squint, tilt your head etc)



23 weeks

Its fantastic that, so far, at each visit we have gotten to see the baby in 2D, 3D and 4D. We continue to marvel at modern technology, especially in light of the fact that CDH has only been able to spotted on ultrasounds from around 3 years ago.

At our next visit later this month we have our usual consult with the specialist and midwives, usual antenatal check-up and we will also have the opportunity to go and speak with the pediatrician as well as tour the NICU at KEMH. For now, that is the latest update on the baby.

As for the rest of the family, Lucas is well and truly finding his feet (literally sometimes as he is OBSESSED with pulling his socks off). He walks everywhere and even starting to run. He loves to play outside and he thoroughly enjoyed the attention of his grandma and two aunties while they were here last week.

Chris has begun playing soccer again. It was his first week last Saturday and unfortunately his team lost, but only by 1 goal. Otherwise he is busy at work and doing things around the house. Soon we will need to begin tidying up the spare room/guest room/study and change it into a bedroom.

I am keeping busy with running after Lucas, kissing his owies he gets from falling over, being a mum, housework etc. Physically i am feeling fine. This pregnancy is no different from another "normal/healthy" pregnancy. I am well and truly past the morning sickness stage {thankfully}. I have been feeling the baby moving for quite a number of weeks now. I don't seem to have all my energy back, but that could be because i now spend my days keeping up with an active 1 year old :) And since i am over the half way mark, I am counting down the weeks til we get to meet this special little baby growing inside me :)

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us either by phone, email, facebook, this blog or in person. We are happy to answer all questions, if we are able to.

Easter 2011

WOW...where has the 5 day Easter 2011 long weekend gone!?!?! I cant believe its already Wednesday which means that Chris is back to work and Lucas and I are back in our 'normal' routine. But, on the flip side, its only 3 days til the weekend again :)

On Good Friday, I headed off to church in the morning, while Chris stayed home with Lucas. My mum also travelled up to spend the weekend and following week with us. After returning home, we all packed into the car with our supplies and headed down to Mandurah. We decided to park the car and walk down the foreshore to the visitors centre. However, we didn't count on it being closed!! So we had to make our own way and find things to do. We ended up walking around the small marks at Dolphin Quay, going for a coffee and ending off with play time on the grass and Cicerella's dinner. It was a beautiful day weather wise and we had a great time relaxing, taking photos, talking and laughing.

We also had a lovely, older lady stop to talk with us and let Lucas play and pet her dog. Lucas loved it and was full of giggles!

Easter Saturday - after Lucas's morning sleep we headed off to the Swan Valley. Here we visited Yahava Koffeeworks, the Chocolate Factory, a few wineries, Oggies Ice Creamery and Whiteman Park. Unfortunately we didn't get to stop at Whiteman Park as Lucas had just fallen sleep, and we didn't want to wake up and have a grumpy boy to deal with!!

At the Chocolate factory Lucas got to have his first taste of chocolate!! It was probably more exciting for us then it was for him...you may remember that Lucas has an allergy to cows milk. But the dark chocolate at the factory contains no milk so he could eat it!!

And he also got to try another "first", this time at the ice creamery. He had a who bowl (scoop) of melon sorbet which he absolutely loved :) He even tried feeding himself.

Easter Sunday we spent the day in Church and at home, before ending the evening off with a games night at my in-laws house. Easter Monday was also ANZAC Day, where we could remember the past wars and efforts of the men (and boys) sent to fight in them. Chris woke up early and headed to the dawn service. We then pottered around at home, fixing and cleaning things and watching the ANZAC Day football match.

The final public holiday, Tuesday, we headed off to breakfast at the Dome and then to look at some shops. Disappointingly, most we wanted to go into were closed. So we ended up at our local S/C where Lucas was treated to some clothes, bought by Grandma and us, and we treated ourselves to coffee and chocolate.

And that was our weekend!! All over much too quickly, but still enjoyed by all :) and to think there is less than 6 weeks til the next public holiday...but there is much to get through first!!

We hope all our readers had a lovely Easter weekend too :)