Thursday, August 27, 2009

It's never that easy...

Family pic at the old farm house...Goodwater, AL

Mommy and Lily...checkout Lily's cute outfit!

I think they have had enough...



Thomas LOVED the tractors...Uncle Randall even let him drive! He was pumped!

Sweet blue eyes...

Ok...this video is old...Lily is now crawling! I have started so many times to update blog, and gotten side tracked... I promise to put the video of her crawling ASAP!
So where to begin...We have had quite a crazy couple of weeks lately! We haven't even done anything major but just the simple tasks are never easy! In fact, if I could write, I would write a book simply titled, "Nothing is ever Easy." This is the story of my life lately. For example, trying to pick up prescriptions from CVS. Apparently there is only one drive through line that you can pick up, who knew? Trying to simply go to McDonald's for lunch...forgot the wallet, oops. You would think that I would have learned after that, but no the very next day, I drove 20 min. with both kids to shop, no wallet, ugh! Don't even get me started on grocery shopping! I feel like I am preparing for a marathon every time I get ready to go, except that I never have a feeling of success when it is over! I try to get all possible snacks, drinks, toys, lists, etc... but it never fails that I will ALWAYS pick the buggy that doesn't roll easy and/or makes an awful noise. But who wants to unload two kids just to change carts? The best experience is when I had to let Thomas walk because I was running out of room for food (and he was squishing anything that got in his way). Well, Lily was unhappy and screaming the last 15 minutes, Thomas was running ahead of me, opening every freezer door, and finding anything that looked like a dessert and putting it in the cart. I think I got more sympathy looks and some that simply said, control your kids looks that day. And if that wasn't enough, as I was going to check out, Lily starts projectile vomiting everywhere!! All over herself, all over the food in the cart, the floor, etc. So while I am trying to quickly get her out so she doesn't choke, Thomas is picking up every piece of candy asking if he could have it! I had to wipe off food before I put it on the belt to check out! What a mess. So you would think that was it right? Oh no. Once we got to the car and I was finally about to end this nightmare, I thought to look for my iPhone. Couldn't find it anywhere. So I parked in front of Walmart, locked the car, started it with the remote so it would be cool and made a mad dash inside to see if I had dropped it. Of course I kept being sent in several different directions before I finally got to the right place to ask. And praise God for this wonderful woman who had found it in the parking lot and had brought it inside!! I couldn't even properly thank her because the kids were outside in the car. I quickly gave her a hug and ran to the car, literally. I'm sure those people were thinking, poor woman, I hope she makes it!
On to Lily. She is now 14lbs!! Yea! I can't remember how tall she is but she is pretty much just long and lean! She has some cute little cheeks and her thighs and arms are starting to get a little pudgy! She is just way too busy to eat, which always stresses me out. Lately she is eating baby food and oatmeal cereal. She is loosing all interest in her bottles. She has almost 5 teeth now! So funny to see this small baby with all of these teeth! And this weekend she started crawling! She is so happy with herself and now loves to crawl to Thomas and his trains. I am constantly hearing, "no Willie" 'don't get my trains" "put her away,mom!" Lovely.
Lily is being seen by a educational therapist once a week at home. She basically plays with her teaching me new things to help her in her development and mostly to give me a peace of mind. We are meeting with a nutritionist this Friday who is also with ECI (early childhood intervention) to help me know what to do about her eating/growing etc. She has seen all of her other specialists receiving great reports. They all have been fabulous until this past Thursday. I took her to her pediatric nephrologist in Winston Salem to Baptist Hospital at wake Forest. Well, after waiting over 2 hours for the doctor. He finally came in. He didn't have Lily's old records, which was so annoying because I feel like Everyone in NC should have them by now. He was very hard to understand, and really didn't seem to know why he was even seeing Lily, ugh. I was in no mood to deal with this, especially since I was hungry, tired, and trying to entertain Lily for two hours. Anyway, he decided he wanted to do some blood work to check her kidney function. But because we had waited so long, the lab in their pediatric office was closed so we were sent to another building in the hospital to draw the labs. Well after looking forever for a good vein to stick, the lab tech opted to do a finger stick. This was fine with me, thinking it would be less painful and less difficult for lily. WRONG! Apparently the tech was nervous and Lily screaming didn't help. Her hand was covered in blood and it took him FOREVER to get enough blood in his tube! I mean I had never heard Lily scream like this! So after we finally got enough blood and had successfully gotten blood all over my shirt and Lily's, she became so upset that she started projectile vomiting EVERYWHERE! I am used to this but this time was a little different. She got a little choked and became a little gaspy with her breathing. Well, I suctioned her and watched her. I wasn't going to leave until she was calm and I knew she was OK. Well the tech wanted to call some sort of code and I just asked if a respiratory therapist could come and just make sure her O2 was OK and she hadn't aspirated any of the vomit. well, 2 minutes later here come 3 EMTs! Lily is still screaming and breathing a little funny so they wanted to take her to the ER to make sure she was OK. So here we go with me on the stretcher and holding Lily down to the ER! Really?? All I wanted was her to have some blood drawn and get the heck out of there. Needless to say, she was fine, even though I was not the least impressed with the care she received in the ER, but I wont go into to that. After throwing up several more times and finally going to sleep, we were sent home for me to drive her by myself 30 minutes to our house! Like I said, nothing is ever easy!!!!
Sorry for the long post. I just had to get that out! More new pictures to come soon!






Thursday, August 13, 2009

My Thomas...

Thomas Caleb Dickinson...3 days old...


at the beach...4 months old

First Auburn game...yes, he LOVED it!!!

sweet little man, almost a year old...

a true "dirt magnet" to this day...2 years old


3 years old...


my funny little man...2 weeks ago in the backyard...sharing his pool with Samford



...and my dramatic little man, not so happy about Samford being in his pool...




While most of our posts, updates, and pictures have been about our precious miracle baby Lily, today I have to share with you about our strong-willed, handsome little Thomas. He is indeed as special, unique, precious and beautiful as his little sister.


Many of you who know me know that recently I have been struggling with him and learning how to discipline, etc. at this age of 3 1/2. He has proven recently to be very stubborn, impatient, manipulating, and just exhausting. However I know this is just a phase and he truly is an amazing loving little boy by nature. He has an uncanny and unique way of hardly ever meeting a stranger and his smile has a way of stretching from his eyes to the corners of his mouth causing anyone who sees it to melt and instantly feel loved.


He truly was our earthly rock while we dealt with Lily being in the hospital. He gave me a reason to get up and come home and a reason to maintain life as usual as I could. He gave me strength in each hug he gave me when I came home and in each prayer he prayed for his little sister that he never got to meet until the day she came home from the hospital.


He loves trains!!!! Or anything that he can make into a train. He can make a very real sounding train noise and loves to do it sometimes just to irritate is sister. He loves his plasma car and flying around curves, cars, hills and the dog. He has worn out almost every pair of shoes he has riding that car. He loves watching any movie with trains and or cars. Currently he is stuck on the GeoTrax movie that came with his train set. However I am quite sick of it and have it forever memorized, ugh... He says the funniest things and loves to make up stories that can last for days! He already bargains with us and comes up with alternate plans after we give him ours. He has adjusted well so far in our new home and will be starting his new preschool in Sept., not soon enough!

Even though he tests my patience daily, sometimes hourly, and makes me question my abilities as a mother on some days, I am forever thankful for him and so blessed by his little life. He and Lily have brought more joy to our lives then we ever dreamed possible. I know that God too has big plans for him and I can't wait to see what it is!



One of my favorite videos of Thomas...showing his true colors...dancing machine