Goofy but...

...currently in the hospital, John that is. He started running a fever this afternoon and we took him to the ER in Columbia. We were rescued from an incompetent surfer boy ER doc by one of the Ped's attendings and so John is doing well, has had all the appropriate tests run, antibiotics on board and now we sit and wait to see what it is. He looks good, he looks amazing and other than being a little overly warm and a bit less energetic than normal you'd never know there was something wrong, but there is. So we wait, did I ever mention that this is how we have grown patience, it is, what little we own, this is how it was wrought and well obviously more is being made.

Eggs and Little Germans

Can you tell the difference between Walmart brand cage free organic eggs and the real deal from local friends? Here's a hint for those whose never had anything other than a store-bought egg before, eggs are much like chocolate, the darker they are the more flavor they have!







I think we know this guy, or at least a taller version of him. Lol, these pictures always crack us up, there is one with the Little German in the fridge, I couldn't find that one today but had to share these. Hugs and kisses to our favorite Little German!

And yes, I will actually take some pictures of John and post them pretty soon, but hey at least I'm not on a soap box.

Just Saturday

Two weeks before vacation and there are a million things that need to be done a couple thousand that HAVE to be done and the clock is racing faster than we are. John has now made 48 hours without puking! He's still going for tests on Tuesday and we still don't know quite what's going on the kid is having gas pains galore and hopefully they can solve this as little boys shouldn't hold their tummies and cry several times a day.

Tina, my sister, called last night or rather very early this morning to let us know that Wyatt's picture is up on the MCRD website. He is the second from the left on the top row. He's down to 210 pounds and that sure seems thin on a 6'6" frame, we are so very proud of him and continue to pray that his leg will hold up to get him through the crucible that is coming up this week. He has gas chamber this week too and told me that of course every pukes and blows snot it's a gas chamber what did they expect. He's one amazing kid. We fly out on the 30th to see him graduate and I must admit that with all that's been going on here getting excited is coming in fits and spurts but we're so thrilled to be able to go see him despite anything going on here exciting times are coming!

Here's that picture, movie actually.

http://www.devildogs.info/Echo%20Company.htm He is Echo Company Platoon 2114.


On a totally different note if Mark and I had a dream BBQ this would be it!



Now wouldn't that look awesome sitting in our yard!

Good-bye Old Friend and Boy News Too

Be thou comforted, little dog, Thou too in Resurrection shall have a little golden tail.
Martin Luther

I've been holding on to this quote for most of the year, knowing that this day was coming. That day has come and now the little puppy that came to VBS in a wagon in the summer of 1997 that Mark and I just couldn't resist has been laid to rest 12 1/2 years later in the backyard of our home in Missouri, many miles, many years, and many memories away. We named her Lucy when we first held her and she earned her middle name, Tuesday, that same summer when she kept finding one more thing to chew up and destroy on a Monday and I would tell her "you'll be lucky if you live to see Tuesday." This is the only dog that I have ever known that would tear the house down to get in, even one time coming through a storm window because she just couldn't stand to be outside even one moment longer. She was a houdini dog that could get out of any fence at any time, of course she only really wanted back in the house so would escape from the back yard and be sitting on the porch whining to get back in. This past couple years she has been so well behaved that we've not even had a gate on our yard fence and haven't needed a leash for quite some time, after all she just wanted to be with us.

We've been knowing for a couple weeks that the time had come and that we couldn't leave for vacation knowing that someone else would have to make that decision or that she would die alone and wondering where we had gone. We've wracked our brains trying to figure out how and what to tell John. Whenever we leave from the hospital to go home he tells us that we are going home to be with the dog, he loved for her to go outside with him and would sit in his chair in the door and sign 'come' until she would go with him for whatever outside adventures he was having. It's so hard to explain to someone that their friend is old and tired and sick and dying and that we can't take her to the hospital and get her fixed, after all look how many times we've taken John to the hospital. Finally this morning Mark found the words and with no remorse or hesitation told John that Lucy was going to go and live with Jesus, with this John was good and then he and Lucy went outside to watch Mark dig the hole.

The watchers got bored well before the work was done, but as I would watch out the window I could see, could almost feel the grief of the digger. In our 14 years of marriage this is the second beloved dog that Mark has had to dig a grave for and this is no easy task, much harder than the roots and clay is the good-byes and this time knowing that there will be no other dog until John's health is more stable makes that good-bye even harder. Many nights that John has been in the hospital it's just been Mark and Lucy home and it's really just hard to imagine our home without her.

My sister and I have a running commentary that our dad's job in heaven is dog keeper, my dad loved dogs way beyond the normal amount of love that people have for dogs and there were very few times in our lives that our home and yard weren't inhabited by a dog or two or three or more. In my mind he now has one more, one whose hips no longer hurt, who can once more bound up stairs, knock pictures off the wall to chew their frames and maybe now she won't have to be afraid of thunderstorms or fireworks. Rest in Peace our friend, we miss you.




I don't know that I would actually call it a benefit to have a window broken out of the door to the garage, but I think John would.



This is John and I last week when he was admitted for a bit trying to figure out when/how his tugged on line would be replaced. The tiger came with a football player and a half dozen or so cheerleaders, I'm not sure John even realized that the tiger came with company at all, he only had eyes for the tiger and was not thrilled that they wanted him to stop looking at the tiger for his picture to be taken.



Have basement stairs, well it's recently been discovered that they are good for rolling balls down and scooting down and throwing things down, hmmmmm, suppose some day we will have to retrieve those balls and things from the basement, but the boy, well he's already been retrieved.




Thank you to a Looper friend's daughter for stickers! John was signing thank you when I took this picture and was not doing it again for the camera no matter how much I asked, he was way too interested in pasting stickers on things!



Sometimes when you play with the neighbor girls you get dirty, sometimes when you get dirty daddy brushes you off!

Even though the last few weeks have held lots of smiles and giggles and fun and learning for a little boy it's been a rough go too. Something is going on in his gut that is making it hard for him to get his g-tube feeds up where they belong. We know for a fact that John has poor motility in his gut and with no stomach muscles to help push things out he has a hard time keeping stuff moving in the proper direction. Yesterday we made a formula change hoping that it would help, so far it's interesting, now instead of puking 4 times a night every night he is not puking but is kinda gassy, hurts like heck for an hour or so before he poops and is pooping something that is green and weird but at least doesn't smell like roadkill the way that it does when he is suffering from intestinal viruses or has stopped absorbing stuff. He has an upper GI in Omaha on Tuesday and hopefully then we will find out what is going on or if we need to just continue the way we are with little changes that each hopefully make things better. As always we are doing this one day, one thing at a time and trusting in God's mercy to carry us through the next bit, He's never let us down.

2nd week of Kindergarten - Life Happens week

First news - Wyatt is headed back to his platoon today!!! He will graduate on time and is doing great! It's been so good to hear his voice, but we are so thrilled and thankful that he gets to go on with his training.



Well our second week of Kindergarten had one day of 'school' and the rest was life, still lots of watching Signing Times, but other than that we were wrapped up with a dying transmission, replacing a vehicle, then John's central line got tugged on a bit much and today he is going to have surgery to fix it. It's been a week, and it's weeks like this that make us positive that homeschool is the right decision and on the other hand wonder just how well we will do with it. We'll see how week three goes, surely it has to go better than this one as far as school work, but in the end I'm sure it will be another week of having fun, learning and being together, what more could we ask.

Pray for Our Marine

This is my sister Tina, her husband Daniel, and their two sons, Wyatt (on the left) and Shorty (on the right).

Wyatt is in Marine Boot camp, less than a month from graduation, and currently in the hospital with cellulitis and staph in one leg. I got to talk to him for a few minutes this morning and he is in good spirits and wants nothing more than his leg to heal up to the point that he can go back to full duty before a week is up so that he won't be dropped and have to start over. This guy has had his wisdom teeth pulled, pneumonia, a twisted ankle, pinkeye and now this and still all he wants is to get to do his work to be a Marine. Please keep him in your prayers, and his family too, they are a long way away to have have their son and brother in the hospital, at least at this point they can talk to him a bit.

If you'd like to send this brave Marine recruit a get-well card contact me at 3wyrms@sbcglobal.net and I will give his mailing address to you.

Sweet and Silly

One of the benefits of shutting the tv off during the school week has been that John has found some of his old toys and remembered that he liked to play with them. His favorite is still the airplanes and dad takes him outside for those every day for a bit, but today he remembered how much fun the rice was and a even drove his trucks around for a bit.



John woke this morning puking again. Looks like we are combating his sluggish colon to get stuff moved on out the proper end of him and with a few adjustments he was finally starting to feel a bit better after lunch. Mark got a rare turn behind the camera while John was standing up behind my chair patting me on the head, running his hands through my hair and then kissing me on the cheek.



After supper and some tug of war with my apron strings John decided to sneak up behind dad's chair, dad got a few sweet pats and even a kiss on the cheek, but this was obviously reserved for dad!

Tomorrow we are back to the book work of Kindergarten, probably needing to run into town for a new medicine to see if we can't give John's colon a kick start, and then a new family tradition, pizza and a movie, I have a feeling it's going to be a lot of Tom and Jerry, at least until silly boy goes to bed.

New Socks and Good-bye Living Room Carpet

My first pair of socks from the leftover yarn from Mark's pair which still isn't done but hopefully will be soon. There are a few holes, some funkness with the heel that I've not solved yet, but hey they're done, or will be when I weave in the ends. John wore them all day and just loved them, tonight when I took them off he had nice toasty little feet :)



Another day of Kindergarten, another day of what shop class, home ec, I'm not sure but it was fun and the living room carpet is at the curb waiting for the trash guys to take it to a new home - the dump! We did get books read, some handwriting practice and math skills done and all in all had a really nice day.

John has recovered well from the allergy incident and his feeds are back up to 50ml/hr which is where they were before all this happened last weekend. Hopefully they will be able to climb steady from here and we will get rid of that darn central line before he gets another infection, we finished the last dose of cipro from the last infection last night and don't want to have to do more big honking antibiotics if we don't have to.

Good Enough

Did we get as much done today, nope we didn't, did we have fun with each other and have a good day, yep, sure did.





Tomorrow we'll get back to writing and math skills, for today there was fun with paint, dad, planes and plenty of time to play computer games - which I actually see John improving on every time he plays them. All in all a good day, the real meaning of gut ganuch (German for good enough, not in a poorly done way, but in a satisfied contented manor).