Saturday, November 15, 2008

11/15/08
































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































So I guess I left off on Halloween.....

Me, Brent, & Grandma S. took the kids trick or treating. We went down two streets, Korben fell asleep shortly after we got on the 2nd street. They all had a good time and we have candy coming out of our ears now. I put it up for when Ryan & Zylee come over, when they are extra good or do something nice without me asking them I give them a "special treat" right before they go home. They get to pick a piece or two of candy from a big tin that I have. They love it and are always trying to get me to give them a "special treat."

We enjoyed spending that weekend with Grandma S. & Uncle Keith. Korben really likes Keith and even said his name, that is the 1st name he has said. For days after Keith left Korben ran around saying his name.

Speaking of that Korben has had a real explosion of words. He is starting to repeat everything we say or at least attempting it. He even has started saying "mama" with ease. It all makes me so happy. He says keys, moon, star, sign, moo, and today even repeated me when I said bra today....of course that had to be the one word he said really clearly. Guess I need to really watch what I say in front of him! I guess that has been the real excitement around here. Korben is getting funnier, because he does repeat things and mimics what you do now and he understands so much more, I guess it might not be that he understands so much more but he RESPONDS so much more. He does say Grandma & Grandpa now, in his own way that is. A few weeks ago I was cold & I brought my hands close to my chest & made fists and said "burrrrr, it's cold" so now Korben does that & says "brrrr, cold" it is so cute!

On Nov. 7th (HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA S.!!) I took the pictures of Korben working out on the Wii Fit, I actually created him a character which is really cute. I tried to help him do the balance games but he wouldn't stay still so his age came out to be 37!! Really I just wanted to weigh him, it gave the same weight as the dr's office did so I guess he really did gain 5 lbs. That makes him 29 lbs now. The other pictures I took that day are of him playing with his baseball toy. He saw Ryan playing with it and he can't figure out how Ryan hit the ball with the bat. So Korben swings the bat then spins the ball with his hand then grabs the ball & holds it still and touches the bat to the ball & just holds it there in place and you can see him thinking "now what?" It is really cute to watch, I have tried to help him but he gets mad at me.

On Sat. Nov. 8th we took Korben to his dr's for the flu shot. I had set up an appointment for me as well since my dr.'s office had run out. Korben's doctor doesn't file insurance on the flu shots so I was disappointed that I had to get mine there as well, $30 per person! Brent had gotten his for free at work a few days earlier. So when we got to the office they told us that the hospital was giving out free flu shots right around the corner that day & that I could get mine over there if I wanted - yes! Then they told me they were going to file the flu shots this year & our insurance does pay for them so that saved us $60, I was so happy. But we were running errands right after that and I noticed Korben was getting sleepy and he fell asleep right as we pulled up at home. After he woke up he kept having a runny nose and coughing. Then he started running a fever. That same night I noticed that my vision was blurry, I have been really tired, I was extremely thirsty & was going to the bathroom alot (actually I had these symptoms for awhile but didn't really pay attention to them until that night) and it dawned on me to check my blood sugar - those are all symptoms of very high blood sugar. I checked it and it was at 496 (it is supposed to be between 70-110 & when I went into the ICU it was at 530) first I thought it was because I had gone to my friend Trisha's baby shower that afternoon & had cake & punch but it only lowered to 320 the next morning.

So Korben kept running a high fever - up to 104° and my blood sugar didn't come down. On Tues. I already had an appointment set up for me which worked out well since my blood sug. wasn't coming down. But since Korben's fever hadn't come down I made him an appointment for that day as well. Brent worked for a few hours and then used sick time to take us to the dr's. My dr sent me to a diabetes specialist and it was determined that Korben had Roseola, which is a very high fever for about 4 - 5 days then a rash all over his body, although not every kid gets the rash. Korben did not get the rash, and he finally broke his fever in the middle of the night Wed. he woke up in a cold sweat, his hair, clothes, & bed soaked and he hasn't had a fever since. However he is now sick again with a cold, real bad coughing, & diarrhea he has been occasionally barking like a seal when he coughs which is croup. He had croup last fall and it was terrible, the dr. said he was worst she had seen that day and that was his very first time getting sick. On Thursday I went to the diabetes dr. & they put me on 2 new meds on top of my old one. If my blood sug. doesn't come down in 2 wks then they are going to put me on insulin just until it comes down. Hopefully these pills will help bring it down. I have been watching what I am eating & have been doing the Wii Fit but it hasn't been working. After my dr's appointment that day Brent started feeling bad. So he was sick on his 30th birthday. :(

We had been planning to go to the movies for months on his birthday, that is what he wanted to do. So the afternoon before I ran to get our reservations for the balcony at the movie theater and they were completely sold out. Brent had previously told me that he wished that Madagascar 2 was playing on the balcony (Quantum of Solace was playing on the balcony) so I decided to get tickets for Madagascar for the night of his birthday & then the balcony seats for Sat. so he got to see 2 movies. My mom babysat Korben both nights, when we got home tonight (Sat.) my mom said they had a little accident & said Korben slipped & hit his eye on the coffee table. He has a little gash across his eye. :( Poor baby!

Anyway on Brent's birthday we sung happy birthday to him, he picked out a carrot cake. My family has to sing happy birthday to each other no matter where we are so Alaina & all them in OR called Brent and he was on the phone with Keith and they sang happy birthday to him on his voicemail but they were all laughing because they were in Wal-Mart when they were singing. Alaina later said she was SO embarrassed because everybody was looking at them. Brent got a kick out of the message though. Speaking of Alaina, her & Ike got a new puppy, he is adorable. I put a pic here so you can see, he is part Great Pyrenees (like Cloud) and part Irish Setter. His name is Oscar.

Well I am going to wrap this up. Brent went to bed right after we got back from the movies at 10:30, which is very early for him. He looked terrible when we were coming out of the movies and he was shaking like crazy (couldn't have anything to do with the fact that it is very cold outside & he had on short sleeve shirt, shorts and sandals!) & when we were in the movies he even laid his head on my shoulder so I know he feels terrible. Plus he has been willingly taking medicine.

Pics are of Halloween (a house down the St. from us goes all out every year, this yr a spaceship, last year a pirate ship), Korben playing, eating chocolate pudding for the first time, the close up pics are of when Korben kept pulling the camera closer & closer to him, pics of Korben when he fell asleep sitting up while sick, then laying on Brent when he was really sick - couldn't breathe out of his nose & kept making that face, and me pretending to take Teddy (the JCPenny's bear that is his favorite) away from him, then he attacked Teddy with kisses.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

11/04/08





















































































































































































































































































































































































































































Sorry for the lack of updating lately. With the anniversary of Skylar's death, our busy weekends, and the fact that I have been keeping my nephews and niece for a few days at a time has been wearing me out.
So lets see here.....

On Wed. Oct 22nd I took Korben into the dr's to have his ears checked. Supposedly he had gained 5 lbs in 2 months but I am not sure about that since they used the 'big boy' scale - an adult one instead of the normal baby scale they usually use on him. But I guess it is quite possible since he keeps growing taller and taller. I told the dr. about his really bad fussiness, lack of naps and staying up late, and banging on his ears. She couldn't find anything wrong with him. I told her I had a consult appointment set up to talk to her about his speech and she told me to cancel that appointment and she had time to talk to me right then about it. She thinks the fussiness is partly 'the terrible two's' but mostly because he is frustrated that he can't communicate with us. She tried to get him to talk but he wouldn't say a word for her. He did point to the clock, light, and some of his body parts for her. So she said well he does understand and we knew that, he just can't say that many words. So she recommended I contact a program called Sooner Start as she thinks Korben has about a 3 month speech delay. She said that she normally doesn't give out the recommendation until 2 yrs old but that they would evaluate kids at 18 months but no earlier. So after I let her office I got him set up for a home evaluation on Mon. Oct. 27th.

On Sat. Oct 25th we went to a Halloween carnival with my mom, nephews, and niece. We all had a good time. Korben played a few games. He was able to grab a rubber duck and you get however many of pieces of candy that was written on the bottom of the duck. Then he pulled a sucker out of a pumpkin and then he went "fishing" which was the favorite for all the little kids. They gave the kids a wooden play fishing pole and the string had a clothes pin on the end of it. They would cast their line over a high table (the kids couldn't see on the other side) and you had to tell the workers if it was a boy or girl fishing, they clipped a little bag full of small toys (McDonald's toys) stickers, tattoos and candy and then tugged on the line for the kids to reel in. Ryan & Zylee loved it so much they did it a few time each. Then we did the cake walk, Brent sat outside with Korben talking to his mom & brother on his new phone. Between all of us we won, a big plate of cupcakes and 4 cakes! We had a good time there and will go back next year.

The next day we went to Tulsa for Courtney's (Brent's cousin) wedding shower. We had a good time there visiting with everybody. Korben caught up on some sleep that day. We actually had to wake him up that morning, then he slept for an hour on the ride up there, then he took another nap on Brent's lap while at the shower, and he still went to bed at his normal time. Lately he has been going to bed on time but he still is skipping most of his naps.
On that Monday a woman came out to our house for Korben's home evaluation. Basically she just asked me a bunch of questions, like 5 or 6 pages full of questions. She rated each question then totaled them up at the end. They were questions like can he eat properly with a spoon? A fork? (no for both of those) Can he build a tower of blocks, does he get excited when you come home after being away, etc. She gave him an over all score and then showed me each category broke down. He had to have a total of 50% delay from the total score to continue on to the further testing. He got an over all score of 45% delay. His biggest delay was actually in fine motor skills - she said fork & spoon were biggies. His next biggest delay was in speech. Since he was so close to the 50% I then had the option of doing the further testing. She said on the next testing is where they actually play with him to see exactly what he can and can't do. Plus they give him a hearing test and test for autism. She told me not to worry about autism though but they screen every child for it. I decided it would be a good idea to continue the testing if he doesn't end up qualifying for the therapy I am hoping to at least get some pointers from the speech therapist to help him with his language. So on Nov. 18th he has his testing, the woman who came to our house will be there as well as a speech therapist and a physical therapist. I am glad I took him into the dr's and asked about all this then and didn't wait until he is 2. Oddly enough Korben has been saying more words lately and is trying to use his fork and spoon lately. I told Brent Korben is going to make a lair out me and they are going to think I am nuts for bringing him in. :)

On Oct. 29th we released balloons for Skylar. We all wrote little notes and attached them to our balloons. Korben and I were outside when Brent came home from work with all the balloons (we ordered them the day before and had Brent pick them up on his way home) and Korben got all excited and said 'bloon, bloon, bloon' he got to release one too and he loved it.

On Oct. 30th Brent and I took Korben, Kaylan, Ryan, and Zylee to 2 of the local highschools where they had trick or treating and games. Korben had is trick or treating plastic pumpkin pail and when they gave him candy in there the first time his eyes were huge and he started looking in there to find out what they put in there. He got tootsie rolls so we let him have one. He loved it!

Well I am going to go ahead and post this. I have been working on this since Nov. 4th and it is now the 10th! We've been busy and Korben's been really, really sick. More to come later this week.
Pics are of the shower, Halloween & days leading up to. I think Korb looks just like Brent in the picture where he is sitting on Brent's lap & they are both looking at something, same expression...don't you think? Oh and the pics of Brent & I were taken on our anniversary, I found them on my mom's camera.