Weekend update!

I'm terrible at blogging lately, but for good reason. We've been BUSY! This past weekend was filled with goodies and Rhyan is changing daily and keeping us on our toes! Weekend update first...

Jeff was off on Friday. And it was BEAUTIFUL!!! So we went to Harbins Park. I absolutely love having a park so close. We always meet nice people and share kid stories :-) Here, you can see how it may be difficult for me to remember who qualifies as a kid in our family.


Friday night was Kristin (Fowler) Hill's baby shower. One of NINE for her. That girl (or her expected baby boy!) should not need a thing, but Kristin has GOT to be worn out! It was great getting to catch up with old friends. Youknow, its a funny thing... I went to Dacula but because of Jeff and all the great friendships he had and how great all of his friends were to me, i've remained in touch with more Central Gwinnett graduates than Dacula. Sad? But true. I'm just grateful, nonetheless. Here, Kristin is glowing and I think her mom is, too.

Saturday, Jeff played in a ball tournament while Rhyan and I went to another wedding shower for Liz. It was Rhyan's nap time so i put her in Mrs Connie's bedroom in her pack and play. It took her a while to fall asleep (she was SO tired on the way and getting her in the house really woke her up..) but she was so great and just played in her play yard until she fell asleep. All of the sweet ladies kept commenting on how good she was :-). We really are blessed! The shower was super nice. Those ladies know how to throw a classy get together. Liz scored lots of great gifts and she and Jason are that much closer to having a house full of stuff. I'm sure he's thrilled with each new load she brings home. HA!

Then, Sat night, Rhyan had her first night sleeping over somewhere else (away from Mommy and Daddy)!!! She stayed with Tracy's family for the night so that Jeff and I could get up before the sun even thought of coming up to head to Atlanta to the ING half marathon. Rhyan did GREAT. And so did we. Jeff said it was strange looking at an empty crib. I didnt look. I didnt want to have that picture in my head. Yes, i was being dumb, but i dont like the thought of that crib being empty. Period. So whatever. :-) I'm gonna post later on the ING, as it deserves a post in itself.

On to Rhyan! She is growing SO fast! In the last week she has CUT TWO MOLARS, started holding her own bottle and responding by pointing to objects when we say the word. The 2 examples i have for this are that she'll point to the toy truck when i ask her if she wants to roll the truck (she LOVES that thing!) and to the "buttons" (aka: decorative nailheads on the chair) when i ask her where they are. She's also started giving kisses (open mouth) during the song "i love you, you love me, we're a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, wont you say you love me too?". SOOOOOO flippin sweet, yall. She even shared a sloppy one with her daddy tonight :-).

I love this age. I didnt LOVE the infant stage, but i'll admit that i look back at pics of her when she couldnt even roll over and i MISS it :-(. Funny how that happens. She's growing so quickly and i'm so afraid of forgetting. Thank God for our video camera. I've only taken 6 dvd's so far. Thats not obsessive, right?! lol.

So, life is good. I'll admit (for my own records when this becomes my blog book later on) that this past week has been hard on me hormonally/emotionally and I'm not sure why (no, i'm not preggo). Sometimes life just seems hard, you know. But then i come home to a husband who loves me and puts up with my craziness, a dog who just wants love and a baby who gives gap tooth smiles and open mouth kisses and i remember, life is good.

Rhyan's Surgical Consult

Its late and i'm tired and i've repeated this story a minimum of 8 times today, so i'll keep it brief and promise to post more details later.

Rhyan had her surgical consult with Dr Burnstein today. Jeff took the afternoon off and went with me and i'm glad. Dr. B was very nice but does think Rhyan should have surgery. So we are on his schedule for an outpatient surgery on Friday, April 23. We dont have a time yet and i've not had time to read over all the materials in order that i be able to share all the details of the surgery, yet.

What we do know is that the incision will be behind her left ear and will be done with endoscopic tools. It will take about an hour. He feels certain that she has scar tissue built up on the muscle and says that while therapy has released a good bit of the muscle, there is more that simply will not release w/o surgery. She will wear a soft collar for about a week after and we should expect about a day for recovery (kids are resilient, they say, and prefer to play over throwing a pity party like us adults!).

Dr B actually developed this particular approach to the surgery (doing it endoscopically) and by doing so he is able to hide the scar and avoid cutting nerves that could potentially lead to the atrophy of the lower part of the muscle. This will allow her neck to look normal :-) He is the only dr in the world to do this surgery in this particular way and has performed it on over 400 babies since developing the approach. He says its "quite easy" to do and that is really not painful for the babies. I trust him. He seems like good people :-)

Rhyan was an absolute angel while we were at his office. She missed her afternoon nap (short of the catnaps she got on the way there and back) but was so well behaved. She really is such a blessing. I hate that she has to go through all of this, but it was so nice to hear the words "after surgery you'll do 6-8 weeks of physical therapy and then she'll be DONE". Done? What does that mean?! HA! What will we do with ourselves if we're not going to weekly therapy appointments for the rest of our lives?! :-)

So i didnt keep it all that short and did give details. I guess i got a burst of typing energy. I really do plan to post pics soon. I caught some cute ones in the tub the other day. She's really SO much fun these days. If i havent mentioned it, she's pulling up on EVERYTHING. Falling a alot and getting lots of bumps and bruises, but with each day she's standing longer and longer. She tries taking her hands off of whatever she's propped up on sometimes (and subsequently falls...). We're trying hard to not react to her falling so that she wont react. I think it's going well. She'll fall, look to us and if we dont look at her she'll fuss just a little and then go on. If we do look at her, all heck breaks loose and she cries. The girl knows how to milk a cow, what can i say?

I love her, thats all i know :-)

SLOW DOWN!!!

In the words of her daddy, Rhyan is "developing very quickly". She started crawling 2 weeks ago today and already she's pulling up! She started this weekend at Jeff's parents house (Showoff!!). It was so fun for them to get to be the first to see her (along with us). Since then, she's learned to pull up on our couch and in her bed! Oops!!! Anyways, it really seems that she's growing SOOOO fast! For the longest time she was our little "paperweight baby". And now we have to watch her every move! It's exhausting :-). But so much fun watching her grow!

In regards to an update on Rhyan's neck. At therapy on Monday, i went in fully prepared to ask for a referral for a surgical consult. I truly feel like we've exhausted the therapy and are seeing little to no improvement. So i mentioned it and her therapist, Anitra, agreed that its time for a consult. So we have an appointment next Tuesday afternoon at 2pm with Dr Bernstein (a plastic surgeon) in Atlanta. You can check out the office website here to learn more about him. He is a plastic surgeon but he specializes not only in boobs (haha) but also in craniofacial abnormalities such as torticollis. A good friend of ours (blog friends!) daughter had torticollis as well and required surgery by the very same doctor just a few months back. Anyways, please be in prayer for God to grant to us wisdom on how best to proceed. We dont want surgery, obviously... but we want Rhyan to be done with these issues. So we covet your prayers.

In all seriousness, Dr B is no typical plastic surgeon. He and Dr Williams are a team of dr's who work with Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta. Learn more here.

If you want to have a better understanding of why she has torticollis, click here.

And to read a little from Dr Bernsteins website about torticollis, click here and scroll to the bottom.

Jeff, the tool man, Ford!

So, apparently, i'm married to a handy man :-) A couple of years ago, he removed a double window and installed a double door in the basement for easy access with the riding lawnmower, tools, etc... That only left us with one double window in the basement as the double door is solid. So its a bit dungeon-ish down there. Well, mr fix it to the rescue! This weekend, Jeff cut a new hole in the basement and installed that same window that he had removed. He did SUCH a great job! I'm so proud of him!

ANOTHER giveaway!

Yet again, Chronicles of a Babywise Mom is hosting a giveaway. This time its from a cute little company selling blankets that stay on while in the stroller. I know i have issues with keeping Rhyan covered while on a walk so i'm loving this idea. You can check out the post about the giveaway by clicking here.

I know you want pics, but...

I dont have time to do pics this very moment. I do, however, have time to tell y'all that the sweetest things in the world to me right now are:

-Rhyan's kisses. Totally open mouthed with a little tongue. Sweetest thing ever.

-Rhyan crawling to follow me from room to room. Awwwwwwwww!

-How excited Rhyan gets when I get home or walk into a room.

and last but not least...
-Seeing just how much her daddy loves her. My greatest joy in life so far (aside from knowing the Lord) has been seeing my baby grow. The second greatest thing, by far, is watching my husband be a loving father. Seeing how he makes a fool of himself just to get her to smile... how he is so proud of the new things she does... listening to him talk about how cute she is and then smile a little... Its wonderful.

What was my life like before the Lord blessed us with this little doll baby?! I dont even want to remember! I know i enjoyed it, but it was nothing like this! *grateful*
Life is far from perfect. But, man, its good :-)

When it rains...

It pours!

Jeff: has something wrong w/ his achilles tendon. He injured it over a year ago, refused to go to the doctor and finally had to break down and see something about it now that he's been running so much. He's in a boot and will do physical therapy. If that doesnt work, we'll be looking at sugery.

Kelly: has a sore throat and a cold.

Rhyan: has a fever, cough/cold, double ear infection and TWO top molars coming in (you can feel the cusps through the gum!). Her Gran/Onni (whatever she ends up calling her) brought her medicine from the pharmacy for us and then visited with poor Rhyan for a short bit. Doesnt Rhyan look pitiful!?!
We're having a rough go of it around the Ford house and would appreciate prayers for recovery. Thanks :-)

" Whom have I in heaven but you?And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."