Sadie's fashion show

Brian used to work with some people who have a baby 13 months older than Sadie. So, when they found out we were having a baby, they started bagging up all their daughter's old clothes and giving them to us. I think the majority of what we received has been around 6-9 months size, but it's cool because since their daughter was born the same time of year, the season appropriate and size appropriate match...which is important here where it IS 110 today! Anyway, Sadie is starting to outgrow her 3-6 month clothes (mostly in length, she's a skinny girl!), so I thought I should go through what's coming up next. TONS of cute clothes!! Now, instead of just putting a onesie on her everyday, I try to put something cute on her, even if we're not going anywhere (which is most days). So, then I thought each morning I should take a picture of her in her cute little dress/outfit. Now, you get to reap all the benefits. Enjoy!

This is actually size 9 mos...I think it's a little small :)















This outfit lasted about 10 minutes, because she immediately peed through her diaper as soon as we put her on her tummy



This dress is super cute, but didn't look that good on her, not colorful enough I guess. Might be cute on a darker-complexion baby. Plus it had this zipper on the back that kept riding up the back of her head. Annoying.















This is one of many little dress-onesies that were in the stuff. I think she looks good in purple, don't you?

Mostly I just love this picture. She so cute in this one!




















Here's Sadie talking to Daddy about how she didn't sleep last night. This onesie is 6 months and so pretty. I'm glad it fits her!!


This is what teething looks like...such a sad face.

This dress didn't have any matching pantaloons, so I grabbed some pink ones from another dress and they worked just fine!




















I love love love this little outfit. This I actually bought (one of the very few things I have actually paid for in Sadie's wardrobe) at the second-hand children's store in Eugene. I think it's so cute and I'm excited that Sadie finally fits into it!


I wish I could tell you this is a happy face...it's not. But she did like these once we went outside!

I am so proud that my little girl is now a BIG girl. I weighed her last night on our scale...15.6 lbs!! She is amazing, and I believe will continue to amaze us for the rest of her life!!

thou shalt not covet?

I'm back from vacation! Sorry to make myself scarce, but when there are actually other people around I don't sit at the computer all day!! Imagine that! I know we missed Sadie's Sunday picture, look for that later this week. Anyway, this is what's been on my heart this past weekend.



Most of us know all 10 commandments (or at least most of them) that are written in Exodus 20. And most of us are pretty good with them, because they follow our rules of society: don't steal, don't murder, obey your parents, etc. But what about the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet? Do we generally find that one easy to follow also? Do the rules of society support this commandment like they do the others?

When translated from Hebrew to English, covet literally means, in the negative sense, to lust after. It means to have an unhealthy desire for something, particularly if it belongs to someone else. Coveting turns people into objects and objects into idols. Coveting involves envy - resenting the fact that others have what you don't.

Man is covetous by nature. You know it's true, we always want what we can't have! Why else would we have to have commandments that say don't steal and don't murder. Those actions are often the end result of coveting something or someone. Even the dictionary defines coveting as exceeding reasonable limits of craving what another person has. Coveting is at the heart of many other things the Bible teaches us is wrong: jealousy, pay your taxes, don't be greedy, have patience, etc.

Coveting has always kind of been hard for me to understand. I've experienced wanting something someone else has, or even wanting to be like someone else, but it's never gone so far as causing me to commit a crime (remember David putting Uriah on the front lines of battle because of his covetousness for the man's wife, Bathsheba? That was some serious coveting!). Lately, however, I find myself looking around and coveting the other babies I see. It's not like I want those other babies. But when I see someone with a beautiful healthy babe, it's more like I covet that experience. I covet no dr. appointments, no car screaming, being able to sleep without 3+ hours of crying, and no seizure medication! I covet normal development, and knowing your child will be able to do everything they're supposed to at the right time. I covet normal head growth. And as I really examined my heart before taking communion this last weekend, I realized that this coveting I do could become a cancer to my soul if I'm not careful to keep it in check.

I don't believe this coveting will drive me to commit a crime, but if I don't watch it, it could really hurt my family. This coveting in my heart may lead to discontentment, which may lead to seeking contentment elsewhere, which could mean a lot of heartache and hurt before it's taken care of. I'd like to avoid that! So, before it's out of control, I will choose to keep my covetousness in check by reminding myself daily that I have a beautiful baby, who 23 weeks ago I was told would die. I need to find the GOOD things in this situation (and it's not like we're lacking in good things!) and focus on those. I need to quit making excuses or pretending things aren't there that really are. And I need to love my baby for who she is, not who she MIGHT have been if this or if that. Nobody is given a guarantee with their children, it's just the luck-of-the-draw.

Attilie's first birthday

The reason we came to Oregon was to celebrate Attilie's first birthday. Attilie is my niece, my brother's baby, and she is so sweet and so pretty and SUCH a big girl! It's crazy that she's already 1. I wanted to share with you her birth story, but my sister in law says she doesn't have it typed up anywhere, so, for now, I'll just share some pictures of the party!

Sadie's second trip to Oregon

We made it safely to Oregon, but it wasn't easy. After today I had to pray for forgiveness for any rude things I've ever said about (or to) someone flying alone with a small child...it is NOT easy! Brian came into the airport with me because Sadie was car screaming on the way there, so I pushed the stroller with the diaper bag while daddy held the baby. I was very thankful for his help. Once we got checked in (Sadie even got her very own boarding pass!), Brian walked us to security and said goodbye...and we were on our own. TSA ushered me straight to the front of the line (probably out of sympathy) and we were all good until it was time to walk through the beeper. I even got my shoes off, the computer out, and the medicines in a baggie all with one hand (while holding Sadie with the other)! Then the lady told me I had to fold up the stroller and put it through the scanner, I looked at her like she's crazy, I think I even said something like, "ok, right, let me grow a third arm!" Luckily the guy behind me was nice, he looked like a college kid, he folded up my stroller for me (by this time Sadie is starting to cry), then when I didn't realize my phone was in my pocket, he held out one of those little bowls for me to put it in, then when i beeped again and they said I had to take off my belt, he gave me another bowl...I'm sure every person behind me was cursing me (I would have been!) We made it through finally with no beeps and I got the stroller and put Screamy Sadie in it while I got everything packed back up...and we screamed our way to gate C14.

Funny side note: Brian called just as I was putting my belt back on to ask if I remembered where we parked the car. I told him what I thought, he agreed with me, then told me the car wasn't there. What?! Okay, I love Brian, but he has such a hard time remembering where he parked. So I wasn't that worried, I just figured he was in the wrong spot. I quizzed him for a minute, "did you come out the elevators and turn right? Did you go all the way to the end of the aisle? Did you check the next aisle over to make sure?" He said yes, and our car wasn't there. So he decided to call security and I told him to call me again when he figures out what to do. We talked again when I got to my gate and he said security was coming and if they couldn't find it, we'd have to report it stolen. And we talked a minute about why someone would want to steal OUR car...seriously, it's old and there's nothing valuable in there! And we locked it! Anyway, so he called me one more time and opens with, "you'll appreciate this..." Apparently there are east and west sides to the parking structure, and the look exactly the same...and he was on the wrong side! Ha ha ha!

With the knowledge that our car wasn't stolen, Sadie and I continued to wait to board the plane. She had stopped crying, and she was happily laying on my lap being cute and kicking her legs, and I had great optimism (like I usually do). We boarded after the A group with 16 other families with small children (I felt better at least knowing that if my baby cried she probably wouldn't be the only one!), and this time when I needed to fold up the stroller, I handed Sadie to the lady behind me who asked if she could help. Because the flight was full of families, everybody was super nice and very understanding of us.

We got a great seat, third row, against the window, and it didn't look like anyone was going to be in the middle seat. It was all working out nicely! I started nursing Sadie knowing she was tired and hoping she'd just fall asleep and we'd be good, but it didn't quite happen like that... she took 3 sucks and started crying (I'm sure her teeth hurt, I think I finally feel something coming through!). And she wouldn't stop. There was this young couple and they boarded late and couldn't find seats together so he was going to sit by me and the girl right behind us, but the lady in the row behind us offered to sit by me so the couple could sit together. She sat down and said, "I figured I should at least see who's making all this noise!" I apologized in advance, but she was really nice and when Sadie screamed and whined for the next hour, she didn't say a word. She and the guy on the aisle both had headphones (which I was glad for them) and neither of them seemed bothered. And the lady in front of my kept turning around, but not because she was annoyed, because she's a mom and felt bad for me and wanted to help. When Sadie finally gave up and fell asleep, the lady in front of me turned around and I gave her a thumbs up and she just laughed, the lady next to me said, "She's way cuter when she's quiet." It was embarrassing, but what can you do? She's a baby!

Luckily she was out the rest of the flight and I was able to sleep a little, read a little, eat a little, but you have no idea how excited I was when the captain said we had 15 more minutes until we land! The lady next to me said, "the hard part is over now!" I told her, with a frown on my face, we still had to drive to Eugene.

My mom met us at baggage claim, Sadie was sound asleep in the stroller, and I was once again glad we brought it. We got her in the car(after a diaper change, of course) and got on the road. We decided first, though, to stop at the fabric store...I was looking for something specific and I thought a store in Oregon might have it. Nope. Then Sadie was hungry (she actually put her hand in her mouth and started sucking! This is the second time she's done this in about 24 hours, it's kind of exciting!!), so we nursed in the parking lot while my mom ate the lunch she brought and we made it almost an hour before the crying started!

We had decided ahead of time that we would stop at the Starbucks in Woodburn (which is about half way and a good place to stop and rest anyway), so we did, and Sadie sat and was cute and everybody oohed and ahhed over her. Then we nursed some more and she pooped her pants, so we took care of that...but then she cried for the next hour before we got home. Actually, we decided to stop to see Anna first because she lives a little north of Eugene. It was so sad, not car screaming, but it went in waves...she would fade out and just barely be crying and we thought she'd fall asleep, and then she'd get herself worked up again and scream and then she'd fade back down and do it all over again. She was so tired, but falling asleep in the car was obviously NOT on her agenda!

We had a good visit with Anna and Sadie got a little nap, she took a longer one at my mom's house, then we went to the Johnson's for dinner and Sadie was out cold by 9:00. She didn't even wake up when we put her in the car. Poor little baby was T-I-R-E-D! Goodnight sweet Sadie, i hope you have a better day tomorrow and a less "exciting" flight back home on Saturday.

butternut spaghet sauce

We have so much freaking butternut squash that we're trying new and creative ways to use it all. We so far have eaten squash: steamed, added it to soup, butternut squash risotto and made speghet sauce. Christie doesn't particularly like baked squash due to texture issues. So the most common way to eat squash we have not yet partaken. We also still need to make bread as that's always an easy delicious way to use a globe.

We got adventurous last weekend and went to Costco with the intention of finding stuff to eat - and eat samples. While inspecting items we walked by a sauce entitled "butternut squash" pasta sauce. In normal circumstances we would have immediately purchased this item, however considering we had a kitchen counter filled with squash we decided to make some our selves!

So I peeled, seeded and cubed a squash that looked particularly experimental.



And prepared the rest of the ingredients: onion sliced, garlic chopped, fresh basil (from our garden), EVOO, home-made chicken stock, wine, and something entirely new:
(Editor's Note: EVOO stands for extra virgin olive oil...yeah, I didn't know either. -Christie)


Dried Mexican Oregano! - from our garden. Yum. Once everything was prepared my wife decided she needed to use the treadmill at that moment and informed me, while cooking dinner that it was my job to watch Sadie. So Sadie, being my progeny, immediately fussed inconsolably that she needed attention and required holding. My wife pumping away on the treadmill instructed me to take care of the pile of scream.
( Editor's Note: If I want to ever see a glimpse of that pre-pregnancy ever again, the treadmill and I need to become good friends, I don't think Brian disagrees. -Christie)

So...

we got to work. Sadie and I heated the oil. Added the onions until they browned, added the garlic until it was smelly, de-glazed the pan (and me).



Sadie inspected everything making sure nothing was overcooked. Let me tell you, oil splatters hurt me, and I was terrified for her. Her, like a nice little Sous, just took any abuse the angry oil could give her but she persevered. I am serious though, all of this was done with her in one arm - not crying.
(Editor's Note: I wish I had taken a picture of this, but I was pounding that treadmill pavement! -Christie)


At this point we added the cubed squash, chicken broth, and some fresh basil. Covered it and simmered until Christie finished her work out. On the other burners we had some brocs steaming and some whole wheat organic noodles boiling away.



Some dried oregano was added and I then added it to a blender and whirred it into sauce. It was thick and difficult to blend so I did add some pasta water in order to help it.

Finally we added the sauce to the noodles


and ate.

Our review: it was really just a big fat okay. It wasn't overly flavorful with the noodles. The sauce by itself was pretty good but apparently the noodles just aren't a great compliment to the sauce. We tried it again with another type of noodle tonight and it was still just really average. Overall it was a fun event and a very creative way to use the squash, but perhaps I should have added more salt (I rarely add salt as we get enough during the day) or had lower expectations. All in all, the highlight was sauteing items with a non-screaming baby.

I'm an awesome dad!

Unexpected Growth

Last year around this time we made a discovery. Our baby watermelon vines burned up in the scorching heat. This was especially tragic as watermelons are my wife's favorite form of nutrition. When planning our garden this year we decided against any sort of melon crop because our loss still stung too much.

We planted other successful items including this year including an apricot tree in our back and a Hong Kong Orchid for eventual shade in the front. When planting this I dug a hole. The put the trees into the hole. The backfill for the hole was a nice 50/50 mix of native soil and our compost. We compost everything that was once living but never had legs or fins.

Often times when using compost unusual things sprout up quickly and I am curious enough to not kill these items. We've so far gotten green onions and...


at least 15 more of these butternut squash. And...


three honeydew melons. Not pictured is one spaghetti squash we salvaged before its vine perished in the hot hot sun. All of the items, except the spaghetti squash (which grew from our main garden which is odd considering I put no compost there) came from the soil of our two planted trees. Roughly 10 butternut squash in the front of our house and 10 in the back. There is a slowly dying vine in our front yard below our tree that has provided us so much homegrown food. I am positive our HOA is not thrilled. I am also positive that I am thrilled and that trumps stodgy HOA prudes any day.

We're now in the process of finding new and interesting ways to use up all this butternut squash. One huge advantage of having so much bn squash is the life of the squash. It can be kept for a month or so which spaces out our consumption.

Tomorrow, a recipe...

Neurology update 6-24

Well, as usual the neurologist made me feel bad by telling me my baby is not doing great, will never be normal, and she doesn't know how bad Sadie will be ultimately (instead of how good Sadie is already doing). If we didn't have so much support, and believe in the power of God to continue to work a miracle in our baby's life, we may have left there feeling totally hopeless. Brian even called her on it and said, "you just said she's doing way better than anyone expected, so why are you telling us she's not doing great?" Whatever Dr. Jarrar says, we know our baby is doing great (because she's alive!!)!

So, she showed us Sadie's EEG and explained to us that Sadie's brain activity is suppressed and we could see that her brain waves weren't as wavy as maybe someone without brain damage. Then she showed us the spikes that she said showed that Sadie has a tendency to have seizures. She said Sadie had a lot of them and she really believed that if we took her off the phenobarb she would have seizures. She said she'd support weaning her off, but explained to us the risk of Sadie having seizures. If Sadie has a big seizure (lasting over an hour) it could really do significant damage and possibly set her way back developmentally. If she has little seizures, but a lot of them, the chemicals released can cause damage. And even if her seizures are limited, sometimes having a seizure can cause more seizures and more seizures snowballing them out of control.

Then Brian asked about the amount we give her and said it seems like the other babies we've heard of get WAY more (we only give sadie 2.5 mL once a day, many of the moms we've talked to were giving 5-7 mL!) So dr. Jarrar looked at how much we're giving her and said it's not even enough to provide a protective barrier against seizures...so essentially we're giving her medicine that's not doing anything because we're not giving her enough. That made me feel a little better because then maybe such a small dose isn't so detrimental to her development, but it also made me a little annoyed that nobody has LOOKED at this! They ask us EVERYTIME what medications she's on and how much, and EVERY dr. visit, not just the neurologist. (I mean, when she came in she asked me if Sadie was eating orally?! Do you really pay so little attention to your patients that you don't know? We've never seen Dr. Jarrar with a feeding tube.) Anyway...Brian also asked about long term effects of the phenobarb, as well as the keppra (which is what she would be switched to providing she needs to be medicated for seizures) and Dr. Jarrar told us they haven't found any side effects to keppra, but phenobarb has had tests showing it's not good for the brain and can stunt development. Awesome. I asked Dr. Jarrar why we would switch to a new medicine if Sadie wasn't taking enough to protect from seizures anyway and we haven't seen any. She said her concern is that maybe she's having seizures we can't see. I mentioned though that the EEG didn't show seizures and she told me a 45 minute EEG isn't long enough to see something like that. To find out, Sadie'd have to be admitted to the epilepsy center for a 24 hour EEG. In the end what we decided was to do this, the 24 hour EEG, and if we don't see any seizure activity, we'll taper off the meds completely, but if we do see seizures we'll start the keppra. And until we do this study we'll keep Sadie on the phenobarb. When i asked why she said it's probably helping her sleep...it was all i could do to not laugh in her face! Ha! HELPING her sleep...she's probably right though, i just can't imagine sleep being WORSE!!

And I'm okay with this solution/compromise. I definitely don't want to put my baby at more risk than she already is, and a 24 hour EEG will give us some good data to work with. And if she has seizures, it's not the end of the world... it'll just be one more obstacle of not knowing that we will have overcome.

We asked other questions, will Sadie have cerebral palsy (CP), will her vision be normal, do you think she'll be able to walk? Dr. Jarrar told us Sadie would DEFINITELY have CP, as to the severity of it, we don't know...and that they don't diagnose CP this early in life. WHAT?! She said that they will be able to see in the MRI if Sadie's occipital lobe (the vision center in her brain) is suppressed, but we won't be able to see if the connectors from her eyes to her occipital lobe are working correctly, the eye dr. will probably do a specific test to check for that (but they don't do it before 6 mos). And she told us Sadie is strong, but there's no way to tell if she'll walk or be in a wheelchair. She said that with CP, you don't ever regress, because it's based on damage done, but that you can get better with therapies, and that is the only way to make it better. I told her Sadie is only about a month behind developmentally and she made it sound like at some point she could plateau in her development, so we need to keep an eye on that and not slack off with our therapies definitely!

As we walked away from there we agreed that 1. we feel that Dr. Jarrar is very negative toward our situation, and 2. she's kind of hard to talk to about anything. I mean, at one point I asked her what the dose would be for the keppra, she told me not to be concerned that it would be calculated according to weight, I told her, but I am concerned because I'm the one who has to administer it and deal with the coughing-gagging-choking. She seemed annoyed that she had to make that calculation for me right then. (by the way, .7-1 mL 3 times a day) So, I think I will talk to Dr. Wendy (the pediatrician) Monday about maybe seeing a different neurologist.

This 24 hour EEG is a big deal for Sadie and her brain. Please pray for healing in that little noggin, we want to see no seizures, no tendency for seizures, and increased brain activity since the last time. Please also pray for the MRI that we see improvement. Sadie's last MRI was done the day she left the hospital, she was one week old. And we still need that head to grow, ie that brain to grow!! Also please pray that Sadie can overcome these negative diagnoses through therapies and that she will continue to improve and progress WAY beyond what these doctors expect. We know God does miracles and we expect one in our family.