The Tea Party

Last Saturday Jake went to a birthday party for his friend, Nora Bella. The theme of the party was a tea party and all of the kids were supposed to come in their Sunday best. Of our group of friends, there is only one other boy Jake's age, and Jackson couldn't come to the party so it was just Jake with all of the girls. Lindsey did a fabulous job with the party and had little tables and chairs set up for the kids with tea pots on each table. She made little quiches, mini peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and pistachio sugar cookies shaped as little shoes. The kids had milk as their "tea." Amazingly enough, the kids (all under two except the newly two birthday girl) sat and ate and pretended to have tea. I will say the girls all did a much better job than Jake who tended to bang the tea set instead of drink out of it. Jake also table hopped and sat with several different girls at the party. I think he has the right idea :) I promise when he gets bigger I won't let him go to any other tea parties, but this was too cute to resist.

Jake and the birthday girl, Nora Bella in her adorable pink dress

Jake drinking his "tea"--granted most of it ended up on his tie instead of in his mouth

Jake and Claire having tea--he was telling her something really important here.

Jake and Harper--If I made this black and white and took out the car in the background, it could be the 1920s...so cute!

Grace's first echo

Today I had an appointment at Texas Children's for a fetal echo for Grace with Dr. Altman. My friend Claudia was sweet to keep Jake for me so I wasn't trying to keep him still and quiet while I laid still for 45 minutes for the test. Her heart basically looks very good, but the doctor did find some leakage in her aortic valve. Most of the time that means absolutely nothing, but given our family history Dr. Altman was interested. I gave her Jake and Ty's history as well and told her about Jake's check-up last week when Dr. Reddy found the extra membrane under Jake's aortic valve. When I told her that, she pulled up Jake's echo from last week as well as all of his surgery notes and past echo results on her computer. She compared the different results and noticed Jake has leakage in his aortic valve too. Its possible that the membrane that has developed is because his mitral valve (the one fixed in surgery) tried to correct itself and formed the membrane which causes the slight leakage. All that to say, she is wondering if leaking in Grace's valve is similar.

She wants me to come back at 34 weeks (I was 27 weeks today) for another echo to see if there is still leaking. If the leaking is still there, she suggested I might have to deliver Grace down at the Med. center instead of in the Woodlands so that she could have an immediate echo after birth and appropriate doctors on standby. I'm praying that isn't the case and that I can have my regular OB, Dr. Turner, still deliver. All of this is probably nothing, but she says she prefers to be overly cautious. She spent a good 30 minutes going over all of this with me and looking over all of Jake's notes. Ty had a meeting today and couldn't come with me. I always feel quite incompetent when I go to these appointments by myself. I explained to her that I'm an English teacher and have worked hard these past few years to indoctrinate myself with all of these heart terms but still feel like a deer in the headlights at times. She laughed and said her 4th grader brings home grammar homework she doesn't understand. I told her I would be glad to help with that :)

Please just pray that the leaking in Grace's heart is nothing and goes away by the next appointment. Also, continue to pray that Jake's leaky valve slows down and doesn't get worse. She agreed we should take him back to Dr. Reddy in 6 months for another echo to evaluate his membrane issue. Hopefully all of that made sense...I'm still processing what I heard myself.

The Remodel

For the last few months, our house has been turned upside down. To make room for Grace's nursery, we decided to move the office downstairs to the dining room. Jake's new room will be what was the upstairs office and then we're switching Jake's old nursery and guest room. Grace's nursery will be the old guest room and the guest room will be in Jake's old nursery. Confused, yet? I am and I live here! The whole project started when Ty decided the new office downstairs needed french doors to make it look like an office. We had those installed and had to add some sheet rock to the wall to make it work. Then, the office needed to be painted so Ty painted it a nice dark olive color and painted the trim to match the new doors. While we were at it, we painted the whole downstairs and stairway which was in a dire need for new paint. I believe it had the original paint from 1982...not too good. The living room is now a nice dark khaki color and the hall and stairs are a light khaki color which match our bedroom color. After all of the painting was finished, we added new flooring. Our entire downstairs was a white tile which was nearly impossible to keep clean. It also had begun buckling in the kitchen because apparently the previous owner of our home hadn't put it down correctly. Ty took up about half the tile which was incredibly hard work. He rented a mini jack hammer and went at it. We decided to pay the tile company to do the other half. We now have new tan tile in the kitchen and laminate wood floors in the living room, hallway, and office. Pretty much a new house! I took some pictures this morning of it. I'll throw in a disclaimer that they aren't too good, but I was trying to hurry while Jake still slept. We're just left with switching the upstairs rooms and decorating Grace's room. I have Jake's new room done but I'll post those pictures later.

The new french doors to the office

The new office...this was Ty's desk growing up that Al made for him and of course his deer head (which ironically he shot on my birthday in 1987--we were meant to be!)The main desk in the office...Ty's lighthouse picture has also moved from over the sofa to over the desk. I'm saving room over the sofa for a really great Jake and Grace picture when she comes. You can also see the pretty laminate floors...they turned out great. Oh, also notice the bear rug...more wildlife--Ty's grandad killed that in Alaska. Jake likes to ride it :)Here's a glimpse of the living room (including the lovely Lego's table--my $20 secondhand store bargain for Jake). You can see the new wall color and the floors. Eventually I want to replace the fireplace cover and change the gold to black.And, the new kitchen tile...I already love it. Cleaning the shiny, white tile was pretty much the bane of my existence...I welcome the nice tan color!

Let's go Fly a Kite!

I have a great husband. We've been remodeling our house and Ty has worked non-stop for a few months now trying to get it all finished. Everything was finished on Friday so this weekend we've worked on hanging pictures back on the wall and moving everything back into its place. Sunday afternoon we were working on the office when I realized poor Jake had been neglected all weekend. Not really neglected, but we'd been so busy working that we hadn't spent any real quality time with him. He'd heard a whole lot of "Jake, don't touch that" and "Jake, put that down" all weekend. So to remedy the situation I thought we needed to take a family outing. I absolutely love flying kites so that seemed like a fun solution. Ty really wanted a Sunday nap but instead took Jake and I to the park with Jake's Mickey Mouse kite.

We learned a few things during our kite excursion. One, you need wind to fly a kite. It turns out that Houston may not be the best kite flying city. Remember I grew up in Oklahoma so wind is pretty much a given any day. Two, toddlers don't really fly kites. Jake wasn't interested in the kite in the least, but he did LOVE running up and down the hill and having Ty chase him. They played and played and rolled down the hill and we pretty soon forgot the kite. BUT, we had a fun family day outside. I really appreciate Ty for giving up his plans on Sunday and having good family time. He is such a great dad to Jake as is evident everyday when I see how excited Jake is to have Ty home from work. He loves his daddy :)

The Binky

Jake still LOVES his pacifier...loves it. We were doing well for awhile at limiting it to bedtime, but I've regressed. We've had a busy fall and it was much easier to give him his "binky" when he was upset at times. When Jake wakes up every morning, he throws the binky back into the crib. After breakfast when we're upstairs getting dressed for the day, he'll take it back out of his crib and is ready for his day. We're working on leaving in the crib! Jonesa found this shirt for him, I thought it was really appropriate. I had grand visions of Jake not having his pacifier when Grace comes, but we'll just wait and see...

Meeting Dr. Reddy

Tuesday I took Jake to TCH in the Woodlands to meet his new cardiologist, Dr. Reddy. We were a bit apprehensive about having a new doctor since we loved Dr. Grenier so much. I realize I don't deal with change well but especially when it comes to the health of my child! Anyway, I took Jake in for his check-up and it was good to see the nurses at the hospital. They couldn't believe how big Jake was and how well he looked. Dr. Reddy was really impressive too. He is a kind and gentle man who made sure he made Jake smile before examining him. He asked me questions about Jake's history and listened to his heart. Dr. Grenier had told us before that Jake would always have a pronounced murmur so I wasn't surprised when Dr. Reddy said his heart was "noisy." Jake then had a 45 minute echo done, and he did great! They put the movie Cars on for him to watch and held quite still. After the test Dr. Reddy interpreted the results and gave us some not quite good news. It seems Jake has developed subvalvar aortic stenosis which means he has a membrane that has appeared just above the aortic valve. This does not appear at birth but usually appears after a child has had heart surgery often for a VSD (Jake had an ASD and a VSD). He said not to worry now, it would just be something they would watch for the next few years. He said he has had some patients who have this and are now 16 and have never had to have surgery. He's had others who had to have surgery within a few years. There's not a particular pattern for its development. Basically, it won't require surgery unless the membrane grows and begins to interfere with the blood flow coming from the aortic valve. If that does happen, they can go in and take the membrane out, BUT it often grows back. For that reason, they try not to do surgery unless it is absolutely necessary. I read up on the condition and it looks like 65% of patients end up having eventual surgery, but that means 35% don't have surgery! We will just pray that Jake stays in the 35% category. Ty couldn't go to the appointment with me and asked me if he did have surgery if it would be open heart or if they could do it less invasively. I didn't think to ask Dr. Reddy that question but from what I've seen online it looks like it would be open heart surgery again (although that's my internet research talking...not too official!)

Our good news was that the repair on his mitral valve looks great and is just minimally leaking which will be normal for Jake. Because of that, Dr. Reddy took Jake off his Enapril and Jake is officially medicine free for the first time since he was three months old! We'll go back in six months (May), and Dr. Reddy will check the membrane and if it hasn't grown, we'll be on track for check-ups every year at that point. So please just pray that this membrane doesn't grow and Jake's heart stays healthy!

Grace and Nash

This weekend we took some pictures of Destin and I while we were in Fort Worth. Our babies are due just a week apart in February. She and Mark are having a boy and are naming him Nash. I know Grace and Nash will be great buddies growing up together. My brother and his wife are due the end of this month a baby girl and another cousin for Grace as well...cousins all around :)

Happy Halloween!

This past weekend Jake, Jonesa, and I traveled up to Ft. Worth to spend the weekend with Destin and take a girl's shopping trip to Canton. Since we left on Halloween afternoon, Jake missed his Halloween party so we took him trick-or-treating once we got to Mark and Destin's house. Jonesa and I had talked about making Jake a doctor's costume this year because he loves his doctor play kit. He is constantly checking his heart with his stethoscope (fairly ironic!) and taking his blood pressure. But, I never followed through with the doctor idea and got a last minute costume for him. The only one left in his size that wasn't big and furry was a knight's costume. I loved that idea since I was a Knight's Queen at Harding. For my non-Harding readers, Knights is a social club (kind of like a fraternity) and the clubs elect two queens (girls) each semester to represent their club. My brother was in Knight's as well as all of my best guy friends in college so it was a lot of fun. I have to say Jake is definitely my favorite knight of all though! He was adorable and loved trick-or-treating too. We just went down two streets in their neighborhood and his Uncle Mark carried him most of the way. He got the idea down pretty quickly that people were giving him candy. He would not let anyone hold his bag for him and by the end it was so heavy he kept falling over as he dragged it behind him. Of course, he didn't really eat any of the candy--just some M & M's. We had fun watching people's reactions when they opened their doors to find little Jake standing there--great fun! Here are a few pictures:

The costume was supposed to be a 2T but Jake's little belly hung out a bit :)

Jake with Aunt Destin (and his cousin-to-be, baby Nash) Jake and his Jo Mama after he finished trick-or-treating
Waiting patiently for more candy

Mommy and her favorite little Knight

Taking a deep breath

I realized last week that I have neglected taking pictures of our Jake this fall. October was the busiest month ever and I'm so glad its finally November and I can take a deep breath. I was out of town three of the four weekends in October and Jake has been a sport about traveling and being dragged on my countless errands this last month. Seriously, this month my goal is rest and not to over schedule our lives. We need some good family time with the three of us to rejuvenate. Ty has been very busy remodeling our downstairs. We've enclosed our dining room with french doors to make it Ty's new office because the office upstairs will be Jake's new room when Grace comes. Ty's also painted the office and hallway and had the living room and stairway painted. Next, he started taking up the tile downstairs for new flooring. He has worked non-stop for the last few weeks on weekends and after work and needs to rest as well! We're just waiting now for the flooring company to come next week and finish the floors and we'll have almost a new house!

I'm going to work on remembering Psalm 46:10 this next month: "Be still and know that I am God" and slow down and enjoy being Jake's mom! In the spirit of that, here are some cute candid pictures of Jake I took in his overalls and cowboy boots. Here's Jake at 21 months: