Austin's Other Birthday

We were just informed that Austin will have his transplant on August 2nd. Quite literally this will be his other birthday, a new lease on life. A gift. We are a mix of emotions, but I think that we are mainly in disbelief. We worked really hard to get to this point, and felt sometimes we were pushing just for pushing's sake since things were at a stand still for so long, but now it is right around the corner. I try not to think of how scary this is, and just think of all the great things that will be a result of the transplant. When I take any time to really think about it I get really scared and sometimes I even get sick to my stomach. So I try and keep busy, and distracted. Ben and I were talking today about how we are kind of in survival mode. I have to confess that I have not really made dinner in 2 weeks, or really cooked at all. So yes we are in survival mode right now, but happily so. What an exciting time for our family! It is scary, but I think that I am going to keep myself in denial and just not think about it.
I am so grateful for this gift from Jacob, whenever I talk to him I really don't know what to say. What can you say to someone who is giving you such a precious gift? I thank him but words fail me beyond expressing this simple declaration.
We thank you for your continued prayers.

Pociągi

Last summer when Austin was at Spokane Children's one of the nursing students found this video for Austin. It was a life saver sometimes. Austin would watch it over and over again and eventually learned the song and would sing along to it. Whenever he wanted to watch it he would say "Ding-ding train!!!". The video is Chezc and shows a bunch of electric commuter trains. I am writing about this since he is starting to grow out of this phase. Now he knows the names of the types of trains and asks for them specifically instead of just ding ding train. He spent this whole last year asking for ding-ding train and it makes me kind of sad how lately he seems to be growing up so much. *Sniff*

Here is Pociagi aka ding-ding train.

Little Known Nuggets

Here are some little known tid-bits about....

Austin

• When Austin says any word that ends in the letter 'n' he also puts a 't' on the end of it. One of his favorite phrases: "Do it again-tt".
• This morning while we were driving to dialysis Austin was looking around the freeway and said "Mommy, lots a people going to ialysis!" I responded that we needed to hurry to get a parking spot.
  
• He loves giving kisses, The show The Little Einstiens, going to the aquarium, playing Angry Birds on my phone,
  
• He will be playing and having fun, then all of a sudden, sometimes mid sentence he will say "W-A-T-E-R" in a half guttural, half old man sort of way.
• After he get's onto trouble he will ask me if I am happy, in other words, are you okay with me now mom? That makes me feel terrible especially if I was harsh at all, but it also makes me feel good that he wants my approval. He is a great kid.
• He loves baseball and can hit the ball half of time, and catch the ball.
• He always tells his dad "I wanna fight you!".
• All of the nurses, techs, or aids are Dr.'s.
  

Emma

• When she is mad she will yell "NEVEEEERRRRRR!!!!!". Pretty funny
• She started really loving her baby dolls about 2 months ago. When they are sick she says "Babies sick, need to go to ospital, baby needs to go to ialysis."
• She loves to be a little momma. Whenever I have to change Austin's catheter dressing, or when he is throwing-up Emma will ask "You okay Bruddie? You okay?".
  
• She gets upset whenever anyone makes a mess. Ben sprayed the window with the garden hose and it made her really mad. "You made a mess Daddy! You made a mess!" She had a scowl and was leaning over and waving her finger at him.
• Lucky Charms are her favorite cereal.
  
• Combing my hair, and taking baths are some of her favorite activities.
• Her blankets and her pillow have soft satin parts that she strokes to go tot sleep or comfort herself, she also twirls her pony around her finger and sucks her bottom lip.
  
• Ariel (Ari-well) from The Little Mermaid is her favorite toy and it's her favorite movie.

Learning the Hard Way

As I have said previously we are in between Austin and Emma needing a nap. When Austin doesn't take a nap he goes to bed great and sleeps for about 11 hrs. Same for Emma. Without a nap I have to work hard to keep them awake around 4 or 5, and they don't go to bed until 10. Austin has been throwing-up since we stopped napping, so we are going to back to napping to see if that improves.
Anyway, today they were being extra loud after I put them down. After about an hour I heard knocking and went to check on them. Emma was standing there almost in tears saying "Brudie made mess...". Now I love children's books and we have TONS. Someone had taken all the books and stacked them around and on top of Emma's bed. Austin confessed. I told him how disappointed I was, then he smiled at me. I went on to explain if he did not want to respect and take care of his toys then maybe cousin Clayton would like them, or some other little boy or girl. That took the smile off his face and the tears started to fall. I warned him if he treated his toys like that I would take them out of his room, a consequence that I will follow through on. He apologized quite profusely.
The meanwhile Emma laid down in my room to take a nap and Austin was in charge of cleaning him room before he could come out. At first he cried and pleaded with me to help, I told him he had to help first and clean-up some before I would help him. It took him a good 45 minutes to make progress, then I hopped in to help. We cleaned up all the books, then Emma had to be persuaded to help with the rest. After about an hour and 45 minutes total we were finally done. Austin and Emma were so proud, I was proud they took a hard lesson and made it in to a good thing. I know that this will happen again, but I think they handled it really well with no major melt downs, and made good choices in the end. They are really awesome kids..

True Love

We were on our way home from dialysis yesterday and Austin threw-up all over himself and his car seat. We stopped at our friend Grandma Karen's to pick up Emma, by this time Austin had fallen asleep. It is a short drive to our house and Austin had woken up not in a good mood. Emma was very concerned asking, "Brudie okay? Brudie sick?". Austin is never happy about Emma playing Mommy, he get's down right agitated. After I re-dressed Austin it had escalated and Austin refused to speak to Emma. Emma started to moan, "mmmooooohhh, Brudie won't talk to me....sigh" with a pout. She was pretty upset. I love how much Emma loves and adores her brother, he is one lucky kid.

Best Friends

Our kids fight all the time, but they have their shinning moments and when push comes to shove they are best friends, and love each other very much. We went out into the the front yard to water the grass and jump through the sprinklers (aka sprinkles). We have some big flexible sticky plastic called Tagaderm from the hospital that we used to cover his dialysis catheter. The only draw back from using this is it can hurt to take it off. Austin was first scared to go all the way through but after I showed him (I had to demonstrate fully clothed) he was unstoppable. He even tried to help Emma go through, holding her hand and coaching her. Emma would try to psyche herself up to go all the way through, then she would run around the outside of it and proclaim "I did it! I did it Mommy!". The sprinkler was cold so I don't blame her!
Austin and Emma love the show the little Einstiens. The main theme to this show is to help others, and their favorite episodes show the characters rescuing someone in trouble. A frequently heard phrase is "To the rescue!". One of them yells "help me, help me!" and then the other runs to the rescue. The pictures show Austin rescuing Emma then hugging her. They also ask each other "are you okay? are you okay?" when they are done. It is really their first pretend game all on their own.
Micha is staying in Emma's room so she is sharing with Austin. They love it and we do too until it is time to take a nap or bed time. We are still trying to figure it out. They love to play instead of rest so they are always falling asleep late and it throws everything off. I also think they are approaching not needing nap. They can make it till about 5:30 or 6 with out a nap then will fall asleep, if I could just get them to make it till 7 then we would be in business. We will keep working on it.

Baseball and Brellas

Austin LOVES to play baseball and more recently water balloons. Everyday when Ben comes home he want to do one of these. It is fun to have activities that are just with Daddy. Emma loves her Little Mermaid Umbrella (or brella). Whenever it rains she asks for it and wants to go outside whether or not she has he PJ's on. She throws a fit when we we put it away, we love how she finds such joy in the simple everyday things.
We have a new friend staying with us. Micha Brown from Ben's hometown of Moses Lake. He is doing a internship as a film major through Hallmark Studios for 5 weeks. We are glad that we could help him and our kids love to hang out with him (we do too). They both always say prayers for Micha, it is quite adorable.
We have some great news, Austin has grown nearly 1 1/2 inches in 8 weeks. No joke! That is an amazing amount of growth in such a short amount of time. The Dr's were really surprised, and are pleased with his progress. Austin will most likely shoot up after the transplant but there is a chance he won't, and since he cannot be on growth hormones a year post transplant, having this much growth before his surgery is awesome. Those shot hurt and and I hate to give them, but it has already paid off big time.