You know that Christmas song "It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas"? Well, there's a line in the song that says "And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again." I think I know how the writer of that song felt!
Now the news would have you believe that January 2016 Winter Storm Jonas was the storm of the century, but I'll tell you that we got more snow in my back yard two years ago. But here's the difference between this year and two years ago...I'm pregnant. That means I wasn't really able to shovel snow like I would have. And Colby tried to help (when he wasn't completely distracted!!) but he's just not very good at it. And just like every time we get a major snow fall, Brandon was working all weekend. Soooo....I was stuck in the house with two smallish children for three days! Yay! Well it was okay for the first two days. The boys were pretty chill and the boys entertained themselves with massive binges of Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Star Wars Clone Wars and Power Rangers. Plus we went out and played in the snow, but only for a bit because it was extra cold. The third day involved a lot of fussing on Carter's part. I sent Brandon this text message at 6:19 p.m. "Too. Much. Time. With. Small. Children. I'll be glad that you will be home tomorrow :-)"
And I WAS glad. Brandon took us over to a local elementary school in his four wheel drive vehicle where we sledded for a couple hours. Then Brandon and Colby had a snowball fight from the snow fort Brandon had built. And last but not least, I talked Brandon into taking me to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. It was a great day. It's so much easier when you're not outnumbered by small children who are irrational :-)
Ok - PKU update: We tried a new formula and of course Carter hated it. So after a day of not really drinking any formula (which made him extremely grumpy) I said screw it and I gave him some of Colby's formula (Colby had said that it tasted just like original Periflex Jr.). Well Carter sucked it down with no fussing involved. So the nutritionist relented and is letting him drink the Periflex Advanced just like his big brother. Problem solved!! Which is great because I was getting pretty stressed about this.
Family
Here we are at the Virginia Tech Horticulture Gardens (Photo by Jenna Gill Photography)
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Pink, Pink Everywhere!!
Update to my last post: I'm down to three can of regular Periflex Jr. Carter's nutritionist did not get back to me until last Friday, but she's sending me more things to try. The mail better hurry and deliver because I'm almost out of options :-(
On to more exciting things...we're having a girl in May!! Let me be clear, I would not trade my boys for anything. They are the light of my life. But...here's the whole story: Back when we were in college, Brandon used to teach swim lessons at the Blacksburg Aquatics Center. There was this wonderful family with a whole gaggle of wonderful kids, one being named McKenna (who had red hair). Ever since then Brandon has wanted to have a little girl named McKenna. So we had Colby and Carter and now we have our McKenna (but ours won't have red hair). Colby for one is excited to be having a baby sister as he thinks there are too many boys in the house (I agree!). Carter doesn't quite know what is going on, but we've been talking it up and hopefully things will be okay when she arrives. Best advice I've recieved so far: Everything will be okay if you are intentional about spending time with each child.
One of the best things has been having super supportive co-workers. I think some people would think that working with a bunch of women would be hell on earth, but I love working with these ladies! For the most part we get along and we count on each other to get through the school days, months and years. So I decided to have my own little special gender reveal for these special ladies. One of our mottos in the English pod is that no reason is a bad reason to have cake, so I went to Walmart and got a pink frosted cake and had them write "It's a girl!" on it. Then I wrapped it in a bag and took it to school. Of course they wanted to know the gender as soon as I walked in the door, but I made them wait until lunch. When they saw that cake they were all just as excited as me!!
Now...what needs to be done before McKenna arrives?? Well, I have a whole to-do list broken down by month...unfortunately it will mostly be Brandon's responsibility because I don't think I can make a loft bed in my condition. I'll do some cleaning and organizing!! :-)
On to more exciting things...we're having a girl in May!! Let me be clear, I would not trade my boys for anything. They are the light of my life. But...here's the whole story: Back when we were in college, Brandon used to teach swim lessons at the Blacksburg Aquatics Center. There was this wonderful family with a whole gaggle of wonderful kids, one being named McKenna (who had red hair). Ever since then Brandon has wanted to have a little girl named McKenna. So we had Colby and Carter and now we have our McKenna (but ours won't have red hair). Colby for one is excited to be having a baby sister as he thinks there are too many boys in the house (I agree!). Carter doesn't quite know what is going on, but we've been talking it up and hopefully things will be okay when she arrives. Best advice I've recieved so far: Everything will be okay if you are intentional about spending time with each child.
One of the best things has been having super supportive co-workers. I think some people would think that working with a bunch of women would be hell on earth, but I love working with these ladies! For the most part we get along and we count on each other to get through the school days, months and years. So I decided to have my own little special gender reveal for these special ladies. One of our mottos in the English pod is that no reason is a bad reason to have cake, so I went to Walmart and got a pink frosted cake and had them write "It's a girl!" on it. Then I wrapped it in a bag and took it to school. Of course they wanted to know the gender as soon as I walked in the door, but I made them wait until lunch. When they saw that cake they were all just as excited as me!!
Now...what needs to be done before McKenna arrives?? Well, I have a whole to-do list broken down by month...unfortunately it will mostly be Brandon's responsibility because I don't think I can make a loft bed in my condition. I'll do some cleaning and organizing!! :-)
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Carter, Drink Your Moo!
Howdy! So I noticed it's been about 11 months since I last wrote anything on my blog. I think that's kind of pathetic. I'm not going to set a resolution concerning the blog because in my experience, resolutions are made to be broken. I'm simply going to set a goal. My goal is to post once a week. I think that will give me time to come up with ideas to post about because honestly posting more than once a week might be boring for all you readers out there who put up with my sporadic blogging :-)
Now, in the past I've used this blog to talk about my sons and their PKU and how we sometimes struggle as a family. Well, today we are struggling with one aspect of PKU so if you don't mind, I'll just post about that. So since Colby and Carter can't eat a lot of foods, they drink a formula (similar to baby formula) three times a day to give them the nutrition they need. This has not been an issue until lately. The boys both drank a formula called Periflex Jr. for some time now. This formula is made by a company that I believe is located in Europe (maybe England) and they charge a huge amount of money for one case of formula. Fortunately insurance considers the formula the boys' "medicine" so they cover 80% of the cost. The 20% we cover is about $90 a month per kid so that gives you an idea of how much the formula costs before insurance. And honestly they can charge as much as they want because I'm pretty sure it's the only company that makes this formula.
Well anyway, they decided to "improve" their formula. So now it's called Periflex Jr. Plus. What makes it better? Who knows. Colby never had to drink the Plus formula because his nutritionist switched him to Periflex Advance since he's getting older and bigger. We switched Colby to Advance with nary an issue. Carter, on the other hand, has had to switch to Plus. And? HE. HATES. IT. I've tried slowly transitioning. Nope. His nutritionist sent us flavors (orange and berry). Nada. Lately I've been putting hershey's chocolate syrup in it. That sort of worked okay, but not really. He maybe drank half of his cup. Before I handed him his formula and he just chugged it. Now it's like "Carter drink your moo" every five seconds. It's exhausting...for me.
So what to do? Well, at the last PKU picnic we picked up some samples of Lophlex. This is a pre-made fruity kind of formula that comes in a pouch similar to those pouches of applesauce that you can get at the grocery store. We let him try it a while back and he seemed to like it and I'm currently trying to get some more samples so that we can make sure he definitely likes it. It is my hope that this will work better than the Periflex Jr. Plus. I don't know if it's doable or not, but if he likes the Lophlex I'd like to send back the cases of Periflex Jr. Plus and get them replaced with the Lophlex, but insurance might be an obstacle on this. We might just have to eat the cost, but we'll see.
Anyway, now you have a glimpse of our issues with PKU. Send up a little prayer that we can get this worked out soon. I'm going to lose my mind if I have to beg Carter to drink his formula any more! And now you also know why I'm praying that Baby Gill does NOT have PKU!
Now, in the past I've used this blog to talk about my sons and their PKU and how we sometimes struggle as a family. Well, today we are struggling with one aspect of PKU so if you don't mind, I'll just post about that. So since Colby and Carter can't eat a lot of foods, they drink a formula (similar to baby formula) three times a day to give them the nutrition they need. This has not been an issue until lately. The boys both drank a formula called Periflex Jr. for some time now. This formula is made by a company that I believe is located in Europe (maybe England) and they charge a huge amount of money for one case of formula. Fortunately insurance considers the formula the boys' "medicine" so they cover 80% of the cost. The 20% we cover is about $90 a month per kid so that gives you an idea of how much the formula costs before insurance. And honestly they can charge as much as they want because I'm pretty sure it's the only company that makes this formula.
Well anyway, they decided to "improve" their formula. So now it's called Periflex Jr. Plus. What makes it better? Who knows. Colby never had to drink the Plus formula because his nutritionist switched him to Periflex Advance since he's getting older and bigger. We switched Colby to Advance with nary an issue. Carter, on the other hand, has had to switch to Plus. And? HE. HATES. IT. I've tried slowly transitioning. Nope. His nutritionist sent us flavors (orange and berry). Nada. Lately I've been putting hershey's chocolate syrup in it. That sort of worked okay, but not really. He maybe drank half of his cup. Before I handed him his formula and he just chugged it. Now it's like "Carter drink your moo" every five seconds. It's exhausting...for me.
So what to do? Well, at the last PKU picnic we picked up some samples of Lophlex. This is a pre-made fruity kind of formula that comes in a pouch similar to those pouches of applesauce that you can get at the grocery store. We let him try it a while back and he seemed to like it and I'm currently trying to get some more samples so that we can make sure he definitely likes it. It is my hope that this will work better than the Periflex Jr. Plus. I don't know if it's doable or not, but if he likes the Lophlex I'd like to send back the cases of Periflex Jr. Plus and get them replaced with the Lophlex, but insurance might be an obstacle on this. We might just have to eat the cost, but we'll see.
Anyway, now you have a glimpse of our issues with PKU. Send up a little prayer that we can get this worked out soon. I'm going to lose my mind if I have to beg Carter to drink his formula any more! And now you also know why I'm praying that Baby Gill does NOT have PKU!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)