Busy, Busy, Busy = the New Norm!!

That has been the case the past month.  Busy, busy, busy....although better that than the opposite.  The boys have now TRULY been detoxed back to life in Zeeland with time and Jen's Gems Daycare and watching LOTS of basketball.  They're getting to the age that they get to go along with Dad on recruiting trips (they know with me, still as a carry-over from all of our time/travels together this fall that they can sucker me right in to about any candy...usually the purple bagged Skittles or a McDonald's milkshake) on Tuesday and Friday nights or even to or home from away Hope games, although the result of the trip home from Olivet College can be seen below....two tired boys!!

We were able to celebrate the Myle's man turning 3 earlier this month.  Whoa, where is the pause button?  It seems like just yesterday that we were waiting for him to take his first steps (he was pretty content just crawling around and allowing everybody else to do most of the work for him....finally at the 18 month mark he decided it was time).  He requested a Southwest Airplane cake (sorry Shawna, another result of our many travels this fall...yeah, big boy problems when they started getting upset that we weren't flying on a Southwest plane...the boys love the colorful planes...and were flying a plane white United or American plane...see what I mean about detox) that Shawna slaved over and successfully created.

But the real star of the show, Kierstyn Joy, has had quite a busy, and successful few weeks.  Shawna and her are getting to be besties with many of the people at the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids.  They have many weekly appointments that will continue for quite some time and start to spread out as she gets older but I think they're quickly becoming VIP's.  KJ's castings to correct her clubbed feet have gone extremely well and her feet corrected more quickly than expected so the casting people decided to go ahead with a tenotomy a few weeks early and completed the procedure yesterday (read the link for more information on that).  The pics below show some of the process of cutting off the casts, the actually casting stages, and KJ's "corrected" feet.  And, holy crap, as I'm typing this at 6:00am, I'm just realizing she NEVER got up last night....I'm knocking on wood not to jinx that....model child.  She must be rewarding Shawna for sacrificing so much for her and giving Mom her first full night of sleep since November 30!!

The casts she is now in will be on for 3 weeks as the tendons in her legs heal and heels drop.  From there, we get to move on to some braces with little shoes on them (the most expensive shoe's I've ever seen!!!...Forrest Gump, we'll be to your boy braces soon!!! but I don't think we'll be running across the country..."Life is like a box of chocolates..." so true).  Below, you'll see a pic of her scar from the fetal surgery....the docs think it looks great and has healed nicely!!!  Battle wound!!!

Many other appointments with neurosurgeons, bladder specialists, physical therapy (I think I need that too as my body is starting to tell me that 32 years old IS in fact old), etc. have occurred with great results and will continue.  

We're still enjoying being back at home all as a family and getting back to life as normal with school, work, daycare, church, etc.

Once again, it's amazing what goes on around us in the world of medicine that we never knew about or had a sensitivity for.  As we've made our journey we've come to be amazed at what procedures are done on a daily basis to save lives or make lives better for us survivors.  We've even had a few people close to us have some very serious medical issues, one of which needed a fetal intervention surgery for their unborn baby that we could hopefully give some calming advice for and encouragement/confidence about going ahead with some very serious medical procedures.  Thanks for all of your thoughts/prayers/texts/cards/gifts/etc.  People are good!!  McMahon's, KJ will be wearing the Northwestern cheerleading outfit the day it fits!!!  Awesome!!

Go Broncos...sorry Karsten.

CHOOSING JOY

-Jeff

Back in the Groove!!!

Wow!  The 1 month anniversary of coming home as a family from Philadelphia was today.  So much has happened since then and our "Detox December" is over (Shawna and I have joked that we'd have a Detox December to get Myles and Peyton back into "normal" living as they'd become quite accustomed to being spoiled over the previous 3 months from grandparents, aunts/uncles, friends, etc.....and, oops, Daddio on occasion....what, they weren't supposed to get chips and cheese and ice cream in the bath tub every night?).  The month of December may not have been the ideal month to come home to and try to retain a sense and routine of normalcy with all of the holiday activities but beggars can't be choosers and we were happy to be home.  The holiday's did, though, provide us with some opportunities to see lots of family and friends, all of who(m) (help me English colleagues) gave us support throughout the fall.  The boys were also able to spend lots of time with friends (see New Year's Eve pic below...I think we may have found a good babysitter in the future,...check out Avery Towne with Kierstyn on the far left) and cousins as well.

We were a little concerned that the newness of Kierstyn may wear off after a few days or week for the boys and they'd get a bit sick of her but nothing close to that has happened (knocking on the wooden kitchen table right now).  They still embrace her and love to give her smooches on her head.  They're even nice enough to move her rock 'n play out of the way (when she's in it) when they have their indoor soccer games in the living room.  They love cuddling with her and us when we're holding her, too!

Shoot, Myles thinks he's found a new place to lounge and watch tv!  Little Man's Lazy Boy!!

We're just waiting for the time he climbs in when KJ is in it herself!  She's going to (have) be one tough cookie (hopefully she takes after her mom...or Aunt B., who took quite a bit of hassle, grief, bugging, etc., from me....I'm sure if Bethany had one of those rest things, I'd have been in it all the time if I knew she liked it and me in it would upset her!!).  Really, the only time I've seen either of the boys upset with her was captured perfectly in the pic below when Peyton experienced his first baby spit up....his face is priceless.

We've tried not to let having a 3rd slow us down.  We took advantage for the first time this winter of having our best friends, the Stein's, living right next to the sledding hill at Zeeland Christian by bundling KJ up for her first sledding experience (no, we didn't take her down the hill as we thought her having two casts already on her legs didn't need company with cast on any broken arms of hers or her Dad's...just picture Christmas Vacation and Clark Griswold flying down the hill on his metal saucer...that's what I was going for!!).

Speaking of her casts (for correcting her bi-lateral clubbed feet....see pic above), Shawna has started taking her to an orthopedic specialist in Grand Rapids once a week to get new casts put on and slowly correct her clubbed feet.  She's on her 3rd casting as of today.  It can be compared to someone having their braces on their teeth tightened every few weeks/months to correct an issue.  Each week the casts are tweeked to slowly straighten out her feet and keep her knees bent and kept in the correct position.  We're not exactly sure how long this will go for but have been given an estimate of about 8 weeks before the doctors will re-assess and go from there.  She has been gaining weight very well (just ask Shawna how much she likes to nurse!!) and is up to about 7lbs. 12 oz...chug, chug, chug!!!  All appointments with neurosurgeons in regards to her ventricles and issues with hydrocephalus have been positive (now, I know positive in medical terms often means you have "something" as Michael Scott presumed when Kevin Malone was waiting on cancer results on the the tv show "The Office" but I am using positive as meaning fortunate and good that it looks like, for now, she is not having any issues that would be cause for alarm or means for needing shunts, although we can never say never).  Lamens terms....all is and has been good, medically.  Pretty much all of her appointments are done at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in GR and the people there have been great.  Shawna has done her due diligence to researching who the best are in each of the areas that we'll be needing to meet with specialists from on a regular basis and has felt very good about our care so far.
Kierstyn has been a very easy baby so far (those are my words...let me translate in Shawnish: "Kierstyn has been up quite a bit to nurse at night, although nothing out of the ordinary.  But that, compounded with my willingness to allow my husband to go to Florida with the Hope team for almost a week, numerous doctors visits, and trying to keep a house with three smelly and messy boys in line, has not been, has made for a few difficult days").  BTW, great article that truly articulates the life of a coaches wife and the sacrifices they make to allow us to do what we love to do:
http://coachkyleelmendorf.com/the-coachs-wife/
My only complaint with her is that Northwestern is 0-1 since her arrival after getting throttled on New Years Day by Tennessee, even though she was a sport and dawned her purple outfit for the game....which she slept through most of (as she is very good at doing most of the day, yet for some reason LOVES to stay awake from 9pm-12/1am...sound familiar to anyone?).

Now that the holidays are over and school has started back up, we're truly looking forward to getting back in a groove.  We're still receiving tremendous support from friends, family, community members, our church, work, etc.  We have plenty to be thankful for and keep on (trying to, at least)....

CHOOSING JOY

-Jeff