Nice job Dan

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Claire's Birthday and such

Being far away from family has been hard on us at times. The idea of Claire not having family for her first birthday was very sad to me. Fortunately my Dad was able to come celebrate with us. We had a great time.

Claire was particularly squirmy during out meal out. Her high-chair, however, had wheels. So, her and Grandpa took a few laps around the restaurant. Claire was intrigued.(I think it's an odd picture, because we usually don't see a neck on her. She is usually head and shoulders. She looks so regal)

Claire had a Wiggles theme for her party. If there is one thing we have a hard time peeling Claire away from, it is the Wiggles on our computer.

We had quite a few families from our ward come and really enjoyed their company. Hot Potato, with one of Claire's favorite toys at the time. (Minnie Mouse)

Claire really enjoyed her cake, but still had room for paper.......

.......and more paper.

Trying to save money, we took our own One year old photos at Forest Park.The second after the photo above was taken, Claire of course, was curious about the taste of dirt.
In case any of you are wondering, Claire didn't get her ears pierced. Our sister-in-law, Kari, gave us the idea to use nail stickers. It works pretty well.

Drama

So, as I mentioned before, the last few months have been pretty dramatic. Sean got laid-off, our car broke down and we had to pay $320,(not the most ideal time to spend that money), and Claire had a surgical procedure.

I'll start with the latter, and work backwards. At the beginning of June we noticed Claire's breathing get progressively worse . It sounded like her throat was narrowing at times, at other times she sounded perfectly normal. I figured it was maybe allergies to the cats. I took her in to the doctor, and of course her blood-oxygen levels were 100% and she was breathing normally. I pretty much paid a $20 co-pay to say "Hi" to the doctor.

Two weeks later, the Stridor (wheezing) was worse, and she was snoring most of the time while sleeping. So, another visit to the doctor, this time I pre-recorded a video of Claire snoring and wheezing. I needed hard evidence, in case I "cried sick baby." That time the Doctor was able to hear and witness the wheezing and snoring. She wasn't sure, so we were referred to an ENT.

We saw an ENT. A nurse held Claire in her lap as the doctor stuck a tube down her nose to figure out the wheezing problem. He couldn't see anything. It makes me sad to think about. I can still picture her face. Her face was bright red as tears filled her eyes. She gave me a look that said, "Why aren't you helping me?" I felt so awful.

Since the doctor couldn't diagnose Claire's problem, and did see it as a potential problem, he decided to have Claire come in for an exploratory surgical procedure. Doing an exploratory procedure, also meant that there was the possibility of a follow up surgery to fix the problem.

Claire went in for surgery on July 7th. We were really nervous about Claire being traumatized during this experience. St. John's Mercy hospital did a fabulous job. The surgeon found three cysts under Claire's vocal chords. They were most likely caused by an intubation that occurred earlier in her life. One cyst was ruptured and the other two we will have to keep an eye on.

Our car broke down on me while I was driving, but I was barely able to pull into a Ford dealership, just as the power steering gave out. This was the day before Claire's surgery. Fortunately the dealership fixed the car within a few hours.

Sean was laid-off on June 26. Not a good day for that matter. I heard recently that when someone loses their job they go through a grieving process similar to when losing a loved one. First denial, then anger, depression, and acceptance. The day Sean lost his job, we went through some denial. (mostly avoidance) We actually had a fairly decent time together as a family, despite. We drove out to Lone Elk park and Wild Bird Sanctuary, less than a half hour away. Claire and I had been there before, and wanted to show Sean around. We saw several bison, and elk. It was really neat. We enjoyed seeing the birds. We passed by a white-necked raven that said "hi." Ravens are really great at mimicking. We also really enjoyed passing by a very uppity turkey. The moment we got too close to the cage, it puffed up with a very distinct poof sound, and stalked the edge of the cage menacingly. We made a few visits over to that area. Very entertaining.

What a Goof!

Claire's new thing is to crawl over to the giant window in the living room, pull herself up and look out. I believe she was trying to be productive while she was there, and decided to clean the window. We love how she gets distracted by a dog walking by, loses sight for a moment, then goes back to business. She really cracks us up.

I need to do an update of the past month, we have had a very stressful and eventful time. I will explain soon.

More pictures to jazz up this blog

We love the "Chub cheek" face.It makes Claire's eyes look beady.

Sean and Sian at an "80's rock" costume Birthday party for a good friend in our ward.

Claire with her Speech Therapist named Claire.

I left Claire in the room on this blanket laid out flat for probably two minutes.

Buster loves it here.
He gets a great view of all the juicy birds, squirrels, and rabbits.

The end

April

It is such a nice and fun place to live.

We moved on April 4 to our new rental home. Up until recently I've felt completely disorganized physically and mentally. I have a good system of paying bills and mostly keeping up on things at our apartment, but here I've had a rough time. We had a very very high phone bill. Lets say around $472 worth. Yeeeeaaah. That was a big oops.

We just started with a new phone company and had the same exact plan as with T-Mobile, but cheaper. The problem is that I must have been talking with a lot of T-Mobile users, plus I talked a lot around my birthday. Fortunately I was able to get Sprint to drop the overage charges. Woo hoo. I am very careful about talking during peak hours now. Lesson learned.

Back to, us moving. We really love living in a house. We have lots of extra room to spread out, a garage, and a yard. We are so grateful to the Holmans for letting us stay in their house.

It's great to not deal with loud noises, cigarette smoke, dents in our car, three flights of stairs, and irresponsible neighbors. Example of irresponsible neighbors: We got three dents in our car while living at our apartment, which really sucks. One of the dents we figure someone kicked in, because there isn't a scratch.

(I am really going off on tangents.) Speaking of dents, Sean got rear ended on his way back from the store on my birthday. That was really not fun to deal with for him, but the person at fault's insurance is great. I've been tempted to switch to American Family Insurance, because they are so easy to work with. (I should get paid for these endorsements for Sprint and American Family)

So, the new place is great. The owners put a lot of hard work into the home, and have put some really nice things in. Like: new windows, really nice looking sinks and cupboards in the bathrooms, really nice ceiling fans, and fresh paint. Our dark wood furniture looks a lot nicer here, because they play off of the wood floors. We love, having a yard. We started a garden with a lot herbs and a few zucchini plants. Mmm, I really love zucchini bread. I gobble it up.

Living in a home is quite a bit more work and money, but it is really rewarding. We will be trying to save like crazy to be able to buy a home when lease is up, because I really really don't want to live in an apartment again.

So a few weeks back we had thought our cat Lucy had accidently gotten spooked and ran away while a door was open. It was ten at night when we noticed. We searched high and low, rechecking the same places. We looked outside and called for her. Nothing.

After exhausting all effort, I set about writing a lost cat flyer in our computer room. Amidst tears, I hear a meow. It sounded like a Lucy meow. Sean had heard it too, he thought. So, I raced around again trying to figure out if somehow she had gotten in the heating vents. I kept worrying that we were going to have a cooked kitty. Then I heard it again. Meow. I couldn't tell where it was coming from so I went into the kitchen to turn off the dishwasher. Meow. Turns out that Lucy found a loose metal plate in the crook of the bottom of the cabinets, and squeezed herself in and went behind the dishwasher somehow, then squeezed again under a four inch rise. So we set about trying to figure out how to get her out. Finally we pulled out the dishwasher and I grabbed her by the noggin to pull her out. This happened two times more before Sean remedied the problem. Even though we love our Buster and Lucy, I think we can all learn a valuable lesson, don't get cats.

Can you believe she fit under there? I did the dishes earlier that night, not a peep. What a little turkey.

Other updates:

Ms. Claire has been better. She has gotten sick three or four times in the last month and a half. Once with a flu, another with a diaper fungus. We had to put athlete's foot creme on to cure it. I think Claire has been sneaking out to sit diaperless in gym lockerrooms.) She has had two colds, and just recently her first ear infection treated with amoxicilan, which gave her the baby runs. She is still having that problem. I wonder if she has developed an allergy to milk? I don't know.

A sorta smile at the Dr.'s for ear infection. She looks like H.I. Junior in that jacket.("Raising Arizona" the movie)

Hearing Aides

So, to continue on my catching upness. (No, upness isn't a word) Claire went in to her school, Central Institute for the Deaf, on March 16 and received some loaner hearing aides. They set the aides to a fairly low setting just to test things out.

First day of hearing aides

Claire had previously been tested at her school several weeks before and the staff concluded that on that day Claire only had minor to moderate hearing loss. Which was different to the previous diagnosis of moderate to severe hearing loss. Now, this news may or may not mean anything, but it is a glimmer of hope that Claire won't have to work so hard to be able to speak clearly. The reason why is that she is diagnosed as having Auditory Neuropathy. This broadly means that the nerves that connect her ears to her brain don't fire correctly. Sometimes they can fire extremely well, other times not at all, and anything in between. So, with all the knowledge of her condition, the second diagnoses may have been on a good hearing day.

During the first few days that she had her hearing aides, Claire was a huge crab. I wasn't sure if it was due to teething, or if it was the hearing aides. I talked with Claire's Speech Therapist, also a Claire, and she said to limit the hearing aides to a few hours a day. She also arranged to pick the hearing aides up that Sunday on her way home from her church, so that they could set them to an ever lower setting. Adult Claire thought that maybe with being able to hear so well, when Claire was unable to for so long, it was overwhelming for her brain.

The rest of that first week was pretty rough. I got some sort of extremely horrible flu for a day and a half, and Claire got sick shortly after for about three days. Yeah, that didn't help her crabbiness either. I got sick on a Wednesday night and was up throughout the whole night, sicking it up. Oh man, to my recollection, I've only been that sick once before and that was when I spent the night at Utah State with my friends from high school during conference weekend. I spent the night sleeping on the ground in the dorm hallway. Fortunately for me this time Sean, my sweets, stayed home from work on Thursday to take care of us. This was despite the fact that he went in the hole for time off.

Back to hearing aides. Adult Claire brought the hearing aides back to us the next day when she came over for weekly Speech Therapy. Since then, chubby cheeks Claire has been fairly content. To us the hearing aides seem to be working and help with picking up sounds that she may not have heard before. The thing is though, that deep down, Sean and I wish/feel like Claire doesn't have a hearing problem. It's just so hard to tell either way if an infant can hear. I'll be saying her name and she doesn't look up, and I wonder if it's because she's ignoring me. We still feel like things are up in the air with nailing down how well she is hearing. I'm thinking about calling up a different Audiologist to get a third, but extensive opinion.

Random pics.

Claire earning her keep.
Claire wanted to be held and I needed to dust. So, I combined the two.
Claire kept grabbing at the duster so I just let her have it. She did a great job dusting. With a little guidance.

My brother and sister-in-law, Court and Kari, gave this little piano a while back and Claire loves to play on it now.
Very surprising because the first time I turned it on when she was about two months old, she cried.

Fin.