Well it looks like I’ll be taking the boys by myself to Maryland/DC. George has remained up there since Friday to help with cleaning out 85 years of stuff from my grandparents house. A friend will drive us to the airport, thanks Rebekah! My plan is to buy a bunch of new toys to keep them occupied during the flight. My main concern is Ian since I know he will want to get down and crawl. A friend gave us some unusable cell phones from her phone store (they look like the real thing, kind of like a model, but they don’t work). One of them looks like George’s blackberry type phone so Ethan will love to pretend to be daddy, I’m holding it until the flight:) My prayer is that God will give me extra patience and less anxiety:)

My grandmother who passed away last year had Alzheimer’s, a very devastating disease. The effects of the disease on the loved one is so significant and also has a terrible impact on the person’s family and caretakers. I distinctly remember when my grandmother met my first child, she was in the midst of the disease and the symptoms impeded her ability to interact with her first great grandchild.
Every year there is an Alzheimer’s Memory Walk. This walk is the nation’s largest event to raise awareness and needed money for Alzheimer care, support and research. The event needs volunteers of all ages to participate in the fight against Alzheimer’s. More than 600 communities across the nation with hold the event. A typical Memory Walk is a 2-3 mile walk held on a weekend morning in the fall.
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The more volunteers that participate, the more money that can be raised to help the Alzheimer’s Association’s work to find a cure. Join other volunteers around the country to walk with a purpose – and move us closer to a world without Alzheimer’s. Together, we can MOVE a nation.

George’s mom came into town for the weekend to hang out with us because George went to DC to help my dad. My grandfather’s health has been deteriorating since the loss of my grandmother and he recently moved to WVA to live with my parents. My dad recently started an addition to their house for my grandfather to have his own place. So my dad has been cleaning out my grandparents house in the suburbs of DC so they could sell it and George was going up this weekend to help out. Anyway, I got a call from George while he was in the Ft Lauderdale airport that my grandfather passed away this afternoon. He had been taken to the hospital recently due to complications with his blood sugar and eating, while he was there they found some tumors and after a procedure to evaluate the tumors, he passed away. :( George went on ahead to DC to help with whatever they need and if he can get off his next shift at the FD he intends to stay up there through the funeral sometime the end of next week. So now I have to decide if I want to fly with both boys or what to do with them if I don’t. I really would like them to come since they are his only great grandkids and Ian is only a baby I don’t want to leave him. Lots to think about. He had a difficult life, was a believer and I believe that heaven will be that much more glorious for him.
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart shall fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:25,26.

Today Ian is 9 months. He is 23 lbs and 30.5 inches long. We were at the dr’s a long time this morning and none of us were happy. The pediatrician wants blood work done on Ian to see how his immune system is. (the same tests we recently did for Ethan). While we are at it she decided to include some allergy testing to the order. Another job for George:)

Ian continued to mess up his naps yesterday. He wouldn’t nap at all in the morning and by noon I gave up. I took him to lunch with George and then picked up Ethan. Of course he fell asleep on the way to pick up Ethan. Then we had to go to the allergist. I was kind of worried with how he would do there but he did fine. All three of us had appts. so we were there over an hour. Ian had some further testing done to see if he has any food allergies but none showed up. Everyone was suprised, especially considering how badly his back looked from the eczema. So I guess I have to work on it the old fashioned way, one food at a time. The dr. wants Ethan to stay on antibiotics until just before his surgery so he doesnt get sick. I’ve been having shots almost three years now and since I’ve decreased the frequency I’ve noticed that I’ve been having more allergic reactions so the dr. wants to increase the frequency of my shots to every week for a couple of months. Not a big deal, seems like we’re there every week anyway.

Why is it that when my children get less sleep, rather than being able to go to sleep early, instead they can’t sleep at all? This is true for Ethan, the more tired he is the more hyper he gets and then he won’t go to bed. Now it’s true for Ian as well. Twice in the past week I have had to wake Ian up midway through his morning nap to take him to an appointment. It’s almost impossible to fit in an appointment between his nap and picking Ethan up from school. One would think that he would be extra tired from not having his full nap that he would sleep well for his afternoon nap. Not so. In fact, he is not able to take an afternoon nap at all and he is grumpy for the remainder of the day. It took me two hours to get him to finally take his afternoon nap yesterday, for which he only slept half an hour. I feel badly for Ethan because our lives revolve around Ian’s two naps and he misses out on a lot. Thankfully he doesn’t know that he’s missing out on anything. Most of the activities that Ethan’s friends do are in the mornings while Ian is sleeping because his friends take their naps after lunch. The question remains how much longer will Ian need a morning nap? Ethan gave his up at 10months but then slept for three hours during lunch time. I hope that doesn’t happen because that’s when we have to pick Ethan up from school. So when will we be able to rejoin the life of those who don’t sleep in the morning? And so the question remains…

On the weekend, George and Ethan went boating with some friends. I decided not to go because Ian’s too young yet. Ethan had a blast and George said he grinned ear to ear while tubing behind the boat. He came home very lethargic and George said he didn’t think that Ethan drank much while they were out. We had a hard time keeping him awake and by the end of the day he had a low grade fever (99.5). So we spent the next day having him drink Gatorade all day. Today he’s back to his normal self, running circles around the living room:)

Ethan’s pal Jackson and his dad came over last night to go camping in our yard. They went swimming after it was dark, took a little hike around the yard using their glowsticks and slept in their tents. The grownups each had their own tent and the two boys shared one. They had a lot of fun.

I called this morning to schedule Ethan’s surgery. In case anyone is interested he’s having: Adenoidectomy with coblation and Direct Laryngoscopy Bronchoscopy. It’s August 21st first thing in the morning. I’ll have to find a sitter for Ian while we are at the hospital which is pretty far from here. I cried after I made the appointment. I feel silly. I know it’s no big deal and it’s an easy procedure that’s done all the time but it is still scary to me. Thus the reason he’s had sinus infections for a year and a half because we’ve been putting it off:(

I had to call yesterday to schedule an appt. for both boys to see the dr. today. They both got a cold almost 2 weeks ago. We knew right away that Ethan would end up with a sinus infection. Ian seemed to be getting better and then all of a sudden got worse. His congestion increased significantly and he started needing breathing treatments for asthma. So…they both have a sinus infection. Yay. We had decided if Ethan got one more that we would schedule his surgery so I need to call and schedule it. Ian’s Durabond glue came off his face today, sadly he is missing half his eyebrow.