WILL THINGS EVER SLOW DOWN.....I HOPE NOT....

Well the weekend once again flew by. Saturday we went to the KU game at the Sprint Center which should have been a blast but KU lost so it wasn't as fun as we had hoped, however we did have a great time. We are getting very spoiled with tickets to KU games and I am so thankful because the kids really love going and we have so much fun watching them cheer the Hawks on. We went with our friend Julie and her son Marty which was a nice treat as we do not see them often. Sunday Raelynn went to Jill's annual sprinkle party where Jill has hundreds of little kids over to her house and allows them to decorate Christmas Cookies with frosting and sprinkles and candies. This would be my worst nightmare and Jill loves it. Imagine a room full of little kids, spreading red and green frosting all over your cabinets and floors and then touching your walls with sprinkled sticky hands. Raelynn loves it. She had so much fun and came home with a beautiful cookie for each of us, even Cooper.


Monday we had an appointment with Dr. Kelley for Cooper's second flu shot, synagis shot and 1 year well check (which also included another 2 shots). Cooper had lost an ounce but with all the throwing up he has been doing I was not surprised. Dr. Kelley did not have an answer for Cooper being sick lately and said we would just watch him. He had done better over the weekend and I thought maybe we were getting past it, until this morning. I will talk more about that later. So at 1 year, Cooper is 27 inches tall and weighs 16lbs 9 oz. He is in the 0% for both height and weight, and we thought he was getting so big :) The good news is developmentally Cooper is right on track. His language development is a little behind, but other than that he is doing great! We will keep working with him and I am sure he will catch up in that area.

Today was insane. I left the house and dropped Cooper off at Lisa's just in time for him to throw up all over her. I took him so she could go clean up and there he went again all over me and himself. So back home I went to get changed and get him new clothes. Back to Lisa's and dropped off the clothes. I got to work a little after 9am. At 11:30 am I picked Raelynn up from preschool and headed to drop her off at Lisa's. We had one little stop to make at the bank. As we were headed back to the car Raelynn missed the snow covered curb and took a nose dive right into the 2 inches of fresh snow. She cut her lip a little so as I was picking her up there was red snow. Back home we went to clean up and get dry clothes on. To top it all off the roads were a mess. Raelynn was fine and you couldn't even see her cut lip. What a day!!! By the time I was headed back to work I could do nothing but laugh. There was a day that this would have sent me over the edge but these days it is the norm!!

So I may be talking about this prematurely but I cannot help but be excited. Sarah, the wonderful women who made the call to Wink, Jr., has came up with an amazing idea. I received an email from her last week that she had been thinking about Raelynn through all of this and wondered if we might incorporate some small gift for the siblings of the families that are helped by Cooper's Cause Foundation. She obviously had put much thought into this and her idea is amazing. The idea is that we would give the siblings an appreciation party and show them that they are not forgotten in all of this and make them feel special. You that know me have to know what this meant to me. Raelynn has always been my rock. The girl is amazing. During all of this I have continually kept Raelynn involved in everything we do and tried to set aside time for just her. But as you all know there were almost a total of 2 months that she lived with my Mom or Sister and only got to visit me in the hospital, definitely not a way to make her feel special. There were days I would sob when she left and feel like the most horrible mother alive. I will never forget the day my Mom had to literally pull Raelynn off of me to leave. We were standing by the ground floor elevators at CMH, I had walked them back down as far as I could go. I was trying to tell Raelynn goodbye but she started to cry. "Please Mommy I don't want to leave, you come with me." I lost it. I remember them peeling her clasped hands from around my neck and I just had to get back on that elevator to go back to Cooper. It was one of the worst moments for me. At that moment I did not know how much longer I could do this to her. No mother should feel so split between her children. Since then, although we try to keep things normal with the kids, there is so much done with Coopers Cause Foundation you have to wonder if there will be a day Raelynn is resentful. And then along comes Sarah! Her idea made me so happy, a way to include Raelynn in the foundation directly. Sarah left it up to us as to what we would name this little part of the foundation but had given a few suggestions. Tonight I sat down with Raelynn to tell her what we were thinking. She was awesome. She thought the idea was great and loved Sarah's suggestion of "Raelynn's Rock Stars" because I tell her she's a rock star all the time! Raelynn thought it would be important to have doctor things at the appreciation party so that the kids could listen to their hearts like the doctors listen to Cooper's. She also told me she would need to be there so if any of the kids had questions about their brothers or sisters broken hearts she could answer them. She went on and on. She makes me so proud and I continue to be in awe at her understanding of the foundation and everything that goes along with it let alone Cooper's condition. Anyway, we will be meeting with Sarah after the first of the year to fully implement Raelynn's Rock Stars and continue to watch Cooper's Cause Foundation reach new levels. Thank you again Sarah!