Thanks so much for the advice about Jeremy.  He went on Tuesday night.  I don’t know if he went on his own or if some of the prune juice got through him and helped him out.  Either way I never thought I would be so happy to change a messy diaper.  He has gone again since then too which is good.  Hopefully these different ideas will help us out in the future.  Thanks again.

One of the side effects of spina bifida is constipation. Jeremy has been constipated the last couple of days. We tried on Sunday night to give him some prune juice, but he just would not have it. I wasn’t sure if it was the prune juice or drinking from a bottle, so tonight I tried to give it to him through a syringe. He hated it! Screamed the entire time I was giving it to him. The only time he stopped crying was when I would show him his lion. I wanted him to take an ounce of the juice and we were almost there when he threw it all up. Of course as soon as he threw up he stopped crying. His poor little tummy just did not like that juice. I gave him a bath, which he thought was entirely too cold and cried for most of that. He finally calmed down when I put his jammies on him and laid him on my bed while I put my jammies on. He was so tuckered out he fell right to sleep. Poor little guy. He is adorable.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to help a constipated four month old?

Jeremy has therapy through the early intervention program twice a month.  Right now we are working with an occupational therapist and will in the next couple of weeks start seeing a physical therapist as well.  I have been meaning to write about his therapy sessions and thought I wanted to update from the beginning, but I realize now that I just need to start from where I am otherwise I won’t get it done at all.

With spina bifida Jeremy’s development in certain gross and fine motor skills is slower than in most babies.  And in other areas of development he will be right on track.   Jeremy is doing really well developmentally.   He has really great trunk control, especially in supported sitting.  He is also doing very well in reaching out and grasping toys.  His head control is great.  He likes to sit more than lay down.  He just wants to know what is going around him.

Today is therapy we worked in different sitting positions.  He sat supported in the boppy.  We have two different size boppys and it seems the bigger one is the best one to use from supported sitting.  It gives him just the right amount of support and still allows him to work on balancing and using his back muscles to stay up.  He leans to his right still.  At clinic on Friday the orthopedic doctor said his left hip is subluxing, so his hip comes partially out of socket and goes right back in.  This is most likely because ligaments around is hip are weaker due is nerve damage.  Because of this he is weaker on the left side.  He does however have strong quads which will help him when he is learning to stand and eventually walk.

We also did kneeling exercises.  He kneeled supported over the boppy and then in between the therapist’s legs.  He needed some support to his elbows for extension and with that he did really well.  This will help him strengthen his back and arms for sitting and eventually crawling.

So we are to continue working on the following:

1- sitting with boppy pillow around him and pinned in front.

2- sitting and propping with hands - can have him prop hands on a little higher surface than floor like rolled blanket.

3- kneeling to boppy and help to keep elbows straight.

4- kneeling between legs with elbows straight also.

5- rolling exercise on sofa, which we learned at clinic.  We have his legs hang off the sofa and support him between his legs and behind back and roll him and he rolls upper body on his own.

Next therapy on Monday, July 21 at 11:30am

Brought To You By Lovers Toy Stores

It is been ten years since I graduated from high school. This last weekend was my high school reunion. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go. I graduated from Salmen High School in Slidell, Louisiana. There were about 230 people who graduated with me. I really loved high school. I had some really great friends. Of course since I am pretty bad at staying in touch with people the extent of my contact with them now is through Facebook, MySpace and if any of them read my blog or blog themselves. Maybe I will go to my 20 year reunion.

Jeremy: Goo goo gaa gaa

Kimberly: Oh really.

Jeremy: Goo goo gaa gaa

Kimberly: Oh really.

This went on for couple more minutes. I just wanted to squeeze her. She is a great big sister and he loves her so much.

Today I have looked at blogs, subscribed to blogs on my rss feed (I have 33) and looked at even more blogs. I did manage to fit a shower in there. Is there some kind of bloggers anonymous out there?

I have recently been reading a couple of different blogs about organization and I am addicted, obsessed, compulsive. Here are my favorites if you wanna see what’s got me so worked up:

• I’m an Organizing Junkie Blog - written by a lady named Laura who has really great ideas to be organized with really great pictures to go along with those ideas and she has this really cool thing called Menu Plan Monday. I would definitely check it out.
  
• The Organized Mom Blog - written by Sarah Kimmel and Laurieann Thorpe. They have a schedule for their blog with a different topic each day of the week. Also Sarah has a co-created the Daily Home Planner which is a software program for moms.
• Creative Organizing Blog - written by Aby Garvey, a professional organizer. She has really pretty ways to organize your home and I like pretty.

Reading these blogs daily has given me the organizing bug. And since we moved into our house two days before Jeremy was born I didn’t really get a chance to organize our house the way I wanted to. My pantry especially has been a true disaster.

So I decided that Tuesday was the day I would organize it. I started by writing the different categories out on 3×5 cards and giving each category a different spot around the kitchen. I took everything out of the pantry and grouped like items together.

I also got rid of empty boxes and things that were no longer good. For Christmas my in-laws got me a laminator. YAY! I was so excited to use it for the first time today. I laminated all of the cards and punched holes in them. I used garbage bag ties to connect the cards to the shelves. Then I put everything back in the pantry.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think it looks pretty good, plus the pantry is much more functional. There is tons more space, we actually know what is in our pantry, and whoever is putting the groceries away will know where to put things.

I am going in this morning to get my gallbladder taken out. I guess pregnancy can give you gall stones, who knew. So for the last month I have been on an extremely low fat diet. I try to eat only things with no fat or less that 5grams of fat. I am straving!!! After this I will have some getting used to not having a gallbladder but I will be able to eat chicken strips and pizza and ice cream again. YAY!!! This will hopefully be my last surgery- c-section and I had my appendix out two weeks after Jeremy was born. It has been a crazy two months! I’ll post again soon. And if they give pics of my gallbladder and insides maybe I will show you! I know, you can hardly stand the excitement.

Last Friday we went to the zoo after spending a few hours in the morning at Primary Children’s Medical Center for Spina Bifida Clinic. We were all very excited because this was Kim’s first time going to the zoo. It was a beautiful day and a lot of other people had the same idea and the zoo was very busy. We had to stand in line for about 30 minutes. While we were standing line Ryan took a few pictures of Kim standing with the other kids. I was going to take a picture of Ryan holding Kim and the camera wasn’t working. I looked at the little screen and it said that the battery was dead! I was so upset!! Kim’s first trip to the zoo and we would have no pictures to remember it. I was sick to my stomach and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. We had our video camera but I wanted still pictures too. So I bought a disposable camera. I didn’t even look at the price and just bought it, but when the cashier said the price I almost stopped breathing for a second. 16 dollars! Can you believe it?! A lame, 27 picture disposable camera. I just hope that the pictures are decent. Of course we won’t know until we get them developed.

Would you believe it that this is not the first time we have gone somewhere fun only to find that our camera battery was dead. When we were in Hawaii we went to the top of Haleakala, the volcano on Maui, to watch the sunrise and the battery on our video camera was dead. And then once when we went to my favorite place, Disneyland, and our camera battery was dead.

So the moral of this post- Check your batteries and charge them!!!

When I get those pictures developed I will scan and post them.