Poor baby!!

She is so frustrated that she can't move forward!! She is quite good now at going backwards, but what fun is that when you are trying to get at a toy in front of you!

Can you figure out what is missing? ; )

Cute, eh!?

She's moving!!

She's moving backwards!!! She is very determined!

Also, today she had food for the first time. I could not believe how well she did with it. She ate it all and did not spit much out. Of course, later on I gave her some more so I could show Lee...she wanted nothing to do with it!

And here is a picture of Zoe in the very first diaper my mom made when she was here for the weekend. They are in the dryer now and we are going to take it for a test run tomorrow.

Jackson is a homeowner!

Yay! We managed to close on the house, after overcoming several hurdles. My mom is in town this weekend so we are all going to go see the house tomorrow. It will be Jackson's first time to see it, so I am excited.

In other news, my mom is making some cloth diapers for Zoe while she is here. I will post some pictures after we get some done. They are going to be totally cute!

House update

Well...we are scheduled to close on March 12 if you can believe it...yes, that is 2 days away. The only potential thing that could postpone it is that the seller still has most if not all of her stuff still in the house. If it is not gone by the time of the walkthrough, we will not be closing. The problem is that she has no money (which is why it is a short sale) so she can't hire movers. There is a LOT of stuff there. When we close, we are closed...we are not interested in prolonging things or renting back after closing. Their side wanted to close on the 12th BTW, I think to avoid paying more in taxes.

Baby kisses

Zoe gives the funnest kisses! She will grab you by the face and push her lips into your lips or cheek. She does it with great force though and it gets a little scary sometimes, but I still love it! I never knew a 5-month-old could give kisses but I have no doubt that is what she is doing.

Jackson's EEG went fine. We took of his electrodes yesterday afternoon and I dropped off the unit back at the office this morning. They said we should hear back from our doctor in 2-3 weeks. It is a lot of info since it is over a 72 hour period so it takes a long time to read it.

Jackson is having a 72 hour ambulatory EEG right now. Unlike the previous EEGs that he has had, this one is being done at home...much better than sitting around in a hospital room for a couple days.

So we went and got him all set up this afternoon. The tech puts leads on his head with special glue, wraps his head up in gauze, and connects him to a little recording device. If you want to know more about the procedure, you can go to this page. They even have a little video about it.

Jackson did so well when the tech was putting the electrodes on. The glue they use to stick them on is very smelly and Jackson is pretty sensitive to strong smells. He had his ipod with him though so I think that helped to distract him. He made some yucky faces but did not even look seriously bothered by it.

The funny thing is that I waited for him to come home from school on the bus and then drove him to the place in Niles to get it set up. It turns out that the place is about a 60 second drive from his school, which is right on the border of Chicago/Niles. I had no idea that it was so close because I really do not know the suburbs well at all. I would have just picked him up from school if I had known.

Yesterday's cuteness

A couple pics and a quick video for you...unfortunately I could not get them to smile at the same time.

Jackson finally lost a top front tooth, it is the 4th tooth he has lost. He looks so cute with the gap there. Yes, the tooth fairy came...

And Zoe blew raspberries all day yesterday!

Jackson was smiling because he likes the song that was playing...Justin Roberts is definitely his fav right now.

Sorry the video is so dark. My little camera does not take good video in low light. It really wasn't that dark in the room.

Switch adapted toys

So Jackson has really been getting into this relatively new show on Noggin called Yo Gabba Gabba. It is a really unusual show. I like it...but it is really crazy! There is a character on the show named Brobee. One of my online friends said her Target had dancing Brobee dolls on clearance after Christmas for $9. I went to 2 different Targets here, but they did not have any. My friend actually went out and got me one and sent it to me from Arizona! How cool is that!

Because Jackson is too physically limited, he is not able to play with 99% of regular toys...and about 99.9% of age-appropriate regular toys. So I am getting good at adapting toys so that he can operate them by himself using a special switch. I used this tutorial to learn. It really isn't hard, the hardest part was learning how to solder well. And it doesn't take long either.

Here he is when I first adapted the toy for him:

Now Jackson loves his Brobee. Even when he is not making Brobee sing and dance, he likes to hold his hand. Is that sweet or what!?

My two handsome dudes

Jackson and Daddy went to get haircuts today. They clean up real nice, eh?

Before...shaggy, but still handsome.



After...looking good!! Much better!

Jackson's appointments this week

We had appointments on Monday and on Wednesday of this week. Both days were in Milwaukee so it was a good deal of driving. Luckily we had the nice new van to make the trips. Also, Lee was able to stay home with Zoe both days so that made things a lot easier for all of us. She did well, and even managed to take a good amount of milk by bottle on Wednesday.

Monday we had a neurologist appointment. We think he is still having seizures. They are going to arrange more long term monitoring again, only this time it will be done at home rather than inpatient. They can even get everything done locally rather than having us make the trip there and back and there and back. He will just go about his day normally...well as normally as possible with a bunch of wires stuck to his head.

His neurologist seemed kind of put out when he learned that Jackson was having several tests related to his dysautonomia. We had asked him previously if there was anything that could be done about it and he had brushed us off. Grrrr.

So Wednesday was his testing day. We were scheduled for an EMG and an NCV, which measure how the muscles and the nerves in his body are working as well as a head CT to compare to the ones he has had in the past. The doctor doing the testing decided that he did not need the EMG, which was ok with me since that can be a painful one. It appeared that the big groups of nerves in his body were working normally except for the ones that make him sweat. They tested his arm and his leg and they could not get any sweating which is definitely abnormal.

The doctor also said that most of the nerves responsible for dysautonomia are smaller ones that could not be measured with that test so just because most of the results were normal it doesn't mean everything is actually working normally.

One funny thing was that the foot he was testing was very cold (as it often is) so he stuck a little thermometer on it. It was not registering at all so they thought the thermometer was not working, but it turned out that his foot was just too cold to register. This is a foot that had been inside a shoe and a sock inside a warm car and a warm waiting room. Poor kiddo!

The CT went well. He was able to stay still without sedation and it only took a couple minutes.

Hopefully we should have the results pretty soon. I am interested to hear what this all means as far as treatment.

As we were getting ready to drive home, I asked Jackson if he wanted to watch Blues Clues. He was just looking at me like "Mom, we're in the van, we can't watch TV. Don't try to trick me." So I put on the Blues Clues DVD for him and he thought it was pretty cool...he was laughing and screeching as we were pulling out of the parking garage.

Gratuitous pics and a video

I hope you are in the mood for some cute baby pics!

Here is what her crazy toes look like now. They are so long they fold themselves over!


Some nearly naked shots...I just love her chubb!






Her tough expression






Smiley baby


Admiring her own cuteness


Hanging with big brother




I think these two are going to be best buds










And last but not least, a very cranky baby rolling over

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

She's rolling!!

I had put Zoe down on her playmat on her tummy the other day. She rolled right over by herself within 2 seconds like she had been doing it her whole life! Then later that day I had put her down on her back on her playmat and went to the other room for a second. I heard some fussy noises and went to check her...she had rolled over onto her tummy!

So she rolled both ways for the first time on the same day! Pretty crazy!

Fantastic news!!!!

We got the house!!! Remember the one we were just too late on so we put in a backup offer? It was a short sale so the bank decided who got it. It took them forever but today we heard that it is ours!!

It is a bungalow, quite a bit like the one we live in now...only it's in way nicer shape and in the right school district.


So we are going to modify for accessibility and do some fixing up of that house, then move, then fix this one up, then sell. And Jackson should be able to start at his new school for summer session!

Our new spaceship : )

We picked up our new and totally awesome van yesterday. I made Lee drive it home so I could play with all the toys and buttons. I have never seen a car with so much stuff! It's like riding in a spaceship!

Right now I am watching the DVD that comes with it and I am just amazed by all the crazy stuff it can do. Jackson seems to like it and I bet he will like it even better when he realizes he can watch a DVD on our long drives to Milwaukee.

It is a Honda Odyssey with a VMI northstar conversion. I will posts some picture later.