Today was an exciting day for everyone at school ... it's nice when the excitement can be shared among all the school goers in the family!
Sam had his apple celebration at school ... I think there was at least one adult per two children in his class there to "help" with the party. There was so much food there, that we got to bring home half of the applesauce muffins I took - no one here complained, we love that recipe!
The 2nd graders have been learning about butterflies over the last couple of weeks. And today as a special closing activity to their butterfly unit Emily and her classmates made this fun edible creation:
Friday's at our school are spirit day and the children are encouraged to wear the school colors, red and blue. Classrooms compete against each other to see which classroom can get the most students to participate. The class with the most red and blue, wins the spirit stick for the week. The school mascot is the bobcat ... the upper grades compete for BOB the spirit stick and the lower grades for CAT. Today, Rebecca's class won! So they will have CAT in their room for the next week.
Today is also GR's birthday. After Anna's EKG, we stopped at the mall to look at suits. GR's one Sunday suit is in really sad shape ... the lining of the jacket needs to be sewn back in place, one of his back pants pockets needs someone to work their magic on it, and the hole he had the tailor repair a number of months ago while still holding up, won't last forever. JosABanks was having one of their many amazing sales and we found two good work horse suits and one "dressy" suit for him to put in his closet.
We had a nice little celebration at home. While I picked the children from various friends homes, GR picked up dinner at Jack Stacks - his favorite BBQ place. His mom wasn't feeling well so we called another family to join us in the festivities, and help us make a dent in all the scrumptous BBQ GR got. Yesterday, I made pudding filled cupcakes for his birthday "cake" allowing me to make both chocolate and vanilla (Anna reacts very negatively to any chocolate in my system and I wanted birthday cake too.). I sent all the extras with GR to work this morning so I didn't have tons of cake starring at me for days and days.
ETA: 15 October
GR picked up his suits from the tailor last week and tonight he and Sam put on their best suits to attend a memorial service for McKensie. They both look really sharp, and I was glad GR encouraged Sam to put on his suit for this occasion, and that Sam agreed to wear it.
I love my pediatrician. He's everything you want in a doctor for your kids ... thorough, meticulous, brilliant and loves what he does.
At Anna's one month appointment Dr. D spent a little longer than I expected listening to her chest, moving the stethoscope from one place to the next and back again, making sure he heard every millimeter of her heart. He was hearing a small murmur he wanted to make a note of for future visits. "I don't think it's anything to be concerned about. It sounds like a very common murmur we hear in babies and they typically grow out of it."
At her two month appointment Dr. D did the exact same thing. Anna was extremely quiet and calm allowing him to spend a number of minutes listening exclusively to her little murmur. Once he was done listening he explained more about what he heard and said he wanted her to get an echo done at the local Children's Mercy Hospital. He reassured me that he didn't think it was anything serious, he simply wanted the echo done so he knew how closely (if at all) to watch the murmur over coming year. He then asked me to restate what he'd explained ... wanting to make sure I fully understood why she was getting the echo so I wouldn't go home and turn Anna's little murmur into heart failure.
Today GR and I took Anna to Children's Mercy for her echo. She had to hold still for 10 seconds so the machine could accurately record her heart beating. Anna was in such a playful mood, wiggling and squirming with excitement. I finally realized that three smiling faces looking at her trying to help her hold still was just making her more excited, so we all turned around and stopped looking at her and the EKG was finally able to get a good reading of her heart.
Following the EKG, we met with the heart specialist who has known Dr. D for many years. Dr. D has a special interest in hearts and consequently has a very good ear for how the heart should sound at different stages of development. And it turns out Dr. D's initial diagnosis was correct. Anna has a very very tiny hole between the left and the right side of her heart, and as she grows it will most likely close up. The murmur - fyi, murmur simply means noise in the heart - in Anna's case was a quiet swooshing sound as blood moved through this little pin hole. As her body and heart grow during the coming months, the hole will close up on its own. Dr. D may have us go back around her one year birthday for a sonogram to confirm that the pinhole has closed up on it's own.
