The Iron Man

Well, we didn't have to stay in the hospital, and Nathaniel doesn't have anything serious going on.

Nathaniel has an iron deficiency. The doctor said that this is common in premature babies. They are growing so much faster than regular infants in order to catch up that the iron they get in their milk isn't enough. This is why there is a special preemie formula with iron in it. The doctor sent us home with some liquid iron for Nathaniel to take. Provided he only has an iron deficiency, Nathaniel should be back to normal soon.

This is such a relief to me. I was not look forward to another hospital stay. Thank you all for your prayers. Please continue to pray that Nathaniel will do well with his iron supplements.

Here we go again

Here is Nathaniel at almost 5 months. He is a fat, happy baby. He is teething and can hold his head up well. He hasn't rolled over for awhile, and isn't much interested in sitting up by himself, but that is okay. He babbles a lot! He is very alert and loves to watch his big brother's antics and smile at them. He is now 16 lbs. He is the picture of health, right?

Not exactly. There is something about our boys. They like to go to the hospital. More than that, they like having specialists. At one and a half months Edmund was admitted to the Children's Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia with severe anemia; the normal hemoglobin level is 11-13 gm/dl, Edmund was down to 3. He received three blood transfusions in 24 hours. Over the course of his first year he had multiple visits to the hematologist. They did tests, but never could figure out what the deal was. His iron was fine, his liver and kidneys were fine, his body was producing cells properly, but some how they were dying. He was always borderline anemic, but never seriously again. Now, he is a perfectly healthy, very active boy. But what, you say, does this have to do with Nathaniel?

This past Monday, Nathaniel had a routine checkup. Having been premature, and given Edmund's history, the doctor has been monitoring his hemoglobin. This week it was 7.3. So they called me in to have it checked again, with the same results. The doctor then sent in a referral to the Children's Hospital in St. Louis, two hours from here. The head doctor in the Hematology ward gave an order for us to take Nathaniel in on Monday. He said that he would actually like to have seen Nathaniel yesterday, but knew that that was pretty short notice, given the distance.

So here we go again. Will Nathaniel need a blood transfusion? Will he have to stay at the hospital? Or will they just ask us to take him in for regular checkups? I don't know. All I know is that I want my baby to be healthy and at home. At least if he has to stay at the hospital we will be in St. Louis, near family, this time.

Please pray that all will be well and that there will be nothing wrong except whatever Edmund had. I'll let you know....

Knights and their Surcoats

Surcoat, d.:
A garment worn over medieval armor, often embroidered with heraldic arms. (dictionary.com)

Jaired's brother, Justice, loves to play in the woods, usually acting out some battle or other that he has read about. (He is usually the English, I think.) For Christmas, Jaired had me make Justice a surcoat, black with a red lion crest. He also got Ellie to make a matching flag. As an additional surprise for the guys, Chava made surcoats for Edmund, a blue falcon, and Jaired, a blue dragon, and a bib for Nathaniel, a red cross. Jaired and Justice were thrilled and immediately went out the day after Christmas to fight the Frenchies and vanquish a couple of dragons.


Here they are in all their splendor. You might not be able to see it, but Edmund is holding one of Jaired's small swords. I know you can hardly see Nathaniel's crest, but this is the best picture we have, since the little guys weren't cooperating.

Kiwi Kisses

On the left is a Kiwi Bird finger puppet of Edmund's, on the right a Kiwi Fruit. Edmund got the Bird for Christmas and thought that with a beak like that what else could it be good for except to give out kisses. So the Kiwi Bird sometimes takes a trip around the house kissing everyone multiple times.

The other day I bought some Kiwi Fruit for the first time in a long while, and later asked Edmund if he wanted a Kiwi, showing him the Fruit, he said, "no." A few minutes later he started to push a chair over to the island making kissing sounds. It took me a few minutes to realize that he had changed his mind and did want a Kiwi, and he had come up with kissing as his way of saying Kiwi.

One of God's Angels

Well, I know I just posted, but I felt like I should put this on. I was just on my Google Reader and read a post that linked to this blog.
This family, the McClenahans, found out on January 25, 2009 that their precious almost-one-year-old baby girl, Cora had cancer. Yesterday, Cora went home to Jesus. Please keep them in your prayers.

John Wayne and "Me"

The other day I was at Walmart and picked up a DVD with four one-hour John Wayne movies for five bucks. We watched the first one that night and Edmund was hooked. Something about the fist-fights, horse-chases, and guns is so fascinating to him. I wonder why!? :)
Edmund has a way of figuring out how to communicate with his limited vocabulary to let us know what movie he wants to watch and with John Wayne it is a hand patting his head, which means hat. He asks for this movie all the time and just loves it!

Edmund has also learned what to call himself; "Me!" He taught himself that word, too! Now, I know all kids are smart in their own different ways, but I have never known a two-year-old who has grasped the concept of pronouns, so please pardon a little bragging. It is so cute to hear him say, "Me," when I ask him who he is or he sees himself in a picture.

Snow Days

We have finally gotten a big snowfall. Living 14 miles outside of Salem we usually miss all the snow that Rolla gets. I love snow and don't feel like I have had a proper winter if I don't get a couple of good snowfalls. (Consequently, I never had a real winter while living in Virginia.) We got a few inches of snow right after Thanksgiving, but have only had lots of flurries with no significant accumulation since then.


Until this week...Monday afternoon it started to ice. Basically, little balls of ice, instead of snow fell from the sky, would that be sleet? It continued to ice for the next 24 hours. Then it snowed. We now have about 2 inches of snow over about 2 inches of ice balls. It is deliciously white outside!

Here are a bunch of pictures to commemorate the event:Here is Edmund getting his bundles on. Amazingly enough he didn't ask to go to the bathroom once the whole time we were playing outside. I had thought it one of the laws of nature that as soon as a child had all his bundles on he had to use the bathroom.

This is Jaired and Nathaniel. Nathaniel is under the blanket.

Here we are walking through the woods to my in-laws' house to go sledding. That is Justice walking behind me with his surcoat on. (I'll blog about his surcoat some time.) Notice how you can still see the grass and stuff through the snow.

Here is my wonderful and beautiful mother-in-law, Mary.

This is where we went sledding. This is the family's pond. In the background is the dike, which is what we sledded down. On the Flexible Flyers we took turns sledding to see who could go the furthest across the pond. Ellie won, she made it about halfway across!

Here I am with Edmund. He was very apprehensive at first about sledding and wouldn't go down with anyone except me. He did let Jaired take him once.

After sledding, Edmund stayed inside with his Oma. He ate clementines and popcorn.

He also thought it necessary to have a picture taken of his foot to go along with the other sledding day pictures.

When we got back to our house Jaired built a fire which we enjoyed for the rest of the evening.

This morning it looked like this outside.

The ground is completely covered.