Thinking...

I've not been myself the past few weeks and it's been making me do some searching. I just can't seem together some days and I am not on-top of ANY of my chores. Then after reading through some old blog posts, I came across this post. SO very needed today and REALLY strange that I wrote this post when Ryland was the same age as Brenley is now. It makes me wonder if it's not just a motivation issue, but possibly a postpartum thing. Not that I am finding myself in depression, just in a funk and it's the SAME funk I experienced at this SAME time in Ryland's life. What are the odds!?

So, I am prayerfully attacking this area of my life. I need out of this stage fast, I want my life back. My life that was more organized, usually clean, and not so draining.

Brenley Milestones

After reading a friends blog, I am feeling the need to record some of Brenley's milestones here. I used to do that with Ryland all the time, so more for me, then anything... here is what Brenley is doing these days:

She is 7 months and 16.4 lbs. She is scooting across the floor, army style. She eats three meals a day and I have yet to find a food she doesn't like. I am making my own baby food this time around (most of the time) and she has loved everything, but her all time favorite is sweet potatoes. She has several roles on her legs that I can not get enough of. She loves to hit things, she gets going really fast the better mood she's in. She bangs every toy she holds on the floor to see what noise it makes. Someone said the other day, "Maybe she'll be musical" and I can totally see that, she keeps a pretty good beat going sometimes. I will try and get a video of it. She "talks" all the time and the louder it gets the louder she "talks". She SO incredibly easy to put to sleep. If any of you walked with me through Ryland's sleep issues, you understand how thankful I am for this! I give her her pacifier and her blanket and she's out, every time! Although, she actually still wakes up once if not twice a night for a feeding... I am totally OK with that because I know she can put herself back to sleep if I made her and I actually enjoy the quite moments when it's just us awake. She is content to take her naps anywhere I put her, car seat, stroller, the floor at a friends house, where ever... she makes life easy!

She is not always easy, she doesn't enjoy baths very much nor does she enjoy letting others hold her when all she wants is mom. She is a little timid in large crowds, but Ryland has also always been that way.

But, IF the measure of how difficult she has been was a determining factor of if we have more babies, we would have 20 more! :)

Those eyes

Having fun with my sister

Update

Yesterday we met with a surgen about Brenley's Dermoid Tumor that I wrote about in this post. He is confident that it is just that, a Dermoid, also called Dermoid Cyst. He thinks we should remove it, but wants to do a CT scan before proceeding. It is located on the left side of her head, about two inches behind her ear, which happens to be fairly close to the second, small soft spot on the back of her skull. He said that when a Dermoid is close to the soft spot or directly on the soft spot it is common that they have roots (tenticales) into the skull and possibly brain. So, he ordered the CT scan to see if that is the case. If it is, then we will be referred to a Neurosurgen. If not, which he feels strongly like there are not roots, then we will proceed with the surgery to remove it.

The CT scan is scheduled for April 6th and I am quite anxious about this day. They said they will give her a sedative to relax her for the procedure, but if she is not still enough they will need to put her under. We will not know until that moment so we need to prepare her as though she will be put under. That means she cannot eat past 4:30am - BRUTAL! Not feeding my baby for over 6 hours will probably be the longest 6 hours of my life! AND we have to go in an hour early to have a dye put in the spot they are looking at... keeping a STARVING baby calm enough to go through a CT scan seems almost impossible to me.

After the scan we will decide how to proceed. IF there are no roots then we can take our time removing it. We can wait as long as we'd like assuming it does not get bigger. I don't know what we will choose at that point. The surgery itself is pretty easy, but yet again she will need to be put under. So, we will be praying for wisdom.

Ryland on the other hand, is doing great. She is still taking her steroid inhaler four times a day, but our goal of keeping her well for a month has worked. It's been almost six weeks and she has not needed her other inhaler at all! We are just about done with staying away from other kiddos, so we will see if her immune system was able to recover AND if the steroid inhaler is working.

Thanks for your prayers. It was actually quite humbling to go into the hospital yesterday. There were SO many other kids there and several babies that were definalty worse off then us. It was a welcomed perspective that the Lord gave me. We are all His children and He does ALL things for His glory. My journey must be about giving Him all of me and not about figuring out how I can help my babies.

Truths from Brenley-Boo

Brenley's first time on the Skype Camera, she was quite full of things to say. :)

Truths from Brenley-Boo from Sherah on Vimeo.