My oldest is getting an award and I have to write a bio. He is pretty amazing. He will be 17 in a few weeks and was just elected to the board of directors of a non-profit organization. Not Shwachman-Diamond America, either! ha ha ha. Can you believe that!? He is serving on the board of Room at the Inn of the Carolinas. It is a volunteer position. We are so proud of him. Where did this child come from? {smile} I just added that to his section in the "My Family" portion of this blog.
We had a great time meeting with a priest friend of ours Friday for lunch. Matthew is planning another teen pro-life retreat for August and we are going to have the first Catholic Homeschool Prom. It is going to be wonderful. He also asked Matthew to altar serve at the Mass at the National Shrine on Monday. How cool is that? Who is this amazing child?
He is MY child... he is God's child. Through the years and all of my mistakes, God has filled in the gaps and made up for my shortcomings. God does amazing things. I am so proud of all my boys and the amazing things they have done for God, too. They are great kids.
So many people tell me, "I could never homeschool." I could never do it without God. With all of the hospitalizations and medical procedures, homeschooling has not been easy, but God truly does make up for all of our shortcomings -- IF we allow Him into our lives. If we put God first, that is.
It has been an amazing ride watching what my children have done as they have grown up. Today is the 38th anniversary of Roe v Wade. Today I am thankful for my children and being able to watch them grow. Today, I think of all those children killed in their mother's womb -- children of God who will never be on this earth. So sad.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Persuasive Compositions and Constitutional Books
My oldest is currently working on a five paragraph persuasive composition. He chose the topic Why Christians have the right to display religious symbols in public places. He started coming up with reasons, which then lead him to looking closer at our founding documents and the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Who were these men, what shaped their belief that we all have unalienable rights and the right to religious freedom?
We have many books on the founding documents in our home. We also have copies of the founding documents! Matthew pulled these off the shelf to help with his composition:
We have many books on the founding documents in our home. We also have copies of the founding documents! Matthew pulled these off the shelf to help with his composition:
- Constitutional Law for Enlightened Citizens by Michael P. Farris, ESQ.
- The Signers: The 56 Stories Behind the Declaration of Independence by Dennis Brindell Fradin
- The Declaration of Independence: The Story behind America's founding document and the men who created it.
Lists, Lists and more Lists
I'm a list maker. I have lists on all of my electronic devices, but my favorite lists are on post it notes. Throughout the day, I check off what I have accomplished and add more to the list. Each night, I rewrite the list, removing the items already "checked off". Just as the father in the original Cheaper by the Dozen play, I think that better organization is ALWAYS of general interest! Is there a patron saint of organization? If not, there should be!
Through Shwachman-Diamond America, we send out SDA Cares packages to Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome children in the hospital. This month, we have three SDS friends going through transplant. I was able to get the donated items packaged and ready to mail out. Please keep our friends in your prayers. We also have a young SDS friend who went through transplant last year who may need a second transplant. The doctors are going to try a boost of bone marrow stem cells to see if this helps, they will try this twice before deciding to go to transplant again. These are friends that we have met at camp or at the hospitals and we hold each of them close to our hearts.
In the moments I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the tasks yet to be done, I thought of our friends who are going through transplant. Sometimes, we need the reminder that in the middle of ordinary life and ordinary frustrations, we have a lot to be thankful for! We are abundantly blessed.
In other news, I'm busy transferring our family website over to this blog. I even enlisted the help of a designer... so hopefully I will soon have a great new design! I'm excited..... and then our family website can revert to the free site. It was only a few dollars a month, but I found I like this format much better. It is going to be SO cute! So, if you notice the current changes, they are all in preparation for the new and updated version.
Joseph is working through his confirmation classes and really enjoying it. This week he told me he really had fun reading the various readings and being able to vote on the OT reading for the Confirmation Mass. Next week they will vote on the other readings.... he is very cute!
Baseball season is upon us! Sean has his first practice session this Saturday! From here on out, it will be baseball, baseball, baseball!
A quote from my spiritual reading today: "The children of God care about every soul there is, because every soul is important." ~ St. Josemaria Escriva
Through Shwachman-Diamond America, we send out SDA Cares packages to Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome children in the hospital. This month, we have three SDS friends going through transplant. I was able to get the donated items packaged and ready to mail out. Please keep our friends in your prayers. We also have a young SDS friend who went through transplant last year who may need a second transplant. The doctors are going to try a boost of bone marrow stem cells to see if this helps, they will try this twice before deciding to go to transplant again. These are friends that we have met at camp or at the hospitals and we hold each of them close to our hearts.
In the moments I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the tasks yet to be done, I thought of our friends who are going through transplant. Sometimes, we need the reminder that in the middle of ordinary life and ordinary frustrations, we have a lot to be thankful for! We are abundantly blessed.
In other news, I'm busy transferring our family website over to this blog. I even enlisted the help of a designer... so hopefully I will soon have a great new design! I'm excited..... and then our family website can revert to the free site. It was only a few dollars a month, but I found I like this format much better. It is going to be SO cute! So, if you notice the current changes, they are all in preparation for the new and updated version.
Joseph is working through his confirmation classes and really enjoying it. This week he told me he really had fun reading the various readings and being able to vote on the OT reading for the Confirmation Mass. Next week they will vote on the other readings.... he is very cute!
Baseball season is upon us! Sean has his first practice session this Saturday! From here on out, it will be baseball, baseball, baseball!
A quote from my spiritual reading today: "The children of God care about every soul there is, because every soul is important." ~ St. Josemaria Escriva
Another Brain MRI Coming Up
I've been trying to move my family website here to my blog... bringing it all under one roof, so to speak. I was busy transferring some of the things I'd like to have here when the phone rang. The pediatrician was on the phone. I wasn't expecting a call. Well, not really.
I'm the eternal optimist. Last month, when she said she'd repeat sean's brain MRI if the tilt table test was normal, I heard what she said. The nurses had told me they felt it was normal even with him having a dizzy spell during the test. The blod pressure drop wasn't big enough to cause dizziness. When we saw the pediatrician a few weeks ago, she still had not received the tilt table results. I started to assume that there would be no reason to worry about repeating the brain MRI since I had not heard back yet. Then the phone rang.
I'll get a call when it is scheduled. She hopes we can get it before our visit with the Mito doctor in a few weeks. I understand why we have to do it.....I just don't want to do it. Here we go with another year started off with expensive tests. We will meet our out of pocket max by Febraury. C'est la vie.
We cannot just assume that all of his symptoms are due to the Mito. She explained that with his recent growth spurt, the lesion could also have grown. It has been three years since we checked it. To recap-- we found th brain lesion back in December of 2006 when Sean's migraines began to get worse and we ended up in the ER several times with him unable to stop throwing up. This was after being on meds for several years and seeming to have them under control. We saw a neurologist in Cincy who had him get an MRI done immediately. We received the results and the doctor wanted us to return for a repeat MRI with contrast and an MRA. We drove back to Cincy the day after Christmas. What a year that was-- this was the same time we found out Joseph looked liked he'd be needing a bone marrow transplant and they typed our entire family again. Put us in touch with the donor search coordinator who did th preliminary search that showed Joseph did not have a match in the donor registry.
I'm sure that the MRI will be just fine... but we can't just blame it all on Mito when we know he has a benign brain lesion (benign lesions can grow, too). I'm surprisingly not worried. More of a "we need to get this out of th eway, it is going to be fine, but then we can say this is most likely due to Mito."
I'm the eternal optimist. Last month, when she said she'd repeat sean's brain MRI if the tilt table test was normal, I heard what she said. The nurses had told me they felt it was normal even with him having a dizzy spell during the test. The blod pressure drop wasn't big enough to cause dizziness. When we saw the pediatrician a few weeks ago, she still had not received the tilt table results. I started to assume that there would be no reason to worry about repeating the brain MRI since I had not heard back yet. Then the phone rang.
I'll get a call when it is scheduled. She hopes we can get it before our visit with the Mito doctor in a few weeks. I understand why we have to do it.....I just don't want to do it. Here we go with another year started off with expensive tests. We will meet our out of pocket max by Febraury. C'est la vie.
We cannot just assume that all of his symptoms are due to the Mito. She explained that with his recent growth spurt, the lesion could also have grown. It has been three years since we checked it. To recap-- we found th brain lesion back in December of 2006 when Sean's migraines began to get worse and we ended up in the ER several times with him unable to stop throwing up. This was after being on meds for several years and seeming to have them under control. We saw a neurologist in Cincy who had him get an MRI done immediately. We received the results and the doctor wanted us to return for a repeat MRI with contrast and an MRA. We drove back to Cincy the day after Christmas. What a year that was-- this was the same time we found out Joseph looked liked he'd be needing a bone marrow transplant and they typed our entire family again. Put us in touch with the donor search coordinator who did th preliminary search that showed Joseph did not have a match in the donor registry.
I'm sure that the MRI will be just fine... but we can't just blame it all on Mito when we know he has a benign brain lesion (benign lesions can grow, too). I'm surprisingly not worried. More of a "we need to get this out of th eway, it is going to be fine, but then we can say this is most likely due to Mito."