I jumped out of bed this morning excited to celebrate him and everything he is to our family. It still amazes me that just 8 years ago, doctors told us that we were an infertile couple. Every time Chance or Paxton has a birthday, I’m reminded of this blessing I will never stop being thankful for.

Pax opened his first present from Auntie Renee this morning:

He LOVES Elmo. He sings the theme song multiple times every day. So this gift was perfect.

Then, this afternoon, we all had lunch and celebrated with cake. Since Paxton is only two, this year was the first year he understood how to blow his candles out. He did a GREAT job.

Of course we had to relight the candles so Chance could blow them out too. That little stinker.

Time flies. I looked at both my sons today and wondered when they got so big so fast. It makes me want to turn back time… just to be in that moment of their babyhood again.

Flashback with me:

November 2008

November 2009

A couple of weeks ago:

Today:

My Darling Paxton…

You are such an amazing little man. You are loving, sweet, funny, determined and absolutely wonderful in every way. You never stop making me laugh. The way your eyes dance while you’re taking in the world makes me want to both protect you from the world, yet at the same time, live through your eyes… just for a moment.

Pax, every bit of you is passionate. The moment you think it, you’re making it happen. Though some of your choices have made Mama nervous, like belly-flopping from the couch to the floor, the one thing I DO know is your passion is what’s going to drive everything about you when you’re grown up. Daddy and my hope is that your passion will be Jesus… because He is all that’s worth being passionate for.

Your laugh is contagious. When you laugh, the whole room joins you. When you cry, the whole room runs to you. Do you have any idea how you capture the hearts of those around you? I’m excited to see how this transfers into adulthood for you.

Mama loves you so much! I’m so, so, so, so, so thankful God put you in our lives and let me be your Mama. And even though I’ll mess up a lot and have to say “I’m sorry” over and over, I promise you I will always TRY harder to be the Mommy you deserve. I will never take that privilege for granted… because you, Paxton, are worth every moment of my heart.

I love you, son…

Mama

I love how some of his paperwork comes back saying “Cha” instead of “Chance” because he just didn’t have time to bother writing his WHOLE name, or his name is written backwards, or how his stick figure people look more like big bodied bugs with little legs and hair. Chance is LEARNING… and he’s loving it.

Their class had hung this up recently. The project was to design a plain white pre-outlined “person” as yourself:

Every child had their own creativity displayed (some had their parents artistic talent displayed too… come on! this is kindergarten!) but to me, Chance’s stuck out.

As he was creating “himself”, he told me:

“Mama… I’m gonna draw a lot of teeth because I love snacks. I think it’s really silly that my paper person doesn’t have hands because I’m totally drawing him with my hands right NOW! And he’s gonna have green shoes cuz shoes help me run fast… and green means ‘GO’! Hey! I’m gonna draw green on where my hands should be too so they know next time to put hands there. And I’m gonna draw my heart cuz that’s where Jesus lives. And my smile is gonna be the biggest thing because I’m so happy!”

I didn’t help him with his project at all… though I sat with him the whole time he worked on it (btw… this is a good example of what kindergarten homework looks like). As you can see, he also stuck smiley stickers all over his paper person too… including his EYES. And either he’s bleeding into his leg or Jesus flows down into there. I’m not sure. Whichever way, the REAL Chance got bored with this project at about 10 minutes and decided this would be how he’d turn it in.

Another day, he came home with this project and gave it to Paxton to wear:

I laughed first… then my heart overspilled with joy.

You see… Chance LOVES Jesus. I know he thinks about him often because he TALKS about him often. And because he’s the big brother, it’s trickling down to his little brother. And on the days I feel like a failure of a mother… I think about these days and remember I got one thing right…

… they know Jesus.

My kids teach me more about the love of God than any seminary class ever could. And for that… I’m thankful.

He makes my heart sing.

This kid is a clown.

Wonder where he got THAT from…

I’ll be back soon… especially since God’s been stirring up quite a bit in my heart as of late… but for now, I’ll just leave you with a cute video of my boys.

This video is a few weeks old. I FINALLY got around to loading it onto YouTube. Better late than never, right?

What is YOUR family “thing”?

We were originally coming in for a Flex Sig (which I wrote about earlier HERE). But upon arriving, they told us they would rather be thorough while he was under. They would prefer to perform an Upper Endoscopy as well.

At this point, we welcomed that idea for these reasons:

1. It would take 10 minutes extra, MAX.
2. He’s already under anesthesia.
3. We’re already rocking out our flippin’ HIGH deductible… why not.

The last thing we want is to have to come in for another procedure because they didn’t check everything out the first time around. Basically, today, they explored everything between his mouth down to his pooper (save a small turn from his small intestines to large intestines. The turn was too complicated to maneuver through for a baby his size).

Paxton was a champ. We showed up at 6:30am and left a bit before 10:30am. They had him in and out of there within a little over an hour and other than being a little loopy afterwards, he seems fine. Here’s what they saw:

A PERFECTLY HEALTHY GI TRACT

Other than a couple of fissures around his rectal area, there wasn’t anything that could explain the amount of blood in his stool we’ve experienced since he was 3 months old. No polyps, no intestinal tearing, no inflammation. Just perfect, pink baby guts.

This is incredibly GREAT news… and incredibly frustrating all at the same time. We are SO glad we are cutting out possibilities of what he could be suffering from, but were hoping to find more answers than this. The good news is we can now check THIS off the list.

They DID, however, take samples from his upper GI & lower GI. They are not ruling out possible diseases. They did blood work in earlier tests to find that he has the genetic match-up of possibly having Celiac Disease. They are doing further testing and will contact us when tests return.

Please continue praying for our little Paxton. We have been so humbled and grateful for all who’ve rallied around us already. I’m getting teary-eyed just thinking about all the prayers you guys have whispered on our behalf. THANK YOU!

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First… THANK YOU for all your prayers. We were humbly surprised and SO blessed when we saw all the replies, comments, direct messages, texts and emails. You have no clue how much we that really carried us through. Thank you!

So… let’s start at the beginning:

Paxton has always had G.I. issues. I wrote about his newfound allergies HERE. With that said, though it’s not “normal” to see blood in stool, it was somewhat “normal” for us to see it in Paxton’s. That’s why they wanted to go in with a Flex Sig a few months ago.

The health of the human race relies so much on our G.I. health. Paxton’s G.I. tract is compromised by who knows what, he actually gets sick a lot easier than most kids. Chance may get a little cold from school that lasts him 4 days… but Paxton will spike a fever and hold that cold for 2 weeks. Sometimes, that cold will transform into Croup or other viruses that just make my poor little man miserable.

Well, 10 days ago, Paxton’s began showing even more irregular issues with his bowel movements. He had diarrhea and a LOT of blood in his stool. And when I say “a LOT”, I mean it was way beyond little clots or faint trails of red. My sister, Helen, was here and I actually screamed out for her help when I saw it. We called into the pediatricians office. No fever. No change in Paxton’s appearance or mood. It was later in the evening time. So, though the amount of blood was alarming, the on-call doctor said it was okay to post-pone and see him the next day.

The next day, they did some tests and found nothing conclusive. Said they thought it was a virus and he’d be over it in a few days.

Fast forward to Friday night a week later (few days ago). Paxton was still having loose stools… but that night, a fever was added to the equation. It was about 100* so it wasn’t anything to freak out over. Babies teeth and get warm… and he still seemed pretty happy. I called into the advice nurse anyway. Pax was taking in liquids so she told me to treat him with babies tylenol and motrin if he got uncomfortable or if the temp went up more.

Saturday: Pax’s fever rose to 102*. We treated him at home. He took in Pedialyte and water like a champ so we thought he’d be fine the next day. However… Pax never got comfortable and he ended up not really sleeping all day OR all night.

Sunday: Pax was still pretty toasty, so Brian stayed home with him while the rest of us went to church. We all met up for lunch after church… but Paxton didn’t seem happy at all. In fact, he seemed miserable. Nothing would soothe him. He wouldn’t take food. He wouldn’t take drinks. He cried or whimpered the whole time, which if you know him at all is VERY strange. He was super hot to the kiss (my guess was 103*-ish) and he would freak out every time we touched his tummy. I told Brian… “I think it’s time to go to the ER.” So, we did.

At OHSU Doernbecher’s (they have an ER JUST for kids), they marked his temp at 104* plus. His poor little brain was cookin’. They immediately gave him meds to lower his fever. Then they did just about everything under the sun to him (in this order):

1. catheter
2. rectal thermometer
3. followed up a stool culture sample (while you’re up there, right?)
4. IV plug
5. blood draws (3 vials full)
6. IV drip of 500 ml of liquids
7. x-ray of his mid-section
8. ultrasound (after all THOSE tests came back “normal”)

We checked in at around 2pm and left there at 10pm.

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Good news: we know what this sickness is NOT caused by.
Bad news: no one knows WHAT’S wrong.

They sent us home after they had an extensive talk with Paxton’s pediatrician AND G.I. doctor. We had to go in again today for a follow-up.

Follow-up was inconclusive. Surprised? I’m not. However… ALL doctors involved (ER Pediatrician, GI Specialist, Pediatrician AND Naturopath) all believe it’s time to do the Flex Sig. This sucks because we have a ridiculously HIGH deductible and though this will most likely benefit Paxton… it will take forever to pay it off. Our ends don’t meet now… so this only stresses me out more. However… knowing that we’ll me a step closer to knowing how to treat Paxton makes it all worth it.

Anyway… that’s the update for now. Our next step is to schedule the Flex Sig…  and mountains of paperwork.

Thank you for your prayers… and if it’s not too much to ask, please keep praying.