Life is good in spite of it all...

Sisters

Since the vocal cord medialization, things have been quiet for Reya.  Life in general has been bonkers, but at least things have been pretty good with the kids.  After a stressful early spring, Reya was mostly able to enjoy the rest of the spring doing normal kid stuff.  She loves her babies and her stuffed animals.  She is an incredibly caring, gentle soul and I think she has learned a lot from her extended time in the infant room and the love and care her teachers give to all of their babies.  She loves to rock her babies to sleep, going "shh, shh, shh".  I am constantly finding baby dolls around the house covered in washcloths (blankets).  While Hope likes to take their clothes off, Reya is often asking us to put their clothes back on.   She has a way of dancing when she's happy, something she's done since she was about 8 months old.  She is not a fan of new people.

For Memorial Day weekend, we were lucky enough to get to fly down to Ocean City for a few days.  All of our kids travel well, but especially Sanders.  He loves to fly.  I was worried about how he would handle it, given his health has been pretty precarious over the last 9 months or so, but he was so relaxed and so happy to be in the air.  I know his time with us is limited, and this is how I always want to remember him. 

This dog has the best life

The flight down was a little stressful.  Reya had been sent home form school early with a fever.  We're not really quite sure what the fever was attributed to as she really had no other symptoms.  We had a hard time deciding whether to go or not, but her fever seemed to respond to Motrin, so we decided to take a chance and go.  She mostly slept during the flight, though there was a good stretch where both kids were crying, Reya because she wanted to take her headset off, and Hope because she didn't feel well.  I eventually got Reya to settle, but Hope ended up throwing up several times, but mostly into my hands.  We think she got airsick because her belly was empty.    Meanwhile, it was not an easy flight for Chris.  Right before take-off he discovered that our GPS was not working.  This wasn't that big of a deal for the flight down since we were flying VFR (Visual Flight Rules), but the flight back was not looking like it was going to be as clear and we'd need to go IFR (Instrument Flight Rules).  While you can fly without GPS, it makes it more complicated.  In addition to the GPS snafu, the airways were pretty busy.  At one point, we were on a direct course with another plane.  We ended ducking down 1000ft and watched as he passed right over us.  Had we stayed where we were, we probably would have intersected.  But, we arrived safely.  Coming into Ocean City was one of the prettiest sunsets I'd seen.  The setting sun illuminated the marshes a golden orange.  I took a picture, but it just doesn't do it justice.

Hope enjoying the sunset

Beautiful South Jersey marshes

We had a lovely beach day on Saturday.  We got down to the beach early and the kids enjoyed the beach most of the morning.  Reya loved it and Hope seemed a little less afraid of the water.  I can only imagine how much Reya is going to love it by the end of the summer.  In her typical fashion, she was not afraid of the water at all, and even got taken out by a wave or two.  We are going to have to watch her carefully.  Hope enjoyed the water, but in true Hope fashion, is much more reserved and careful.

Heading down to check out the water

Checking it all out

The picture of health and happiness

"I'm not afraid of the water any more!"

beach baby

Sisters

On Sunday, the weather was not as nice, so we mostly hung out at home, starting off the morning with Brown's donuts.  We attempted the beach for a little bit, but discovered it was way too chilly so we headed back home.  We went to Kessel's for an early lunch.  Hope loved her Kessel's cheesesteak!  Chris and I got to go out for our 12th anniversary on Sunday night and we had a nice dinner.  Monday afternoon we headed home to get ready for the final stretch at school.  Both kids were exhausted and slept most of the way home.

Mmmm....Cheesesteak

Sleeping peacefully

In the beginning of June, I had the rare experience of heading into the hospital by myself for the Miles for Miracles marathon team kick-off reception.  While I was there, I decided to donate some blood, hoping to replace some of the blood Reya has used.  The Kick-off was fun and informative and left me pretty excited for this upcoming training season.  If you'd like to donate, here's the link:

http://fundraise.childrenshospital.org/goto/Crellin



Hope is growing up.  She is still very much a three year old, with a lot of strong opinions.  SHe is full on into princesses, but especially Elsa, Anna, and Belle.  We try to limit screen time, but do let her watch her Disney movies.  She has learned most of the songs and sings them all the time.  We've also gotten into Moana.  She does not like for me to do her hair or pick her clothes.  Sometimes this results in some interesting outfits and hairdos, but she is getting a little bit better, occasionally letting me do her hair.  She recently figured out how to use a headband, and loves that since she can do it herself.  Here is what it looks like...lol.



We had the opportunity at the beginning of the month to meet up with a new heart mom friend.  It was a really moving experience as this heart mom happens to have TOF / PA herself, as does her brother.  They are one of the other few families where the parents were heart healthy and had more than one child with TOF / PA.  Her boys also have TOF / PA and her daughter has Downs Syndrome.  They are an amazing family and, as it is with most heart families, it feels wonderful to connect with someone who "gets it."  Moreover, I truly believe in exposing my girls to as many people like them as I can so that they don't feel their difference as much.  At one point, sitting at dinner, my friend looked at Hope and said "You know what?  Everyone at this table has a special heart except one person (referring to me)"  Hope lit up.  Then my friend showed Hope her scar and everyone showed off their scars.  It was such an awesome moment and I am so grateful for all moments like these that my kids get to have.  The icing on the cake was that we got to ride the T in to the city.  Hope loved riding the train.  She was so excited!

Getting ready to board

Loving the T!

Most of our weekends in June were pretty calm.  We got to celebrate Porchfest in Arlington - throughout the town bands were set up on porches and you could just wander from street to street and listen to music.  I love this picture of Chris and his girls.

Daddy and his girls

Reya has been working on her gross motor skills, including climbing.  We've been doing a lot of stair work, but she also figured out that she can push things over to reach things that were formerly out of reach....Yikes.  Hope has been trying to teach her how to jump.  I snapped this picture of them on the playground at school.  Hope in mid jump, Reya soaking it all in.  She loves doing what Hope is doing, but doesn't always want to do what Hope wants her to do...  Both kids have learned to climb playground structures and are so proud of themselves!

Little Monkey

"Jump, jump, little Reya"

Hope and Grandpa

For Father's Day, we took Hope sailing for the first time since she was a little baby.  I've been hesitant to take her for fear she'd be bored and we'd be stuck with her.  But her attention span has really increased and we felt like she was ready.  We kept it short and she seemed to have a good time.  The highlight was the Del's lemonade at the end :)

On June 21st, we closed out another school year.  Reya finished the year off still in the infant room, but spending most of her time with the Toddlers, which is where she'll start in the beginning of next year.  Hope had a great year in preschool 1 and she will start off next year back in Preschool 1, possibly transitioning up to preschool 2 sometime in the next year.  Both girls have grown so much and learned a lot.  Reya started the year as a rather blue baby, she is now a nicely pink toddler.  She walks, she talks, she's silly and has an incredible personality.  Hope seems to have grown a foot.  She is all legs.  She still loves to sing all the time and talks not only in complex sentences, but in full-on paragraphs.  She is starting to recognize written words and her teachers think she will read early.

Sweet Reya

So confident!

Sisters\]

I had a terrible school year.  Definitely my worst year professionally, with plenty of reason.  Between normal daycare-kid illnesses, catheterizations, and then the surgery we weren't expecting, I was never truly able to get a momentum, and while I was beyond happy to be back, there were many times throughout the school year that I questioned whether it had been the right decision to go back.  I spent most of the second half of the year incredibly stressed out.  Starting in December, the kids went through an awful sleep regression, that left us not really sleeping at all until February.  Sanders had a tough year as well, and there were multiple times that we thought we were taking him to be put down, yet he's still here.  And then the surgery, and all it and its' recovery entailed.  As much as I didn't expect to have to be home that extra week after April vacation, I needed it as much as Reya did to recover.  Between the not sleeping and the stress, my body has really starting to show signs of this stress.   Professionally, I was lucky in that both administration and my co-workers had my back and I was able to muddle through the year.  I had a great group of students, many of whom I will have again in French III and somehow we were able to get through most of what I had hoped to get through.  I look forward to having them again and making it up to them next year.  Fingers crossed there are no surgeries next year and that Reya's immune system has been bolstered by this year's exposures.   The best part of my profession, other than June, July, and August, is the opportunity to start fresh again each school year.  I have the added bonus of starting completely fresh next year in a brand new room.  So here's to a fresh start....