We went down to Port A for the holiday weekend to start a new family tradition. We were there with my dad and his girlfriend Mary, my brother, sister-in-law, and toddler Grace. It was a good time, but the mosquitoes were hell. I tried to take Jack on a morning walk and got 63 bites. I'm still itching like crazy. Jack had a good time at the beach. But on the second day a guy pulled 3 sharks out of the water right where we were swimming. They were small and they generally stay away from people, but there were a ton of people there and yet he pulled 3 out on one morning.

That look on my face is, don't get that thing any closer to my child. And Jack is just ready for a nap.


Jack wasn't a huge fan of the sand, but he loved swimming in the ocean or maybe I should say the shark infested waters. But he had a blast. He was not a fan of the sand though. He kept wanting to chew on all the sand toys but didn't like the sand in his mouth. And he would rub his eyes and get sand in them, it was all a big mess.



These 2 had a good time hanging out together.


And Jack LOVES his cousin Grace. She was upset and he was trying to comfort her. He would try and make her laugh, he would look at her face and try to help her, and he would hug her. It was adorable.


And then he tackled her. He is a boy after all.


We came home a day early because he wasn't sleeping well and was having a ton of seizures. I don't think Jonathan and I could have taken another night like that. He did great in the car on the way home though, which was awesome.

And speaking of seizures, we have a surgical consult tomorrow. Because the meds aren't working they are talking about cutting out the parts of Jack's brain that are causing the seizures. How the hell they are going to do that without putting me under too is another question.

Walking for Jack-A-Roo

Our walk was great!

Last weekend we headed to Dallas on Friday. It takes about 6 hours to get there. Not because of the traffic or distance, but because we are traveling with a baby. A baby that isn't the biggest fan of the car. He does much better than he used to do. He used to scream bloody murder the whole time and now he just does it some of the time. It's an improvement at least.


We had a great time Friday evening hanging out with Jesus and Patty and some friends from the area. The kids, Jonathan and Nicholas played so well with Jack. It was super cute. We had a game night that was a blast, and hysterical.

Then Saturday was the big walk. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, it was in the low 80's and overcast.

It was good to meet some of the other families. And we raised $4,700! We came in 2nd place as far as fund raising goes. We got an award and everything. We didn't stay long enough to actually accept the award because Jack fell asleep and we had already been there for 4 hours. But my mom accepted it for us and I'm glad she was there to do that.
Yes, I look like a dork here, but Jack was having fun and being a ham.


There were lots of walkers there! And Dallas raised a total of $75,000.



Jack wanted to be carried some too.



Jack really wanted to play in the fountain at the park after the walk. Finally I just stripped him down to his diaper and let him at it. Thankfully we had his swim shirt in the car to protect him a bit.


This was just a good one. Nicholas got right in the camera and said "can you see me?". It was cute.


And lastly, after we got home we all got sick. I got it the worst. I've had either strep or bronchitis, and it was bad. I'm still coughing up crap. And it's extremely difficult to take care of a baby when you're sick. Jonathan got a sinus infection so he hasn't felt great either. And Jack has had a runny nose that thankfully hasn't turned into anything else yet. It's still running though.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the mother's out there:

Thank you for permanently altering your body to birth an infant that looked more monkey or alien than you would have anticipated. For enduring hemorrhoids, clogged milk ducts, mastitis, and thrush. Thank you for the sleepless nights that morph into interrupted sleep that will last until our children leave the house. For putting your wants, desires, and often fashion and hair styles on the back burner. Thank you for wiping boogers, kissing owies, changing diapers, wiping poopy butts, snuggling hurt feelings, being the rock when another kid hurts your kid and having the restraint to not kill them. For letting go when you needed to, even when it rips your heart out.

Who would have known that you would have become expert artists, cooks, budgeters, nurses, scheduler, cleaner, referee, therapist, fort maker, driver, and doing all of it while constantly multitasking and planning with at least one kid hanging on you every step of the way.

For Mothers Day, know that the only people who truly get it and appreciate what you do are other mothers. So from one mother to another, thank you for all you do.

Go Arizona (and ramdom updates)

First, I must give a huge shout out to Netty and Jameson! Netty is a friend in Arizona and her little boy Jameson is Jack's age. They walked and raised money for Jack at the TSC walk last Saturday. They raised $150 in Jack's name and Arizona raised $30,000 for TSC.


There is still a lot to do for our walk. The Houston people decided to drive to Dallas and walk with us there so that's one less city but more walkers with Jack. But we added one too as Jonathan's sister and brother-in-law and our niece are going to be walking in San Antonio. There isn't an official walk there but they have t-shirts and are helping to fund raise and are going to walk for Jack too. So there is still Colorado, Dallas/San Antonio (on the same day) and Oregon. I think ours in Dallas NEXT WEEKEND is the next one.

I've just about got all of the shirts ordered but as soon as I think I do, more people say that they are coming and I have to add to the order. It's a good problem to have! And we're doing great with the fund raising. If you haven't donated yet, there is still time. http://www.firstgiving.com/jack-a-roo And for those of you who have donated, thank you very much, you're support means a great deal to us.

In other Jack news, he's going through a med change. The lamictal was making him cranky all the time and it wasn't stopping the seizures. He was still have an average of 2/day and he would almost always have one in the morning. It was odd. But today is the second day on the new med and he hasn't had any in the last day and a half!!! While that is very exciting, I want to gouge my ears out with a dull object. The poor kid is miserable. Anytime we mess with the dose of the lamictal he gets fussy. So we're doing that, plus we're adding a new med, and he's teething.

It's hard to sort out what the crying is coming from. And when I say crying I mean red-in-the-face, throw himself on the floor, snot running out of his nose, crying. It's like having a 1-year-old with colic. And it goes from the time he wakes from his morning nap, until he goes to bed at night. It breaks my heart to see him so upset for so much of the day. If we're outside he goes into dull moaning mode which is at least an improvement, but when it's so hot late in the afternoon we can't stay out for long.

I saw a lump in his gums while he was screaming bloody murder and I'm pretty sure that he's getting a molar in. He's had a fever off and on of about 100.4 for over a week. I even took him to the doctor last week to get his ears check and the doc said that everything looked good. So yeah, it's been a rough week. Hopefully it will get better soon. Thankfully the weekend is coming up so that I at least have some help.

And at the beginning of the week my laptop crashed. After buying another hard drive, it's back up and running. I have more space for more pictures now. And yesterday my car exploded. Ok, that may be a tad bit dramatic, but we had to have it towed from the house to the shop. Jack and I met Jonathan at the gym down south for swimming and lunch (the only time Jack wasn't screaming yesterday). After I asked Jonathan if he heard a rattle that I heard. Then on the way home things stared to happen. Long story short, a bit of smoke was coming from under the hood by the time we pulled into the drive way. I'm anxiously awaiting the call from the mechanic and praying that it's not going to cost us an arm and a leg. I love that jeep.

I think that's it for now. I'll have some good zoo pictures to post soon. (The lap top crashing has slowed that down) We drove down to Houston on Monday to meet some friends at the Houston zoo and had a blast and we're driving to San Antonio tomorrow for a zoo trip there. 2 zoo destination trips in one week. It's a lot, but it's been fun!