Captivating

A couple of months ago, Thomas Nelson Publishers sent me the book Captivating (Revised and Expanded): Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul by John & Stasi Eldredge to review. I had given my mom the first version of this book as a birthday present a while back, but I had never gotten around to borrowing and reading it. Many of the men in my life have read John’s book Wild at Heart and gave it rave reviews, so I was excited to read this female version.

While the title may be Captivating, I did not find the book to be. It was an extremely slow read and took many months to finish. The premise of the book is to reveal the inner desires of a woman’s heart. According to the Eldredges, a woman desires to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. They go through each of these points in great detail showing us how all women have these desires deep down even if they don’t realize it. In their opinion, we have misconstrued ideas of beauty and romance because of some hurt we had in our past. They stated that they wrote this book to let you know that healing of your feminine heart is available and to let you know that it is available.

Overall, the book made some great points but they just took a long time to getting to their points by using lots of movie quotes and antidotes. I felt like they could have made their point much faster and clearer if they had made their chapters more concise. I believe the book reassured me of things I already felt about my heart, but I don’t believe it was necessary to read this whole book to figure it out. In my opinion, this book did not need to be expanded as it was wordy enough as it was!

Physical Therapy Evaluation

**This is yet another long wordy post without pictures, sorry!**

On Thursday, Owen's service coordinator called to follow up on his 2 year checkup. She said the physical therapist actually had an open slot that morning and could they come and do Owen's evaluation then. We didn't realize that it would get done so quickly, but were thankful for it.

To say Owen was uncooperative would be understatement. He was in some kind of funk that morning and threw more temper tantrums than I could count. He hated being forced to do her activities and to be put in certain positions. She said that based on the evaluation, Owen's motor skills are coming in around 16 months old, putting him 8 months behind. Things Owen should be doing that he is not: walking up the stairs holding onto the wall, walking on his knees, kicking and throwing a ball 5 ft, stand on one foot, or trying jumping. She also thought that Owen had some low muscle tone in his lower leg/ankle area, which could be causing some balance issues. This could explain why it took him later to walk. He also tends to lock his knees and kind of waddle walk instead of straight out run. Because he is 8 months behind, the PT suggested that he receive therapy services, at least for a few months, to help him catch up.

We agreed to therapy and he will probably start in 2 weeks. His 6 month IFSP (document stating his goals) review was already scheduled for Oct. 20th so it will be a great time to write him new speech and physical therapy goals.

People have asked me how I feel about it and to be honest I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I am happy to have had the evaluation and to know now how to help him. On the other, I feel like in some way this is my fault, like I haven't done enough physical activity with him. Did I carry him up the stairs too much? Did I not play ball with him enough?

To get more answers, I called our pediatrician today to ask her some questions. This is the 2nd evaluator to mention low muscle tone (speech pathologist mentioned him having low muscle tone in his mouth). I asked her what could be causing this and is there something we can be doing besides therapy to help, for instance in his diet. She was very reassuring and told me that in all of her exams of him, his muscle tone may be a little low but nothing extreme. He does not have hypotonia, which we would have seen much earlier and he would be way farther behind. She said he just has low muscle memory and he just needs to work his muscles more. After a couple months of therapy, if we do not see any progress then we may need to do some further testing to see if it's something metabolic that could be causing it. She doesn't feel like it is though, because we would have seen issues like his thyroid much earlier. (Plus I believe his former pediatrician checked for that earlier when we had a full blood workup done and all the results came back clear.)

So now we start physical therapy. My prayer is that both therapies will be beneficial to him and he will catch up very quickly. I also pray that he will be cooperative and willing to learn because he is not always so willing with us. We have found that he can be stubborn and lazy, doing only what he wants to do when he wants to do it. Please pray for him..

Doctor Appointments Galore

October 1st marked the first day of our new insurance with Jeremy's new job. Due to his odd start date and his company's change in insurance companies, we went two months this summer without insurance. Other than a trip to the pediatrician, we stayed healthy and lucked out without having insurance.

Once October 1st rolled around, it was time to catch up all the appointments that we should have done this summer. Oct. 1st we had Owen's 2 year well check up. He came in weighing 30 lbs (74 %tile) and was 35 1/2 inches tall (79 %tile). Following his daddy's footsteps, he has a whopper of a head..20 in (93 %tile). While there, they had me fill out a developmental checklist. As expected, he is not on target language wise. We knew this would be the case and luckily it is already being addressed with speech therapy. I realized just how far behind he is though seeing how he should be making 2 word sentences and he can't even put two different syllables together. :( The pediatrician did recommended that we have Owen's hearing checked again since it has not been done since his tubes were put in. She also was concerned with his gross motor skills as he is not walking upstairs, jumping, and he has a waddle when he walks. We may do a physical therapy evaluation at his 6 month CDSA update (which is in two weeks). Needless to say, I was a little disheartened after we left. No mother likes to see their child struggle especially when I am doing everything I can to help.

Monday I had my 28/29 week checkup at the OB office. This appointment included the glucose screening test, which I failed with Owen. I was very nervous going in and did everything in my power to have a normal sugar level including limiting my carbs that day. PRAISE the LORD, I passed with flying colors this time and am free to eat as I please the rest of the pregnancy...well in moderation of course. I also had my iron tested and took the mandatory syphilis test, both were fine. They also stuck me with the flu shot. What a day of pricks and pokes! As for the actual appointment, the midwife says Oliver's heartbeat sounds great and he is measuring a week early. He is an active little booger...way more than Owen. I wonder if this will be indicative of his personality.

Today the appointments continued with a trip to the dentist and dermatologist. I had my 6 month cleaning and then the dentist noticed I had a hole (not a cavity) in one of my bottom molars. He suggested we take care of it now before it became a cavity so he fixed that up while fixing a chipped tooth I had in the front. As if that weren't enough, I went to the dermatologist this afternoon and she found a mole that looked funny on my back. She removed it right then and sent it to pathology. We should know in the next week the results from that scan. Please pray that the cells will come back normal and it will not be cancerous.

Our poor insurance company is going to hate us! We have used them for sure in this last week. Here's praying that we can stay healthy and in one piece for a while and take a break from copays!

He Shall Be Called...

While our parents were here this weekend for Owen's party, we thought it would be a good idea to reveal baby #2's name.

My mom got a special gift for her birthday this year...a grandmother's necklace with both of her grandsons' names on them. Here is the front...

On the back...
As you can see, baby boy #2 will be named Oliver. James Oliver Cox to be exact. James Oliver is Jeremy's maternal grandfather's name. James is also my dad and grandfather's name. We will call him Oliver though and are very excited that we can finally call him by name. We have started working on it with Owen and he can same something that resembles it (even though he can't even say his own name!).

Oliver, we can't wait to meet you in December! :)

We're Going to Party like it's Your Birthday

Saturday we celebrated Owen's birthday with our family and a few friends. Because Owen is currently OBSESSED with all things Curious George, I felt like it would be the perfect theme for his party.
I did a horrible job of taking pictures that day while trying to play hostess but here is the jist of the day. This year we tried to keep it low key so I had a morning party with all of Owen's favorite finger foods. We had fruit kabobs, cheese and crackers, popcorn, monkey shaped peanut butter and jellies, and banana monkey cupcakes. We decorated with all things George, including books, his George stuffed animals, and bananas.
I found this cute idea for cupcakes online. They were super easy just time consuming as you had to make monkey fur.
Owen shared his day with his Nana, since it was her actual birthday.
We ate, the kids colored George sheets, and then we did presents. Owen got scared when everyone tried to sing him so he hid in my shoulder instead of blowing out his candles. I have to say that he was much cleaner this year when eating his cake. He had a great party, got great presents, and then took a nice nap. Instead of posting all the pictures on here, please visit our Facebook album. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of him and his new fort that his nana and papa gave him. I'll have to get one this week.

I can't believe he's already 2! Thanks to everyone who came and shared his special day with us. He is one loved little boy! :)

2 Year Old Pictures

A few weeks ago we had our good friend Kevin Derby take some pictures of Owen and our family to mark his 2nd birthday. Kevin did a FABULOUS job and I thought you guys would like to see them too. Here are 3 of my favorites but you click on this album link to see the rest that we posted on Facebook.

Happy 2nd Birthday Owen!

Two years ago today, the Lord changed our lives in more ways than we could ever imagine. At 11:06 pm, this little guy entered the world.

September 28, 2009- 1st Birthday
September 28, 2010- 2nd birthday
2 years later, he is such an amazing little guy. We love his sweet little personality and how he just loves on anyone. He greets everyone he meets with a wave and hi and uses his long eyelashes to his advantage. When I was pregnant with him, I prayed that the Lord would give me a baby who loves to snuggle and by golly, I got it. He loves to snuggle with you and be held. He is so laid back and low key. At times, he can be lazy in the sense that he wants you to do things for him instead of doing them himself like walk down the stairs or feed himself dinner. He is a lover of fruit, milk, dogs and all things Curious George. He loves his family and asks for them constantly. Lately we have learned that he doesn't require as much sleep as most kids his age. He also loves to wake up at the crack of dawn and take mid-day naps. He loves music and his new favorite song is Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.

He still isn't talking at the same level as his peers but he is making progress. Though he can't always use his words to express what he wants, he has found gestures (his own sign language) to tell us what he needs.

Owen, you are such a joy to us! You have taught us so much about ourselves and what it means to love unconditionally. You have taught me what it means to put others needs ahead of my own. We can't wait to see how great of a big brother you are going to be. Lord willing, we look forward to celebrating many many more birthdays together!