A smile says it all.

Parker's first smile

Parker's smile today

I am a relatively new blogger but have been looking at blogs for quite a while. I sometimes hop from blog to blog from friend's blogs. Today, I landed on a blog from an incredible family who will be fostering a child from Guatemala while he receives surgery for a Cleft Lip. I started thinking if I blog hop then others do as well. I was so touched by this, I left a comment on a complete stranger's blog then thought about sharing our story because you never know who might be reading it and needing inspiration. Parker Elizabeth was born July 29, 2003. I had a very good pregnancy for the most part, she was stubborn and did not want to be born but the Doctor's made her when she approached 2 weeks overdue. She was born at 2:14 am after a very long labor, we did not know she had a cleft until we saw her for the first time. Baby's are supposed to be perfect and we had no idea what a cleft lip was or what we could do about it. My OB was awesome in giving us as much info as possible about clefts and assuring us it was only her lip, no palate issues. When the pediatrician came in around 7 am, he too assured us hers was very minor, a 2 on a 10 scale. He gave us the names of a few plastic surgeons in the area who did cleft repairs.

Parker was a trooper from the beginning, she never had any feeding problems. I was able to nurse her and she could also take a bottle. This can be incredibly difficult in cleft babies. We took her to see the plastic surgeon at 4 weeks old, he recommended her first surgery at 10 weeks. We are so fortunate to have a great children's hospital in Memphis, LeBonheur. At 10 weeks old, we arrived at 6 am for surgery. She was gone from us for 4 hours before the doctor called to tell us all went well. When they brought her to her room, she was restrained and the nurses taught us how to feed her with a syringe. Even through all the pain she must have been in, swollen and all, she managed to smile when she saw us.

She had a revision surgery in November 2006. This one was an outpatient surgery, she was up playing the same afternoon. She will most likely have more dental surgeries as she gets older, right now, all is well.

It is so amazing to us to see her smile, her so-called birth defect is the very thing that draws you in. For some reason, I thought I needed to share this today. As you can see from her snow picture a few weeks ago, Parker loves life and knows she was born special.

Henderson Easter Tradition

In true Henderson fashion one of our kids is sick for the Holiday! Actually, now that I think about it, I think we have sick kid for every other holiday. Parker's class has had this nasty stomach virus go around 3 times, lucky for us, this is her first experience with it. Last year, Grant had something and we stayed home while Parker and Brandon went to his parents. I remember one Easter, Parker's ear drums ruptured (yes, both of them) and we spent the night at the LeBonheur After Hours clinic. She was miserable, here's a picture and you can see her little flushed cheeks but she was a trooper as always.

I wish everyone a Happy Easter. Keep your fingers crossed Parker gets better and can enjoy the fun filled weekend.

Misunderstanding

As many of you know, we are doing our best to teach Parker our faith. She goes to Catholic school and we try to attend Mass every Sunday. She even goes to "little church" to get her very own version of the readings/Gospel and Homily. You can imagine my surprise when she said on Sunday afternoon: "It's pom Sunday, I have to go to cheer class!" Maybe she doesn't get it after all!

Last night when I got home from work, Brandon tells me Grant's teachers are working on his "social problems," i.e. sharing. I said yes, that's our social deviant 16 month old. Later when I read the daily recap from his school, it said, we are working on "problem solving and social skills" -- Oops!

Parker rode a pony!

We had a busy weekend of birthday parties. Parker had 2 on Saturday, the first at Jumpin' Jax in Collierville and the 2nd in Southaven at a petting zoo. As many of you know, Parker is terrified of animals so we were thinking this was not going to be a fun party for her. You can imagine my surprise when she got on a pony for a ride. I didn't have my camera but my friend had one so I did take some pictures, as soon as she sends it to me, I will upload it here. Parker loved it! She fed goats and rabbits, she did not like the 1000 lb pig though, she said he was stinky.

Grant got his first pair of actual tennis shoes on Friday night. They are so cute, baby New Balance shoes. He has a very thick foot so we do not have many shoe choices and have to go to speciality stores. Parker finally outgrew her wide shoe phase and now we can buy shoes anywhere. Hopefully, Grant will do the same.

Happy St. Patrick's day everyone! I hope you are wearing green!

Finally a few snow pictures...

Snow angel-her very first

The biggest snow ball ever!

Hey, this is not so bad after all.

I liked it until I feel down!

Enjoy the pictures of the kids, it might be 4 more years before we get good snow again. We had plenty to build a snowman but we did not because Brandon left for the Memphis game and by the time he got home, most of it was melted. Parker played outside several times Saturday morning. Her snow suit was Christmas gift 2 years ago and was a size 2T-can you believe it still fit her? Okay so it was too short but it kept her warm and dry. Her boots did not, her socks were soaking wet. Next time we are getting her rain boots to play in instead of cute ugg knock-offs!

So you want pictures?

Okay, I actually have pictures but I keep getting an error message when I try to post them here. We got snow on Friday, the best snow we have had in years! At our house we got around 4" but there were drifts much deeper. Parker loved every minute of it and Grant liked it until he fell, then he was done! I really wanted to show you guys pictures of my kids in the snow. It's so frustrating. I will get tech-support (Brandon) to help me tonight with the pictures. Happy Monday!

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall..

Humpty Dumpty shouldn't stand up in the bath tub!
You guessed it, Grant fell in the bathtub on Sunday night and bit through his tongue. I have never seen that much blood come out of one our kids, ever! We learned last year when Parker bit through her lip, the mouth is very forgiving and heals quickly. We were not sure what, if anything, could be done about his tongue. Lucky for us we have friends/cousins in the medical profession so we started calling in favors to determine if we needed to go to the ER or not. Our nurse friend said yes, to definitely take him so we called Brandon's cousin who is a Doctor. He said to bring him in right away and determined the cut was borderline on whether it needed stitches and it was our choice. Once he explained to us how they stitch the tongue up, we opted not to put Grant through anymore trauma. Tim said he could make a case either way but he would not sew up his son. Grant is on an antibiotic and soft diet for the next few days. You would never know he had this traumatic experience if you didn't see his tongue. It looks better every time he lets us see it. Tonight is bath night, it will be his first since his fall, let's hope he remembers the pain and sits down.