Willow's Wishes

Oh what a time it has been!  It has had its fun and its not so fun times as I suppose anyone's 9 month time span would.  A quick refresher just to put all of it into perspective... Willow was born on Dec. 24th (cannot believe it is coming up so quick!), and just 2 1/2 months later was diagnosed with Hydrocephalus ex vacuo, meaning she had hydro due to a lack of brain matter. Then at 4 months and 2 days old, was placed into the operating room for an emergency surgery to have a shunt placed. 8 surgeries and 11 weeks later, we finally get to go home.  We have been home for two and a half months, and have been going to therapy a whole lot! Well lets fast forward to today: She is 9 months and 2 days old, and we went to the pediatrician's office for her well child visit.  The stats are: 15.4 lbs, 26.25 inches, 45.5 cm head circumference. She is our tiniest little peanut yet, but that is okay because what she lacks in size she makes up for in spunk.  She is com...

We finally got to take Willow to the neurologist; and I say finally with tongue in cheek.  This appt. was made back in March for Aug, then changed to July, then moved to Aug. again, where I show up to be told we actually did not have an appointment. Yeah less than thrilled with the office to say the least.  But today we finally get in and actually the doctor was great!  He showed me her brain scans and explained what I was looking at, which was great because I have her scans on a disk myself, but lack the medical degree to actually understand fully what I was looking at! So, her lateral ventricles were huge! Her third ventricle also large, while the fourth was only slightly larger than normal.  Basically her body was making its normal amount of fluid as it should, it was just having trouble draining.  Her original diagnosis of hydrocephalus ex-vacuo was completely wrong! She does not suffer from any white matter loss!  Woohoo!! Huge dance of joy!  Ob...

Okay, so I have realized that I am really good at posting on here when Willow is in the hospital and things are not always going so well; but not necessarily great at posting the wonderful small things that have been happening since we have been home!  So here is a list of things/accomplishments that Willow is working on: sitting on her own (she can for about 20 seconds and then falls down) army crawling (she looks odd as she only uses her left side to go, but she is getting there) standing while being held (you hold her at her belly or her arms and she will stand up) she rolls everywhere now! That is her main form of transportation lately She is eating Gerber puffs and the yogurt melts She laughs at her siblings She sat in the grocery shopping cart for the first time! I think that sums it up for now. We have been going to PT/OT for a bit now, and that seems to be doing really well!  The fact that she is sitting on her own shows me that it is working. ...

I have never been so happy as I am today that tomorrow my older three children will be in school! Don't get me wrong, I love all of my children; but I love my sanity just as much!  I think back to the days when after Jonathan was born I debated whether to home school or not.  Now if it were just him, it might be okay, but the problem with that is that he is really quite smart and because he has this know it all attitude we have a tendency to butt heads many times.  (who would have thought, I know)  Then along came Evan and once again I thought to home school him for a bit, but then he was speech delayed and I went through an entire summer where he would hit, punch, kick and scream at me, all because I could not understand what he was trying to say to me - so there went that theory!  With Mandie, I have not once thought to keep her at home!  She is all girl in attitude (not sure where she gets that from though). So, tomorrow is the first day back t...