video's explanations

So blogger isn't letting me switch from html to compose on the post below, so I can't explain through that post, so captions will be up here. The first video is of Evan on our new trampoline. We got it to help the boy learn how to jump. At the time, he was really living up to the "white boys can't jump" saying. It's amazing how far he's come already though. In just 5 days, he's already got a pretty good 2 footed jump going, and this is shown in the second video. He was setting up those cushions while I was unaware and vaccuming. It took me awhile to remember to grab the camera, so his legs were getting tired, but you can still see some really good jumps in there. We're so excited.

The next video is from our "Day out with Thomas". Thomas the tank engine came to duluth, and we went to go take a ride on him. This video is of Evan meeting Sir Topham hat. He's already starting to figure out that this characters aren't quite right. He was asking me what was on him later in the evening.

The next video is from the train ride. Evan ever so politely asked the magician to do his rope trick again, and he was kind enough to say yes.

Next, we have fishing at my mom and John's house with Uncle Mark. We caught is first fish caugth that day on video.

After fishing, we have a rocket launch. This launch has a back story. We recently started doing a "star chart" with Evan. Things that he does without being asked such as feeding maggie, or helping pick up his toys etc, earn him a star. We're also giving stars for dry night times. Evan earned 30 stars to get a rocket kit from Hobby town with dad. Then they built this one together. Stephan said he did all the work with the epoxies and glues, but Evan did most of the assembly. The kit they picked together has 2 rockets. While working on the second rocket Evan said "It looks kinda small dad" Stephan replied, "yep, it is small". Evan then asked "how are we going to get in it?"

Videos

summer time!

Well, it's been a long time since we updated so I apologize in advance if this post get's a little long.

There has been a lot of stuff going on around our household lately. Some things that have happened are:

I worked on the Gorny Brother's Pelican Lake Boat.

Looks pretty good after, but it did take a bit of effort, here are some before/in-progress pics.

I also had a fun time making a new boat cover for this boat.

Speaking of sewing I've been getting some more jobs to do, here's a picture of a tablecloth I made earlier this year.

On the Evan side of things we've been very entertained. His imagination seems to be quite wild. You should see what he's named things.

Here's Bucket - the bucket. He's a good friend.

Gorilla - the gorilla.

Teddies - the teddy bears (we actually have 3 of these)

Zack - well wait here, Becky and I actually named this one zack, more Becky than me, I was calling him a zax and she called him zack to Evan, I guess the name stuck.

So maybe that doesn't quite showcase the imaginative things very well, but this picture of Horton eating a bowl of cereal might.

The full reasoning behind this particular example of animal care taking is as quoted by Evan, "I can't eat that elephant food!" All zookeepers please note that Captain Crunch is obviously Pachyderm food.

On some other things he's quite imaginative. To the untrained eye what is pictured below may be construed as a piece of 1 inch foam that was used to pad a spool of thread for shipping.

To Evan this wondrous device looks like this.

I say this because just the other day I was sitting down in the living room for a minute and I happened to be in the perfect position to watch Evan at work. He came into the living room and grabbed the piece of foam. He wrapped it around his waist and proceeded to run full speed into the wall. I bet the impact was greatly reduced for his waist, but the head, arms and feet on the other hand took the full brunt. I'm anxiously awaiting the next revision of Evans body armor endeavor.

We've also been enjoying the wonderful things Evan comes up with for sayings. Listen closely about what a fireman can do in this video.

Honestly I've tried to remember some of the things that he says but they don't have the same appeal when I repeat them. Not too long ago he was sitting down reading a book to teddy and said, "D-O-N-T, that means Seven!" We're very proud of the letter recognition, reading will come a little later though.

This next picture deserves a bit of background to fully appreciate the genius. Every night for quite some time now we lay Evan down around 8:30PM. At around 10:00 Becky and I wind up going to bed. Usually at this time we find the little man lying on the floor really close to the door. I don't know why he does this but he climbs out of his bed and falls asleep on the floor. We have been hoping that he'll just decide that his warm and comfy bed is a great place to fall asleep, but alas he hasn't yet. Now depending on the night he may actually get pretty cold lying on the floor. To me that would dictate that I stay in bed with the covers. To Evan, well -

What kind of parents would we be if we didn't take pictures to show other people instead of picking up the child and placing him in his bed immediately. (to clarify, he did get moved to his bed, just after this picture was taken)

Evan did spend a couple of days with Grandma and Grandpa Gorny recently and I'm fairly certain he may have been spoiled a wee bit. I was talking to him today and I mentioned Grandma and Grandpa Gorny and he immediately offered up a response of "Let's go swimming!!".

There has been a lot of other things happening lately but I think I'll try to cover those at a later date. It's been a great summer and I hope you guys are enjoying yours as much as we are enjoying ours.

Spring

Well, sort of. It snowed and the temperatures dropped from 60 to 32 during the day here during the past week, but none the less, spring has arrived. With it has come the chores of cleaning up after our beloved dog, uncovering roses to see what we find, cleaning rain gutters, raking the lawn and the like. The nice thing about winter is that when spring comes we actually enjoy these chores to a certain degree because it's nice outside, and I'm not wearing my snow pants any longer. We've also been taking some bike rides (Evan LOVES the bike trailer), and enjoying some walks in the sun light.

Did you know that the first Saturday of the month, Home Depot has a free project for you to do with your kids? We went for the first time this month. The project was a planter box. Evan had some interest in it.

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But mostly, he just wanted to eat popcorn, visit with friends and check things out.

Something ate my roses this year. I'm usually worried I'll find just plain dead, or moldy, or very sickly roses that will need nursing back to health, but this surprised me. One of the rose bushes was GONE entirely. No evidence it ever was there remained. No roots, nada. This bush was loose in the ground as I uncovered it. It was my best grower/bloomer.

THis is what the root ball looked like when I lifted the bush, there was NO resistance, something ate it through. I don't know what, and I'm not sure how to combat them yet, but I'm going to learn.

Online readers, meet the star of Maggies worst nightmares. This Sharp Shinned Hawk tried to eat her last week. Lucky for her, she was on the right side of our dining room window. Not so lucky for him.

When I first went to check on him, he had blood in his beak and left eye, he was panting with is head on the ground. Things didn't look good. I came inside and Stephan asked how he looked and if he needed to take care of it. I said I didn't know, but didn't think it looked good and asked him to check. He came back inside saying the bird had perked up and "it's a hawk". Wow, ok, I wasn't sure what it was, but I wasn't thinking hawk. It's about this time that Evan suddenly took off running to his room and said "we have to get some supplies to rescue the birdie" He came back with his multi purpose jump rope, and said "I'm ready to rescue the birdie", and asked to go outside and help. A short time later, he started calling "Diego, Diego" Stephan took these pictures, called and emailed to the raptor center in Minneapolis, who initially thought this may have been a rare form of falcon, and sent someone out to pick him up. He had tried to fly a couple of times, but didn't make it past 3ft off the ground. The man who came told us his species, said he was about 6yrs old, thought he would do well in rehab, and took him on a ride to get patched up.

I sincerely hope this fella comes back and has friends who will eat whatever ate my roses, and hopefully leave my chihuahua alone.

For me

Once again, this post is primarily for me. I just want to write a couple things down that Evan's said lately that I want to remember.

4 days ago, Evan and I went for a walk on our road. Evan told me how the road was muddy of on the side. I saw some deer tracks in the mud, and pointed them out to him and was talking about them with him. He said we needed to make foot prints, so the two of us started making foot prints in the mud. After a couple of minutes, Evan looks at me and says "I need a picture of mommy, stick your face in there (looking at me and pointing at the mud)".

It's girl scout cookie time again, and I bought some cookies that were corn sryup free for Evan. The cookies had words like 'build, courage, and lead' on them. Stephan was looking at one of the cookies Evan was eating and said "lead (like in pencil sounding), who would put lead on a cookie". I looked at Stephan and said "no hun, it's lead (like in leadership)" we both laughed and Stephan said "oooooh, that makes a lot more sence". The next day, Stephan and Evan went to get groceries at our local grocery store, and the girl scouts had a table set up out front selling cookies. Evan walked up to them and said "I would like some lead (like in pencil sounding) cookies please".

When Evan was asked "what are you doing" recently, his reply was "I think you know"

I take a fair amount of hot baths in the winter because I just plain get cold, I turn blue cold, and I use the hot baths to warm up again. Evan wanted a bath last week and said "I need a bath, I'm just freezing" he went on for awhile about how it was cold and he needed a hot bath. Stephan just said, "because that's what baths are for in this house, to warm up".

He still has his very caring personality, he brings me my slippers fairly often to try and keep my feet warm, he shares his food and toys with other kids, most days.

He's been a bear around bed time for about the past 3 months coming up with any excuse under the sun to avoid going to sleep and getting what he wants. We've made some improvement battling back with our own tactics such as moving the potty to his room at night, but this week he came up with a new one again. He wanted me to come specifically, so we were only sending Stephan, next thing you know Evan says "I have a booger in my nose". Why, because MOM's the one who takes care of the boogers in the nose (Evan's just learning how to blow his nose), there was no booger when I checked for him. He hates it when I do get them out too.

Update

It's a really long story, but basically the customer service at both the provider and insurance ends of things really was the worst I've ever encountered. A long line of miscommunications, information going to wrong people, my requests not getting to the right dept until 3 days before the surgery. ANYWAY, it all ends with the surgery was denied, and didn't happen as planned. We're working on the appeal process, and hopefully will have a need to schedule another trip to chicago.

Other than that, we had a great trip, met with some friends and family, went to a couple of children's museums. Lost our camera, so I don't have pictures to add at the moment, but we really did have a good trip. I have to add that I'm so proud of my Evan for how he did on the 8 hour one way drives. He didn't complain hardly at all. At the start of our trip, I told him he could pick out a 5$ movie for his DVD player if there were no fits while driving, not thinking it would really work, but very happy it did.

Anyway, I'll try to add more of our trip later, we should have some pictures on a phone hopefully.

Catching up

I can't believe I missed all of Jan and Feb on this blog. This post will be long, as I have a lot to say now.

Who wouldn't want to have a snow fight with a 3 yr old?

There've been snow angels to be made

Dad makes a great sled puller



Riding in the trail groomer at the winter frolic in Two harbors. Evan did not think his ride should ever end.

He thought the sleigh ride was great fun as well.

Evan saw "princess's" at the festival from afar. He pointed them out to us and was excited to see them so we caught up with them and asked if he could say hi. The one on the left is Miss. Minnesota. The one on the right is Miss. North shore. I honestly thought they were both something like Miss. North shore, or maybe a dairy princess or something. It wasn't until on the drive home that I looked at the autographed picture Evan scored that I found out we had met Miss. Minnesota. He talked about meeting princess Kathyrn for days, and the picture was definitely a treasured gift.

Evan got a fishing pole and tackle box from Grandpa and Grandma Gorny for his birthday, I was shocked when he had successfully mastered casting by the next morning. I had just sat down in the living room after waking up and he announced "mommy, watch me" and the next thing I knew the tire weight went zinnging past me and hit the wall on the other side of the room. Pretty sure that made Stephan quite happy.

Just being 3, playing with one of his favorite toys (tinker toys), and he HAD to put on this wet suit of Stephan's.

Remember the binoculars Evan asked Santa for at Bentleyville? Santa delivered!

Overall, life is really good right now, it's been nice. Evan is such a joy as always, I can't begin to tell you how blessed I feel to be his mom. Evan had a good Christmas with several celebrations. He had a good birthday too, I think he's been well stocked with a variety of toys to last him awhile now. Can you believe he's 3 already?

Some fun stories of Evan lately.

We were on the drive to the winter frolic and I was talking about how tired I was and needed to get some coffee. Stephan and I continued to talk when I started to hear Evan from his car seat "here mom, here you go, take it, have some" as he's holding out his sippy cup of milk to me. Stephan started to scold him "Evan, mom doesn't hold your milk, that goes in your cup holder, now put it back". I remembered the coffee talk, and said thank you for the generous offer to Evan, but that he could keep his milk for himself. That's just how he is, he's brought me my slippers more than once, and when the wind is blowing cold outside, he hugs me as we walk into stores and says "I keep you warm mommy".

On to more technical things I need to update you all on. From before Evan was born, we were hearing about all the troubles he could/would have. As the neonatologist gave us what felt like a 15min run down of all the things that could go wrong and statistics associated with being born at 24 weeks, starting with a 50% survival chance, just before I headed in to the operating room. Since then we've heard "you have to expect some problems with a 24 weeker". I'm having a difficult time finding the words to explain that it's always felt like Evan has been under a magnifying glass, one that looks for problems, and points them out, ever since he was born. He's had Occupational therapists at Minneapolis children's come to see him with a pom pom in hand expecting he had a sensory disorder without ever laying eyes on him.

Evan's been followed by a program called Birth to 3 since he came home from the hospital. He's had a physical and occupational therapist coming to the house. Evan's gross motor, and eating/feeding skills have always been the most difficult for him. His OT/PT that have come here have been awesome I must say. They always just put things in the terms of what we're looking for Evan to do next, and they listened to us. We felt we could work with them as a team, and not that they were just continually pointing out Evan's "delays".

WELL, these people had to re-evaluate Evan officially as he turned 3. There is a series of formalized tests they all came and asked him to complete. They're broken down into categories, gross motor, fine motor, expressive and receptive speech, and cognition to name a few. The tests show Evan is average to advanced in ALL of the categories based off of his ACTUAL age, without adjusting for his prematurity. His weakest category remains gross motor. He doesn't jump with both feet far or high enough, balance on one foot long enough, I think there's a couple more things, but quite frankly I don't care. This means Evan's been officially discharged from services as he no longer qualifies for them! Yes, I'm very proud of my little man, but beyond that I appreciate all of these things so much as we were told from the very beginning that they were all but impossible. I am very grateful for all our blessings!

The last follow up that's still on the books is to see the pediatric opthamologist now that Evan's 3. So far all of his checks have shown his vision to be fine. We pray this next check is no different. Other than that, the only lingering sign we can notice of Evan's premature birth is how fast he breathes. Nearly double the rate of his peers. The only sign I see of the damage done to his lungs. He's bigger and stronger these days 38 1/2 inches tall and right around 27lbs, I'm sure he can handle colds better, we are taking more risks, but that lung damage is always in the back of our minds.

Ok, now me. I've been researching something called a Trans-abdominal cerclage since the end of october/early november. Basically it's a very strong synthetic band that's placed surgically at the top of my cervix. Once placed it remains there permanently, and prevents any dilation from happening. The down side of this is a c-section is necessary to deliver the baby. I have no choice about weather or not to have a c-section anyway as I was cut vertically with Evan, and any labor/contractions on that incision could cause my uterus to rupture. The abdominal cerclage has a 97% or greater sucess rate of a TERM baby with NO bedrest when used as a treatment for an incompetent cervix. There's a doctor out of Chicago who specializes in these, and I had a phone consult with him in November. The good news is he's confident I had an incompetent cervix with Evan, and feels I'm an excellent candidate for the abdominal cerclage. He told me "what I'm saying to you is I can make you normal, you can plan how many kids you want based off of the size of your house and your finances" I cried. We just found out last week that insurance has approved the surgery, and I'll be having it placed March 10th. This does not mean we're ready to have another child right now. It does mean we've definitely started to think about it seriously. There will be more planning done and vacation time saved etc before we plan on being pregnant however. Neither of us ever want to go through what we went through with Evan EVER again, if at all possible. IF/when I were to get pregnant again, I would also recieve what's called P17 shots every week from 16 weeks on. They're shots of progesterone, that would cut my risk of preterm labor from 20% to 10%