4 months

Today is 4 months.  It seems so unreal.  Still such a blur, yet painful as could be, yet numb.  It's still a confusing mix of emotions.  I miss my baby so very much, and words can't even begin to describe how this journey thru grief and child loss has been.  I simply can't find the words right now to fit the thoughts and emotions.

The rest of us you may ask?

Ariana is busy in 1st grade!!!  I can't believe how big she's getting, so fast.  She's loving school, as always.  She is in class with some of her friends from the last 2 years and many new ones as well.  She likes her teacher and is so happy that her classroom is right by a bathroom again this year!  :)  The first few weeks they did color learning and she had to wear a different color each day.  She really enjoyed this and had a lot of fun matching her hair bows with each outfit.

Benjamin is getting settled into 3rd grade.  His teacher this year seems like a good fit and is pushing to hold Ben just as accountable as all of the other kids in his class.  She's been pushing hard to keep him drinking his water in school and to keep focused.  She immediately put in place all of his necessary "supports" and even came up with some extra ways to extend out Ben's heavy work with some extra "chores" and responsibilities.  Homework will begin this next week and that has always proven to be a tough one for Ben so we are hoping to come up with a good system for that.  Health wise we have been pushing and slightly encouraging to keep him eating and drinking.  Some struggles and I'm guessing he's still not quite perfect as his eyes are still pretty dark, but he's doing better than expected with transitioning back to eating at school.  Michaella works hard to fill in the gaps when he's home of what we suspect he lacked at school.

Jace is settling in quickly into 5th grade!!  He's been doing decent with keeping up with the work, but definitely had a few issues with some things picking up quickly academically.  Jace started band this last week and is hoping to play the clarinet.  He has also decided that he wants to join choir and has his first practice tomorrow.  He's happy to be back with all of his school friends and has been using the phone to chat some.

Emily has quickly adjusted to 7th grade MIDDLE school!!!  Talk about WOW.  I can't believe I have a middle schooler!  She loves switching classes and getting to move about the school.  She quickly figured out her locker, which is a good thing as she has 3 of them.  She is in all advanced classes and the workload has definitely proved to be quite a bit, but so far she's done very well keeping up with it.  She's in choir and auditioning for honors choir as well.  She is also in orchestra (of course) and they also meet 5 times a week.  She's still doing private lessons once a week as well.  It's definitely a lot to keep up with but she's doing well and this is what she wants.  Doesn't leave a whole lot of free time, but she loves music so it's not so much work for her.  She's made many new friends and is loving a larger group of kids to get to know.  Her asthma has been a bit of a challenge but hoping that levels out soon.  She met with the allergist last week and she made a few slight changes to her meds.  Emily goes back tomorrow for full allergy testing, as her doc is considering putting her on allergy shots instead of the 3 oral meds she takes daily.

Lotte is busy adjusting to her senior year in the USA.  She's enjoying her classes and meeting a lot of new friends.  She is playing tennis so this keeps her busy every afternoon and has also been a great opportunity for her to meet friends as well.  This past weekend she went to a Royals game with a few other exchange students.  It was definitely a really cool experience for her!

Me.  Hmmm.  I am off of antibiotics for the first time in months.  They ended up doing a CT scan of my kidneys last week as they were getting concerned after 5 infections.  Good news...my kidneys looked good.  Bad news....my liver didn't.  The urologist sent all of the info to my primary doc, who sent it out to a specialist, who is scheduling an appt so we can figure out what is going on and what needs to be done.  We are trying to process all of this and are honestly not sure how we feel.

Bob has had a rough week and a half.  His GI system is in a bad cycle and they couldn't get it back under control like they usually can with a few med changes.  They ended up scheduling a colonoscopy and EGD.  He had that today.  We now have to wait 2 to 3 wks for the biopsy results.  In the meantime they changed up some meds to see if that helps any.  He had a rougher time with anesthesia and all but is resting this evening.

So that's us in a nutshell right now.

I will get back to blogging more consistently...I promise.  I'm just trying to process so much right now and quite honestly I'm struggling.

More soon.

Always and forever tiny man!