2 Brothers Layne

The first thing out of Jonah's mouth this morning as I walked into his room was, "Is is a Popcorn Day?"  We informed him yesterday that we would be making crepes for breakfast and popcorn as a snack for General Conference.  He was ecstatic!  We made 2 different flavors of popcorn, one called sugar and spice and the other one was caramel.  I ended up baking both batched in the oven for 15-20 minutes to avoid having sticky popcorn.  Jonah did remarkably well with attending to conference.  He played conference bingo with us and did great listening for the words that were on our card.  Not sure that he totally gets it yet, but all in due time.

Today Jonah was able to see one of his most favorite artists.  Haley Reinhart.  She sang a few songs live at the mall.  We waited all day to tell him just in case we were unable to go to the showing.  It was a lot of fun.  Jonah did well with the noise and the crowd and thoroughly enjoyed himself! Jonah just HAD to see and this was the best Mommy could do. 

So this morning Between Jonah, Myself, and Ms. Patty we made quite a few messes.  It was just one of THOSE mornings.  Just before Jonah was to get on the bus Ms. Patty stopped and asked him, "Jonah what did you learn today?" (The two of them had been working on Jonah's name, and his numbers.)  Jonah's reply, "I learned how to make a MESS!"  We all got a good chuckle out of that one! This afternoon we enjoyed a short visit from Mommy's cousin Jimmy Burton.  He is in Va Beach for a national wrestling competition that 2 of his students are participating in this week.  It was great to see family and to catch up!  Jonah enjoyed having a captive audience to showoff for.  He was sure to tear around the house in his walker, sing many songs, tell lots of funny stories, and his new favorite is to tell the knock knock joke Daddy taught him!

Nothing out the ordinary happened today.  Jonah is doing well with telling his teachers when he needs to go potty at school.  It's hit and miss here at home.  He is getting so big and he is such a loving little guy.  I count my blessings every time he climbs onto my lap and says "Mommy, I LOVE you!" or how he has to tell me I love you 2 or 3 times before I can leave his bedroom at night.  It makes me all the more excited to get little brother here so that i can snuggle him too!  Mommy had a first today... My dear friend Kristen Preston took me to get a pedicure.  Talk about feeling all girly and pampered!  I totally loved it and have put it on my list of things to do when I need a few minutes just for me!

 Our housing development threw an Easter Party at the park tonight.  Jonah and I got to attend.  Jonah has developed this new thing that has me a bit concerned.  If we are approaching a large crowd or just a new situation Jonah panics.  He says over and over that he has to go pee (even if he just barely went).  He gets this scared rabbit look in his eyes and is barely able to hold back the tears.  I can't pinpoint a recent event that might have triggered this new fear.  I'm hoping to figure this out sooner than later.   Jonah scored big at the egg hunt.  Had to take the time to pose in front of this cute larger than life story book After a while Jonah calmed down and seemed to have a really good time!

Jonah had an appointment today with Dr. Zintz... the cardiologist.  We started the visit with a heart ultrasound.  Ms. Carol was able to get the best pictures to date because Jonah held so still.  Everyone was so proud of him!  Jonah's heart pressures finally fell withing the "normal" range.  So what does that mean?  It means that his pulmonary hypertension (the reason he is on a daily dose, 3 to be exact, of Viagra) shows marked improvement.  Dr. Zints and Dr. Lee (pulmonology) have been discussing Jonah's case and have come to the conclusion that come the first week of June (so long as he does not have a respiratory bug) we will eliminate one dose of Viagra.  Then we'll need to see both doctors around 3-4 weeks post change.  So exciting to see improvements!

Church was nice today.  Ti Ti Carla and Micah came with us.  Micah was as good as gold and Carla didn't seem too overwhelmed.  After church Daddy, Jonah, and I went to Mr. Mike and Ms. Kristen's house for dinner.  The food was to die for!!! and the company was fabulous.  All in all a fantastic Sabbath!

Today we got to watch Daddy's young men play basketball.  They did fabulous and won the tournament.  Jonah was ecstatic to get to be there and cheer on the boys!  While we were there Jonah got his usual extra attention but today I got the opportunity to have an interesting conversation with 2 young girls.  They were asking a ton of questions about why Jonah couldn't walk or stand alone.  The conclusion they came to was "I feel so bad for him".  I asked them why then immediately followed that up with "Being different isn't a bad thing.  Jonah works hard to learn the things that you and I can do, and someday he'll be walking all by himself."  Not sure how they felt about that because the game they were watching ended and they had to go but it left me with the feeling that I'd just experienced the first of many similar conversations.

Jonah was scheduled to go to Military Clinic today at Pembroke Elementary.  This is a clinic that the school district puts together every 2 months.  They invite some Dr.s from Portsmouth Naval Hospital and the children's school therapists.  This makes it possible for everyone to stay on the same page and for families to get multiple appointments done in one day!  We LOVE it!  Jonah was scheduled to see the PT to be evaluated for new AFO's (The braces he wears on his feet).  After a quick chat Jan (the PT) decided that even though the year old braces still fit it it was time for new ones.  Jonah choose to have blue camouflage print with black straps.  They will still be tall, as Jonah still needs the height to prevent him hyper-extending his knees.  The fun new change to this set is that he will now have a hinge in the ankle for added movement!  This will be awesome with his increased mobility.  They should be ready in 2 weeks or so!...

So Jonah learned a new car game from Ms. Patty.  The game is called skittles.  When we are driving in the car and you see a car with the colors of lime green, yellow, purple, and orange (red is to common so it doesn't count) you get a point.  However, if you see a yellow Jeep you win the game and must start another game.  Jonah had a ton of fun with this and asks to play skittles every day.   That was yesterday. Today Jonah practiced walking and is getting very good.  We even had him stand for a few seconds before he walks.  Ms. Patty sang a song from Yo Gaba-Gaba about holding still.  So we looked it up on youtube.  Jonah stood infront of the computer wiggling and holding still for a long time.  He did loose his balance when he began to wiggle but was able to hold still.  We love Ms. Patty's ideas.  I even had to apologize to her for criticizing her idea because of my biased toward that show.  She has great ideas a...

Jonah went back to Portsmouth today to visit with the neurologist.  The neurologist is housed in the same office as all of Jonah's other specialists...  This is the same office we visited yesterday for Pulmonology.  So it seems that Jonah primed the crowd with yesterday's visit and today he simply entertained the crown that gathered.  While Jonah was getting weighed he had 4 fans collected in the hall making a total fuss over him.  He turned on the charm and said, "Hey Ladies!  Watch me practice walking!"  They nearly swooned!  The neurologist had not been given the report of the central sleep apnea so he couldn't give us any definite answers.  But from my description of the results he doesn't think it's anything to be worried about.  He'll get the results and we'll get in touch in 2 weeks to discuss what he saw.  One comment he made was that Jonah isn't your typical CP kiddo.  Usually kiddos with CP are stiff but Jonah is so...

Early this morning we had our big ultrasound and luck for us our little one is anything but shy.  Turns out that of all the people I polled were wrong... that's right baby peanut is definitely a BOY!  A few people have been worried that we might be disappointed.  Let me reassure that we are not in anyway disappointed!  It will be so much fun have a house full of boys to move heavy things and fix stuff for Mommy!  My days of taking out the garbage are numbered!  We'll have a house of cars, trains, and manly tools!  Fabulous!  Jonah has been telling everyone how excited he is to take a bath "tubby" with his baby brother.  To try to prevent total disappointment I got out the baby tub and we talked about how Baby Peanut would need to use his little tub until he gets a little bigger then he can tubby with his big brother.  Jonah enjoyed pretending that baby Ally was now Baby Peanut. Jonah seemed really receptive throu...

One of Jonah's tea party guests.  Dolly!!!  She goes everywhere.  Jonah had a great time, all smiles.  Except for the cucumber wedges put on his plate.  Oh of you look close you can see his Easter egg on his fore head above His right eye. Today was a great day.  This morning Jonah did a great job practicing walking.  After school he had a tea party with nurse Patty.  Hopefully this will get Jonah eating.  The rule of the Tea Party is that what ever is on the dish in front of us we have to eat!!!  Patty is full a great ideas of how to get Jonah to do things.  She even gave us the idea to weight down Jonah's minivan (his toy train), we used some rice a 10 lb bag, to help him develop his leg muscles.  Some of Jonah's oops for the day:  He fell off the potty and hit his head on the garbage.  Mom likes to tell people he got into a fight with the garbage can and lost.  He had a great big scratch o...

Today we decided to let Jonah use his walker at church.  He hasn't had the coordination to use it and we didn't want him to run over a bunch of toes.  Today he did great, and tons of people came up to us to tell us how excited they are to see Jonah walking all by himself (using his walker of course).  When we got home Jonah said he wanted to practice walking.  Hope you enjoy the video.

Daddy got to take the youth to the temple today so that meant it was a Jonah and Mommy day.  Ms. Patty mentioned she'd like to do tea parties with Jonah in hopes they can progress Jonah's interest in eating.  We successfully found a tea set at Target came home and washed it.  We proceeded to have a "Picnic Party".  Jonah thoroughly enjoyed himself and he and Ms. Patty are bound to have hours and hours of fun!

Today was a shopping day for us.  We didn't do much after Jonah came home from school.  He and I took a nap on the couch while watching Fantasia.  When Mommy woke us up it was time to go shopping at the Commisary, which we barely made it before they closed.  Came home, practiced walking, and then off to bed.

Mommy has been craving Peanut butter so while Jonah was in school today I made pancakes and slathered them with peanut butter.  When Jonah got home he wanted to join in so we made him a "Pancake Platter".  He didn't eat much but he enjoyed himself!. This adorable sign was made by Ms. Patty to remember the occasion!

Jonah all ready for school!  Jonah and Ms. Patty dubbed today Elephant Day!  They watched part of Dumbo before school then made plans for after school!  After school Mommy had a paper bag elephant ready to be colored and created  So what else does someone do on Elephant day?  Well they make elephant noises, complete with moc trunk action.  They tote around their elephants (and yes the snowman was his snowman elephant today).  Overall Elephant Day was a huge success here at the Layne house! After nap time Jonah and I walked to the park so Jonah could swing on the swings.  Then on our way home Jonah was invited to join Ti Ti (this means Aunt in Spanish by the way) Carla and her family for a picnic/BBQ.  Jonah tried a hotdog for the first time.  He did eat a few bits but was mostly content to just visit!

 Jonah's glasses have arrived!  We went to Walmart right after school and Ms. Patty came along.  She volunteered to be our official photographer!  I Love this one with Jonah's reflection in the mirror.  We tried to repeat the above pic when the glasses were on but he was too busy talking to everyone and telling them how handsome he is!  He was pretty excited to finally have his glasses... until he realized they were supposed to stay on all the time.  I had to quickly fashion a band to hold the glasses in place to at least slow him in taking them off. He did better this afternoon especially when he took a scheduled "Break" from his glasses.  We'll see how things go with them at school!

Jonah and Ms. Patty are non-stop fun!  They are both have creativity oozing out of their ears.  Today the big event was turning the Disney's Cars graphics on a pull-up to tell the story of The Wizard of Oz.  Traffic cones were turned into witches hats, The big picture of Mater was turned into the Tin Man, and a broom was added for artistic flare.  To top it off the words "Do not get Wet. . . ~The Witch" were added!  Jonah has toted this pull-up around all evening. Jonah's teachers were very excited that today he asked to go potty and was successful!  He also downed his entire snack!

Oops we overslept today!  We got ready in a hurry and still caught most of sacrament meeting.  The rest of the day has been rather uneventful.  Jonah has played and played with his manly tools.  We made butterscotch pudding cookies with chocolate chips for our Sunday afternoon snack!

 We got a special invitation today to accompany Ti Ti Carla, and Micah to the bouncy house!  Jonah spent the first 30 minutes feeling overwhelmed by all the noise and chaos and wanting to go home.  After that we finally got him in to it and he really enjoyed himself!  This is the dragon slide.  Jonah enjoyed being perched on it's head while Micah slide down the back. Jonah told Carla that he was jealous that she was holding Tristin.  Carla laughed and made room for Jonah.  He was elated!

Jonah has had way too much fun playing with his new "Manly Tools" that came in the mail.  Jonah was so excited to have his own tools to fix his mini van. Jonah continues to make progress in his oral feeds.  yesterday he ate 3 ounces of yogurt in one sitting and today he took 2 ounces at lunch and then again at dinner.  Outstanding!

Jonah has coined a new phrase at our house over the past week... "Ms. Patty, lets do more fun things!"  He is so in love with having such an attentive, interactive, loving, gentle, nurse 5 days a week.  The two of them get into some fantastic imaginary play.  Today, for example, Ms. Patty brought over The Wizard of Oz for Jonah to see.  As they neared the end of the movie I looked over to see them both laughing so hard they could barely breath.  Patty had made a witch's hat out of play dough and had placed it on Jonah's plastic eggplant.  Then they had put their witch on one of Jonah's play spatulas and the witch went flying around the room.  Jonah's laugh is music to my ears and I so appreciate how often I hear it while he's in Patty's care.  Jonah successfully told me he needed to go pee and then he held it until he was on the potty!  I was so proud!  Let's hope this is the beginning of some successful potty training! One last shout ...

It's been an interesting day today.  Jonah and I started out with another trip to Portsmouth.  We started my weekly progesterone shots (they are supposed to help prevent premature birth).  Unfortunately for Jonah he had to accompany me because he had an appointment an hour later.  Once Jonah stopped crying the Corpsman was able to give me the shot.  Jonah was so sweet and said that he was so proud of me for being so brave!  What I didn't realize was that EVERYONE in earshot with the patience to listen was going to hear an in depth retelling of the event. . . all day. . . everywhere he went!  He He He.  With a very talkative 3 year old in the house there is obviously not secrets here!

So what do you think of Jonah's new look?  He visited the eye doctor this morning and it was decided that it was time for glasses.  Jonah is near sighted in one eye and far sighted in the other.  We called Daddy on the way to the car to tell him we were on our way to Jonah's school and Daddy suggested we go shopping first.  We picked up Daddy and Jonah was SO excited!  We went to Walmart and started trying on glasses.  He was shrieking with excitement and making everyone laugh.  This is the pair we decided on.  We got them ordered and found out they'll be here on Tuesday!  Then it was time to go to school.  Jonah's teachers report that he told ANYONE who would listen about his new glasses that he got at Walmart.  Because we spent the morning at the Dr. office Nurse Patty was so kind as to do her entire 4 hour shift after school.  Jonah LOVES to play with Ms. Patty and was so glad to see that she was still here after he wok...

Grandma has confirmed that she is back in Utah safe and sound.  From what I understand she didn't experience any delays in her journey and I'm sure Gaga is so glad to have her home! As for us, Jonah had a good day at school and was very glad to see Nurse Patty.  It's so nice to have Jonah in constant excited anticipation that today might be a Nurse Patty day! Mommy got a lot accomplished but it seems that for every item I crossed off my list I thought of 2 things to add in it's place.  Oh well!  Such is life. Tomorrow Jonah gets to see the eye doctor at Portsmouth.  Last I heard they planned to dilate his eyes and again evaluate the need for glasses.

 Per the request of those at home Grandma took some new family pictures.  Unfortunately the weather wouldn't cooperate for an outdoor shoot. It's been really rainy here all day.  Jonah is sure getting big! The little turkey can't seem to give us a normal sincere smile on command... he always ends up pulling some sort of silly face. Jonah and Grandma said their goodbyes tonight as we'll have to leave for the airport before Jonah's awake.  It's been wonderful having Grandma here for a couple weeks and we sure will miss her but everyone in Utah is missing her too! 

 Jonah showed he is really growing up today when Daddy cut his hair.  When the initial announcement was made that today was haircut day Jonah was frantic and crying.  Daddy politely excused Mommy and Grandma so he and Jonah could have a talk.  I don't know what was said but when Daddy turned on the clippers Jonah turned off the tears and the drama!  He was a perfect little angel for the entire cut!   We are so proud of Jonah for "Facing the Danger" (as one of my little friends use to say!).  He is so proud of his new do and loves telling anyone and everyone how big and brave he was to get his haircut.  Jonah LOVES rinsing the dishes with Mommy (Aka playing in the water).  Grandma snapped a cute pic this morning! For lunch Grandma, Mommy, and Ti Ti Carla went to PF Chang's for lunch!  It was so delicious and we all had a fun time just hanging out and chatting! Grandma leaves bright and early Monday morning and boy are we...

Today Jonah and Grandma made yet another huge discovery.  Jonah is able to stop on a piece of tape stuck to the floor.  The video shows it.  Kinda fun.  Grandma first started to put tape on the floor and then helping Jonah walk had him step on the tape.  Then we moved onto bending over and looking down while he was trying to pick up the tape (Jonah has a difficult time maintaining balance while he bends down to grab something so to compensate for that he keeps his head up and he can't see what he is trying to reach).   We were unsure how much support Jonah is getting so we moved in his crocodile walker to help him.  And what you see is the result of a great Idea Grandma rain had.   As far as the new baby, we heard the heart beat.  160 was the count.  

Today we had 2 Dr. visits for Jonah in 1 day.  It made for a busy afternoon.  First we got to visit with Jonah's pediatrician Dr. Darrow.  It was a good visit and it was good to see Dr. Darrow's reaction to Jonah's progress and his BIG personality.  Our second visit was with Dr. Jensen (Endocrinology).  We were his last appointment and he was glad to take extra time answering Mommy's questions.  Jonah got really excited at one point and told Dr. Jensen he was going to get baptized!  Dr. Jensen knew were we were from and took a leap in telling Jonah that he'd have to wait 5 more years.  We all had a good laugh.