Birthday Boy!

It has been eight years since God blessed us with Seth. Eight interesting years. Full of laughter and tears, questions and answers. I love that he is smart in some ways and not in others. I love that he is unique, so very unique. I hope that, even though being unique will bring along some pain, he will always be himself. As he sits here on the floor, with his knees pulled up into his chest, surrounded by legos, I am watching that brain of his work and I am loving it!

Happy Birthday Seth!
I love you!

And Their Off!

First day of school! I made it!

I couldn't believe how smiley Seth was this morning. The last two years there have been tears about having his picture taken on the first day of school and I am lucky to get one good picture out of the lot. But this year he was all smiles. He doesn't care for school all that much and at first I wasn't sure what was bringing on the smiles. But I think I figured out why he was so happy. It's because he now gets to spend his days away from Kate. Yep, that's it. I am sure of it.

Yum....Coffee

Note to self: Do not share coffee with Seth again.

Last night was meet the teacher night at school. We had some time to kill beforehand so the boys & I headed to Boston Stoker to get a cool drink. Seth was having a hard time deciding what to get. I finally offered to just share my grogg latte with him & he happily obliged.

I offered to let Seth carry our drink out to the car. When we reached the car I noticed that Seth had greedily slurped up about 2/3 of OUR drink!
"Seth!" I said. "That was supposed to be for us to share."
"Oh" said Seth, "I didn't realize I drank so much." was his excuse.

From there we went to school to meet their new teachers. Let me tell you. I had no idea caffeine affected Seth that way. He was BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS! And not just the walls. The floor, doors, desk, drinking fountains, couch, air, sidewalk. You name it if he came into contact with it he was BOUNCING off of it. I tried to reassure his new teacher (1st year might I add) that he was not normally like this. I'm not convinced she believed me.

Do Not Open Till...

This little bag came home with Seth yesterday with strict instructions of "Do not open until Mother's Day!" The suspense is killing me!

Something's Different...

Look closely. Do you see it? I do.

It's Jesus!

Cause last night Seth asked Jesus into his heart!

Having Fun with OCD

I have a child with minor OCD tendencies. Well, ok they are probably more than minor.

A couple of weeks ago I found an almost complete set of vintage alphabet blocks at a thrift store. When I got home I noticed there were enough letters to spell out our last name. I didn't want them to be all straight. I wanted them to look a little cock-eyed because that's the way I like it. A few hours later I noticed that the blocks no longer looked like this

They looked like this.

At first I thought it was just the kids getting used to having the blocks sitting around & they were messing with them. So I fixed them & walked away. Later in the evening I noticed they again looked like the second picture & not like the first. So I fixed them again. The next morning the OCD child had fixed them again. It was at this point I decided to play a little game. I call it "Having Fun with OCD". I display the blocks in an unperfect manner and the OCD child comes and "fixes" them. This has gone on for a couple of weeks and I still have not tired of it. I am just trying to decide if I am being cruel or not. Am I causing a problem that will take years of therapy to undo? Hmm?

Not the Best Day

Despite my exciting finds on Saturday, Sunday & Monday have not been the best days. Duane left yesterday morning for a business trip. Something he has never done in the 7 1/2 years he has been with his company. He will be gone until Friday. I readied my self for it though & was only slightly concerned with how the week was going to go. But you know. Someone always has to throw a bone into our otherwise boring week.

After a great day of church and playing Seth suddenly had a fever. It was about 20 min from the time he complained about not feeling well to the time I took his temp. It was 103.3. Knowing that sudden high fevers for him have a tendency to set off a seizure I quickly gave him tylenol & put him to bed. About an hour later the kids told me he was awake so I went up to talk to him. He was completely out of it. He was talking but not making any sense. His eyes were rapidly moving back and forth. I kept asking him questions trying to get him back into reality. He either didn't answer, answered with non words, words that didn't belong together or an answer that had nothing to do with what I asked him. I asked him if he knew where he was & he couldn't tell me. After about 9 minutes of this I decided to go ahead & call his Dr. They instructed us to go to the ER. Woohoo! Just where I want to spend my Sunday eve! After several hours there they said he did have a seizre, he tested positive for the flu, told us to see his neurologist in the morning & sent us home.

Today he is home, still sick with a fever & so am I. At this point I am just trying to make it through the day without falling over asleep. I have to miss class tonight & am praying that I feel better so I don't have to miss class tomorrow too.

Logic from a 7 yr old

Logan is allergic to nuts.

An elephants favorite snack is peanuts.

Therefore Logan is allergic to Elephants!

Makes perfect sense to me!

3,248 & Living in a shell

Seth had another laser treatment yesterday. The Dr. did 3,248 laser pulses on his face and arms. It is pretty intense. His face and arms are swollen and a dark grayish purple. Hard for even a parent to look at. I remember the first time I really looked at him after his first treatment. It was heart wrenching.

Duane & I made the difficult decision to go ahead & send him to school today. Usually his treatments are on Friday so he has the weekend for the swelling to go down & for the redness to fade slightly. But since he had missed so much school last month we didn't want him to miss anymore. Thankfully my Dad is the assistant superintendent at the school so he can check up on him during the day. Duane dropped the boys off in the morning and my Dad met them inside. He walked Seth to his class and watched from the door as he put his stuff away. He called to tell me that things went well and that one of the boys from his class came up & put his arm around him. He said the rest of the class was excited that he was back.

Duane called me a short time later. He asked me to call my dad to see if he could eat lunch with Seth. I noticed that he was upset. In seven years Duane has always been the strong one when it comes to Seth's birthmark. I don't ever remember him crying even when I knew he was upset. But this time was different. He was crying. He said when he dropped Seth off he noticed a kid look at him with pure disgust on his face. He then turned to tell a friend & looked again at Seth with disgust. It broke Duane's heart. It was all he could do not to get out of the car to beat the crap out of that kid. He told me he was mad at himself for not walking Seth in just to show everyone that there is nothing wrong with him.

My kids go to a Christian school. While I know there are many great kids there, there are also kids like the one above. Who live in a Christian shell where the world is perfect and there is no need to show or learn compassion because nothing imperfect ever touches their lives. If they only knew of the imperfection that Jesus touched. The compassion that he showed absolutely everyone! It reminds me of this song by Todd Agnew.

Celebrating Wall-e Style

We celebrated Seth's birthday on Saturday. Surrounded by brother & sister, cousins, friends & two generations of Grandparents he had a blast. Of course it had to be a Wall-e birthday. So to keep with the theme we played Get the Plant to Eve. Just like Pin the Tail on the Donkey only with Eve & a plant. We also played another Wall-e themed game where the kids threw bean bags into scored holes. Each hole was a different "bad" robot from the movie & whoever got the highest score won. Seth's cake was a scene from earth. It was Wall-e stacking cubes of trash. The trash pile was a scoop of chocolate frosting with m&m's, jelly beans & gummy pop bottles in it. The cubes of trash were made from my fudge recipe with the aforementioned candies inside it. I dusted everything with hot chocolate mix to make it all look dirty. It turned out really cute & was really easy.

Happy Birthday Seth. I Give You the World

Today is Seth's 7th birthday. Seth has changed so much this year and has also been through alot. Another seizure in March, new struggles at school and a short stay in the hospital recently has added to his change. He is definetly a different and unique child and Duane and I have learned so much from him. All in all things are better than they were last year. I feel more hopeful and open to what God has in store for his life.A couple of weeks ago I found this globe at goodwill. I had been wanting one for quite some time and I knew Seth would love it. It was only $3.99 and when I went to pay for it some guy offered me $10 for it! But I kept it because I had great plans for the globe, just like God has great plans for Seth. So Seth, here you are. Happy Birthday my man. I give you the world.

Six Years Later

Yesterday was Seth's 6th birthday. As I wished him Happy Birthday as he climbed into bed with us that morning, I hugged him. And as I did a wave of emotion suddenly engulfed me and it was all I could do not to cry.

Six short years have gone by and during that time Seth has undergone fifteen or so treatments. His birthmark has faded significantly although it comes back after long periods of no treatments.

He had a treatment in September. Shortly after school started. I was a little apprehensive about how the other kids would react to the spots of the treatment. I talked to Seth before he went back to school and told him to tell a teacher if anyone said anything that hurt him or made him sad. After he got home he told me he had a happy day. He climbed into my lap and we snuggled. After a couple of minutes he told me that a boy had asked him why he had spots on his face. I asked him what he said. Seth said he didn't say anything he just turned around and walked away. He then looked at me and said "Mommy, why do I have spots on my face?" Right then it dawned on me that I had been so preoccupied with making sure that the other students understood why Seth has spots on his face that I forgot to explain it to Seth. I also realized that he probably had no clue what he looked like to other people. I pray that he could always have that innocence. Even though I know it can't be.

My heart aches for him today. I was standing in the shower & suddenly I started sobbing. My body shook & I fell to the floor of the tub. Begging God to keep his life full of love.

I am so used to seeing Seth with his birthmark that I don't even notice it. But I see how other people look at him & hear the remarks. Mostly innocent ones. I know that he doesn't hear them or have any idea what they mean by them. But they cut me like a knife.

I want to protect him forever. To steal him away so that one one can ever hurt him. So that one day when he does understand the remarks, he is not there to hear them.

But I know this can't be so.

His birthday brings back all the emotions. That first night in the hospital after he was born. Sobbing in bed by myself holding him tightly. Wondering what I had done wrong. The nurses and visitors noticing but not wanting to say anything. The barrage of questions we all had. But most of all "Why?"

I ask God that ever so often. Why? Why him? What plan could you possible have in store for him, that is so important that you have to mark him? Why must my child live with the stares, glances and remarks?

I can't begin to understand. I hope that someday God reveals his plan to me. I hope it is worth it.

My Son, Still weird

Remember earlier in the year when I wrote this about my son, Seth, being weird. Well the story continues. Only now he has moved on from time and is currently obsessed with dates, calendars, years & directions. Let me share a few examples with you.

A few weeks ago Seth was invited to a birthday party for one of his little friends from school. He was very excited and when I told him the party was on November 27th he quickly responds with, "November 27th, that's a Tuesday. We are having footlong hotdogs for lunch." Very matter of fact. As if the school lunch menu was right in front of him. (Did I mention he is also obsessed with the school lunch menu?)

Saturday the boys were at my parent's house. They were looking at a map of Ohio & Seth was looking at it upside down. He looks at the map & blurts out "West is that way." Pointing in the correct direction. Whenever we are in a car Seth keeps constant tabs on which direction we are going. Which direction Columbus is, as well as Cincinnati, Dayton, & all the other streets and cities that appear on the road signs around here. Did I mention yet that he is not quite 6?

But the one that amazed me the most happened last night as we were eating dinner. Seth will try just about anything to keep from eating dinner. Last night he was counting to himself to avoid eating. He stops sometime after 17 and says "December 21, 2008 is going to be on a Sunday." I kinda laughed thinking yeah right. Then I got curious & got up to look at the calendar. HE WAS RIGHT! This year it is on a Friday & since next year is a leap year it will be on a Sunday! Lucky guess right! So he tells me another one. "December 31, 2008 will be on a Wednesday. " Again, Right! Then this one really gets me! "January 1, 2009 will be on a Thursday just like November 1, 2007 was on a Thursday! I mean who knows this stuff & how is he figuring this out!

I quickly called my parents to share my amazement with them. My Dad replied by asking if he can do Lotto numbers. I plan on finding out! I may be the next power ball winner! LOL!