Visit DQ TODAY!!!

Just wanted to let everyone know that today is "Miracle Treat Day" at Dairy Queen. A portion of each Blizzard (at least $1 or more, depending on location) that is purchased goes to Children's Miracle Network to help children with medical needs.

Each year, Children's Miracle Network will give $500 to every child with a medical need. This organization helped us purchase 1/4 of Cole's helmet and their application process was a breeze compared to other grant organizations we were working with. Help bless a family today... and go eat a Blizzard!

The Helmet is HISTORY!!!

Get your happy dance on because our helmet days are DONE!!!

For the past 3 weeks Cole has only been wearing his helmet at night (we wanted to get another 1/16 inch of growth out of the boy... making his head not perfectly round, but only 1/16 off... I mean, are any of your heads perfectly perfect???). Decreased helmet time was so nice with all these HOT summer days!!!

Cole went in for his last check up yesterday. They measured his head, and guess what... the little stinkers head grew 1/8 of an inch all in the right direction... making his head perfectly perfect... the kid's got a nice nugget now... watch out world... who knows what you can do with such a round little crown!!!

Here's a man that's enjoying his FREEDOM! Do little boys get any cuter than this???

Now for a moment of advertising....
*** Please, please, please... if you know anyone who has a child in need of a helmet, please have them contact me!!! This has not been nearly as big of a deal as we had imagined. We would love to support anyone walking through a similar situation or educate them on their options!***

I'm Baaaaacccccccccccck! :)

Well, it would appear that I have taken somewhat of a bloggy break... sorry for sneaking away without any notice! It's hard to believe that July is almost over... here's what's been going on here this month:

- We celebrated the 4th with Eric's family at our house! Eric's mom made some ridiculously good BBQ chicken and we roasted smores over the Sterno in the garage. Does it get any better than that??? Good memories.

- I met with MOPS steering team as we planned for the 2009-2010 year!!! It's gonna be a good year, girls!
- Eric and I have spent endless hours being consistent with our little friend, Sadie. Consistency may be the death of me with that girl. We.will.get.that.girls.personality.channeled.in.the.
right.direction!!! Lord, help us.
- Cole has begun scooting all over the place. If I were smart enough to put video on here, I could show you. He sits on his bottom, digs his feet into the ground and pulls himself along with his arms. He can now move from room to room to find me. :)
- At the beginning of the month Cole started wearing his helmet only at night... more on the rest of the story later!!!
- Eric spent last week at Super Summer. Two of our boys came to know the Lord as their personal Savior... we rejoice over that.
- The kids and I spent a week away also... a quick trip through Salina and then on to see my family in Topeka.

Right now...
-I'm gearing up for Sadie's Birthday celebration. She turned three yesterday (I'm fairly certain that three is the new two) and we will celebrate with our family with a Strawberry Shortcake party on Friday!
- I'm trying to decide how to decorate my classroom for VBS Boomerang Express. We will be doing the VBS thing next week... I'm teaching preschool and Eric's teaching preschool recreation... it will be a good week! :)

The Latest on Cole

We are in the 8th week of helmet therapy with Cole and are becoming a little antsy to finish this all up! :) It is sunny... it is hot... and our little boy is sweaty... all.the.time.

Over the last few weeks, he has plateaued in his head growth. When he was fitted for his helmet, he had a 5/8" difference between the vertical measurements of his head. The first 4 weeks or so, he grew like a little weed.... then recently everything has leveled off. In the last few weeks, his head has only grown aboutl 1/16". This leaves him with the new measurement of 3/16" difference between the two vertical measurements. The doctors would like to see this measurement at a 1/8" difference before we remove the helmet.

We return to the Orthodics office on the 30th for our check up... it is possible that we will remove the helmet IF:
- Cole's head measures in with a 1/8" difference (only needs to grow 1/16").
- AND his soft spot is closing enough to remove the helmet (he has a large soft spot... Sadie's was similar and took a long time to close).

SO.... please pray for a miracle! We would love for this event to be a memory!!!

Helmet Hoopla

We are a week and a half into helmet therapy and are so pleased with how things are going! Cole transitioned very well into wearing his helmet 23 hours a day and we managed to get his helmet all spiffed up this week!


Even more exciting than that, we went to have his head measured on Wednesday. His little head grew 1/4 of an inch all in the RIGHT DIRECTION! 1/4 of an inch!!!!!! Isn't God good??? Thank you for all your prayers! Amy (our orthopedic tech) could not believe it and I just wanted to cry because I BELIEVED! :) I'm just so thankful!

Because you probably want to know:
- I am hopeful for Cole to have his helmet off by June 27 (mainly because we have a very special wedding that day and oh how I would rejoice to be done with this on that day) - but he will for sure have it off by his 1st birthday. They want to make the sure that the bones of his head are fusing before the helmet is completely removed, to keep the flatness from reoccurring.
- Because of our helmet we are getting to talk to some very interesting folks. Apparently some think we've dressed him up like a football player in 80 degree weather just for fun. Whatever!
- Sadie thinks Cole's helmet is "so tute (cute)" and wants her own helmet. The bicycle helmet will have to do for now! :)

Won't fall down and bump his crown!

Yep... he's still a cutie... even with a helmet! :)

Cole and I went to pick up his helmet today! He's thinking this whole experience is no big deal (I on the other hand, took a moment to hide and cry in the bathroom for a few minutes this morning... a good cry always does it for a woman)! They trimmed the helmet around his ears today and trimmed a little off the back. The helmet is designed to sit right at his eyebrows and touch his cheek bones to apply the proper amount of pressure for therapy. Right now we are phasing the helmet in... today he's wearing it an hour on, an hour off - tomorrow we will gradually be increasing his wearing time - eventually he will be wearing it 23 hours a day, allowing an hour for bathtime and cleaning the helmet.

Some of you may remember that the original color was to be in either navy or red. WELL - when the helmet was ordered, they told our tech that they could make the helmet navy blue. Come to find out, the manufacturer considers navy blue and royal blue to be the same color. Interesting. We had the option to send it back, but at this point in time, we are just ready to get this on and get it off - so royal blue it is! I have been reading that some people paint their helmets... but we'll see.

Pray that his little head starts growing! The growth of his head will determine how long he needs the helmet. The helmet is designed to put static pressure on the "rounder" parts of his head allowing for gaps in the helmet on the "flatter" side of the head for him to grow in to. The research I've done on children his age, having similar severity of Plagiocephaly, normally wear their helmet 10-11 weeks. It would be such a blessing to be done with his therapy before the middle of summer! Grow little head, grow!

Casting Day

I woke up this morning with 1 Peter 5:7 running through my head... "cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." A perfect reminder for cranial casting day! Our appointment went much smoother than I had anticipated!

I had talked with a mom a week or so ago who went through this same process... she explained the casting like a paper mache project... technology has progressed so much in the last two-three years that Cole's casting was all done electronically. It was amazing. Check out the process....

Here's the happy boy before we get started....


Since Cole has a lot of hair (he'll be getting his first hair cut soon), they had to put a sock type thing on his head to get a good picture of his little nugget. Amy is our tech... she will be getting to know us well as we'll get to visit her every 2 weeks from here on out. I told her today that she'll be getting to meet Miss Sadie soon, too... she ain't seen nothin' yet. :o)


There was a wire that went up the back of Cole's head that had a sensor velcroed to the top of the sock (the black piece on the top of the head). Amy is putting a band around Cole's neck to keep everything in place. As you can see, Cole's mommy is thinking this is a bigger deal than he is. Interesting.


Lastly, they put on a cape...


Apparently Cole thought this cape gave him super hero powers because from here on out he bounced up and down preparing for take off... making it difficult for Amy to get a good picture and this is why our photo session stops. Eric had to help Amy entertain Cole to get some good pics. Amy would take her picture "gun" (it looked like a cash register gun) and swipe from the sensor on top of his head downward. As she would swipe, it would create a picture on her computer. I wish we could have gotten a picture of the screen.... by the end, there was a perfect little picture of my baby boy.

For those who are wondering what our little helmet will look like, it will be a surprise to us all. You could pick different backgrounds... which we weren't too in to... or a solid colored helmet. We were really wanting a navy blue helmet (so we could put a Red Sox decal on it), but Amy was unsure if they could make it navy.... so if it's not navy, it will be red (Eric's banking on a good year for the Chiefs... maybe Coley will bring them some luck).

Headed for a Helmet

I have hesitated for a few weeks to blog about a new journey in our lives. It seems that there are things in life that sometimes seem too personal... issues in life you want to protect for fear that you may be hurt... or worse, that your children will be hurt. A journey I had made up to be so horrible in my head, God is turning into something completely different... and is teaching me things about myself that I'm still sifting through. I want to share this journey with you... the pics, the good days, the bad days.... and eventually, the perfectly rounded head! Oh, how we'll celebrate!

Cole has a mild case of Positional Plagiocephaly, a super fancy term for flatness of the head. Since he was born he's preferred the left side of his head while sleeping. Despite my efforts in his early months, he continued to roll his head back to the left while asleep. At 3 months the doctors didn't think this was something to be concerned with, but at 6 months they did X-Rays to determine if the bones of his skull were fusing together prematurely. Thankfully this was not the case, as that would have required cranial surgery... something I cannot imagine having to go through.

Since the bones in Cole's head looked good, they sent us to Hanger Orthodics and Prosthetics to look into a helmet to reshape his little head. Correction of flat head must be done before the soft spot closes... and since he was still young we had a little wiggle room. Hanger suggested we reposition him like crazy and keep him off his head unless he's asleep (if there was enough improvement, we would be able to forgo the helmet)... so that's what we did... we repositioned like crazy, got up in the night, used positional wedges, carried him everywhere... and his cranial measurements improved... by 1/16 of an inch! Ugh....

So, Cole will soon be sporting a helmet... and despite the heartache I initially felt over all of this (and still do from time to time), I am coming to terms with having a little football player around the house... and a little extra cranial protection as he begins to crawl and get into everything!

Today God has been so good to us. The helmet expense is not a cheap one... and it's an expense that is not covered by insurance because it's considered cosmetic *eye roll*. There are places that offer grant money for this type of thing and to them we are so grateful... both The Children's Miracle Network and the Shriner's have agreed to pay for a portion of Cole's helmet. We've also had two very sweet families provide us with a gift... and today (I missed my MOPS meeting to meet with the Shriner's) we were given an enormous amount of money from my MOPS group... I didn't know mommies carried that kind of money!!! :) God is using this whole experience to teach me about giving like the Acts church gave... they gave to anyone in need... our financial need has been met. I am so humbled and thankful for the love God has shown us through His people in the past week.

Be praying as we will be fitted for the helmet... I will call tomorrow to schedule the fitting... we're probably looking at Friday or Monday... they will basically paper mache Cole's head to get a good mold of his head... it's a messy process and somewhat timely for a 7 month old.

God's gone before us... we'll keep trusting.