Mr. Danger Turns Two and Lives up to His Name

 Oh, where to start with an update on this boy at the age of two?  He is an adventurer and he fills my days with joy and stress.  He is so smart and charming. He loves everyone, including strangers and is happy to wander off on his own to explore and scale any tall, precarious item he can find.  He'll say with glee as he's hopping on whatever he's climbed, "Momma, I gonna fall!" I feel like I spend all day trying to prevent him from an accidental suicide, but it's hard to be mad when he's so innocent and takes such joy in everything.

 And yes, he's speaking in sentences, which always shocks strangers who probably assume he's younger than he is because he's so small. I regularly get stopped in public by people who've heard him chatting away and want to know how old he is.

 He loves to sing the alphabet and recognizes about half the letters, which is a little alarming because we haven't tried to teach him. He also annoys Creed by counting higher than Creed can.

 He never sits still.  Creed still doesn't like to be alone and follows me from room to room, but Ollie is always trying to sneak off on his own, and I have to track him all over the house.  He loves Mickey Mouse, Curious George, and Pocoyo, but won't sit through a full episode of anything, which I guess is just the way a toddler should be.

 He still loves his blanket. Before we went to Mexico, I found more of the same fabric and my mom made six more little blankets in case the real one was lost, but Ollie will have nothing to do with them.  If we try to sneak him a new one, he'll sniff it and rub it on his face and then throw it on the floor shouting, "No! Blanket Two! No!" and then he'll just keep asking, "Where my blanket?" We've tried washing the new ones with each load of laundry to wear them out, but he is not fooled. He cries and stands at the washing machine anytime we have to wash the real blanket.

Last month, I had to leave Hobby Lobby in a rush because Larry's car broke down on the freeway and blanket was accidently left behind.  When we realized, the store was already closed so none of us got sleep that night, but they were happily reunited the next day and Ollie took the longest nap he's ever taken.

 His seizures have not improved. Our neurologist doubted how much his medication is helping so we tried taking him off of it and he hit rock bottom.  He was up to four seizures a day, and I couldn't leave the house or do anything when we put him back on.  Right now, he has one or two just about everyday and they wipe him out so I see him like this more often than I wish. Most kids grow out of provoked seizures between the age of two and three, so we have high hopes, but we don't see signs of any changes so far.

I didn't realize how much his seizures would affect all of our lives at this age: his friend is signed up for a preschool playgroup and we decided that it wouldn't be safe to send him, at play dates at the park I follow him like a shadow and probably seem totally overprotective while I'm wishing I could sit and talk with the other moms and I leave the park exhausted, most Sundays I take him home after sacrament meeting to nap because nursery is during his naptime, and when he's tired he's so much more likely to have a seizure (he has had a seizure almost every time we've decided to try to stay), we can't hire teenage babysitters so we rarely go on dates, I can't accomplish much during the day because he'll wander off and I'll have to abandon whatever I'm doing to chase him so even trying to do the dishes can be a struggle, we used to skip Creed's naps to go on adventures but that is not an option with Ollie, any time he stumbles I wince and our world freezes while we wait to see if he will have a seizure, I'm constantly canceling plans because he's had a seizure and is just not up for anything but sleep. Like I've said before, it hurts to watch him struggle daily and feel like I'm doing all I can and it's just not enough. I remind myself daily that things could be so much worse and we have so much to be grateful for, but I'll admit when I'm watching him suffocate and then holding him through a seizure, it can be hard to keep that perspective.

He loves to cuddle, and he loves it when Larry comes home from work. He bullets to the door the moment he knows Larry is home.

He loves to make us laugh and he'll wear just about anything that he can get his hands on, on his head.

He still has a deep love of dinosaurs and can often be heard roaming the house and roaring at things.

He has a way of repeatedly screaming "No!" at the top of his lungs when we are in public places that makes me feel like a little bit of my soul is being crushed. Larry actually thinks it is cute. I hope he grows out of that one soon!

He loves to explore every nook and cranny that he can get into.  Luckily, when you callout, "Ollie!" where ever he is, whatever he is doing, he will yell back, "Ollie!" It's like playing an eternal game of Marco Polo.

He has a sweet tooth. Since we're still trying to pack weight on him so he has more of a reserve to draw from when he doesn't have enough glycogen I let him eat things that I never would have let Creed touch at this age.  You want to eat that pad of butter by itself?  Sure thing.  You want to drink that cup of ranch dressing instead of dipping things in it? Go for it.

After he came to from a seizure  a few days ago, he was crying for a donut.  The crying did not stop so we went straight to the store and got one.  Now any time I ask him what he wants to eat, he says, "A donut!!!!" I have created a monster.

He loves to get kisses and will point out pretend owies to get you to kiss them.  He also will hurt you on purpose so he can give you a kiss. Watch out for his pinches.

He's so skinny that we still struggle to keep pants on him.  In fact I was ordering at a restaurant today and I turned around to see him in his diaper because his shorts had fallen off and he just stepped over them and kept going.

He's an I-phone addict. I try to keep my phone hidden from him, but he has a way of always finding it. It's probably the number one thing I find myself arguing with him about

He is sweet and cuddly, and we love watching him grow.

All is Well

Thank you Secrets of a Stylist for the idea to make this map in our living room a little more festive!

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support!  We've felt so much love these past few days and I'm happy to report, Ollie is back to his old cheerful self.

It turns out Ollie has Ketotic Hypoglycemia, which means that his liver doesn't fully function and provide him with the glucose he needs between meals so if his blood sugar level gets too low, his body goes into starvation mode and shuts down while he starts converting any fat he has stored, which was why he seemed comatose and also explains why he is so small so we'll be feeding him lots of small meals and loading him with protein before bed, and then we may have just a few of these episodes to deal with every year.  In extreme cases, some kids have to have NG tubes while they sleep, but we're hoping it doesn't come to that.  The good news is that he should outgrow it by the time he's five or six.  At any rate, his blood sugar can get so low it can cause seizures, but it's a totally different kind of seizure then he normally has so the two are completely unrelated, and it might just be the anti-seizure medication he was already on kept him from having seizures when we couldn't wake him up.  Crazy right?

In the meantime, we're supposed to do what we can to help this little guy build some fat up in his system.  My friend Kersten's dad just happens to be a pediatric endocrinologist who helped talk us through everything going on with Ollie and provided some advice to help him gain weight (Ollie is now almost up the the 50th percentile in height, but has fallen to the 3rd in weight and he can't keep a pair of pants on to save his life).  A few suggested changes for Ollie's diet: adding half and half to his cereal in the morning, adding melted cheese anytime he's eating vegetables, keeping brown gravy on hand to add to any meat that we can get him to eat, never giving him water to drink, and adding carnation instant breakfast to his whole milk which he will continue to drink well after the normally recommended age 2 cutoff.  

Things are going to be interesting around here, but this was actually the best possible cause of his low blood sugar that we could hope for and we're feeling pretty happy about the news.

Oliver at 18 months

 So when I run into you, dear friends, in real life, the number one thing I get asked is, "How is Ollie doing?"  I sometimes avoid the question because it breaks my heart just a bit.  Truthfully, he's wonderful; he's smart and charming and friendly and very, very busy.

But he's also not doing so great when it comes to his seizures.

 His seizures have been getting more frequent and it seems like he has at least one every day lately.  The good news is that as far as we know, he does not have a seizure disorder and when he grows out of breath-holding spells, he should stop having seizures.  I try to look on the bright side knowing that things could be much worse so I should count my blessings.

The hardest part is seeing how much the seizures affect him.  He's usually exhausted afterwards and sleeps for a few hours, but on the days he doesn't fall asleep there's not much we we can do to calm his frantic crying and the rest of the day is pretty much shot because he's not the same kid afterward.  It hurts so much to watch how hard it is on him and know that I've already done everything that I can do and it's just not enough.

Every parents wants the world for their child and I have a lot of heartache thinking of the ways Ollie's life might be limited, at least for now.  I never leave him alone.  He is my constant companion every moment of the day.  We very rarely go on dates when our parents or other grown-up friends are available to babysit because it's a little too much for the average teenager to handle, and I hate to think how he will react when he wakes up from a seizure and I'm not there to comfort him (it's only happened twice and it did not go well and I felt serious mom guilt over it).  It's definitely wearing us out, but I try to keep in mind that this is not permanent.  In the meantime, I find myself worried that he won't be able to go to preschool, and he won't be able to play on sports teams like Creed because he has a seizure every time he gets hurt.  For now I guess I just need to stop worrying about things out of my control and take things a day at a time.

 So let's focus on the brighter side, developmentally, Ollie is doing fantastic.

 We had his check-up today and he's grow a lot, but he's still tiny.  38% in height 2% in weight.  It seems like maybe I should be worried about the 2% in weight, but the doctor wasn't so maybe that's just fine.  Ollie and Creed's birthdays are a month apart so I remember thinking Ollie could just use all of Creed's hand-me-downs, but Ollie is so tiny that he's not even close to wearing Creed's clothes from this age so the seasons are all off.

 He's obsessed with sticking things in holes.  Every time he finds a hole, he scours the surrounding area for anything that can fit into it.  My keys have been missing for three months.

 He's finally started to love being read to.  He will bring you a book and he will not settle for sitting next to you while you read, he must be snuggled on your lap.

 He's learning new words every day.  I tried to make a list of his currently vocabulary, but it's too hard to keep track.  A few of his favorite words are: book, blanket, drink, hot, Creed, and wow.

 He's still climbing anything and everything he can.  He can climb things Creed cannot, another reason he can never be out of my sight.

 He loves toothbrushes.  He steals them and carries them around for hours.  That's Creed's pink Belle toothbrush.  Ollie's not picky about who the toothbrush belongs to.

 He loves to get a laugh and makes the silliest faces to crack the rest of us up.

 He's a fickle eater.  One day he will stuff himself with bananas, then he will not touch them for two weeks.  You never know if he will love or hate his food, but he will always have a great time making a giant mess with it.

 He's still wearing 12-18 months clothes and a lot of them are still ridiculously big on him.

He still loves his soft blanket and can't sleep without it.  We keep a big one in his crib and two small versions for him to carry around (thanks mom!)

 These last few pictures are from over the past six months and he looks so small in some of them.  These are just a few more moments with Ollie that I don't want to forget.

 I'm going to miss it when he stops sleeping with his bum up in the air.

One of his first haircuts.

 He's way more interested in playing with balls than Creed ever has been.  It's hard to keep him away form the ball during Creed's games.

 He's wearing us all out, but I can't even describe how lucky I feel to have him in our family.

Ollie at one year

I'm posting these almost two months late, but I have to post about Ollie at one-year-old, and the joy that he brings to our lives.

 This little guy is so friendly and full of smiles.  He has absolutely no stranger anxiety (I think it's because we don't leave him with babysitters because we worry about him having a seizure while we are gone).  We will walk up to anyone and lift his arms up, begging to be picked up.

 We visited a new ward a few weeks ago, and he reached and reached for the woman sitting behind us until she picked him up.  He continued to reach and be passed back about five rows, and I had to crawl over people to get him while he kept smiling and charming everyone.  One of the cute older ladies he visited said she called dibs to be his adopted grandmother.

 He's still very tiny, between the 10th and 25th percentile but his pediatrician thinks he will shoots up soon.

 Just after his first birthday, he stopped talking and didn't say or sign anything for a few weeks.  His doctor wasn't worried because he was still so social and happy.  Now he's started talking again and has a completely different vocabulary.  He doesn't say things like "hello" or "bye-bye" anymore, but he says "doggie" and "uh-oh"

 Ollie happily goes to bed at night, and is usually asleep within minutes. He still wakes up once or twice a night though so we're looking forward to Creed and Ollie having separate rooms where they won't disturb each others sleep (and more importantly, our sleep ;) )

 It amazes me how much he understand what we say to him.  If we mention going outside, he is waiting at the door or bringing us shoes within seconds.

 His favorite time of the day has got to be bath time.  He frantically tries to get in the tub while we fill it and undress him.

 Ollie is a climber.  Creed was always timid, but Ollie is fearless.  He is an amazing climber and has no fear of falling.  I'm not sure when he will start to get it and not walk off high surfaces because we always catch him, for fear falling with cause another seizure.  Any advice?

 He loves to share big slimey kisses with us.

He's becoming a better eater than Creed but he will not touch raspberries or strawberries. He has an unfortunately love in Cheez-its and even recognized the box in the grocery store the other day and strained to grab it off of the shelf.

He loves making us laugh and will do the same thing over and over if it causes us to giggle.

He's found his love for books and is constantly bringing them to us so we can set him on our lap and read each book over and over.  His current favorite is Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.

He's becoming fiercely independent and gets upset when we try to help him with things.  He wants to climb and eat and drink by himself, thank you very much.

He's not grumpy very often, but when he is, you can whisk him outdoors and he's as happy as can be.

Creed has always been a Momma's boy but Ollie has a special bond with his dad.  He sprints to the door when he hears Larry come home from work and flaps his arms with joy.

He LOVES I-phones and gets upset if we try to pass him the I-touch instead (how does he know the difference?)

I know this post is crazy long, but I couldn't resist posting the rest of these pictures to sum up the last few months of Ollie's life.

He likes to wander the house exploring on his own, getting into everything possible.

He loves to color and gets desperate to get a hold of any crayon or pens he spots.

He's such a terrific little person!