Torticollis

Torticollis in latin means "twisted neck." Sophia has this condition. I should have seen in sooner, but she was diagnosed last week and we took her to a physical therapist who felt she had a moderate case of it. She has two different muscles that are contracting too much or are too short. We are doing therapy at home which consists of stretching and trying to get her to look to her left, which she hates. We are hopeful that the therapy will start to work before all the bones in her skull fuse, because her head is a little crooked right now. I'll show a couple of pictures of her. Notice how she always has her head in that position.

If you want to know more just google corticollis. Poor little girl and she already had surgery two months ago.

Isaac back in Bed!

For unknown reasons, Isaac has abandon his tent in the basement and is now sleeping in his bed. Isaac had no comment on the move but sources close to him say it has to do with the drop in temperature experienced in Wichita this week.

Isaac still sleeps in his tent in the basement. I decided he should see what it is like to actually camp outside. I have been waiting for it to cool off, but we’re still running our air conditioner in Kansas. The other problem is that Kansas is all private land. The only place you can camp is in a campground at a state park.
The weather called for a low of 58 degrees on Friday night and a slight chance of PM showers. I worked a 24 hour shift on Thursday night and would take Isaac camping as soon as I woke up. Isaac and I headed to Fall River state park, which is over an hour east of Wichita. I made a wrong turn and instead of turning at the state park I turned at Fall River wilderness area. This is a public area where you can hunt or fish. I found a dirt road heading into a river and followed it to the end. I found what looked like a campsite. I still don’t know if we could camp there or not. I did see a fire ring, so we decided to camp there for the night. We actually had a great time until 11:00 pm when the rain started and lots of wind and didn’t stop. In the morning I packed up the tent in the rain. There was no grass where we camped only clay, which when wet sticks to your feet and makes it difficult to walk.
At home I put my tent up in the garage to let it dry out, but the humidity outside was 94%. It is still up in the garage and will probably never dry out. It is pathetic, but I really miss just camping in the West. One thing though, Isaac really had a good time, so we will do more in the future.

Isaac's birthday for real

Isaac finally had his 5th birthday. I don't know that it was any more special than all his other parties this year. We did take him to Chucki-Cheese. He loves pizza and running around playing games. We were going to get him a bike, but he wouldn't even try on the bike helmets at the store, so I held off on getting him a bike. We kept telling him that he was 5 years old now, but every time we'd ask him his age he would say 4 or 6. I don't know why he doesn't like 5.
Isaac does love Chocolate cake and Emily made a very nice cake and Isaac's neighbor friend, Peyton came over to sing to him. Otherwise a nice quiet birthday. Half of the presents that Isaac opened he had wrapped earlier.

Playing favorite

I


Today I told Emily that I like Sophia more than Savannah. Of course she mentioned that she loves them both unconditionally, etc...... The fact is I love them both, but Savannah is either crying or smiling and usually the former predominates. Savannah has been known to laugh at times, but for some reason she can quickly go from being happy to mad then sad. Another problem is that she wants to be held all of the time. As soon as you set her down she starts screaming.

Sophia on the other hand is starting to smile more and is a lot more mellow. She has big blue eyes and loves it when you talk to her. She will lay by herself without crying and she feeds better. She also sleeps better through the night. Someone at church said that Sophia looks like Isaac. Honestly I don't see it. She is on the left side. Savannah on the right.
It is hard not to compare them to each other.

Isaac is on day 20 of sleeping in his tent. If I would have known this we could have used Isaac's room for an office or got a smaller house with less bedrooms.
Nothing to report in Wichita. Still hot and humid(what I would give for snow). I would be willing to skip Fall all together if it meant it would happen tomorrow. My thoughts and dreams are of some place with moutains, clear running streams.... I know I have it good with all the suffering going on right now so I'm through complaining.

Camping in Kansas

I bought Isaac a tent last Christmas. I set it up in the basement from time to time and sometimes he would play in it and other times he would ignore it. 2 weeks ago I set up the tent again in the basement and put his sleeping bag in there and an air mattress. For some reason, Isaac wanted to sleep in the tent, which would be a first for him.
That was 2 weeks ago and Isaac has been sleeping in the tent every night. I wish I could take him camping here in Kansas so he could really enjoy what tents are made for, but until they make an air conditioner for tents, I won't be camping here any time soon.


Isaac's first day of school is today. He cried when Emily left, but not before she took a picture. Isaac will be 5 years old in a few weeks, but he is not starting kintergarten yet, he will continue in the same 1/2 day class that he was in last year.

Getting attention

Even though I hate shopping, I took the family to Sam's club today. Emily says she has a lot of people come up to see the twins and make a fuss about them wherever she goes. Today I saw that firsthand as I pushed around the double stroller through the store. Many people stared my direction, others would come up and look at the girls. While shopping, Isaac saw some halloween costumes and wanted the duck outfit. We decided to have him try it on. He loved it and wouldn't take it off after that. So there we were, shopping in Sam's club with the double stoller and Isaac walking around in a duck costume. Many people were laughing at Isaac, including me, I couldn't stop. I just took a picture to show what I mean, it will be the same look at Halloween, I hope that doesn't spoil it for anyone.

Special Day

I am sure most don't know that 10 years ago on August 5th, Emily and I were married. Many of our anniversaries were spent traveling. I promised Emily that we would finally do something special for our 10th. Well, long story short, it was a Friday and I worked most of the day and we couldn't get a baby sitter for that night or Saturday night. It must be real fun being married to me. You never see me and you get to take care of Isaac and new twins all by yourself. Somehow, Emily has stayed with me all these years. She is the best mother in the whole world.

I wrote this 2 days ago, and I was just thinking that this story of our anniversary should help all the men out there. If your wife doesn't think your anniversary plans were all that special, you can just mention me. Well Nick didn't even ........see how it could work.

Different personality

Savannah smiles a lot more than Sophia. Just this week Sophia has finally started to give us a little smile. It almost seems like they are different ages. Savannah was born bigger and is still bigger and her personality seems more developed. They are over 2 months old now. Time is really flying.
I am counting the days until it cools down here in Wichita. Hot and sticky gets old after a while. I enjoy the nice cool operating room most days.
I am doing heart surgeries this month. It is a lot more stressful than other months. Emily is somehow staying up most of the night with the twins and still takes care of the family during the days.
I couldn't get Christmas off again this year, but I did manage to get the week of Thanksgiving off, so we are coming to Southern Utah that week if anyone wants to see us. The twins will be six months old.

One of Isaac's many birthday parties. This was in July. I don't know how can make his real birthday party special.

Isaac loves wrapping things. It started last Christmas when he was helping Emily wrap presents. He liked it so much that he started wrapping items in our pantry. I had to pretend to be excited over opening cream of chicken soup for a Christmas present. Isaac is always asking to go to the store and buy wrapping paper. He is better at it than I am. He also likes to make and eat cake, so I think we've had 20 birthday parties this year alone for him.

Sophia's surgery

Well Sophia had her surgery yesterday for an inguinal hernia on the right side. Everything went very well, but I get nervous because she is so small. She spent the night in the hospital. The surgeon also made an incision on the left side and explored the inguinal canal to make sure there wasn't a hernia there as well. This was a congenital hernia and I hope that Savannah doesn't have to go through this. Sophia is doing well at home and is back with her sister.
It has been great having Emily's sister, Shella and Rebecca here helping with the twins. Rebecca has become great friends with Isaac.
Isaac is progressing in many ways, still quite behind in others. He's not potty trained yet, so we have 3 in diapers right now. He started playing with puzzles recently and the 25 piece ones are too easy for him. We got him a 60 piece puzzle and he does that fine. Today he put together a 100 piece puzzle without any help. He is very good on the computer and I had to create a password for my account because he was getting into the files with my pictures and he was editing them. I figure I have a few more years before he cracks the code.
Emily is somehow manging the twins with very minimal help from me. I work 12-13 hours a day and go to sleep within a few hours after getting home from work. Then I sleep in the basement so I can get some sleep.

Attempt at blogging

At this rate everyone will have a blog but me. I guess it's time to try it out. I hope others will enjoy the contents.