Today was rough and I'm not sure why...

But I think it may have had something to do with four doctor appointments and one other appointment crammed into one day. Not my smartest move yet.

We started off the day seeing the kids' ENT. Jaleigh passed her hearing test, as well as a seven month old is expected to pay attention lol. He looked at Justin's neck, said it was healing great and asked what our game plan was as far as the biopsy results. We talked for a bit, ran and grabbed some lunch and a quick episode of Spongebob at home, then left for the opthamologist.

Justin did well during the eye exam, up to the point they put the drops in his eyes for dilation. Then he just went hysterical. He was swinging at the poor tech and screaming. Apparently it burned. Poor fellow. :( I set Jaleigh down and held him down (seriously- hate holding my children down for things, absolutely breaks my heart) so the poor tech could finish the drops and we went back out and waited. I gave Just his "cool cars sunglasses" (to which he informed me if he had star wars sunglasses, he'd definitely be cooler...) and he sat in the corner and pouted:

He continued to insist it burned and I felt awful for him, but I don't think anything I said or did alleviated the pain or misery any. Sis LOVED the toys there and was pulling (attemtping to pull...) herself up on everything she could find. She's getting SO big. It absolutely breaks my heart. It seems her teeny tiny baby time was spent in the hospital, screaming, at the doctor, or on medication. It just breaks my heart that time is gone and I'm not sure any of us really enjoyed it. She is a happy, chunky little thing now, though and we're soaking her in completely. She gimp-crawls everywhere, she rolls (finally...at seven months old), she pulls up, she laughs, she plays. She's awesome. She's actually sleeping ALMOOOOST through the night. She goes to bed around 9:00, wakes up between 4:00-5:00, takes a bottle, crawls in bed with mommy and daddy and sleeps under our covers (think: little puppy dog) until she wakes up, usually around 9:00. I seriously can't complain. :)

Anyway, once his eyes were dilated, we saw the opthamologist. He said he was a little confused as to why we were seeing him because with neurofibromatosis, the eyes aren't typically affected until age 5 or 6. He said that, by that age, there's some definite spotting around the iris, but not typically before then. He checked him out, anyway, and said right now his eyes, optic nerve and iris are all clear on both sides. He wants to see us back in about a year. I asked him (he was pretty knowledgeable in all things neurofibromatosis) what all this could mean and he pretty well echoed what everyone else had told us. You don't commonly find a neurofibroma without neurofibromatosis. He did say, though, that if he were us, he'd seek a second reading on the biopsy.

We left the opthamologist, I dumped my kids off @ Pam's and I went to my OB appointment. I begged and pleaded with my nurse to PLEEEEAAAAASE do a sonogram and she said she'd talk to the doctor. As chance would have it, they just got a new ultrasound machine and she was itching to try it out. Would you believe....kid had her legs crossed at the ankle nearly the entire time? We saw nothing. At one point she moved...just enough to grab her ankles and pull them up to her head (think: pike position), legs still closed, making it impossible to see anything. She did get a good view from behind and said nothing was hanging out or bulging, so we're still calling girl for now. That's the second time I've gotten, "I don't see anything, so we'll assume girl." My next appointment is the 21, so we'll try again then. Hopefully she'll be in the mood to cooperate by then lol

We finished off the day @ church, sitting Just down for a talk with the children's minister. Justin has really been talking a lot lately about wanting to kill himself so he can go to heaven. This naturally has us concerned, so we asked the children's minister to sit down and try to talk to him on his level. He did a GREAT job with him and by the time Justin left, he was super excited about LIVING for Jesus, rather than dying to be with him. He told me at dinner that he wanted an elevator that went ALL ALL ALL the way up to heaven, so he could visit Jesus without dying and then come back to tell others about him. Seriously love that kid. <3

Justin's mood and attitude have really sucked today. Bless his sweet heart, he's so in tune to our emotions and our stress that I think it's wearing off on him. I sat him down this evening and talked to him and he told me this: "When I wake up, I decide if today's going to be a good day, or a bad day. If I choose bad, then I get to be bad all day." Hmmm, no. I explained to him if he ever felt like he was having a bad day, he needed to come tell one of us. I told him I knew these last few days have been rough, but we're just checking to make sure he's not still sick. He promised to let us know if his day was bad so we could talk through it.

Aunt Na is coming tomorrow, and then Mimi and Grumpy are coming Saturday. Papa and Nanny are coming in a couple of weeks, too. I think it will do his sweet little heart a LOT of good to be surrounded by the people who love him so much. Aunt Na is coming prepared to love him up first. He wants a burrito and some tea from Taco Casa....he's prepared to give nosies.