Tommy D

Back to talking about the kids.

Tommy D is the only boy of an only boy of an only boy. Yeah that means there are a whole lot of women in his life. Tommy D was born on March 3, 2004 I tried to convince Paula to try and wait to have him until April 4, 2004 but she wouldn't have anything to do with it. I was excited when we found out we were having boy. I was going to turn him into my little sports machine. He was and has a been a relatively healthy baby. The only real issue we have had with him is siezure disorder. When he was 2 1/2 he began having severe siezures. It got so bad that he ended up getting hospitalized to get the siezures under control. Once his body was "loaded" with phenobarbital he began to have less frequent siezures, he was also placed on a medication called topamax, after about a year of no visible siezures the neurologist began to taper him off the phenobarbital which we were glad for, cause it caused him to go into pretty heavy depressions. It is the sadest thing when your three year old tells you that he is sorry cause he can't do anything write. He has gotten past that and we get the occasional depression, but this is more of he just is sad and needs to be held or cuddled with, so as long as we give him a little attention he is ok. Well he turns five in about a week or so and he is so excited. He is hoiping for more train stuff, he loves trains but little does he know he isn't getting more train stuff. I don;t think we have room in the house for more train stuff. He has turned into a little engineer and is great when he comes up with a new idea he gets so excited and then tries to make it happen, doesn'talways work but he goes and moves a few thigns around and gets it close to what he wanted. I have to tell you about a story that happened right after christmas we had his train stuff out and he was making one and all the sudden he came up with an idea but when he told Paula and I about it he said I have a wicked idea. He had just got the new central station which has a loading terrace well his wicked idea was to go up and over the terrace as well as through it and under it. So off he set, this one required some help so I helped him make things work. But he did most of the footprint for it. He was so excited to get it done and watch it work. Hopefully this picture copies over so that you can see his wicked idea.

What to write today?

For the last two weeks I have profiled my two oldest girls. I will profile my other children i just am not sure I will continue it this week. Well I know for sure I am not going to continue it this week. I am going to talk about my wife how we met mushy stuff like that.

Paula and I met in 1993 yeah that is a long time ago, we dated in high school and then went to college, right before we went to college I told her that I was going to marry her and she freaked out. We broke up cause it scared her so bad and she independant and didn't anyone else. That only lasted about a year maybe. We both had dated other people but had not been lucky with our choices they all didn't seem to be the right person. Well during this time I started to go on my mission but was removed from the MTC, I came home from that and I had a decision to make whether to go back or not. At this point I wasn't even sure what I was going to do. But after a couple of months of being home Paula and I got back together. We discussed what should be done, but deep down I knew that I would need to go back just to show that I could do it. So my with my decision made I went back in Aug 97 and came home in well the very end of July it was either July or September. I came home July 28, 1999 Paula and I were married Oct 15, 1999 not long to get reacquainted. I don;t think we needed it, yes we both had changed but the love was still there.

We have been married for 10 years this year and they have been some of the greatest years I have had, we have had trials from almost losing our house to what we are dealing with now with her cancer. It has been tough for us to realize the vast nature of what this really is. We are fighting odds, for the first time in our relationship we have had to face the fact that we don't know if we will be together in five year 10 years we don;t know how long we have. It is one of those things that you realize what things really mean to you. I love my wife I have tried to look down into the future and I can't see my life with out her she has been my best friend for 15 years or so, sorry Keith your a close second just missed it.

Don't take this as a give up letter or anything I am still going to do everything in my power to keep her here, and I know she is the same way it is just one of those things that sometimes you just have to say to make you(me) feel better get it out in the open. I know she will be around for a long awhile, a priesthood blessing has said so, unfortunately the blessing didn't specify whether it would be in this life or not. I have hope that is in this life but I am scared to death of the the other possibilities. Paula is my life, she has brought my four little joys into this life and she is going to be around to help with raising them.

I can;t think of much more to put than Paula I love you and will always be here for you, whether your bald or not, I love you with all my heart.

Nicki

Nicole Marie was born on September 25, 2001. She was born in about 10 minutes from arriving at the hospital. I had just finished working a swing shift the night before and had to be back at work by 0545 hrs. So i got home at about 2300 hrs and had to be up and gone by 0445 hrs. No sleep I had gotten home at 1430-1500 hrs and Paula had told me that she was having some pain, so we went to the Dr's office and he checked her and told her she was dilated to a four and 100% efaced, but decided to send us home anyway. So we went home and I went back to sleep cause I think I was supposed to work again in the morning. After a couple of hours I got up and went out to the living room to see Paula in pain hunched over the chairs. She told me she had called the dr's office to see what to do, we waited and waited for the dr to call back and he hadn't. So she called again and we waited about another 30 minutes and called again this time the receptionist said if you are doing that bad you probably should head in. At this time the hospital was only about 3 blocks from our house so we dropped Maddy off at a neighbors house, and drove to the hospital. I got there and went in and had the ER nurse help get Paula into a wheelchair and asked her to wheel her down to Labor and Delivery. Which she was more than happy to do. I checked Paula into the hospital which was easy cause she had already preregistered, I signed the paperwork and headed maybe the 150 ft to L&D. By the time I got there I could hear Paula screaming in the bathroom that she could feel the baby. So I hollered at the nurses station that we needed help, the poor CNA came running in and saw what was going on and she yelled to the nurse get in here now, the nurse showed up like yeah ok whatever. But when she walked in and opened the door she saw paula on the bed and went from like whatever mode to holy crap we are having a baby. She hollered instructions to who ever else was out in the nurses station and was scrambling to get her gloves on. which she barely did. So here I am trying to do what I can to help. and bam she was born healthy as ever. As a side note the doctor lost his rights to work at our hospital due to complaints including ours, but mainly cause he was caught DUI just outside the hospital, from the location of where he was and where he lived it was assumed he was on is way to the hospital, but he was just far enough away that it couldn't be proven so unfortunately he didn't lose his license.

Back to Nicki, after she was born she was a healthy baby in fact she has been our healthiest child, she has had a few asthma attacks but has seemed to outgrow them. She loves to play sports, monkey bars, dancing, and draw, boy does she like to draw. She is the most outgoing of my children she always seems to try and help her freinds out whenever she can. Just a small story from just this week. Her schools gives out what are called GROWL tickets and they can get small trinkets for getting them it is for stuff like respect helping other, being responsibler and such. Well she and a freind recived one and so they went got their rings and her freind lost hers out on the playground somewhere and they couldn't find. Nicki felt so bad that she gave her her ring so she would have one. That is the sort of thing she is always doing with freinds and nieghbors, she can be such a sweetheart.

I think that is Nicki in a nutshell.

Maddy

I decided that for the next four posts I am going to talk about my children, so I will start with the oldest Madalynn.

Madalynn was born nine months after we got married yes she was a honeymoon baby. she was born one hour and seventeen minutes after my birthday. Paula and I had gone down to our doctor in Orem on June 22 for a normal check-up and on the way down Paula was joking maybe we will have the baby on your birthday, we just laughed about it and headed down. We got there at about 3:00 or 3:30 for the appt we got into the exam room and the doctor does his thing and looks at us half falling asleep, he always seemed to be falling asleep. I guess that is a good sign for an ob/gyn when they are falling asleep cause they are so busy and commited(he always seemed to remember who we were and about us). Any how when we was done with the exam he looks at us and says are you ready to have a baby, we looked at each other and laughed a little bit thinking he was joking with us. Finally Paula said "Yeah" He told us to go down to the hospital and get checked in, at this point I think we both thought he was joking. He then told us she was dialated to 4 cm, to me that meant nothing, but Paula seemed to understand. So we went down got checked in and called family and freinds to let them know. The hospital encouraged us to move around and try induce the labor a little bit more. Paula then started to hurt alot and decided she needed to lay down I think this was about 09:30 or 10:00 so we went in and got her layed down and by this time family and freinds were starting to show up. at about midnight or so Paula finally told her family to leave they were the only ones there and I don't know if they getting on her nerves or if she just wanted to be left alone. After about another hour or so she had the baby.

Maddy was a pretty good baby even though she screamed alot. She was healthy and doing good until she was about six months old when she got rodavirus(?) when we first took her in they misdiagnosed her and gave her a medicine that almost killed her. By the time we got her back to the hospital she was so dehydrated that she couldn't get tears when she cried. Well they figured out the screwed up and got IV's in her and got her hydrated and after two days she was released to come home. and hse has been healthy since.

The good thing about Maddy is she is a very intelligent girl, the bad thing about Maddy is she a very intelligent girl. She figured out at a young agwe how to get around some rules and get what she wanted. When she turned eight we talked about baptism and what it meant and that stuff and were starting to get her ready for the baptism but due to Paula's recent diagnosis we asked her ifshe would be upset if we waited to get her baptized for a few months. In about October or November we started talking about her getting baptized again. After explaining to her about it we asked her if she thought she was ready to get baptized or not, and at that point she told us no I don;t think I am ready. Which made me so proud because she was realizing the importance of the promises she was going to be making. after about another month we asked her again and she stated she wasn't sure yet, sio I asked her why she said cause I still lie. see where the maddy is very intelligent she learned at a young age that if she doesn't tell us all the story or admit to doing wrong she wouldn't get in as much trouble I then explained that as long as she was trying she would be ok. So she said ok that maybe she was ready. So we got an appt with the Bishop and she had her interview, but before going into the interview she was still alittle unsure about it. Well during her interview the bishop explained things better or she just understood but she came out and had the biggest grin on her face. She was Baptized on Dec 13 after making her own decision about uit. I couldn't have been prouder of her at this point cause she thought about it and figured that this was an important thing on her own.

Well i think those are the big things about her but give you a few fun facts about. She is in the third grade and loves school just not turning in her work, she must get that from Paula cause we all know I am the perfect student. :) But she loves the dance class she is in and is always excited to go to it. She loves to sing singstar pop. She loves being the mom to her younger siblings when Paula isn't feeling well and the mothering instinct shows alot in her. She especially loves watching her baby sister and lugging her around the house like a little doll. This pretty much sums up Maddy.