Easter

I'm a sucker for traditions and for family! Friends are great and I have some really great loyal and fun friends. BUT family it where it's at! I just LOVE my family and I especially love having everyone so close. Well...of course my parents aren't close by right now, but we still love them all the way in Montreal! One of my favourite traditions is Easter  Every year the Easter bunny sends us a letter...long and detailed of course...with a breakdown of who is hunting for which eggs. There are 12 grandkids and that means over 12 groups of different styled/coloured eggs. Once the letter is read the hunt is ON! The kids run out and search...and that genius Easter bunny hides them according to age (hardest to find for the older kids, and easiest to find for the little ones). It's all sorts of fun chaos! And I LOVE every second!

Cait's Birthday

My blogging is really lacking lately....I'm just feeling so caught up in my everyday life that I'm having a hard time focusing anytime to recording it. So, here I am over a month behind and finally posting about Cait's  Birthday!

Timing was perfect for Cait's Birthday this year. All Ben's family happened to be in town so we had a little get together for her Birthday with a little Easter celebration on the side. It was great. We did a HUGE birthday for Hailey when she turned one, and then didn't do much of anything for Paige. Classic middle child. In our defense we had just put an offer in on a house, left for Holidays out of the country, and sometime while we were gone we had to officially buy the HOUSE! The house we'd only seen once...just three days before. And then we happened to move into that house less than two weeks later! It was a crazy busy few weeks and Paige's Birthday fell right in the middle of it. But we still had a cake, and family and a little party where we got to watch her one year video. A family tradition. So she certainly was not forgotten! And it most definitely loved.

Anyway...back to Cait. So we had fun opening presents...all the little girls in the family LOVED every single second of it! If they could open presents everyday of their lives I'm sure life would be complete. In fact...I should try that once in while...just re-wrap their toys. Genius! So Cait got spoiled! Of course...it's hard to NOT spoil that baby girl!

Then we sat her down for cake. It took her a few minutes to warm up to the idea, but by the end she had us in tears! We were laughing so hard. She just gave the cake eating business her ALL! Two hands on the highchair tray...and face buried into that lovely cake! It was the perfect Birthday and we look forward to many many more with our sweet and silly baby Cait!

Cait

There's this picture of me and Cait that Rebecca took of us back in the fall when we were doing our family pictures. It hangs on the wall just outside Cait's room. I chose this picture and this spot for a reason. It gives me peace. I can see it from the rocking chair in her room, so each time I rock, cuddle, or feed her I see that pictures and instantly feel comfort. The reason I feel peace when I see this picture is strange though. That day, the day we took pictures, I was exhausted. Exhausted to the point that I literally could not hold my eyes open as the photoshoot came to an end. More pictures had my eyes shut than should have been the case. WHY? Well, the night before our family pictures I was literally up all night with a crying baby. This was normal for us...and not normal at the same.

I'm a strong advocate of sleep training. My first two babies were generally sleeping 12 hours by the time they were 4 months old - and we worked hard to get there. At 6 months it certainly wasn't an issue in the slightest! But with Cait, no amount of sleep training has worked. She either sleeps through the night...or she doesn't. Letting her cry it out doesn't work, rocking her to sleep doesn't work, bottles don't work either. She chooses when, where and how to sleep. And we CAN NOT figure it out. Part of it, actually most of it, is because we know she's in pain most of the time. Kidney infections do that to you. So we cater to her...and that's ok. but sleep, and peace and happiness are sometimes not the easiest thing to come by around here.

ANYWAY, this picture gives me peace because when I look at it, I see an exhausted mom who is tired of being a mom. There's a weary smile on my face...one that I feel is on the verge of tears. It's the face of someone who really needed help and wasn't sure how to ask for it. And so now when I look at that picture and it's been an equally as rough day, I am comforted because I know I've been there before and survived. I've felt that exhaustion...and made it through. And then on the great days (there are lots of those too) I see how far we've come from the exhaustion that day (and many more since) brought us! I celebrate that great day we've had and how awesome it feels to be a mom to this special little girl!

Anyway...Cait just turned one last week. And I've spent a LOT of time reminiscing on this last year and thinking of all the sleepless nights, the hospital visits, the surgeries, the kidney infections, the specialists appointments etc. And then I remember that those tough moments - although many - aren't the strongest memories...they definitely do not define this last year. What I love to remember is her infectious laugh, how she rolled over so young and never stopped moving, how she loved the swing and spent a lot of time in it, how she makes the cutest most perfect baby sounds and just chats with herself all day long, how she'll do anything for a laugh from us, how she started taking good solid steps at 9 months and then full on walked less than a month later, how she will eat anything I feed her, how she LOVES Hailey more than anyone, how she squeals with excitement when Ben comes home from work, how she lets Paige hold her and feed her bottles, how she sometimes just wants me...and will cuddle forever as long as she gets to be in my arms, how she loves to carry a purse and a baby around all day long, and...

just how plain old ADORABLE she is.

We  love her so much and are so grateful to have Cait in our family. In this short year she's taught us all patience, kindness, sympathy, empathy, and most importantly how to love no matter what!

Happy Birthday Cait! We love you!

Cait's One year video

It's a tradition in our family to make a "one year" video for our girls. Besides being a compilation of our favourite pictures from their first year, it's also where we introduce them to "their song". We spend a LOT of time listening to music and finding the song that perfectly describes how we feel about our newest family member. Hailey's song is "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds, Paige's is "surprisingly so" by Amy Seeley and Cait's song is "Lucky" by Kat Edmonson. The girls love listening to their songs and hearing why we chose their song for them. In Hailey's case we just felt soooo lucky to have her in our life. When we had Paige we were worried about how we could possible love another baby as much as we loved Hailey. Surprisingly enough it wasn't all that hard at all, and she quickly became one of "our favourite things". And Cait's song, we're so lucky again. The lyrics I like are "Life is just a dream, lucky you, lucky me". We toyed with the idea of having "We were made for eachother" by Emilie Mover as her song, but "lucky" just felt so much more appropriate for Cait. Have a listen and let me know what you think.


Cait one Year vimeo from Meagan McCance on Vimeo.

Paige's video can be found Here
And Hailey's Here (but the video isn't there anymore...I'll try to re-upload it)

Remember that time in March?

Remember that time in March when your friends called you up and told you to head over to the Ag Center (or whatever it is called) and get those adorable girls of your on a free horse ride? And then you did? Yes, I remember that too...and I remember how it made THEIR day, or month, or even their year! hahaha.

These girls were BEAMING the entire time they waited to ride those horses. And they were beaming during their ride, and especially after!

It makes me thinking that maybe we need a farm with horses, cause you know, I'm so great with animals (heavy on the sarcasm). 

Paige

This is quite possibly the sweetest picture of Paige. She's been having an emotional few weeks lately and this sweet little sleeping girl just melts my heart.


I'm not sure if her struggles are because:
-she's three
or
-she's three and hasn't been feeling 100%
or
-she's three, hasn't been feeling 100% and has a busy mom
or
-she's three, hasn't been feeling 100%, has a busy mom and a sick baby sister who monopolizes her mom's time
or
-she's three, hasn't been feeling 100%, has a busy mom, a sick baby sister who monopolizes her mom's time and a big sister who gets to do fun things like go to school
or
-she's three, hasn't been feeling 100%, has a busy mom, a sick baby sister who monopolizes her mom's time, a big sister who gets to do fun things like go to school and who likes to wake her up early to cuddle
or
-she's just three

Regardless of what it is, this was one of those moments that had me climbing into bed with her to cuddle. How could I resist?

Quick little update

The girls are in bed, Ben's out with friends and I have a few moments of me time...and I've been sorting and editing pictures. I'm just realizing that I'll have a one year old in less than two weeks. And that means I need to put together her one year video. So sorting it is. I've taken a hundred million pictures and now I need to decide  Where do I even start?

Speaking of pictures...I think I'm going to do it. I'm going to make the jump and start taking picture of people for real. For real guys! I've been practicing and working on this for years. I've taken a few courses and I just have a few more things to finish and then I'm ready to launch this thing. I'll probably start out with an introductory rate...a portfolio builder. And see how things go from there. So in preparation I've been taking pictures of my girls and just testing things out a bit. I BEGGED them for a shoot last week and they only agreed as long as they got to pick their outfits, wear my jewelry and wear makeup. So I obliged. We found a tiny spot of shade in my backyard and snapped a few frames. And I think I came out with a few keepers. These girls are LOVELY!

Cait Update

So here's a bit of an update on Cait. As you're aware, she has kidney reflux or vesicoureteral reflux. It's been a struggle to say the least. It's potentially quite serious, and definitely an inconvenience at the least. We've spent most of the last 7 months of her life in the hospital for surgeries, Specialist visits, urine samples etc etc. It's time consuming. Trying to get a urine sample from a baby is hard and next to impossible...and sometimes takes days before we're successful!

Now, we've been the recipient of a LOT of love, prayers, opinions and advice. And I'm so grateful for EVERYONE's concern! I fully believe there are people other than myself that have answers to some of my questions...and I appreciate they're consideration. It really is great to have so many people who care. But I do feel like I need to explain a little bit of what we're actually up against here as it's definitely more complicated than getting a bladder infection here or there. This is a birth defect. Her Ureter is physically deformed. The connection between her bladder and her ureter us also physical deformed. It's not a deformation you can see...but it's still there. The main problem she deals with is her Ureter. She has what's called a 'megaureter'. So each time she urinates, instead of leaving her bladder and exiting her body it takes a side trip to the kidneys. Which is not good.

The normal flow of urine is: Kidney to ureter to bladder to urethra to diaper!

Her flow is: kidney to ureter to bladder to ureter to kidney to ureter to bladder and then some leaves and heads through her urethra and eventually arrives in the diaper.

She had surgery in October to hopefully stop this back flow. Her Urologist used a scope to insert this gel that basically acts as a one way valve. It lets urine into the bladder at the point, but it doesn't let it back out...which forces it to leave through her urethra! In Cait's case, since her ureter is so huge, the surgery wasn't quite so successful.  In her 10 months of life she's had 7 infections...and most of them were kidney infections. In the 4 months since her surgery she's had three infections....and those all occurred in a two month time.

I have been lucky to never have had a bladder infection...that is until earlier this month. It was AWFUL!! I now understand just the tiniest what she's going through. The difference though is that she actually gets them in her kidneys. And do you know what happens to kidneys when they're infected? They get permanently damaged! And she's had some significant damage to her one kidney. Which is why this is so serious!! I have down played the severity of her condition in the past because I was hopeful we'd have a quick simple fix. But since that's not the case, I feel like I need to be honest here. Kidneys are vital. She's lucky to have two and very lucky that only one seems to be getting the worst of it. BUT if we don't stop this from continuing she can lose a kidney. I know it will never get there because we're soooo on top of things. BUT it's still a possibility. A very real possibility.

ANYWAY, our most recent update is that she just had surgery again last Friday. And as a sign of how important that surgery was, we got in within a week and a half after deciding on surgery with her urologist. That's pretty quick by Canadian standards!! Things went well. Her ureter is still large and she definitely still has reflux. The doctor tried the gel insert again and we're hopeful this will do the trick this time. If not, we have one more go at the procedure and then we move onto plan B (or is it C...or D at this point?). But right now we just wait and see.

Now I know many people have wondered why we're just no preventing these! There's really nothing you can do though...it's internal and has nothing to do with hygiene. However, we do make sure to keep her as healthy as possible, she takes daily probiotics, she takes vemma daily to boost her immune system, we're waiting on an order of d-manose (which is a natural prevention) and she takes antibiotics when needed. We've done a LOT of research on the topic and feel this is the best plan of action. We feel like our doctors have given us so many options and we're really so grateful for modern medicine - it saves lives. But we also feel like a little natural remedy mixed in their can only help. And so we're using both under the supervision of our very capable doctors.

Anyway, we're hopeful that things will work this time. We're hopeful that her kidneys haven't sustained too much damage in her short life. And we're hopeful that this will all be a distant memory one day. We're also fully aware that as far as medical conditions or birth defects she is lucky. She struggles far less than some of the kids in the urology clinic. And we're grateful for that every day. But this is OUR reality, and we have to do what we can with it.

And time to get off my soapbox:)

Here's an old picture that Laura Taylor (of Laura Taylor Photography) took of her back when she was new. It's just a reminder to me of the quiet days. The pain free days. But mostly of the blessing she is in our lives!

Bath Time

So when it comes to play time there is clearly a dominant personality in the home...and that personality belongs to the baby. No matter what the activity is, she certainly is the center of attention! Part of it is because we all just adore her and love to dote on her and make her happy, and the other part is that she has the loudest scream and screech in our house. I just recently started bathing the girls together. Hailey and Paige have bathed together for as long as I can remember. But because of Cait's kidney problems we've tried to avoid bathing her as much as possible...and espeically with other kids who maybe have other bacteria that Cait isn't normally exposed to. But I decided that enough was enough. This poor girl has spent enough months looking over the edge of the tub wishing she was playing with her sisters. So I tossed her in last week and she loved (and dominated) every second.

Drinking the last few drops of water from the faucet

Trying to force Hailey to drink from the faucet

And Hailey of course gave in

 

And telling me that she needs just ONE more minute before I pull her out. 

We sure love these little girls...and I especially love their unique and strong personalities!