17 Months & More Prayers Needed Please!

Two days ago my (previously tiny) baby boys turned 17 months and I'm in disbelief of how big they are and how far we've come....and how the time has flown by! Tonight as we were celebrating my Dad's birthday, the comment was made that my babies can no longer be called "babies." My dad said since they were now attempting to be as independent as possible, that they could only be considered "toddlers". Not only are they doing the usual running, jibber jabbering, climbing, darting, not listening to mom, etc., they are now DEMANDING to feed themselves.

These little Monkeys are finding feeding themselves to be a fun adventure. I decided to give it a try about a week ago and once again, the boys haven't looked back. Shocker! And, surprisingly I'm having fun watching them. It's pretty cute to watch them try to get food on their forks or spoons. What's even more adorable is that they'll usually take a large amount of time trying to scoop up the food, and then end up using their other hand to actually get the food in their mouth. In the meantime though, I have actually found that I can use this time to my benefit by either eating with them, cleaning or unloading the dishwasher. So, thanks guys!

In the meantime, my sweet Jakie STILL has extremely low platelet counts. Every week, at least, we head up to Children's Hospital to see our Hemotologist and draw his blood. He's gotten VERY aware of the situation and usually starts to get extremely quiet and on edge as soon as we get to the office. He knows the woman who draws his blood and as soon as he sees her he starts to squirm. And when I sit down in the room with him, in that chair...the tears begin to flow even before the needle touches him. Oh it's so hard on all of us. Even Jonah starts to freak out because he's watching Jake meltdown. And every week I wait in anxious agony for his counts...and every week my heart sinks a little further with the news that it's still so low. When are we going to be done with this ITP!???!!??

As much as it rips out my heart to see my little preciousness covered with bruises and remain in constant fear of his fragility, I am in awe of the blessing of ONLY having ITP. His Hemotologist is located in the Center for Blood Disorders and Cancers at Children's and I have seen several tiny little bald people walking around, some even being carried by a parent they are so young. How the site of this just absolutely makes me want to drop to my knees in that hospital and PRAISE GOD that Jake doesn't have cancer. I cannot imagine having to hear that diagnosis for your child, let alone living with it every day.

Jake's count this week was another dangerously low level, 12,000. A normal level is 150,000-400,000. So you can see that we have a little boy who has a tough situation right now. Please help us and say some prayers for Jake that he will get through this quickly and without further issues. Thank you!!!!! In the meantime I'll try to relax more. However, his doc did say that she wants him doing low key activities indoors as much as possible. She obviously has never had 17m old twins! And Jake especially LOVES to run and play and be a crazy little boy. That's what he was built to do. Trying to cease this inate behavior is not only hard, it's nearly impossible.

And, for the last few weeks, in an effort to give both the boys that outlet they need to run in a safe environment, we've been heading up to Open Gym! At least there everything including the floor is padded and the dudes LOVE IT! I don't know if we can continue to do this now that we've been told to keep it to low key activities. That makes me sad, but we'll do whatever we can to keep our baby safe and out of trouble!

Jake playing soccer with Granddad. It's just amazing to me that he actually knew just what to do with a soccer ball. AND, he's good at it!

Run Jojo!!

Come on Granddad!

I'm having so much fun!

I loved watching Jake attempt to figure out the trampoline, he sorta bounced but his feet never left the tramp.

And just so we don't leave out anything on our sweet Jonah, the week before last I actually saw him look for me amongst a room full of kids and say, "mama" several times before he finally scanned the room and saw me waiving at him. Thanks for that sweet thing! I have heard him say this before but never really knew if he associated mama with me. There's no doubt in my mind now. And, also, I wanted to say how sweet the boys have been to eachother lately...for the most part. They definately spend some time hitting, biting and throwing object at eachother BUT they also hug, kiss and bring eachother things they know the other needs like milk or a blanket. It's so cute to watch. And I think Jonah is especially good at this. And he has been such a trooper being there for his Bubba when we're at the doctor's office. He provides a special distraction that I feel is very comforting to Jake. So thanks baby!