Invincible

My little Kaylee turned 9 yesterday! She spent most of the day with her two favorite friends, Leah and Hannah. She picked her favorite music as I drove her and her friends around. She has this song called "Invincible" by, Skillet that she loves to play. I think she knows all the words by heart! It makes me laugh because it sounds a little rough for her personality. But then again, I think I surprised my parents with the hard rock I loved as a kid.

I like the fact that Kaylee has a little edge to her. Happy Birthday to my sweet, petite, Kaylee, who deep down inside is really as TOUGH AS NAILS!!  I love you! You really are invincible!!

So Scary!

It's been one week since it happened...

We called everyone down to the breakfast table for our usual family scripture study. And also like usual, Kaylee trailed in groggily to her seat. Before we could begin with prayer, this time Kaylee began to complain that she didn't feel well. I asked if she felt like throwing up and she nodded yes. Joseph encouraged her to run to the bathroom so she wouldn't make a mess at the table.

She stood up and then screamed before falling face-down down on the floor. I just thought she was being dramatic. Maybe she had fake fainted?  I fake fainted when I was her age. [My mom wouldn't let me take a bag of Cheerios to church, so I threw a big tantrum which ended abruptly with a very hard smack on my bottom. I fell to the floor pretending to faint... or pretending to be dead. As I lay there completely motionless, trying hard not to breathe for the effect, I could see through my squinted eyes, my mom's angry silhouette: She stood there with her hands on her hips scolding me to get up. I thought for sure my drama show would instill compassion in her, convincing her to finally give me the Cheerios and to never smack me that hard again. But it didn't.]

Anyway, I assumed for a brief moment that maybe Kaylee liked to put on little drama shows like I did as a kid. "Come on honey, it can't be that bad. Let's get to the bathroom."

When she wouldn't get up or answer, I knew something was wrong. I scooped her up off the floor. Her entire body was completely limp.  Her head rolled back as Joseph and I tried to set her up against the toilet. Her face had turn to ash. Now, I was scared!! Something wasn't right. After a minute she opened her eyes and shuttered.
I asked, "Are you okay? Kaylee, can you talk to me?"
She stared off into space with a glazed look and tried to speak but couldn't form any words, just garble.
Joseph and I looked at each other not knowing what to do. This had never happened before. She gained consciousness, enough to stabilize herself at the toilet. We expected her to vomit and then she'd feel better.

She didn't have a temperature. We thought maybe she just had some bad food the night before. But she wouldn't throw up. A minute or two passed with her seeming more alert. Joseph began to help her out of the bathroom when she went limp again, repeating the same glazed look and mumbled speech as we tried to revive her. This time, we called the paramedics.

When the EMT's arrived they found all her vitals normal and no sign of illness but advised us to still make an appointment with her doctor. An hour later, we were waiting in the doctor's office for her to get some blood tests, when it happened again. The nurse was startled and quickly began calling for back-up. We spent the next several days trying to rule out the causes of Kaylee's frightening behavior, making sure it wasn't anything life-threatening.

After all the tests, the doctors have concluded that what happened with Kaylee were very real seizures. They don't know for certain what triggered the seizures but said from studying her electroencephalogram they could see she is prone to them. They said she could have more in her life and they could get worse as she got older... or she could possibly never have them again. Only time will tell. At least overall she's not in any real threat. We just can't let her take baths or go swimming by herself anymore.

What a scare we had! And even though I'd prefer Kaylee didn't have this risk factor of seizures in her life, I'm very grateful the doctors don't see anything more serious.  I still want to get some further opinions. One good thing from everything this past week is that I got to spend a tons of one-on-one time with my little Kaylee . I'm so proud of her bravery and courage through it all.

I love my girl so much!

-Alicia

The Sound of Music

Eight months ago, all my kids started taking music lessons for the first time. I let them each choose which instrument they wanted to play most: Miriam and Micah chose violin, Kaylee chose piano, and Chandler chose EDM (electronic dance music). 

Dale is Miriam and Micah's violin teacher. He's such a happy guy and so comfortable for the kids to talk to, they really like him. He says that Miriam is a natural and learns faster than most of his students. Micah enjoys violin but a couple of weeks ago has started to learn to use it as a fiddle. Dale says that fiddling is harder but it really seems that this is where Micah has much more interest. 

Kaylee's piano teacher, Ann, is the sweetest lady, full of praise and encouragement- Kaylee loves her. I've been impressed with how quickly Kaylee is moving through her lessons these past eight months - she's already in her third piano book! She sounds so awesome!

Chandler has always loved music and with a wide variety of interest. His greatest passion is writing his own music though, especially EDM. His webpage is https://soundcloud.com/chandlerrawlins 

I'm pretty sure he's destined for stardom.