BAHA... no, not Baha, California

Auggie has been so well with his loaner BAHA. He hasn't had any problems with it.. at least that we have noticed. He loves having it on and hasn't tried messing with the band or the device itself. I'm sure when he's older we might have a problem with it. He usually gets really quiet for the first few minutes its on.

Wednesday we went for a walk at the trails at Wolf Pen Creek in our new jogging stroller! It is AMAZING, by the way! It is so easy to push and turn! It was Auggie's first time outside with the BAHA on. It was windy the first night Tim went out with him and it kept buzzing so they went back inside. Yesterday, though, there was enough cover on the trails and in the stroller, there wasn't any buzzing.

All he wants to do is chew! There has to be some teeth somewhere!
April 27

Smiling for Mommy
April 27

April 27

Playing patty cake with Gramma
April 27

My little coal miner
April 27

Weee
April 27

Being good on our walk
April 27

I love this picture :)
April 27

Tuesday I'll have pictures from our photo shoot this afternoon.... Auggie discovered his feet!

Auggie's Loaner BAHA!

We met a lady through Facebook group and Yahoo! groups who was nice enough to lend us a BAHA for Auggie until we are able to get his own.

We can't thank Judy enough for sending it to us!

It made me so happy to see Auggie look at Tim when he spoke! I was surprised I didn't cry but man, was I happy! He enjoyed bouncing and bending his knees when he had the BAHA on. I just loved seeing that!

We also received some good news from the insurance... After almost 6.5 weeks after his hearing test, Auggie is approved for his own BAHA! Now all we need to do is schedule an appointment with the audiologist to order his BAHA. I can't wait. My mom is coming in town this week so hopefully she'll teach me how to use my sewing machine so I can start making his headbands. 

We had a great time over Easter weekend. We were able to see some friends and all our family. It sure is tiring even though we got to spend a couple days in La Porte and in Giddings. I'm pretty sure Auggie enjoyed his first holiday with the families.... He better because there are plenty more coming up!

 Somer, my neighbor growing up, has a daughter (Delaney) 3 weeks younger than Auggie. We were finally able to meet each other over the weekend!

Somer, Delaney, Auggie & Kelsey
April 23

Delaney & Auggie
April 23

Delaney & Auggie enjoyed playing with the snail together
April 23

Kristopher playing with Drake
April 22

Kelsey  & Auggie at Mommo's house for Easter
April 23

Cohen (4), Laci (7), Ben (4), Sherwin (PawPaw), Auggie (5.5mo) , Libby (3), Jacob (13), Jane (MawMaw) and Micah (1)
April 23

Kelsey, Auggie, Micah, Melanie, Libby, Cohen, Laci, Jacob & Ben
April 24

Auggie with his First Easter nest!
April 24

Auggie posing for the camera
April 24

Nathan (2), Auggie (5.5mo), Cole (9) & Drake (2)
April 23

Kristopher, Zach, Nathan, Jamie, Jim, Cole, Chris, Dustin, Drake, Lindsay, Kelsey, Auggie & Tim
April 22

Drake, Cole, Auggie, Gramma & Nathan
April 23

Gramma with Drake & Auggie
April 23

Dustin & Lauren with Auggie
April 24 

Dustin & Tim coloring
April 24

Auggie with the Easter Bunny
April 19

Claire, Jessica, Auggie & Stephanie
April 21

Friends and Family

Our weekend flew by so quickly! I can't believe its already Tuesday!

The dietician from ECI came by for Auggie's monthly appointment. He's 14 lbs. 10 oz. and 25.5 inches long! He's doing so well. "They" say babies should have doubled their birth weight by the time they're 6 months so Auggie is doing great! We're really glad doing formula 2-3 days in a month has been agreeing with him... well, that was until Monday. :( I'll get to that later.

Friday, we had lunch with our good friend, Marco. It was so good seeing him again. It was Auggie's first time seeing him since we weren't able to bring him to Dallas when we went in January. We ate at the new Genghis Grill in College Station. It was pretty good. It reminded me of eating at the East College Cafeteria at SFA... but this was so much better!

Well, Hi there Uncle Marco!

Saturday, we went for a nice walk around the Green Space in College Station. We are able to get to it quickly from our house so it makes for a nice walk. We walked for an hour and would have walked longer but I didn't want Auggie to get too much sun. He fell asleep right before we left and slept the whole way. Aussie and Charley went along with us and seemed like they enjoyed being off the leash for awhile. They even got into the pond right off of Texas Avenue. Marco stopped by on his way back to Ft. Worth. We hung out at the house for a bit before he went on his way.

Saturday night I went out for the 1st Annual Siegmund Girls' Night Out! Aunt Karen, Megan, Jane, Stephanie, Melanie, Jessica and I were all able to meet up in College Station to go out to eat at Los Cucos (YUM!!) and then hung out for a bit after dinner. It was a lot of fun hanging out with family without the kiddos and husbands around. ;) We're going to have to get everyone together next year! Sadly, I didn't get any pictures...  I'm sure no one wants too much evidence of our shenanigans, though!

Our friends, Matt & Angela, stopped by on their way home from Houston on Sunday. We're so glad they were able to meet Auggie! We ate lunch with them before they had to head out.

Los Cucos in their bellies and Auggie in their hands

Visiting with friends always makes the time go by way too fast! It's always really nice to see them, though. I wish we had more friends close to us- they seem to pick Dallas to live in. lol.. Hopefully when our weekends start slowing down, I can make some trips to the Tomball area, Katy and Temple to see some friends that haven't met Auggie yet. We need to get there fast! Auggie's growing up too fast. lol

Monday was a bad day for Auggie. I felt so bad for him. Well, late Sunday night/early Monday morning was great for Auggie. He woke up once to eat before midnight and then only woke up at 1:20 am and then 6:40 am to eat! It was a very quiet night for us.. amazing! Sadly, that was the only thing that went well Monday... We were getting ready to see the Easter Bunny and Auggie got sick. It was not fun. I felt so bad for him and I had no idea what to do for him. We sat in the bath tub for a bit so there wasn't more a mess in the living room and dining room. I think the bath helped him even though he kinda just sat there. I thought it was the formula and then we tried breast milk but there was no change. Thankfully, he was able to keep some apple sauce and more breast milk and formula down after Tim came home.

Yummy!
April 16

Auggie has been eating apple sauce since Saturday. He eats it a lot better than the rice cereal. His dietician said skipping the cereal wouldn't be a big deal. Right now we're using our fingers to feed him since he likes grabbing our hands and putting them in his mouth anyway. I've tried the spoon a few times and it has been hard getting the food off of it. I'm sure it takes time for both Auggie and us to get used to feeding solids. We're both glad Auggie likes the apple sauce. It's not as trying as the cereal, thank goodness.

Sleeping in Kent's bed
April 8

Playing with his birdies with his feet
April 14

Those feet are really interesting!
April 14

Daddy and Auggie in a full on 6 month outfit!! He's getting so big!
April 14

Auggie's a giraffe!
April 14

Auggie has discovered Daddy's beard
April 15

Tim let go of Auggie and he actually stood there by himself!
April 17

Monday was a rough day
April 18

Staring off into space
April 18

Before I leave you until Thursday, I just wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who responded to my last post. It was nice hearing back from so many people. I am very grateful for the all the support our family has and even if I don't personally respond, please know that every word has touched my heart. I'm trying to keep my chin up but sometimes it just feels too heavy. I try to read all the encouraging texts, emails, messages and Facebook comments on the days it is really hard. Thank you!

52 Fridays- Kitchen Command Center... err... Dining Room Command Center

I have been working on this project for quite a while.. well it has mostly been in the planning stages but it finally came together last night! A few weeks ago, I found the frame I wanted to use and then this past week, I found the fabric!

I first saw the kitchen command center over at seven thirty three: A Creative Blog. That led me to do a Google search of "kitchen command center" and then I found Oh So Chichi!'s post about her awesome command center. (My inspiration came from another blog post but I can't figure out which one :( It was mainly the inspiration for the type of frame.. I hope I find it soon so I give proper credit!)

seven thirty three

Oh So Chichi!

I love how Oh So Chichi!'s is organized. Once we have more in the family or when Auggie gets older, I plan on having specific to-do sections for everyone.

I had been looking for a few specific things for our kitchen command center to include:

• A mail holder was a must. We have mail on just about every shelf in the house and I don't like not knowing where it should go.
• A calendar. We already have a calendar that organizes Auggie's doctor appointments and the many meetings Tim has scheduled for work so I figured I could wait to upgrade it. At least it matches :)
• Key hooks. I want to eventually add key hooks to the bottom of the frame. Right now our keys are near our door and I know Tim doesn't like them there. Plus, the hooks they're on don't really go with much.
• Cork board. The cork board will hold the invitations, upcoming events or little notes we need to see.

And now onto our Kitchen Command Center... okay- it's in the dining room since our kitchen is small and doesn't have much wall space. At least the colors will match- teal, yellow and red.

The frame started our navy blue so I used paint used on our trim around the house. Then I covered the back piece with fabric and then added the ribbon, cork and hand made mail folder.

The top holds soon to be covered clothes pins that will hold different things like pictures or notes or invitations. The middle area has 2 6"x6" pieces of cork covered in fabric. The buttons are actually thumbtacks! And then the bottom part is where our mail will go. I'll eventually add hooks into the frame for our keys but that will be another project.

I am very happy with how it all came together.

$5 frame + $5 fabric + $5 thumbtacks, clothes pins ribbon & buttons = ~ $15 for the whole project!

Do you have a Kitchen Command Center in your house??

Growing a New Layer

I debated all week on whether or not I was going to post a blog about this subject. Then I realized one reason why I wanted to continue the blog after Auggie was born was so people would understand what TCS is.. I know it is going to happen more times than I'll be able to count on my fingers and toes and hairs on my head but part of me thought we'd never have to deal with it....

Name calling.... Teasing.... Misunderstanding.... Non-Acceptance....

While we were in Cameron on Saturday, we originally wanted to eat at Texas Burger/Subway. The place was really slow and we had a lot of family so we decided to go down the street to Dairy Queen. Before we could leave for DQ, though, Tim heard a little boy repeating "monkey ears" and his mom was trying to get him to be quiet. I was in the restroom when Tim heard him so I don't know how the little boy said it. In my mind all I can see is that little boy pointing and saying "monkey ears" loudly so everyone could hear it. But I'm pretty sure that's not how it happened. By the time I left the restroom, the little boy was crying so I'm sure he got in trouble for saying it.

Tim didn't tell me he heard him until we were on our way home. I knew something was wrong but I just thought it was because he was tired. He wasn't going to tell me because he didn't want to ruin my day like it had his. I was upset the whole ride home and it probably would have leeched into the evening but we stopped by Billy & Julie's.

I'm pretty sure the event was compounded by Auggie wearing an outfit with monkeys on it. And I'm pretty sure I will never put Auggie in a monkey outfit again.

On a mom's forum, I asked for advice on how people would respond to a situation like this and I received very different answers... Tell them off rudely; Explain to them what TCS is and how everyone is different but we're all pretty much the same anyway; Yell and holler and walk away; Just walk away. One mom responded and said Tim & I should get together and talk about how we'd deal with situations like this.

And you know, we have. We talked about it a lot especially when we were at the Ronald McDonald House in Austin. I know we talked about it and it varied from beating up the little kid who teases Auggie to crying to talking with the kid's parents. I've even thought about making little flyers with facts about TCS to give to people if I'm too upset to talk about it. Lame, I know.. but it's an option.

When Tim told me about the little boy, all those responses were absent from my mind and all I could do was cry. I keep telling myself we'll get used to having comments about Auggie but I'm pretty sure I'll never get used to it. It won't get old when Auggie comes home from school upset about being different or being made fun of. It just won't.

I do know what will get old, though- me crying every time it happens. It's already old how much I cry and get upset now so I can't imagine being okay with it when Auggie's older. I want to know how to grow a new layer of skin so I can hide all these emotions I wear on my shoulders.

I want to be quick witted and smart and not give a damn what people say. I don't want to hesitate when TCS is brought up... I want to be able to clearly explain what it is and not let my emotions shoot to the surface. I want to be able to give that to Auggie when he's older so he won't care either.

How do you become like that? How can I grow that second layer? So that's what I'll be working on among tons of other things.. growing that second layer...

I'll leave you with some more pictures of Auggie....

Watching all the kids play at Mainly Music
April 13

Swinging while Daddy plays rugby
April 13

Big Ol' Belly
April 14

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