Lately

Life has been so busy lately...

Maida went ice skating with her friend, Edra.

Brian and Sarahjane from Chicago stopped by to visit!  Brian and Sarahjane are cloth diaper experts and showed me how to fold our cloth diapers a couple different ways so that they would fit Torsten a little better.

We had a few more warm days where the kids could get outside and play.

We had to pick the pumpkins out of the garden early because our puppy got to them and ripped several of them off the vines.

Torsten started smiling!

 Torsten went to church for the first time!

We had Hailey and her family over a few times.  Maida and Hailey love to entertain us!

Erik and Torsten watching football with Chris and Nolan

We started cloth diapers with Torsten - love our new system!

Maida had Ladybug Girl Day at school.  The students dressed in ladybug colors and the whole school read, Ladybug Girl.  Maida's Aunt Lola gave her Ladybug Girl, so she brought her to school that day, too!

We bundled everyone up and headed to the pumpkin patch!

 It was so cold that it snowed!  And our camera died, so I only got one picture.

I survived a week alone with the four kids while Erik thoroughly enjoyed a conference in Denver with some of his colleagues.  This picture is of the sushi they ate one night.

Torsten has been working on giving us some more big big smiles and has found some new places to hang out and sleep.  :)

My Side by Side group has been bringing us meals every other night for the past two weeks.  One night I not only came home to a warm dinner, but some flowers, too!  I thought they looked good by our scarecrow.

Both of the boys fell on the edge of the same table on the same day and busted their top lips.  Skogen also pushed one of his top baby teeth back, too.  :(

We decorated for Halloween!  The kids thought the skeleton was so cool because it is probably the same size as Skogen's real skeleton!

 We made a spider web out of glue and silver paint and some spiders out of the kids' hands!

Torsten has been spending more and more time awake and with his playmates!

I have been spending most of my free time indulging in these precious moments.  I can't get enough.

Torsten has had a couple playdates with his friend Nolan.  We are still waiting for them to acknowledge each other!  Most of the time they are totally oblivious that there is another baby beside them.  Ha, so funny!

We dressed the kids in warm fleece sweatshirts and ventured up to the Minnesota Zoo with some friends!

 We rode the zoo's tram for the first time.  The kids loved the ride and seeing all the big outdoor animals from the sky.  My favorite part of the tram ride was seeing the big grizzly bears playing!

Skogen had Grandparents Day at school. None of his grandparents live close enough to make it, so he brought pictures of them.  He said he had to stand on a tall stool in front of the class and introduce his grandparents!  Luckily he didn't seem too sad that he was one of the only ones without grandparents there.

Maida had "Dress like your favorite story book character" day.  Maida dressed like Ladybug Girl since she already had a ladybug costume.

We went to Chuck E Cheese with some friends (thanks to Nana for sending us the money to do something fun for Halloween!).

My baby started busting out of his swaddle at night!  Ah!  He's getting so big!

Life with four is more busy that I ever imagined, but not nearly as hard as I ever imagined.  I feel so blessed and am having the time of my life with these four kiddos!

 A friend of ours snapped some pictures of the kids the other day...

Daddy and Me Sports Night

The week after Erik's surgery, Erik was up and going enough to take Skogen to "Daddy and Me Sports Night" at preschool!

 Not only did Erik take Skogen, but he also took Skogen's classmate and good friend, Grant. Grant's Daddy is a resident, too, and was working the overnight shift, so couldn't take him. (I regretfully didn't get any pictures of Grant and Skogen together.)

 Skogen was so excited to have a special night with Daddy and it was all he could talk about all day.

 Maida was very excited about it, too, and I think she was secretly hoping that she would be able to go since she went the year before.

 She was very disappointed when Daddy and Skogen left without her.

I was told that Skogen and Daddy had a great time, but we have no pictures to prove it because Daddy forgot his phone at home.

Here are some pictures from last year's Daddy and Me Sports Night when both Skogen and Maida were in the same preschool and were able to go. As I was looking at these pictures from a year ago, I couldn't believe how much has happened and how much life has changed in just a year!

Does Staples really sell an EASY button?

Parenting.
It is so hard - in more ways than I ever dreamed it'd be.

From learning how to keep a newborn alive, to sorting through all kinds of advice on how to handle the "terrible two's," to deciding what type of school to send your kindergartner to.  These are the things I never thought about when I dreamed of having our babies.

Maida attended two Christian private preschools before starting kindergarten this year.  Preschool is where she not only developed her social skills and learned to read and write, but she also started developing a relationship with God.  Erik and I both witnessed her prayer life grow and her faith skyrocket through the roof last year as she matured from a toddler, into a school-age little girl. I took for granted the daily Bible readings they did in preschool and the special times her teacher prayed with her and for her.  It wasn't until we entered into the third week of public kindergarten this year, that I have started to wonder if we've made a big huge mistake.

Deciding on public school for Maida wasn't a hard decision for Erik and I, initially.  For one, private school costs money and public school is free.  And for another, Erik and I both grew up in small towns where there was only one public school and everyone attended (and we both turned out alright :)).  It wasn't until the other day when I overheard Maida pretending to be Mrs. Brown (her kindergarten teacher) reading a Bible story and praying with her class, that I started questioning our decision.  She even said, "Mom, I am Mrs. Brown, and I am telling my class just how great God is!"  It was at that point that I realized that Maida has no idea they aren't going to pray at school.  They aren't going to learn about God's goodness or ask Him for His guidance and protection.  It was at this moment that my heart broke.  Am I ready to let Maida in on the secret that not everyone believes in God?  Is it okay for her to know that not everyone prays and not all of her friends even go to church?  There is something to be said about a Christian foundation to learning that most private schools lay down for their students.

What do we do now?  Do we pull her out of a school she seems to love and a teacher and children that she's grown to know?  Do we then suddenly plop her into a private Christian kindergarten, just to preserve her innocence a little bit longer?  How do we keep her in public school and eloquently explain to her the realities of the world?  How will we find the answers for her questioning heart and gently lead her young soul toward Christ, even when she doubts?

I'm not ready for this.  I'm not ready for my baby, my little believing, faithful baby, to take this next step in her journey.

Erik's Surgery

As Kara noted in her post on Sept. 11th, I finally had surgery.  Because 2 of the 3 damaged nerves were improving, they only operated on the axillary nerve which innervates my deltoid.  In order to fix the axillary nerve, they took the sural nerve from my left leg and essentially transplanted it to my shoulder.

My left leg with a 14 inch incision, now devoid of a sural nerve

Anterior incision

Posterior incision

I must say again that I feel so fortunate to have two of the the world's foremost surgeons performing the operation and they both said afterward that it was worse than they had expected when they were finally able to visualize the nerves.  Despite two MRIs from different institutions, the axillary nerve was actually ruptured (granted, it is very difficult to trace a nerve through an MRI).  The doctors took some pictures, so I will better understand what they saw at my next appointment, especially because I was coming out of anesthesia when they were telling me about it.  :)

The bottom line is that no matter how long we would have waited, it wouldn't have healed without surgery.  On one hand, at least we know we did the right thing by operating, but on the other hand, it sure would have been great to know that sooner.  However, had we known that the axillary nerve needed surgery earlier this summer, I'm sure they would have operated on the other two nerves, which would have been pulling the trigger too early.  It's interesting how all the details come together.

Speaking of details, they took 30 cm (~12 inches) of my sural nerve and used it to bridge 10 cm (~4 inches) of my axillary nerve.  "That doesn't quite match up," you might say.  Well, the sural nerve is smaller in diameter than the axillary, so they divided the 30 cm into 3 pieces and glued those together prior to suturing them end-to-end to the axillary nerve -- true microsurgery!

The hope is that the radial and suprascapular nerves will continue to heal and the goal is that my axillary nerve will allow me to at least lift my left arm, but it will always be weaker and I probably won't be able to lift it all the way over my head.  Unfortunately, it will be a few more months before we see if this is going to work at all, and it will be 2 years to see how much improvement I get.  I guess that's one thing I'm getting good at -- playing the waiting game.

5:45 am report time.  Waiting in the pre-op area with 14-day-old Torsten.

GOOD LUCK!

After surgery, recovering from IV anesthesia (much slower recovery time than inhaling gas).

One-armed man going home.

Fat foot!  It's still swollen, but not that bad and no ace wrap.

Kara thought it was funny that she came out of the dentist to find Torsten and I both asleep in the waiting room.  Pain meds, new baby, busy house must have all caught up to me.

Sausage digits

This list of previous posts is really just for me, so I can keep a record of the story.
1. http://www.scharrerlife.blogspot.com/2012/01/week-one-update.html
2. http://www.scharrerlife.blogspot.com/2012/01/update-on-erik.html
3. http://www.scharrerlife.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-blog-post-ever.html
4. http://www.scharrerlife.blogspot.com/2012/03/update-on-eriks-shoulder-second-blog.html
5. http://www.scharrerlife.blogspot.com/2012/05/job.html
6. http://www.scharrerlife.blogspot.com/2012/07/heres-neat-little-story.html
7. http://www.scharrerlife.blogspot.com/2012/08/more-good-news-for-erik.html
8. http://www.scharrerlife.blogspot.com/2012/09/surgery-day.html