We can't resort to violence like spanking with Gavin (even though he has it coming at times) for a few reasons. We don't believe in spanking because there is no progression from there. Gavin will associate violence as a way of dealing with anger. The biggest reason is because Gavin witnessed his biological father beat Lizze for the first year of his life. So we have come up with something even better and more satisfying. When Gavin makes a lot of bad choices and needs to be kinda put in his place we substitute his next meal with oatmeal. He isn't real fond of oatmeal when it plain. It's effective most of the time. He never learns from it which really makes it a pointless consequence but we have to…

Today has come and gone and where are we? Eliott Richards party was moved home from grandma and grandpa's house. Lizze and Emmett John were both sick today so we needed to change the venue. I think it went over quite well actually. Elliott Richard was very happy and is currently exhausted. Gavin is a different story all together. While we haven't seen any fits today we were constantly repeating ourselves. He was on the verge of being out of control all day long. Dr. R has increased the Zyprexa to 15mg in the am. He is still on 10mg at night. This is being done to hopefully silence the voices in his head. As with any med change we will have to watch him for a few days to…

We are celebrating Elliott Richards birthday today. We were also supposed to have Gavin's blood work done this morning. As every single day before this plans change. Gavin is having a rough morning so there is no way we would be able to get him to and from the lab without MAJOR drama. So it will have to wait because Elliott Richard deserves his special day without Gavin raining on his parade. Lizze is out of her meds so she is in extreme amounts of pain. We are waiting for the refill to be called in from pain management. Today is going to be very hard on her so adding to the chaos is not an option. Over the past few years we have had to shift from what's best…

With all the joy that goes along with Elliott Richards birthday something slips through the cracks. I want to take a few minutes and thank my wife for everything she sacrificed to bring Elliott Richard in to this world in the first place. You may not know that her pregnancy was VERY complicated. She was on complete bed rest for most of the EIGHT months she FOUGHT to carry Elliott Richard. She was hospitalized quite a few times for major complications like DVT's (deep vein thrombosis) or blood clots in her leg. These were very serious because any movement on her part could have caused her to throw the clot and that could have been fatal. She endured 1550+ injections and 2000+ pills over the course of the pregnancy. She…

I couldn't sleep last night. I was trying to recover pictures off a bad hard drive for a customer. Then I was thinking about what I was doing at that time 4 years ago. I was in the delivery room waiting along with my wife for Elliott Richard's arrival. We had no idea the what we were in for. When it finally happened I was beside myself. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. I lost complete control over my emotions and sobbed like a baby. Words can't do the experience justice. In that moment my entire life was forever changed. I have made several movies to document our experience in the nicu and I watched them all last night while everyone was sleeping. Seeing him in…

Lizze and I had a conversation today about Emmett John that we both have been putting off. Over the past few months we have been very focused on his hearing and speech issues. We realized we have overlooked some things. Emmett John smells everything, he has started with a few repetitive motions, he doesn't talk (probably hearing related) and throws himself on the floor. He is also hitting himself in the head. Now these could mean nothing but this is how Gavin started. These are some of the things we missed early on with Gavin. Emmett John is still very engaging and actively seeks out attention which is good. We have been pretty tunnel visioned lately and missed some of these things. His doctor had already requested that he be…

So we have been trying to plan Elliott Richards birthday party. We gave up on trying to get everyone there cause it will never happen. So we picked a date and time that worked best for us and decided on this Friday at noon. Gavin is off school Friday. Originally we were going to try to have it while he was at school because he doesn't do well with parties but we will just make do. We are going to try to have something else later for those that couldn't make it. But most likely people could just come over and wish him a happy birthday when their schedules allow. I feel bad cause not many people were able to make it friday but Elliott will have a good time…

It appears that Gavin may be getting more manic if that makes sense. This morning it appears as though the voices may be coming back. It's little things right now like "I thought you told me to do....." When we haven't even said a word or weren't even in the same room. This is how it usually begins. Eventually it will get to the point of full blown psychosis. He will play cards with people that aren't there while having full fledged conversations back and forth with them also. When he was younger we would find him standing in our room at night "watching us sleep". It gets really creepy and honestly dangerous because we don't always know what the voices tell him to do. We installed an alarm on…