A Whole Lotta!

We have had quite the amazing summer that seems to have flown by.

Vinnie turned three June 29th and has started preschool. At the three year mark his weekly therapy sessions discontinued and we enrolled him in special needs preschool. This allows him to have 16 hours of learning and therapy with specialists a week rather than just 3 hours a week. The goal is to catch him up verbally and socially to his age. Therefore he would be able to begin kindergarten with children his age. If he doesn't make it by then that is a ok. Thankfully now days there are plenty of options to assist him through school!

His teachers are amazing and he loves it so much. On the weekends he will even bring his backpack to us because he wants to go. For the first school year he will go Monday through Thursday in the mornings. The preschool follows the same schedule as the K-6 classes so it is a good adjustment for Joe and I to prep for the long haul. When Vinnie first started school in August I was not your typical mom saddened that my baby was going off to school, but was mostly concerned about the bus ride he would be taking from school to daycare! Needless to say adventurous Vinnie loves the bus ride and his bus driver is really great.

Vinnie is still not talking yet, but has started learning sign language. So far he has please down the best, but we are also working on eat and more. We'll continue down the path of learning sign for now to better communicate with him, but will continue to work on verbal skills also.

Health wise he is doing very good! We were somewhat apprehensive of putting a permanent shunt in, but are so happy that we did. He has really advanced since having the surgery a year and a half ago. He will likely need several revisions in his lifetime, but after he is fully grown he will probably only need revisions once a decade.

Also, in new news we were happy to announce in July that we are expecting Karnes baby #2! My due date is March 18th, but I will actually deliver in the end of February (between 36-37 weeks). I will spare you the minor details, but basically since Vinnie was so early I had to have a classic C section during the emergency delivery. With subsequent pregnancies I will have to always deliver between 36-37 weeks to avoid potential health risks to the baby or me.

This weekend marks 20 weeks along with baby Karnes the second. My water broke at 19 weeks with Vinnie so I am very happy to report we are past that point and all is going very well. The only intervention I am having is weekly progesterone shots and I will likely have one extra ultrasound than a woman would typically have. So I don't have to go back to the doctor every week for the shots Joe went through training with nurse practitioner on how to administer the shots. Thankfully he is pretty good at it!

We feel very blessed with how this pregnancy has gone so far and are thankful we were given the chance to expand our family more.

It's been a while!

Vinnie's don't drink and drive campaign.


Ok ok ok. So I'm a slacker. Maybe it would help if I told you the reason I have not posted in so long is because we've been having just too much fun with Vinnie Joe.

A lot has changed with Vinnie in the past few months. He has walking down to a T and has mastered running now. To be honest it scares the heck out of us. His favorite way to run is as fast as he can full speed ahead while looking sideways. His other favorite thing to do is to spin in circles as fast as he can. Our next major investment may be a line of helmets for him.

Last May Vinnie had his permanent VP shunt placed to reduce his hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain). So far we have only had one scare where I thought it was malfunctioning.

This past winter he went through a phase where he was really tired for a days. He was sleeping more than normal. His daycare called me during that time and said he could not seem to keep anything down one day. (Both were signs of a shunt malfunction) I think I was out the door and driving by the time they said "Ms. Karnes? This is ......." On the way to get him I called his neurologist who told us to immediately go to the emergency room. If you know me then you know I am typically a calm easy going person, but when it comes to Vinnie in the danger zone I turn into the hulk. If you have a vivid imagination then you can picture me pulling up to the LeBohner emergency room and not being able to find a parking spot. Then you can also picture me doing the only logical thing which was parking right out front in the tow away zone and rushing inside like my pants were on fire, but that's another story. Let's get back on track here.





We ended up staying the night at LeBohner to complete a full shunt survey (where they check the function of the shunt through cat scans, x rays, etc) Turns out the shunt was 100% perfect and Vincent's parents ah not so much :) Final diagnosis: stomach bug/cold. Good dry run people!

The day after Vinnie was released from the hospital was Halloween. There was no major trick or treating in store for us, but I could not let his super awesome lion outfit go to waste. I pondered on what Vinnie was going to be for halloween over the course of a few months. I looked for his costume at the store for about an hour. He was the cutest lion for 2 minutes and 42 seconds. Just enough time for a few pictures to capture this treasured, joyous moment forever:


Even the costume looks sad. The mane on the lion is supposed to be standing up.

So we are up to Halloween 2010. The next blog addition will cover our trip to New Mexico, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years! You don't want to miss it! Never a dull moment :)

Help me reach my goal!Sponsor Me at March for Babies!