June 20th, 2006

Today has been a little rough due to Silas’ colic, but all in all we are doing well. On Thursday we learned that Silas had gained five ounces in three days. Hooray!!! His pediatrician, Dr. Williams, said she was very pleased and that she was completely comfortable with me transitioning him to breastfeeding. Hooray again!!! Then, later on that day, when we checked his blood pressure, it was so low that Dr. Jenkins in Portland said to stop his blood pressure medication. Hooray again! The day I chose to try taking his bottle away was Saturday since everyone would be out of the house except us two.

Micah and his dad left with the Young Marines for Fallon, Nevada that day. They are staying on the largest Airforce base in the US. They get to examine decommissioned planes, hang out with Top Gun pilots, try out the flight simulator that pilots train in, and so many more exciting guy things. They are both having the time of their lives. What a wonderful opportunity for Albert to have fun and for Micah to be reminded that his dad cares about him very much.

Savannah had a father/daughter hike with her American Heritage Girls (AHG) and my dad, Papa, stood in as a substitute daddy. They hiked to the top of Lower Table Rock where, to everyone’s surprise, a plane landed. It just so happened that the pilot knew my dad, and, lucky for them, all the girls got their pictures taken in front of the plane before it took off again. (The leaders of AHG wondered if Dad had planned for this to take place!?!) Papa took her on his fancy motor bike and they visited Aunties and Uncles on the way home. Savannah came home rosy red from the sun and wind, and all visited out. It was a wonderful adventure.

(This is my sister Shahala holding Luke)

Jerusha attended her first baby shower with Grammy. (My sister, Shahala, is due July 17th. Her broken tailbone seems to be on the mend but I am concerned that it will be a problem during delivery. Please pray that the birth of her little girl would be as smooth and effortless as possible). Jerusha had a wonderful time; the highlight was the cake of course!

I must tell a “Jerusha/Savannah” story. When we had taken Silas to the pediatrician, the girls played with a barn and horses in the examination room. As I talked with Dr. Williams, Savannah was distressed that Jerusha had two of the horses in the loft and informed her that horses didn’t belong up there. Jerusha retorted, “Yes they can be up there. I’m breeding them.” If that wasn’t enough of a conversation stopper, the faux pa was amplified by Savannah’s response, “You can’t be breeding them. You have to have a stud to breed.”

The next few minutes were filled with my hasty explanations to the doctor about my parents’ Fjord stud. I am sure my face was ever so slightly tinged pink as I informed her that, to my knowledge, the girls didn’t really know what breeding was about, but that they had probably heard us speak of when the mare was bred, and such. Anyone who hasn’t had a child that speaks up at the most inopportune moments with the most inappropriate subjects has not had the pleasure of scrambling for an explanation and cannot possibly know the depths of embarrassment that it brings. Oh the advantages that come from living a ranch life.

After the baby shower, Grammy took Jerusha to garage sales and she came home with a huge bag of (you guessed it) plastic horses. When Jerusha inquired as to the gender of the horses, I told her she’d have to decide and pretend they were boys or girls. She then found one with a slight bump on its underside and showed me. She informed me that it was a boy horse because she could see its “peanuts”. I am still giggling over the mispronunciation. Jerusha had her birthday June 14th and is now a whopping five years old.

So, with everyone out of the house, Silas and I went to battle over feedings. He went for about eight hours without eating much. He’d latch on and then let go, arch his back and scream at me. (I can let him get mad now because his blood pressure and heart rate aren’t issues.) He was so mad that it was hard not to chuckle. Nursing is a lot harder work for him than eating from the bottle. Then, just after noon, he had a decent feeding. I was ecstatic. He still threw fits and let go a lot during the feeding, but by the end of the day he was nursing comfortably. Now he is solely nursing and doing fine. Of course the real test will be when he gets weighed on Monday, June 26th.

We are heading to Portland on the 27th, the same day my friend Rachel Southmaide is to deliver her baby, Judah, by C-section at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. Please pray for Judah’s CDH to be less severe than the doctors think, and that his transition to life outside the womb would be as smooth as possible. Pray, too, for a quick healing and speedy recovery for the little guy and for Rachel. God is THE miracle worker, something to which we can attest.

Rachel tells me that Becky and Joshua are still scheduled to go home. The tentative date is around the 21st. We will stop in at her home on our way up (or back down) to see them. Again, God is THE God of miracles. I cry when I think of that little family finally being home where they belong.

I can’t wait to see Amanda and Dustin and their tiny Aunna. I can’t even imagine how much she has grown. I will post pictures of them when I can.

I am also excited to see our dear nurse, Kathy. There are so many people I’m anxious to hear reports on. I feel like we’ve been away from family. I am also a little scared to go back to the NICU. I have an irrational fear that a weird vortex will open up and suck us back in. Will I be able to handle the emotions it will stir up? I still can’t read my first updates. They are just too raw. Some day I know that I will have to go through and process it all, but for now I am just thankful for every breath the Lord ordains for Silas.

Thank you for your continued prayers and concern,
Tanaya


From Jeannie:
Dear Praying Friends,

Thank you so much for keeping thoughts of us close to your hearts and lifting us up to the Father. What wonderful people you all are and how we love you so. I pray blessings for you, and especially those mystery people I haven’t met who read what we write. May God bless you beyond your imaginings.

Silas is doing so much better. He loves to talk and we rarely, if ever, see the frown that never left his face when we first brought him home. It has been replaced with many expressions, the most delightful of which are smiles and grins. He especially loves to have baths and we have all had our turn bathing with him. He’s a delight. We have never detected another seizure and he finally seems to be taking an adequate amount of milk. He could eat a lot more but he isn’t vomiting at all so he is getting all the benefit from what he takes in. Unfortunately he seems to be developing a lot more colic, and he gets especially fussy when he drives, but Tanaya is trying to test foods in her diet to see if there is something she could do to help in that direction. His check up was so good the doctor gave Tanaya ten days before he needs to be seen again. He doesn’t have to go in biweekly for blood pressure checks. What a relief!

Grammy (me) is enjoying life with the Kyne family. I wake up sleepy little people with hugs and rubs, and give them fruit salad with their breakfast. What to wear and how to spend the day are topics of great importance. It is a chore to keep their room clean—three share the same one—but everyone pitches in. Ms Jo-Anne, our wonderful school teacher, is on an extended trip to Canada—where she comes from—so we are having great fun filling up the school-less weeks. We’ve started horsemanship lessons with Auntie Kate and her sweet gentle Arab, Taboo. The kids are learning horse safety and etiquette. Savannah writes in her journal of how much she loves her Boo.

We’ve also started swimming lessons in town. We have a pool in the yard that makes us nervous with the kids living here. Knowing how to swim will be a great advantage and give our fragile nerves a rest. The pool requires high maintenance, so Papa is happy to have young people enjoy all his hard work.



Caleb and Lisa are proudly showing off their new baby boy. After spending a week with him they have decided he looks much more like a Luke than an Isaac, so they changed the paper work, and we now have a Luke Lawrence Bruce in the family.







Joshua is thrilled with a brother and pretty laid back about the whole baby thing (he is six).



Jasmine is starting to adjust, but it has been rough. She is nineteen months and can’t understand why mommy can’t pick her up anymore. (Lisa had a C-section and can’t lift.) We are all grateful Caleb has been able to take this time off work to help Lisa at home. She informed me, “He is doing everything!”




We are finally having those family gatherings I’ve been dreaming of since finding out our new grandchildren were arriving. (Tanaya is exposing Silas to healthy family members for the time being. He still has a ways to go before he can meet the general public because of the trauma his lungs have been through.) Father’s day found the crew out here for a steak barbeque and a rousing game of Stock Ticker. I believe when playing games and telling stories we are the noisiest family bar none.

Our latest stories are all about the Raccoon family that raided my pond for gold fish and have been wreaking havoc around the yard. Finnegan, German Shorthair Pointer and head of ranch security, has bagged five of them in the past three weeks. Of course he needs a little help from the Boss to finish them off. Chuck runs out in his bathrobe in the wee hours to try to get a shot at the snarling, hissing beasts, all the while missing Finny who is screaming like he’s being eaten alive. Especially humorous was the latest episode where Chuck, with flashlight battery dying and a gun in his other hand, scrambled around the deck looking through the slats, which have a space just big enough for a 22 shell to fit through, to pinpoint the coon for a shot. He finally wounded it while stretched on his belly staining to see under the deck. (It is almost more than I can handle when I think that Chuck might miss the coon and hit my dog in the dark, but he never has.) The wounded coon ran away through the horse pasture and into the canal where Chuck was positive Finny was being drowned. (Finny really has a sense for the dramatic and the pitches he can reach with his desperate barks are pretty impressive, especially when he throws in the, “I’m being killed!” pitch.) You must picture the dignified manager of Cascade Ranch in his bath robe at 3:00 am, in a tearing rush, trying to cross a barbwire fence with a gun and a flashlight in his hands, to save my dog from the murderous coon.

To change the subject I want to offer my services to any of you distraught people who think you need to see a doctor to remove a tick. I have become an expert at dealing with the little beggars. Jerusha has supplied me with several more opportunities to test my skills. Tanaya also argued with the clinic that performed the services for us the first two times, and we received much of our money back. I’m thinking that our ticks must be exceptionally abundant and aggressive this year. I pulled one off of my own scalp and partially removed a mole because of the remote likelihood it might be a tick as well. (I can get carried away at times. :D)

Please pray for continued patience for Chuck and me with the grandchildren and with the Kyne family living here. It is a blessing to be able to help and so much fun getting to know the grandchildren intimately, but we are getting along in years—it was Chuck’s fifty-ninth today—and our patience wears thin.

Pray for Tanaya to have wisdom in discovering what Silas needs to make his tummy more comfortable. She needs more sleep.

Pray for the Kynes’ Adult Foster Care Home to be licensed and up and running quickly to generate some income.

Pray for little Joshua in Portland to be able to take in enough food through his digestive system so that the doctors can discontinue the nourishment that is destroying his kidneys and liver.

Pray for Rachel and Matt’s baby, Judah,—due with a C-section on June 27—to have strong vitals and to not need the ECMO machine. Pray his surgery is successful with no complications afterwards.

So much to pray about! Thank you for praying.
Love, Jeannie