Posts filed under 'Family'
We joined about 300 other folks this morning at the Marc Apodaca Jr. Children’s Glioma Cancer Foundation‘s first annual MJ Children’s Glioma Cancer Walk/Run.
Despite some chilly fall weather to start the morning, we had a fun time and got plenty of excercise. It was really great to get out and support an important cause (my cousin Dean and his family are involved with this charity, and helped organize the event). Anna, in particular, enjoyed walking with her cousin Madie and seeing her Denver relatives.
(Oh, and thanks, Shan, for the silliness that made this cute picture possible!)
September 14th, 2008
Anna’s jumping!
It ain’t no long jump, and it ain’t no high jump, but both feet leave the ground simultaneously. We’re extremely excited. Jumping has been a major goal for all of us for at least the past six months, and it’s great to see her doing so well in the gross motor realm.
Heck, the girl’s doing great generally. The twos are terrible and wonderful all at the same time. Sure, lots of boundary-testing, plenty of wailing and whining when she doesn’t think she’s getting her way, but most of the time she’s a total charmer. Talking up a storm, with an ever-increasing vocabulary, longer and longer sentences, and she’s discovered the power of “why?”. She’s as social as ever, except when she announces she “wants to be shy”, which I never complain too much about because it usually means she “hides”, snuggly-fashion, in Daddy’s arms for the first 10 minutes until she warms up to a new social situation.
The next big deal is trying to get her to actually run, but I’d be willing to bet there’s some correlation between developing enough confidence to let both feet leave the ground in a jump and moving faster than just a quick walk.
Meanwhile: We’re both doing well, just trying to keep up with it all.
September 12th, 2008
Yes, we’re pregnant! Sorry if this is the first you’re hearing about it, but it’s been a crazy summer, okay? We know it’s a boy, due sometime in late January. It’s not surprising, but this pregnancy has been flying by. (Easy for me to say, no? But Tara’s fortunately over the worst of the nausea by this point). The panel’s green, all signs are good, and we’re starting to try and come up with names. For his part, the little guy is apparently pretty busy and moves around in the hottub a lot more than Ms. Anna did. People tell us that’s a boy thing?
Anna’s starting to get a little excited about being a big sister. She’s very excited to meet her new baby sister — er, brother (she alternates between the two…), but also clearly a little confused by the whole affair. Here’s to hoping she’ll treat her little brother better than she’s been treating poor Max of late (“No Max!” is a common refrain).
September 12th, 2008
Rowan Michael Benjamin Steadman was born very late last night, weighing in at 7 lbs. 13 oz. Mom and baby are doing well.
Congratulations and much love to Melinda, Dean, Madie, Lily, and all the rest of the Steadman clan!
We can’t wait to meet the little man!
July 19th, 2008
I just uploaded about 3 months worth of photos. I don’t really have much of an excuse for not posting them sooner. Time just got away from me, I guess. I have lots more to write about, and now that the pictures are out of the way, hopefully I’ll find the time to share. I’m also working on some video clips.
Updated 7/4/2008, by Neal: Now with even more photos! I just uploaded a bunch from last night. My brother Colin and his wife are in town, and I was a little crazy with my new camera. There’s a great series of Anna portraits there though!
Updated 7/5/2008, by Neal: Now with video! Turns out Flickr (the folks who host our photos) have started a new video service. I uploaded a movie of Anna dancing to “Happy Feet” there. Let us know how this works for you?
July 2nd, 2008
This weekend we took it easy. Anna’s managed to catch “hand, foot, and mouth disease” from some kid at daycare which means she’s running a fever and has a sore in her mouth that makes her not want to eat much (besides ice cream…). Surprisingly, though, she’s been in good spirits and sleeping pretty well despite it all. I’ve got a minor bug of some sort after running on almost no sleep for more than a week due to craziness at work, and Tara’s been running hard and feeling tired too. So we just basically hung out together and tried to relax.
Which makes Anna’s new favorite game all the more fun. It’s called “nap time”. Basically, she puts a pillow or two on the floor, asks Mommy and Daddy to lay down on the pillow, and insists that we close our eyes while she puts a blanket on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off…
It’s the best game ever.
Updated: Here’s a photo of Colin and Roby playing “the best game ever” with Ms. Anna.
June 23rd, 2008
Dear Mama,
I love you so much!
Thank you for your smile and for all the hugs and especially the snuggles. Thank you for reading me books and playing games, for taking me on adventures, and even for the tickles. Thank you for letting me eat yogurt and cookies and beets and green beans. Thank you for helping me wake up when I’ve had a bad dream, and for coming and sleeping in my room when I’m not feeling well.
Thank you for spending so much time with me. I love being around you so much! Thank you for teaching me to do things with my left — I know that’s important even if it makes me frustrated sometimes. Thank you for your confidence in me, and for teaching me how to be big and good.
I hope someday I can be as big and good as you.
I love you Mama.
Anna Rose
May 11th, 2008
We just learned that Tara’s grandmother passed away earlier today. Anna Winifred Hess (our daughter Anna Rose was named after this great lady) would have been 92 in June. She passed very quickly and without any pain.
We were looking forward to a planned trip out to Kansas at the end of May to help her celebrate her birthday with her family — including her four grandchildren and five great-grandkids. I’m sure she would have loved to watch all the grand- and great-grandkids play together.
It’s too early for plans for a memorial service, but there’s a strong likelihood we’ll be heading home to Kansas at some point in the next week or so.
We love you and miss you terribly, grandma.
May 7th, 2008
There’s been a lot going on since we last posted, and I’m happy to report most all of it’s good news!
March opened with a change in the lineup here on Team Anna. Tara’s mom flew out from Kansas on Saturday (3/2) so that she could pinch hit for me while I flew back to Colorado for a week of face time at work. Poor Debbie was sick as a dog when she arrived, but fortunately it turned out it wasn’t anything a whole bunch of medication (procured from a local urgent care) couldn’t fix in a couple of days.
Tara and her mom had a pretty good time of things during the week I was away. Anna made good progress in her therapy and in other ways as well. She’s suddenly able to count to 5 most of the time (sometimes higher?), and has a pretty decent grasp on her ABCs for somebody who’s not even two yet! She’s talking up a storm — still mostly two word sentences, but wow, the vocabulary is impressive. Meanwhile: Her therapists were very happy with her progress, and she’s now used to the (crazy busy) routine, which means she’s sleeping and eating well. She’s mostly healthy, too, which is new and different for everyone.
Lots of work and a bit of the stomach flu kept me pretty busy for the week I was away. It was good to see my folks and Max on Thursday evening, and I managed to make a bit of money at the poker game on Friday. But I felt anxious the whole week and wanted to get back “home” to Birmingham. (It’s very hard to be away from Anna and Tara for that long — I have no idea how parents who travel regularly do it).
Granny Debbie made a fantastic Dora the Explorer cake for Anna’s early birthday (pictures to follow?), which we all enjoyed on the evening I returned. Then Sunday morning (3/9) it was back to the airport to drop off Debbie, who’s apparently deep in the throes of Anna withdrawl as I write this. (Thanks so much for visiting and for all your help!)
So that brings us to this week, our last week of therapy. Anna got her cast off yesterday, which was pretty mind-blowing for everyone involved. Anna was frankly a little bit confused, and kept acting like she was expecting us to put the cast back on. It made us both happy to let her know that the cast is gone (at least for a while). And it was great to finally give the girl a real bath with plenty of bubbles, no rush, and no smelly cast to put back on afterwards!
We were thinking of taking her out to someplace fun like Chuck E. Cheese’s or McDonald’s to celebrate. But the combination of three weeks of not being able to use her right hand plus a bunch of new books and toys from her early birthday celebration this past weekend meant that Anna was really much more in favor of sitting at home and playing in relative peace and quiet. And who could blame her?
Everyone was expecting today to be a really tough therapy day. Anna’s historically really bad about using her left hand after she gets her cast taken off, and the therapists were ready for a major battle. But the girl continues to surprise, and she’s been unbelievably good about using both her hands or even just her left hand when we ask her to. (That’s the new therapy focus: bi-manual exercises). There’ve even been a couple of moments when she’ll use her left hand for a task without even thinking about it! In general, though, today was a great therapy day, and the therapists are really happy with what they’re seeing.
Friday’s our last day of therapy. We’ll have a few solid hours of therapy in the morning, and then we’ll relocate to the clinic at UAB for Anna’s “exit interview”. Saturday we’ll try to pack, clean up, and hopefully get outside to do something fun since the Ides of March is Anna’s official birthday. Sunday we’ll need to be out of our apartment by noon, and grab lunch somewhere on the way to the airport. Tara and Anna fly back to Denver in the afternoon, and after getting them on the plane I’ll start the long drive back home (ETA: Tuesday).
It’s hard to believe we’ve made it this far, and that we were able to survive three full weeks of 24/7 casting and intensive therapy. But we’d do it all again in a heartbeat. The gains have been impressive, and on the whole the last three weeks have been enormously positive for Anna on many different levels. She’s able to turn her hand over much further than she was able to before (even with Botox), she’s able to isolate her pointer and thumb, use a fork independently to stab food, and sit cross-legged. Her core strength and strength in her left hand and arm have improved dramatically. And almost as importantly, she’s really done a truly fantastic job listening and learning to follow directions — a very large challenge for someone so little — and with tolerating all the long hours of therapy.
We’re so very proud of our girl!
March 12th, 2008
Cut to the chase: The tornadoes that threatened Birmingham missed us this morning. We’re all okay.
But we did spend some time hiding out in the bathtub very early this morning. I was very soundly asleep, oblivious to any danger when Kansas girl Tara woke me up at about 3:30AM, having somehow heard the sound of distant tornado sirens. We turned on the TV in time to see a major front bearing down on our location, with the backup weather folks from the local news stations in a panic about the whole affair.
So we quickly pulled on some clothes and decided that the bathroom off our bedroom was probably the safest location. I threw all the pillows in the house in the bathtub while Tara went and grabbed a very groggy and confused Ms. Anna. The two of them huddled in the tub for about 20 minutes (with me standing by ready to jump in if necessary) until about 4:10AM, at which point the front had passed over us with lots of wind and rain and thunder, but without manifesting any actual tornadoes.
We brought Anna into bed with us and I think she and Tara managed to get another couple hours of sleep before the therapists showed up at 6:45AM. (I can’t sleep if I’m up around that time, but it was nice to lay in bed and snuggle with the little girl).
I guess I didn’t think of Birmingham being prime tornado country, but this is the second scare now in as many weeks!
February 26th, 2008
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