Finally. . . An Update

It's sad to think it's been over three four months without an update on here. I'd like to say that it's the idea that no news is good news, but it's more that there's been so much going on it's been hard to find the time to even think about this blog, much less time to post on it.
Without being too lengthy  (nevermind, it's really lengthy--just deal with it or ignore it), I'll try to recap the rest of the summer and start of fall, especially since I try to use this as a journal of our lives. Unfortunately, pictures will have to come later since they're on my computer and I'm not currently using it. But if you don't like to read the writing, stop now and just stay tuned for a picture update to come shortly, hopefully.

July
We thought our major stress levels were going down a bit, since Declan's latest surgery was behind us and the only current stress was trying to sell the house. Unfortunately things changed very much very quickly in the month. My aunt Mel (aka Auntie M, babysitter/daycare extraordinaire) had a heart attack, and due to the location of the blockage causing the attack, required open heart surgery. Following surgery, we learned she had a major stroke and has been facing a long recovery from that. She is now home and doing well physically, but she lost all communication skills and is currently working on relearning how to speak and write. Because of this, I had to frantically search for a new daycare for the kiddos, which with Declan's high maintenace requirements was much more stressful than a normal daycare search, which I imagine is difficult enough. We did manage to eventually find someone who was willing to give Declan a try, and although there have been a few bumps in the process, overall it has gone okay, and the socialization has been great for Callum, even though we all miss Auntie M.'s skills.

August
School started August 1, and it was also supposed to be the beginning of a new start after the difficult end of the summer. Unfortunately that wasn't to be the case. Lola suddenly became ill the night before school started, and Scott planned on taking her to the vet after work the next day since they didn't think it was anything major and seemed like some sort of flu type bug. Instead, after work she was essentially unresponsive, and while they could not make a definite diagnosis, none of the options were good, and so we had to put her to sleep.
On the positive side, towards the end of the month, we finally got an offer on our house, and after a counter, we accepted. It was actually a pretty easy offer, and we were able to get what we hoped out of the house. So the rest of August was spent working on packing and starting to get things nailed down for the new house.
We did take time out to enjoy Declan's first birthday, which I hope to devote more time to in a separate post.

September
The craziness just kept on going. September 6 we closed on the sale of our house--yay! Having the house on the market for just over three months is really good for this market, and the closing was nice and easy (we didn't have to do a single thing to the house following the inspection). The next day we headed down to Louisville for Scott's sister's wedding, and were gone all weekend for that. It was a good time, but exhausting because Declan wasn't feeling his greatest. We made it through, though, and had a good time celebrating, even if we had to focus more on Declan than the reception and were concerned about getting home after being gone all weekend to pack.
Moving week, everything kind of fell apart, and looking back, I'm just amazed we even survived. We had to be out of the house by Thursday, so Scott was going to take Monday off to pack and take Declan to his cardiology appointment. Instead, Scott ended up with a fever, and Declan started getting worse, so I took care of Declan while Scott alternated packing and resting. Somehow through the help of amazing friends and family we were able to move our stuff, all while Scott still didn't feel the greatest and Declan was recovering also.
We thought we were finally in the clear  and could spend the weekend unpacking at my parents' house when I received a phone call from Scott at school on Friday of that week letting me know Declan was being taken by ambulance to the hospital because Sally, our daycare provider, thought he was having febrile seizures. The long and the short, after a weekend in the hospital and a 24-hour EEG (at least I think that's what it's called), not to mention my first ambulance ride, we think it was a combination of being sick and extreme reflux that caused a seizure-like response in him due to pain. He did test positive for a flu bug. So far we haven't had any more problems, so we're crossing our fingers that it wasn't seizures and they won't happen again. Oh, and he also had four teeth pop through within a week of each other, so this could have contributed to the issues, too.
Somehow after that, we managed to make it through the rest of the month and they started work on our house!

October
This month went much more smoothly overall (either that, or I've learned to tune out all of the bad things.) The house building has gone well, and they have worked really hard on it. I had two weeks off for the new balanced calendar, which was nice. Declan had hand surgery the first week of break, which amazingly only took about an hour and we were only at the hospital a total of four hours, start to finish (hopefully I'll post pictures soon updating this, too). Then he had a GI scope the next week to check his reflux and potential other isssues (which turned out pretty well overall) so it was a busy break. At the end of the month, we celebrated Callum's third birthday!

November
Nothing major has happened so far this month, which for us is quite exciting.We've been plugging away at picking out things for the house and checking on it. My goal is to update this at least more often than once every four months so I don't have to do such lenghty posts just to catch up.