Tribute to Ben

Our nephew Benjamin Gregory lost his battle with hypoplastic left heart syndrome at just 5 weeks old and passed away on May 30, 2009. We traveled back to St. Louis to be with our family and attend the services. Both the visitation and mass were beautiful but it was obviously a very sad event. The priest’s homily was touching, and he explained that Benjamin is Hebrew for “Son of the right hand” – unbeknownst to Karen and Greg when they chose his name. Who knows why God needed him so soon, but he is not in pain.

I never imagined that Collin’s first funeral would be that of a newborn or cousin, but he handled himself pretty well and seemed to understand enough to know what happened and ask questions. I can’t imagine going through everything Karen & Greg have endured these past months – but I am so impressed at how well strong they are. I know that Ben has touched their lives in ways we can never comprehend.

Memorial Day Weekend Beach Trip

May was somewhat a crazy month – Mike traveled 75% of it between two trips to St. Louis, the ICSC convention in Las Vegas and being a vendor at a conference at Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia. We had originally planned to make a vacation out of it for Memorial Day weekend, but then the boys and I almost didn’t partly due to a poor weather prediction. Mike and his partner Bill left on Saturday and I had a great day with the boys – running on the off-road trails, going to the pool for the first time of the season (in the rain) and Chuck E. Cheese.

Mike called and asked if the boys and I would dive down to join him on Sunday, and Bill’s wife Phoung drove with us. Jekyll isn’t a very developed island – no chain or fast food restaurants, which is GREAT except when you’re looking for an affordable place to eat with two little ones. The good news is we saw some deer and other wildlife while looking for a restaurant, a raccoon at the restaurant (we were sitting outside) and Mike saw an alligator while golfing.

This weekend was the boys first time in the water and they LOVED it. It was so fun to see the excitement for both Collin and Carson being in the pool (and ocean) and Carson even surprisingly liked the sand. I truly enjoyed my time with them and it was a great surprise mini-vacation!

End of Preschool

I can’t believe it but this is Collin’s last week of preschool – where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday that I took him to Johnson Ferry for our “Meet and Greet” before he turned two and that was three years ago! Now Carson is almost that age and Collin will be starting Kindergarten in the fall. The decision on whether or not to start Kindergarten has been a very difficult one – since the school cutoff is Sept 1st, Collin meets the deadline by ONE DAY! Nearly everyone you talk to will provide their strong opinions and advice such as “you won’t regret holding him back but you may regret pushing him ahead”. Others say “each child is individual, and you know your child better than anyone”. His teachers say he’s more than ready, he gets along well with older kids, is tall, sociable, and talkative. He doesn’t show a lot of interest in reading with us at home, but his writing has improved greatly and I don’t want him to be bored in a program that doesn’t stretch him. I think he could have used more stimulation that he received this year, but I didn’t put him in the 5 day/week Pre-K program because I wanted to reserve that as an option for this year should we decide not to send him to Kindergarten and I figured it was my last year to have him home a day during the week.

The Wee School at Johnson Ferry Baptist has been a great experience for us, and he’s loved nearly every minute of it, especially playing with his friends. This year they had 9 boys and only three girls in the class, so I’m sure Ms. April & Ms. Beverly had quite a time corralling them. His friends Jacob Jones & Bobby Riordan have been in his class for all three years. Would you believe they had a preschool graduation where they walked across stage and received a “diploma”? It was actually kind of cute, but rather emotional for me as I reflected on all the changes and unknowns in our lives and pondered my little four-year old riding off on a school bus being the youngest one on the bus. Check out this video for a song they sang.

Rainy Spring Soccer

Collin played soccer this spring out of Mt. Bethel church, which was a great experience except we didn’t have the best of luck with the schedule of games between rain and our travels (Lake Tahoe & St. Louis visits). The season was supposed to be 6 Saturdays but it rained almost every Saturday that we were in town this spring, so many of the games were rescheduled or cancelled. Collin was so excited to have two of his best friends (Cameron Slavin and Riley Parsons) on the team - I hope we are not setting an expectation for future disappointment. Mike was an assistant coach to Rustin and I think Collin really enjoyed having his dad involved . It was nice for me to be able to visit with friends Stephanie & Paige while watching the games, but Carson REALLY wanted to be on the field. He recently started being a daddy’s boy some of the time and watching daddy have fun far away was quite disturbing for Carson so he was a bit noisy at times. Here's a video from the last game that they went ahead and played in the rain on Sunday...this pretty much sums up the season.

Lots of Baseball

Never before have I been lucky enough to attend 4 major league baseball games in the first month of the season – wow! We’ve seen the Cards play three times, twice at Busch Stadium two different weekends and once at Turner Field. The first and perhaps best game we saw was Easter weekend in St. Louis when the Cards beat the Astros. We were sitting in the outfield in “Big Mac Zone”, where Pujos (Collin’s favorite player) hit 2 home runs, including one grand slam, tying his record for RBIs in a game. The boys BOTH did great that game, and Carson enjoyed clapping and all the excitement. It helped that it was a day game and Laura & I came a little late with Audrey & Carson to accommodate naps. We also saw the Cards as a family back in Atlanta in the nosebleeds - see this video of Collin running bases.

We also took our friends Andy & Stephanie (fellow Texans) to an adults-only Astros game where we sat in the awesome Beck seats, just a few rows up from home plate on the first base side. Finally, one of Tim & Laura’s season ticket games occurred when we were visiting baby Ben so Collin Mike & I got to go with Tim & Audrey. Doris offered to watch Carson we had a baby-free evening that made watching the game much more relaxing. You can see a picture we took at the game for Laura upload to Ben's gallery of pictures.

Collin is starting to understand the game pretty well and playing baseball in our driveway at home is one of our favorite things to do together. He’s been properly indoctrinated into the one team everyone on both sides of the family can agree on - We love our Cardinals!

Trip to St. Louis to visit Baby Ben

We went to St. Louis to visit Baby Ben in the hospital the first weekend in May and got to see him when he was 5 days old. Ben is Mike’s sister Karen’s baby who was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome in utero. We had been “on call” for the trip and thought it would be after his first surgery; however, after Ben was born they determined he wasn’t a candidate for the planned surgeries and was placed on the heart transplant list. While we were there Ben was pretty stable, recovering from a bowel condition.

I had never been to a Cardiac ICU at a Children’s hospital before, but it’s a pretty scary place. Only two people are allowed in the room at a time with Ben and no children are allowed, except siblings. There are many families camped out in the waiting room, with blankets and pillows for sleeping. Children’s is a very nice hospital and Karen and Greg are lucky to live so close since I’m sure some families travel quite far. We check into the front desk and get picture ID stickers in order to go up the elevator. They have wagons for the kids which Colin, Carson & his cousins loved, and a very nice roof garden.

While we were there, Ben had his eyes open quite a bit so we took lot of pictures. I got a chance to hold him, but while I was holding him his O2 levels dropped which happens sometimes and is quite scary. He has a PICC line in through his nose down his throat and another in his head where he can receive his medication and IV nutrition. He’s hooked up to lots of machines and monitors but otherwise lying fairly peacefully and sleeps most of the time as most newborns do.

Carson is 14 months and has 2 new cousins – all on the same day!

What a day! Carson and Collin have two new cousins born on the same day – Carson's 14 month birthday...how exciting! Kristen was scheduled for a C-section today anyway so we knew this would be the day unless she went into labor sooner.

Abigail Jaelyn Gehbauer was born Monday, April 27, 2008, at 8:08am via a scheduled c-section. She weighed 9lbs 5.4oz and measures 20in. Mom and baby are doing great and my parents were present for the birth – dad will be in California for a week and mom will stay two weeks to help. To see more pictures of Abby, visit the Gehbauer online album.

Mike’s parents called us Sunday night to inform us that Karen was in labor and going to the hospital. Benjamin Gregory Ward was born on April 27, 2009 at 12:50 a.m. weighing 7 lbs. As many of you may know, baby Benjamin was diagnosed in utero with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, a very serious condition where the left side of the heart is underdeveloped. We anticipated that baby Ben would have surgery within the first few days of life on his heart. Unfortunately, the Echo performed after birth revealed that his right side of the heart isn’t functioning well enough to do the Norwood surgery, so he was placed on the list for a heart transplant. The average wait time for a heart is about six weeks, but it could be shorter or longer. Fortunately, the doctors are fairly confident that they can keep him stable for months if necessary.For more technical details, please visit the Wards' blog and for more pictures visit Laura’s blog. We ask that you pray that Ben will get a new heart quickly and for a successful surgery!

Carson is definitely on the move – it’s amazing that he’s only been walking for a little over a month since he’s so good at it! He still loves his push toys – the tractor, Corn Popper and other ride toy but he’s gotten so much better and navigating, steering, and getting on and off of them. He loves to play golf – hitting any balls with the golf clubs and throwing balls.

He and Mike have a much stronger bond now…I’m afraid he may be turning towards a daddy’s boy – a MAJOR change! He gets so excited when Mike comes home from work, wants Mike to hold him now and enjoys the “I’m going to gettcha” game. He has also gotten a lot more independent and can even keep himself occupied playing by himself with toys or balls, sweeping or digging in the dirt. He does want to do everything that we’re doing. This can be a problem if we’re trying to play a game with small pieces or build a tower. Collin continues to be a GREAT big brother and takes it all in stride, being fairly entertained most of the time by his little bro. Luckily he still loves his mommy the most :)

One of the funniest things he does is shake his head “no” to many questions we ask him. such as “Carson – are you ready to go night night?” or “Do you want more peas?”. It’s really entertaining. He’s such an awesome baby with a great temperament. We are SOOO blessed!

We're so happy to welcome our new baby cousins and pray for Ben every day!