We are gladly saying goodbye to a difficult week, and it ended better than perfect. It's not often that Brenden and I have time, just the two of us. Sometimes I think I forget that he needs that. Since he's in school, Madelynn has plenty of alone time with me, and I realized tonight that I need to start making it a priority with Brenden. Madelynn is having her first sleep over with her cousin, Oliviah, who is my cousin Sara's little girl. Oliviah and Madelynn are only 3 months apart and LOVE playing together. (Even though they don't always like to share :) Sara and I had tons of sleep overs growing up and I can only hope that Madelynn and Oliviah are as close as we were.

Anyways, back to Brenden....he craves attention. All.The.Time. And it's difficult to give two kids equal time, especially when I already feel like Brenden gets more to begin with, simply because he needs more help with things. As I was trying to get some things done around the house this evening, he kept asking if he could lay with me on the couch. So finally, I stopped what I was doing, and we hung out on the couch, talking about the thousand and one things that Brenden wanted to talk about. Several times he stopped talking and said, "Mommy, I love you so much." It's not often I get time like this with him, and I enjoyed it. I needed it. And so did he. And it will become more of a priority to spend time alone with him.

Life seems to be moving so fast lately....I feel like my kids are growing up way too fast. Brenden is almost 4 which seems next to impossible. He truly is a comedian and has the ability to make anyone laugh. He talks to strangers, everywhere we go and always seems to get a smile out of people. So often he says something that makes me and Jonathan look at each other and just laugh. Seriously, where does he come up with stuff?!?! Knock on wood, but I think we are almost at the end of his night time sleeping issues.....it's involved Jonathan and I staying strong and not going in his room after we put him to bed....and many nights of him falling asleep on his floor, by the door, with his hand slid under the door.....but I think there's light at the end of this tunnel....

Madelynn is becoming very independant, and remains very strong willed. She is still sneaky and devious, but does it so gracefully! She still tells me she's a princess, often times if I ask her to do something she doesn't want to do. She's becoming very particular about what clothes and shoes she wears, many mornings start with me bargaining with her to get her to wear something that matches. She's doing pretty well with potty training (most of the time) and I'm hopeful that by Summer we'll be there. She has a crazy dance/jump/clapping thing she does every time she uses the potty so we make a big deal of it every time. So we're hopeful that in no time we'll be a diaper free house!

Next week Brenden and I make our first trip to UVA for the year....I anticipate it will be nothing more than routine tests, but SB can throw us for a loop at any given time, so we're always prepared. But I'm fairly confident it will be a boring appointment (boring is good in our world!). We have a few more appointments over the next 6 weeks, one being an MRI and follow up with neurosurgery to check on the dreaded cyst on his spine. I can honestly say I'm not worried. We saw a miracle in September when the instability in his neck was corrected (unexplainably), so our trust is that God has continued healing Brenden's body.