Playing catch up

Sorry so long since the last post – so many things to update you about. I will start most recent events and go back. Click any of the pictures to see more.


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Shane had her long awaited ballet recital. She did great, no stage fright - which I was afraid of. True to Sparkman form we lost her new ballet shoes 2 weeks before the big event and no one in town was restocking. Luckily she has a school friend in another class (Carson – the little girl in blue in many of the backstage pictures) who loaned us some for that night.


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All the girls were hysterical and I had a cry a little to see our girl up on stage, doin’ her thing. She is so great and has such a sweet disposition. She decided to “take the summer off” from ballet, so we will see if her interest returns in the fall.

Mother’s Day weekend was very nice. We went to Hot Springs with Grandma and just relaxed. Mainly we tried to find things to keep the kids entertained with but they had a great time. I got a wonderful gift from Worth, a pair of diamond earrings. They are the first nice jewelry (besides my wedding ring) I have ever had. Shane brought me the present and I said “Wow, a little box, I never get little boxes” - now she likes to tell everyone that “Mommy got a little box with diamonds, she never gets little boxes.”

The Friday before Mother’s Day we returned to Arkansas Children’s Hospital with Gray for his MRI. We got there at 7 am and had him sedated by 8 and back awake by 9:30. As any parent knows, it is terrible to let your baby be sedated. I would like the think I am fairly level headed and don’t over react too often but watching Gray’s scared little eyes while they are giving him gas made me uneasy and weepy. Coming out of anesthesia was WAY worse. He was inconsolable for about an hour. He was insistent that they take the IV out of his arm before he would stop screaming or drink anything. When the nurse finally caved he got better quickly. We then went to meet with Dr. Bower – he said Gray didn’t have what he was looking for but they did see a very small “black spot” at the base of the brain. They don’t think it is any big deal but now we have to go have a neurologist to check it out. We are hoping to get that appointment in the next month or so. As for the swallowing issues, we just continue thickening his liquids and go back for another study in 9 months and hope he will be retraining himself to swallow properly.

Other smaller things...


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Last weekend we went on a nice nature mini-hike at a great trail in Bella Vista. We got to hear birds, bugs and frogs and the whole time our city girl kept asking when we were going home. Actually, she did have fun but I think a couple of hours was plenty on the trail. We packed a picnic lunch and fun was had by all.

Gray now knows how to escape from his bed. Very scary, not from the stand point of him falling because he is very good at being a dare devil but – HE IS FREE! Wow, that came fast. Worth put a chain lock on our back door last weekend – enough said.