The Swarrell Life

Here is my little pumpkin: The last few days have been mostly uneventful. Trinity received her flu shot finally. I know there are quite a few differing opinions on vaccinations for babies, but with Autumn and me in the healthcare industry, it's the responsible thing to do. By the way, the vaccination you receive from the injected version is dead. You can't get the flu from it. Okay, 'nuff about that. Trinity is doing great! She continues to develop and her eyesight seems to be mostly back. It's hard to tell, since she is a baby and can't tell us what she sees, but it is back enough to see things near and far, and enough to see us from across the room and know it is us. That's pretty good! She is still lagging a little bit in some cognitive areas; she was babbling before but hasn't really started again, and some of the games she used to play haven't returned. Please pray for that, since that is still a concern. We went to Boise yesterday so that Autumn c...

So I thought that I would wrap up the last week or so with a few fun pictures from our latest adventures. As you may or may not know, Autumn and I took a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. Autumn had a work conference there and I worked a little from the hotel. The (dis)advantage of my job is that I can do some of it from almost anywhere. Still, we managed to squeeze in a couple of fun activities here and there. Already I have blogged about hiking and the biosphere , and now we get to wrap it all up. I'll bet you are getting a little bit bored of Autumn and I and wish that I would just go back to blogging about the baby. Well, don't worry too much; it's coming! In the meantime, here are a few pictures of Arizona and my family: So, this picture looks to me like some sort of commercial for a sports drink or something. Autumn was also pleased that her outfit coordinated well with her mountain bike! This is me and the Arizona desert. The singletrack was rocky but fun. I would highly ...

I know that most of you are dying to know about Trinity, but this update is an update from Scottsdale, where Autumn and I have been all this week. Autumn has been conferencing and I have been working from the hotel. We've been able to visit a couple of neat places, including Biosphere 2 . It was an interesting tour of what amounts to a VERY large greenhouse. Back in the early 1990's there was a group of scientists who lived sealed in the Biosphere for 2 years. Now THAT would be an interesting experiment. The University of Arizona manages it now and they are studying the affects of water on climate change and vice versa. Very interesting if you are into that sort of thing. Here are some pics of the Biosphere 2: It looks like something from a science fiction movie The guided tour took us through the environment that was created for maximum oxygenation. There were 5 biomes that were all tropical in nature. There was an ocean, a rainforest, a savannah, a desert and a zone that re...

I am typing this as we drive to Boise to catch a flight to Arizona for the week, so please excuse me if my handwriting is a little messy. It’s hard typing and steering at the same time, but I think I am managing pretty well. That’s what cruise control is for, right? In all seriousness, this ride is the culmination of a lot of things that have been happening in our lives for the last few years. Let me explain. One of the things that Autumn and I have talked about is that when we got around to having children, we would be proactive about taking care of our relationship and not get lost in our role as parents. This trip is a way of doing that. I am very excited to spend almost a week with just Autumn. I’ll miss Trinity this week, but Autumn is the person I chose to marry. She is the woman I love and I am excited to spend time with her like we used to do before Trinity was born. It seems like a different lifetime, even though it was only two months ago Another reason that this drive is si...

It's worth the wait and it's worth staying up this late to blog. Don't ask why I'm up so stinkin' late, it's just how it is. The other day Trinity was over at her grandma's house. Autumn was over and they were all hangin' out, spending some quality time together. Guess who else was spending some time together? Trinity and the sliding glass door. Enjoy the pictures: Now THAT is quality time! ...and more quality time... okay, this is a little ridiculous! This last picture is really weird to me. It doesn't even look like Trinity. It looks like this guy or something. It's just eerie.

Well, once again my blogging has started to lag a bit and once again I have no excuse. There has been so much going on that it seems like the days just fly by. There's always lots to share, but I get a little unmotivated sometimes and I hope you can live with that once in a while. Autumn and I seem to have jumped back into life with a vigor that leaves us as ships passing in the morning and evening. I miss her sometimes. We went on a date Saturday night. I think it was the first time we had dinner and a movie together in a long time. I don't think we'd done it even before our little bundle of joy arrived. So that was SOOO nice. It is nice to do things that remind you of how much you like someone. A good friend of ours who just adores Trinity watched her for us. We came home to find her AND two of her three daughters watching Trinity. She's a VERY lucky baby. We've been blessed by our community so much over the last couple of months. As for Trinity's recovery, sh...

Here's the problem. Now that Trinity is starting to gain her vision back, we are running into some etiquette issues around the house. This whole vision thing is forcing us to abandon long-held practices that have been in our family for years! What practices? I'll give you an example: we can't chew with our mouths open anymore. It's an OUTRAGE! We can't make faces at Trinity without her, get this, SMILING at us. It's just a little unnerving. I walked by her in my underwear the other day, when suddenly I remembered that she could, gulp, SEE me. Yikes! No one should have to see me run in my underwear, but Trinity did. Here was her first reaction: This was her next reaction: Then she decided that she'd had enough: She's getting out of here! In all seriousness, she is really doing great. I can't tell you how incredible it has been to watch her recovery. Thank you so much for all your support! She went to a therapist today who works with brain injuries. ...

And as you can very well see, the flying baby banner has won the day. If you are a numbers person, there were 21 total votes, with 11 votes for the flying baby banner (52.4%) and 10 votes for the new banner (47.6%). It was close, but as you can plainly see, we have gone back to the old banner. Thanks for taking part in my experiment!

Coming Soon. Voting closes Tuesday at 5:00pm Pacific standard time. Still haven't voted? Click Here to take survey

I seem to have a mild case of writer's block this evening. I usually have a direction that I want to go, but nothing's really coming to me. I suppose that I should do bit of an update on Trinity and go from there. The pictures will likely inspire more words as I go along. Trinity is doing really well. Her vision seems to be improving, but that's not an official diagnosis or anything. It just seems like she's seeing things more and going for things more. Also, her mood has increased greatly along with the improvement in eye sight. That's a GREAT thing! It's not that she's been in bad moods or anything, but she is closer now to the Trinity that we remember than any time since the incident. We have more appointments on the way; more follow-ups in a couple of weeks, an evaluation for rehab therapy tomorrow and another physical therapy appointment on Thursday. In November we have an appointment at the Kasey Eye Clinic in Portland. Lots of appointments! Now, on to...

Okay, so it's been a few days since I updated this little blog and I am happy to report that all is (mostly) well here at the Swarrell Life. In this update, we'll hit the high points of the last few days and re-visit a little incident here at the house. I don't think anyone was hurt in the process of making this blog. I only wish there was a movie. On with the goods! We traveled to Boise on Wednesday for a couple of follow-up appointments for you-know-who. This time is was the neurologist and the ophthalmologist. It's interesting that the more specialized the physician, the more, uh, unique they become. It sometimes seems like you have to trade social normalcy for brilliance. Let's face it, these folks are genius. But they sometimes appear to have sold their soul (or social skills) to get it. I have mentioned the pediatric infections disease specialist who never made eye contact in the three visits to our room. Don't get me wrong, he was a super nice guy. He eve...