Baby No More..

I haven't posted in so long, my goodness!! There is a little 2 year old in our house that is keeping us very busy.. Our days consist of a walk in the morning while Landon is getting a feed; either therapy (includes Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy or Nutrition), errands or playing outside, nap; more playing outside or errands, Daddy comes home- we eat dinner; either go for a walk or play with the neighborhood kids at the park and then bed.. I love every moment of it!! We have such a little boy now. There is no existence of baby in Landon anymore. It's a teeny bit sad, but so exciting! I love that he is growing and thriving so well!!! He wants to walk and walk and walk and walk and play and play and climb and climb... He keeps me so busy!! I think I have mentioned this before but he is such a copy cat!! He imitates EVERYTHING, particularly Jimmy. His energy level goes from about 8 before Jimmy gets home to a 10+. He hears the garage door open or sees Jimmy coming up the walkway and he yells "Dayyeeeeeeeee!!" He runs to Jimmy and shortly after begins his famous "See, see.." He pulls him by the finger and wants him to "see" something which usually is his train table or race track in the play room. It's the funniest thing! Our newest milestone is that he sits at the table by himself for meals (not at the high chair and not on a booster seat). He absolutely refuses to sit in the booster seat. It's comical because his chin barely reaches the table, but he does a great job of sitting there and has been eating fairly well. His favorites are angel hair noodles with red sauce or italian dressing on it, and almost anything with Ranch dressing. He has taken a liking to Diary Queen soft serve vanilla cones. He and I share a cone at least once a week. =0) He usually eats the scoop of ice cream and leaves me with a soggy cone and the ice cream in the cone. So, I am doing something that is a pretty big deal this weekend. I am going away, by myself, to Atlanta GA for the weekend. I leave tomorrow (Friday morning) and will be home Sunday evening. I will share more about what I am going for after I return. Nothing secretive, I just don't know much about what we will be doing quite yet. I am excited, but understandably a bit anxious to leave my little man for the weekend. Jimmy knows exactly what to do and is well prepared to handle any situation that arises, but I have never been away from him overnight. My anxiety is purely because I will miss him. But it sounds like there is a fun guy weekend planned for my two loves. They are planning to make Landon's first visit to the Children's Museum which I know will be a ton of fun. And, the two of them just have a blast together whether it be a planned activity or running through the house, each with a hockey stick in hand, yelling and making a ton of noise. Well, I will certainly have some updates next week and promise to try to do a better job of keeping up with this blog!!

Blessings and Prayers

All is well in the Hartz household... We have been busy planning our summer and we're definitely going to make up for last summer! We will be off to Cedar Point in June, Ocean City in July and Hershey to attend a Wiggles concert with some of my great friends. Landon is a huge Wiggles fan and Jimmy and I are fans because our little guy loves them. We've had plenty of laughs as we watch him dance to the songs. On another note, less than one month ago the Cystinosis Research Foundation (CRF) hosted a conference in California. We did not attend although we were pretty bummed not to go. We had so much going on in April and I had a bit of anxiety about getting on a plane and traveling across the country with Landon. He's so well behaved but he's 2 and I'm not sure how he would handle such a big change in his routine. I should give him more credit than I do, but we decided that this year was not going to be the best year for us to go. There was lots of chatter amongst those in the Cystinosis FB Group about what was discussed and presented. I was so jealous! The rumors I heard are that there is some promising research coming out one of which is to offer better treatment for the eyes so hopefully people with Cystinosis will not have to put eye drops in their eyes every waking hour, or as often as possible. To think that Landon may go to school and we won't have to worry about putting eyes drops in his eyes as often as possible is mind blowing! I also heard a rumor that a study would begin recruiting that would look for a cure. A cure! Yes, a cure! I spoke with Nancy Stack (founder of the CRF) yesterday and she confirmed it and told me that information would be available later that evening about recruiting and who they are looking for. Now, this is not a study that Landon is eligible for and actually there is a very specific population that they are looking for.. But, oh my goodness, there is actually a study that is looking for a cure and human subjects are being recruited. Nancy assured me that there are wonderful studies to come. It's all just such a blessing. Landon is part of a very small, special population and to know that there are researchers committed to making the lives of Landon and all those with Cystinosis better, is amazing and such a blessing. This leads me to our upcoming fundraisers... There will be a golf event on July 6th. We are in search of golfers, donations for our Chinese Auction and business to sponsor holes. E-mail me for more information LaurenLHartz@gmail.com. We also plan to have our 2nd annual Lots of Love for Landon Halloween Fundraiser in October. We had a blast last year. I will provide additional information as it becomes available.