Forgive and forget. That's what they say. It's good advice but it's not very practical. When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back. When someone wrongs us, we want to be right. Without forgiveness old scores never settle. Old wounds never heal, and the most we can hope for is that someday we'll be lucky enough to forget.

Forgiveness is one of the most difficult things to give. A quote often comes into my mind, "Forgive them even if they are not sorry". Really, really hard for me. Can anyone else relate?

Gracie is having another surgery next week. This is suppose to be one of the easiest surgeries she has ever had. I am so thankful we are having Dr. Bloss do the surgery. He is the surgeon that did all three of their heart surgeries their first week of life. I was a little nervous about having this hernia repair surgery but he said, "I've done 25 THOUSAND of these, this is a piece of cake, and the easiest thing she has been through. I'll treat her like she is mine!" LOVE that man because he does treat them like they are his. He said those exact words to me 32 months ago when my little one pound babies were going into the O.R. He said the surgery will take about 30 minutes and she will not have to be intubated which is a HUGE plus.
We are doing this surgery so soon because the hernia can incarcerate at any time and I would rather have a planned surgery than an emergency surgery any day and also we are days away from going out of town and we for sure don't want to be in a foreign to us hospital!
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE keep Gracie in your prayers. It hurts my heart every time we go to the doctor because she gets really nervous and shuts down. She is just terrified at this point and rightfully so. I wish I could trade places with her and it be me going through all of the test, procedures, and surgeries but I know God has an amazing plan for her and there is a reason for every single thing she has been through. I wish yall knew her the way Ricky and I do. She is truly and unbelievably amazing child. I'm not just saying that because she is mine either. She really is. There is something about her- her soul, who she is that is different than anyone I've ever known in my life. And that God given smile....
I'll update soon. We have her big appointment at Shriner's Hospital on Monday. It's going to be a really crazy week.
In other news, our family was blessed in a BIG way. A really BIG, BIG, BIG way. Our wonderful PT and I have been talking for a while now about how speech therapy really wasn't working out for us. The current speech therapist wants to focus only on the kids repeating words and is a little delusional about how "well" they are doing. Anyway, the PT's mom is a retired Oral Motor Speech Therapist. Today's therapist really aren't Oral Motor trained and Brody and Gracie really need that type of therapy to help with feeding issue and drinking. If you don't eat and drink the right way you will have speech problems. They are tied together so for the current therapist to miss this first step doesn't really help the kids. Anyway, her mom has decided to VOLUNTEER her time to all three of the kids once a week. This is a huge blessing. She came out today and was amazing. She did a lot of testing on the kids by doing things I would have never thought  you could measure by. She used these biting sticks to measure not only the strength of their bite but also to see if their face is symmetrical. We have a game plan and I'm so thankful. We will still continue to see the other therapist and we hope to get a new therapist in the summer but will keep out new God send for as long as she will see the kids.
Things just work out and I am so thankful!!

KP