Rattins living Coram Deo

So, my 13 month old apparently has stashed toys in secret hiding places around the church in case of desperate need. Josh caught her opening a kitchen cupboard in the past to retrieve a toy that he didn't see her put there. He thought nothing of it. But yesterday, we stopped by the church briefly, didn't get any toys out while we did a few things and my sister in law noticed Ana going to the photocopier. We watched as she opened the bottom compartment which is for paper storage and chuckled in amazement that she knew how to open the compartment. Before we could take one step to go instruct her not to play with the copier, she quickly and purposefully pulled something out and confidently reclosed the compartment. She emerged, matter of factly and oblivious to adult supervision... with a toy in each hand, stashed for safe keeping in the copier lest mama and daddy not provide toys on one of our many hours at the church!

(Look at me sitting up at Christmas time with NO braces on!) Gracie has had 12+ seizures in 2 months, but for the first time ever, she has not required the rescue medicine (diastat) each time - in fact, she's only used it 3-4 times. BUT she's been sleepy, cranky, insomniac, floppy... in other words, on the 3 meds (lamictal, keppra, and depakote) her quality of life has not been good. So I was looking forward to her neurologist appointment: Gracie's neurologist appointment went well on Thursday - we are stopping lamictal, keeping her on keppra and depakote (at higher dose), potentially starting a brand new medicine that is coming out at the end of January. We also have appointments to learn more about the ketogenic diet and vagal nerve stimulator. I was pleased that he listened to my concerns about Gracie still having seizures and more importantly not being herself on the three meds. His eyes bugged out when I told him that we plan on moving to rural Honduras... haha!

I haven't written in a while... December is such a fun month, but crazy! The transition from resident to attending was challenging as well... you would think that changing our lives from working 60-80 hours a week to now working 20 hours a week would be such an easy transition, but it was a challenge. My mentor wisely warned me that ANY transition causes the family to be in upheaval while we adjust... We had a wonderful Christmas Eve Service at church, drove down to Josh's parents Christmas Eve to find out that Josh's brother Isaac had proposed to his lovely (now fiancee) Alicia! We are so thrilled! What a wonderful Christmas present! We enjoyed the first Christmas in my in-laws new house and the kids met all expectations of being thrilled and cute with their (many) presents. I squeezed two more full days of work in and we headed to PA to see my family. They hadn't seen the kids since the summer! There was MUCH chaos in the McMillan house with nearly all of us kids the

Hi, friends - if anyone is interested, I know of some special needs children in Liberia who need families. - a 18mo little girl with cp- mild to moderate - a baby boy 6 mos who has the same condition - a 1yr old boy with downs syndrome If you are interested at all, let me know and I will get you in touch with the director for more information!