News News News

There has been a lot going on since I last posted. Grayson has been talking a little at daycare and at home. He doesn't use a lot of nouns, though. He's opted for the command words. When more formula was offered him at daycare he pushed the bottle away with an, "All done!" When the friend that he was playing with was picked up he cried, "Stop!" The best that I have heard was on Thursday. He was walking along behind his push car chanting, "I go". He will also say "Daddy" (this sounds like da-DEEE) and Tony has heard him say "Ducky" as well. He may have said "kiss" on Thursday, too. He's just learning about kissing and his kisses tend to be mostly licks, but I'm not worried that he's trying to bite my cheek or nose anymore.

Squeaker's doing great. We've got 2 and 1/2 weeks to go and she's starting to get into the head down position. She's not nearly as kicky as Grayson was, but she likes to stretch. Every once in a while I'll feel a punch in the left side of my pelvis followed by a kick under my right cage, then the left side of my rib cage and finally another punch in the right side of my pelvis. Just not a lot of space left, I guess.

I traded in Clover the Beetle for a 2007 Camry yesterday. I'm still getting adjusted. It was so nice not to have to crawl across the back seat to get Grayson into his car seat, though. It won't be too much longer and we can even consider turning the car seat to forward facing - he was 19 pounds and 7 ounces this Wednesday! I'm sure that he'll reach 20 by the time Squeaker gets here.

Therapy Fun

Before Grayson started his occupational therapy in November, I wondered what exactly a baby does at therapy. The answer: play, play, play! He loves both occupational and physical therapy and his face lights up when his therapists and nutritionist come to the house. While we hope that little sister won't need the extra help it's definitely a joy to see Grayson have so much fun!

Of Dark Knights and Due Dates

We went to see The Dark Knight yesterday as part of Tony's birthday weekend. There's a lot that I could say, but I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just give my overall impression. It was a good movie, a very very good movie, but not a fun movie. None of the small children there had to be taken out screaming, but I bet that there were nightmares in the under ten crowd. Go see it, it's well worth the money but I think that the kids are better off playing with their fast food marketing toys and watching DVDs of the animated series.

On a lighter note, we had a follow-up ultrasound for our Squeaker-girl on Wednesday. Sure enough she's big just like her brother. As of Wednesday her weight was estimated at 3 pounds (weight-wise where she would be predicted to be about a week to 2 weeks from now) and with 10 weeks until my due date and the predicted growth of 1/2 to 1 pound per week she's probably going to be bigger than Grayson was. So, I've got a c-section scheduled for September 17 in hopes of minimizing complications by avoiding labor.

More from Grayson

,mn , , aaa ccccccccccccccccccccccccce 00 m bv bn b c cnv vg v yhyh vb 7hkbbbbb b b v d

vszz.

I believe that the above roughly translates to:
"I'm all worn out. The past 2 weeks I've gotten to eat dairy and I've done well. I like yogurt. Today I discovered that ice cream is also pretty good. Most of my day was spent creeping around the house, standing up and cruising around the furniture. If I could just reach the doorknob, I could spend all day on the porch watching traffic, but I'm not tall enough yet."

We had a birthday party!

Grayson's first birthday was on the 17th of June. We jumped the gun a bit and had the party on the 14th. He had a great time and the volume of his toy collection doubled! We are so exicted about year 2 for him!

Last few months in pictures

Lots of Stuff!

It's been way too long and lots of blogworthy events have transpired whihe we've been incommunicado. First of all, Grayson is awesome! He had surgery on February 27 to put some bits in their proper place and repair the associated hernias. We expected to see some improvement in his mobility after the surgery, but what happened blew my mind. The Monday before surgery Gray could sit unassisted for all of 8 seconds. The Monday after his OT timed him at 10 minutes and now he'll sit and play on the floor for 15 to 20 minutes. He's been doing a lot of bouncing and rocking for the past few weeks as well. When he sits on Tony's or my lap he's fearless about flinging himself after whatever object strikes his fancy (usually the remote or the phone). I can't say that we have a new kid, because he's still just as sweet and happy as ever, but he's really making headway and we hope for crawling really soon.

Our life is also being shaken up by the presence of a (developing) second child. Yes, we were trying to prevent such an occurrance. Some time over the holidays this little one squeaked by our precautions and so in September Grayson will be a big brother. This means that we'll be losing the guest room and rearranging Tony's work space. It also means that Clover the VW Beetle will have to be traded in for something with 4 doors. I'm begging your indulgence in advance because life will pretty much be a mess for the next 2 or 3 years. A happy mess, I think, but a mess nevertheless. Tony and are are accepting, but still working on excitement at this point. Fortunately we have the Grandmas to bring their complete enthusiasm to bear on the entire situation. Thank the Powers that Be for Grandmas!

My parents celebrated their 40th anniversary on Sunday. We visited and got family portraits with everyone but the dogs.

My brother, Dan, defended his PhD and should be graduating in May. If anyone is looking for a cultural anthropologist who is fluent in Spanish and has established relationships and research in Ecuador, let me know.

I think that's all and with a bit more time I'll even get some pictures up!

What Grayson has to say

lkmscj;g c ki mxxxxxx/ l ,,,,,,DC GGGGGGB .... N BJ KM M H
th

Creepin' Crud creeps on

In a surprise upset, Tony is still on the edge of health, but Grayson has become the silver medal finisher in the race ftowards brochitis. This means that Amy and Grayson have medicine and will be feeling better soon. And Tony has no medicine. And will probably slide slowly into illness, never noticing how bad he is getting, and end up far worse for wear.
Some days it just doesn't pay to be Tony.

Creepin' Crud

It's been awhile and I probably should post something about how much fun Grayson's first Christmas was or how happy we are that he got a good bill of health at the gastroenterologist's office a couple of weeks ago, but I'm not going to. Why not? Because right now I'm sick and it's much more fun to whine about being sick. Actually, I'm feeling better today. I did the smart thing and went to see Dr. Galanes on Wednesday (she's so great!). So, instead of being the third person at the office with pneumonia I'm hoping to halt it at a sinus infection and tracheitis. So far Grayson seems to be hanging in there, but Tony might on the edge. I promise, there will be more cute pictures soon!

i can wearz food?

At the top, we have the lovely prune beard and at the bottom banana beard. I have yet to document apple beard, pear beard, oatmeal beard, sweet potato beard and carrot beard.

Currently Grayson would much prefer to eat pork (sausage links and steamed dumplings in particular), but as his tooth still isn't quite in, he will just have to be patient and bearded.

Hello Snow

Introducing Arctic Explorer Grayson! Made in a limited edition of 1, he is ready to brave the coldest temperatures of the far north. Or at least the front yard. For about 10 minutes.

Hello Santa

Goodbye Kitty Colfax

Colfax passed away yesterday morning. This wasn't unexpected, but we will all miss her a lot. I had suspected that she had a brain tumor early in October and she had been blind for about a month. Tony and I were getting used to being seeing eye people for her, but felt bad when a paw would occasionally end up under one of our feet. We were in Indianapolis visiting Grayson's specialists on Thursday and when came home Colfax was repeatedly seeking out corners and then becoming stuck in them. She had the first seizure about 10:00 that night. I took her to work with me yesterday morning and placed a catheter so that I could give diazepam to calm the seizures. She passed away in between seizures without ever regaining normal consciousness. The tumor was underneath the left side of her cerebrum. It's amazing that through the whole process she became more social and more gentle. The house is much quieter without her.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope that your meal is tastier than rice cereal!

Tube is out for good (we hope)

We have been hopping lately and haven't had a ton of time to catch up, but there has been a lot of good, a little bad and some rare but serious ugly the past month or so. We started weaning Grasyon off of his tube after his Halloween visit with Dr. Escobar (what a great treat!). The trick was that as he spent more time off of the pump, the flow rate had to be higher while he was on it and this lead to vomiting whenever his position changed. So, there was spit up or vomit after the first diaper change of the morning, spit up or vomit after swinging or sitting in the high chair for a while and spit up or vomit around bed time. It was very frustrating when Grayson vomited just after a nice bath. However, when the pump wasn't going Grayson discovered hunger and that hunger can be alleviated by eating! So now he really does like to eat!

On the 9th of November, Grayson pulled out his tube again, which created the ugly. The ER staff knows him on sight now and fortunately he pulled it out at daycare about 12:30 so I was able to get him in during the day. Replacing the tube only took 3 hours instead of the usual 6. For the first time, Grayson got a bloody nose as the tube was being replaced (this is part of why I don't put it back in myself). It had stopped by the time I traded off with Tony, but when I got home that night the little guy looked like he'd been in a prize fight. Blood under the tegaderm, blood on his eyelids, blood on his jacket, blood on Tony's shirt. Grayson had rubbed his face on Tony's shoulder as he often does when he's sleepy and the nose bleed had started again. He felt fine, but I couldn't stand looking at my baby with blood on his face. Any mother-toughness I had managed to cultivate was gone until we had changed the tape and cleaned his face. So, that's the ugly.

Last Wednesday the tube came out again. Dr. Escobar had given the OK to try 24 hours off of the pump the day before, so we decided to leave the tube out overnight and see what would happen. My part of this decision was largely influenced by the nose-bleed the week before. Grayson chugged! He didn't necessarily take a lot at one time, but he wanted to eat. So far the tube has been out for almost a week. I'm a bit worried that he might be losing weight and I don't know if we'll be able to leave the tube out, but he's been a pretty happy baby this past week. He's been sleeping without snoring, he's still had some vomiting but he eats right after, and he's having a great time practicing standing up so I'm really hoping that the tube can stay out.

Fire in the sky

I just wanted to share last night's sunset. We're not having fires here in Indiana, but you might have thought so.

Friday night excitement

Last night as I was getting ready to leave work I followed my normal routine and called home to let Tony know I was on my way. Grayson had been having a lot of cranky afternoons, so I like to let Tony know that the cavalry's on the way. HIs response,"You might as well meet us at the emergency room, Grayson's pulled his tube out." We've been through the ER tube replacement routine before, so I stopped for Taco Bell and drinks on my way. Grayson was a very happy tubeless boy when I arrived and a very unhappy boy with a brand new nasogastric tube when we all left 5 hours later. However, he has suddenly decided that a bottle may be a worthwhile source of nutrition after all. Maybe it was experiencing a stomach that was truly empty, maybe having the tube end in the stomach rather than passung through to the jejunum is an appetite stimulant, all I know is thst for the first time weeks he's had real interest in getting nourishment from something besides his tube. I'm going to offer another bottle in a bit and see how he does.

Going to Jail

Next Tuesday I'm being Locked Up for Good for our local Muscular Dystrophy Association. Grayson doesn't have muscular dystrophy, but it seemed like a good opportunity to give a little back since we're lucky enough to have him home and doing well - almost up to 12 pounds now! If anyone would like to help me raise bail I'd appreciate it.


No worries if you're not interested, just thought that I'd put it out there.

Bonding with Colfax

A boy and his cat, bonding.