Well, it is the new year. I may be a bit late - only a month or so. My bad. And my "new" goal is actually close to the original one for this post. I'm going to try to post more pictures and blog more often than every 6 months. I know I say that pretty much every post, but I really mean it. I'm working hard to get our house and my life in order. I want to get the house totally organized and get myself on a schedule (and skinny! But those will be covered in another blog I'm starting...).
Ok. To the update!
Let's see...my last post was...um...August 24. Sheesh. Well, at that time, we had found out that the infection around David's heart was MRSA. Scary stuff. They gave him some heavy-duty meds and started to knock it out.
It had been such a rough road that when he laughed for the first time in a month, we couldn't help but cry. The stress just kind of melted away.
By the end of August, David had his chest tubes out, was doing physical therapy to get his muscles working again, and was sitting up on his own. They wanted to keep us until he was up and walking. The issue was that he didn't want to get up and walk.
September 1st, he stood up. Apparently he was ready to go home.
So, on Sept 3, we were outta there!
We left Kosair but stayed in Louisville for the rest of the week since we had to meet with Dr Austin (the surgeon) and get his stitches out. We finally got home on Sept 7th - over a month after we left the house before surgery. We were expecting to only be in the hospital 7-10 days. I guess that's what we get for assuming David would follow the rules. :-)
Before we left, David showed us he was feeling better and getting back into his sneakiness. When Drew looked away, David went for the laptop!
A few days later, he was back to his normal self. He sure does love those shades (he even wears them during church!)!
September was full of recuperating and getting back into our routine. We had our 6-week checkup with Dr. Austin. He said "Well, everything looks great - send me pictures". Meaning we won't be going back to see him. It was weirdly sad and exciting at the same time. Exciting that we were at a place where the surgeon felt comfortable enough to let us go. But sad at the close of that chapter. He also gave us the all-clear to stop the antibiotics that were fighting the MRSA. There was no sign of anything left! WOOHOO!
October was pretty calm and relaxing. For our Halloween trunk-or-treat at church, Peanut was a monkey. The cutest dang monkey I've ever seen - if I do say so myself. :-)
After that we went to the Zoo Boo @ the Louisville Zoo with Drew's family. Thanks to Jamie, he was a "Doctor In Training". With a stethoscope and everything!
Let's see...November...Not a lot of crazy things happened. Well, maybe one. Anyone who knows David or has been reading this blog knows that after David's 2nd surgery (June 2011), he wouldn't eat. No baby food, no table food, nothing. He existed on PediaSure alone. So we've been a bit worried about his development on the feeding side. He's been growing pretty well, so we just wanted to be sure he wasn't missing nutrition he needed. We started meeting with TEIS - Tennessee Early Intervention Service. It's an early development program that helps kids who may be behind in their development for whatever reason get caught back up to the "norm". We have a speech/feeding therapist and a developmental therapist that come to the house every week. Cassie (speech and feeding) tried and tried to get him to eat. We tried to let him play with his food hoping he would want to test it out by eating it. Yeah. Not so much. However, one Friday at the end of November we were waiting for Cassie to come for our therapy. I decided to try again to get him to eat something. He ate a jar of baby food (4 oz) and then 2 of the little food pouches (4 oz each)! Then, he voluntarily ate cheerios! Who the heck was this kid? He's kept to that path - we now eat a 6 oz jar of food with oatmeal in the morning, and another jar at night. We've also substituted some whole milk for one of the PediaSures. And he likes LOVES dip! Especially cheese. So much so that when we drive by a Taco Bell - not go in, mind you, just drive by - David yells "CHEEEEESE"! Does he like cheese that much, or do we go to Taco Bell too often?
December brought his 2nd birthday and Sesame Street party. It was so much fun! And we are so blessed to have wonderful people in our lives who love David. He had such a great time and continues to play with all of his toys.
My mom found a little suit on clearance and had to get it for David. I'm glad she did. Check out this cutie!
Who needs to go out to a drive-in when you've got a car and Sesame Street at home?
So, that brings us to January. Since January 1, David has been paci-free! We took it away from naps in December, but January brought the end of nights with paci. He did amazingly well. He asked for it the first night, but we just said "No more paci - you're a big boy now". He shrugged and said "ok" - which is my new favorite thing he does. David also grew enough that we felt comfortable and turned his car seat around! He loves to be able to see where we're going. And he points out all the cars we pass on the road. My least favorite phrase has become his favorite in the car: "What's That?" When I start to get frustrated with it, he melts my heart and says "hi momma!" and gives me this grin:
I think he's gonna be a musician. Keyboard? Guitar? He doesn't care one bit.
Here's to a year of moving forward, good doctor reports, and big growth in our sweet little Peanut.
