Still Doing Great

Sam and Max are now ten months old (the latest monkey picture is on the Family Photos page).  It’s hard to believe there are only two more months until they are a year old!  In some respects, time has flown by.  In others, like waiting for Sam’s surgery, time has dragged.  But now that that’s behind us, we’re just looking forward to new adventures.

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Speaking of surgery, Sam continues to do great.  It’s been almost five weeks since the operation, and you’d never know he underwent a major procedure.  He’s almost back to rolling over, he’s jumping in his jumpy like a champ, and his feedings are going as well or better than pre-surgery.  He’s had appointments with his surgeon, cardiologist, GI doctor, feeding therapist, and his pediatrician, and they are all thrilled with how well he’s doing.  We’re hoping to get pretty aggressive with his feeding therapy so we can lose his nose noodle.  That is our next big goal.

Max continues to roll as soon as we put him down, and he’s starting to do a modified army crawl.  He’s also sitting up without support.  I started saying “Uh-oh” whenever he dropped something, and now he’s starting to say it on his own whenever something drops.  Also, when we ask him for kisses, he smacks his lips at us.  He’s been eating more “normal” food and has graduated from puffs to Cheerios.  It’s really fun seeing both Sam and Max do new things every day.

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We’re still under lock-down to keep Sam from getting sick; right now that’s our biggest challenge.  But with the weather being so nice the last two weekends, we were able to go out on little adventures.  On one weekend, Laura got to go out for a little shopping and lunch with the boys.  It’s pretty safe as long as we stay clear of people and don’t let anyone touch him.  Last weekend, I got to do something with the boys that I’ve been waiting to do since before they were born.  I had an idea to rig up some kind of hitch on my wheelchair so I can pull them around.  On Laura’s baby shower registry I registered for a Radio Flyer wagon which the boys’ Uncle Angelo and Aunt Nancy got for them and their Uncle Michael helped me assemble while he was visiting.  Then my neighbor and good friend, David Garcia, designed and had the hitch built, which we mounted on the chair on Sunday.  I had Laura put the boys in the wagon and away we went.  It worked great!  We started off by circling around the driveway, but then went out on the road to Aunt Colleen’s house.  I don’t know who had more fun:  me or the boys!  Sam’s not sitting up on his own yet, but we were able to prop him up enough for the ride.  I can’t wait for the next nice day so we can do it again.

Laura and I are now looking forward to the holidays.  We’ve been doing some research on toys for the boys… everything looks so cool.  We’re going to get them a few things each for Christmas and for their birthday.  We’re actually leaning toward some of the more “old school” toys.  We can’t wait to see them open their gifts and watch them play with the boxes!