One Year Down

I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last update, but, as usual, it’s been pretty crazy around here.  The good news is that there’s lots of good stuff to share.

[singlepic id=89 w=320 h=240 float=right] Christmas was tons of fun.  Sam and Max, along with their cousins (four boys ranging from two to seven), had a blast opening their gifts.  There was lots of toy noise, screaming, and assorted other craziness to keep everything exciting.  New Years was quiet this year, as Laura and I opted to forego any parties we had been invited to in order to have a quite night of movie watching at home.  Then came the boys’ first birthday!  It’s so hard to believe that it has been a year since we’ve had them.  With the exception of a few weeks around Sam’s surgery, it really flew by.  We celebrated their big day with a small party of mostly family.  We had a cake, and the boys each had their own cupcake.  It was certainly fun watching the boys jump in and destroy their cakes.  Because of Sam’s tube, he just had fun decimating his, while Max was happy eating the frosting off of his.  After cake they opened a few gifts they got.  Actually, Sam ripped into the wrapping while Max was happy watching.  It was really a fun day.

[singlepic id=92 w=320 h=240 float=left] Well, both boys are growing so much.  Max is still ahead of Sam, but Sam is quickly catching up.  Max is crawling everywhere now.  Often, when I’m working in the office, I’ll hear him coming down the hall, and it won’t be long before he pokes his head in the door.  He’ll crawl in and up to my chair to see what I’m doing and just hang out until Laura comes to get him.  In fact, he’s crawled in here twice while I’ve been writing this.  Every time I hear him coming, I can’t help but hear the theme to “Jaws” in my head… Da-dump…  da-dump…  da-dump, da-dump, da-dump!  Sam is on the move too.  He’s not as fast as Max yet, but he’s doing his own army crawl and can generally get anywhere he wants to go.  Max is now able to go from a crawl to a sitting position without any problem, and he can pull himself up to a kneeling and standing position.  Sam can sit on his own without any problem and is starting to pull himself up.  I love sitting in the family room and watching them play with all their toys.  I especially love it when they crawl up to my chair and just start to explore.  I’m sure this will come back to bite me, but for now, there’s not much damage they can do.

[singlepic id=91 w=320 h=240 float=right] Now for the really exciting news (drum roll)… Sam has been tubeless for nine days!  We’re so happy at how well he’s doing.  He started feeding therapy on January 6^th, and quite frankly, it wasn’t what we hoped it would be.  The therapist is really nice, and I’m sure she knows her stuff, but she just doesn’t seem to be getting that Sam doesn’t have all the issues that her other patients often have.  We’re talking about kids that have complete food aversion to the point where they won’t even touch food.  Laura explained that Sam has already been trying tiny spoonfuls of food when Max would eat, and that he seemed to enjoy food very much.  Regardless, the therapist still gave Laura exercises to do with Sam so that he would get used to the feel and texture of food.  Okay… we’ll play along because we want what’s best for Sam.  So, Laura did what she was told to do (mostly).  But one of the great things I love about Laura is her ability to think outside the box… way outside the box.  We’re talking miles.  So in addition to the therapy exercises, she would do her own little exercises with Sam.  Nothing drastic, just little things to get Sam eating.  Well, before you knew it, Sam was eating nearly as much as Max in addition to what he got through his tube.  At the next therapy session, the therapist announced that Sam didn’t have a food aversion.  Okay, told ya that, but whatever.  More exercises were assigned to get Sam to eat.  But wait, Sam’s already eating; we need to work on drinking.  Do you see where this is going?  Long story short, after consulting with Sam’s pediatrician and GI doctor, Laura and I made the decision to remove his tube to see how Sam would do.  Believe me, we put a lot of thought into this, and knowing that Laura could put his tube back in at any time if we needed to, we went for it.  We monitored his weight and looked for the slightest sign of dehydration or aspiration, but Sam did great.  We took him to the pediatrician and Sam checked out just fine.  At his first therapy session the therapist was very happy to see him without a tube and praised Laura for following her directions so well… Yeah; I won’t get into Laura’s rant about that, as this is a family blog.  Anyway, he’s now eating everything Max eats and is quickly learning to drink from a sippy cup.  We (and I think Sam) couldn’t be happier.

That’s it for now.  Oh, one more very important thing; tomorrow (January 31^st) is my beautiful wife’s birthday.  Happy Birthday, Babe!  Until next time (hopefully sooner)!