Sunday, March 28, 2010

10 weeks


Andrew's sleep is getting more and more consistent at night and he is sleeping anywhere from 7-9 hours, which is very nice now that I am back to work. He is growing out of his newborn clothes too, which is exciting to see. To me, he is still a little peanut, but people that haven't seen him in a while notice that he is growing. I am on Spring Break now and planning on enjoying my time with the boys, playing with friends and visiting friends with new babies!

Matthew has recovered nicely from his surgery and has a follow up appointment and hearing test in a few weeks. Speech class is going great and he is making improvements already! He was able to do some things at last week's session that he couldn't do at the initial test four weeks ago. We still have a long road ahead of us to get him caught up. He tested 10-12 months delayed, which makes complete sense because he didn't get his first set of tubes until 10 months and couldn't hear properly before that. We also loosely started potty training a few weeks ago. Matthew is over the initial "scare" of letting it go on the potty and he will use it at times. He understands what the potty is now, so we are setting a timer to go every 20 minutes. Sometimes he goes and sometimes he has an accident. He really likes to take all his clothes off, especially during nap time, so we want to get him trained soon. Plus, having two in diapers is getting old! I will hit is hard this week while I am home and then he can work on it at daycare with Deah too. We just want him to have a good foundation before tackling it there.

That's about it for now. We added new pictures to our site, enjoy!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Matthew's surgery

Matthew's surgery went great yesterday. Dr. Shapiro put a new set of tubes in both ears and removed his adenoids. He had a good amount of fluid behind his right eardrum when the doctor put the tubes in; which has been pretty much the norm his whole life (with the exception of the period he had tubes the first time). Hopefully with the adenoids removed and tubes in place, his body will be able to drain properly. The tonsils looked good and weren't even a concern to shrink them, which was good to hear. He will keep an eye on them for the next few years. Recovery from having your tonsils out is much harder than adenoids and with Matthew being so young it carried a bunch of risk factors.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:30 am and started the pre-op procedures. Bronson does a wonderful job to make young children feel at home and comfortable. Once we got back into our pre-op room and Matthew changed into his yellow, fuzzy hospital jammies they brought him a Radio Flyer wagon filled with warm blankets and pillows. He was also able to bring a stuffed animal and blanket from home to make him feel more at ease. We took him for a few walks around the area until he decided he wanted to take Curious George for a ride. There were two other children there getting ready for surgery of some sort so we had a wagon parade with all the kids. After a few checks from the doctor, nurses and anesthesiologist, Matthew was given a relaxing medicine to help calm him once he got into the OR. It took about 15 minutes for that medicine to kick in and when it did he was hilarious. He was singing, laughing, making some funny sounds, and really getting a kick out of the ceiling lights in the hallway. Now that he was ready, Kathey pulled him in the wagon back to the OR and we went back to the waiting room. It was very calming for us knowing that Kathey was going to be by his side for this. She was also there for his last set of tubes. Once in the OR he was hooked up to monitors and given some gas to put him to sleep. Then they got his IV hooked up and put the tube down his throat to help him breathe. This part was different from the last surgery. He did not have to be put under last time for the tubes only. This time he had to be put under to take the adenoids.

While you are waiting, you are given small pagers with updates. We received an update that he was going well (about 15 minutes into the surgery) and updates when he was moved into the different stages of recovery. We were able to be with him once he was moved into Stage 2 recovery. I was actually pumping when he was moved, so Ryan went to be with him and I caught up once I was done. When I rounded the corner I could hear Matthew screaming before I even got to the recovery doors. As I walked into the area, Ryan was holding Matthew on his lap, dripping with sweat. The nurse was also holding him, she too dripping with sweat. Matthew was putting up one heck of a fight. They think that the gas initially given makes the young children have nightmares and he was basically freaking out. He was confused, scared and in some pain. Also, he was trying to rip out his IV, which wasn't ready to be removed. All this was a pretty normal reaction and pretty similar to his last surgery (minus the IV). They gave him Fentanol to calm him down along with some pain medicine and within a few more minutes he was relaxing, drinking apple juice and watching Scooby Doo on their portable DVD player. We stayed in recovery for about 45 minutes before we could get dressed and take him home.

Matthew stayed pretty doped up yesterday and was pretty low key for much of the day. He took a good nap and woke up in some pain, which was expected. Today he has pretty much been himself. He woke up with a burst of energy and played most of the morning. The only thing that seems to bug him today is his wrist and hand where the IV was. The doctor said this surgery is a three day recovery so we are waiting to see if it will hit him tomorrow. Matthew has a pretty high tolerance of pain, so who knows if he will show it. I don't know of too many kids that can have ruptured ear drums and carry on like he does.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Growing Boy

I took Andrew for his two month appointment this past week and he is doing great. He is now 9 pounds, 13.5 ounces (10-25%) and he is 22.5 inches long (25%). His head is also 15 inches (10-25%). He got three shots and an oral immunization. It is nice because one of the immunizations has three shots combined into one poke, making it easier on him. I think he cried more when I took off the band-aid (took some leg hair with them...oops). He continues to sleep well at night and only gets up once, which now has been close to 5:00. I can very easily handle that for back to work which is Monday!

We decided that my car is just too small for our family now and decided to go a big larger. It was nice having my car paid for, but realistically we needed something else that would last years to come. So we bought a Mountaineer today and I love it! We have the option of using the third row seats or folding them into the floor for more storage. Plenty of room for the boys and the dogs all at once.

I look forward to going back to work on Monday and getting back into a routine with things. Don't get me wrong I love my boys and I loved being home, but I also love my job and my students. I miss them. Matthew is all set for his surgery on Friday and we will keep you posted on his recovery. Speech classes also started and he is making progress already. Hopefully the surgery will help him hear better and communicate with us better.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Resemblance???


Andrew at 7 weeks in the bath...


And Matthew at 7 weeks in the bath!


One of the early smiles from Andrew...


And an early smile from Matthew!

It is really eerie how much Andrew is starting to look like Matthew! He is starting to get the chubby chipmunk cheeks that Matthew had. The only difference is Andrew doesn't have the chubby arms like Matthew had. Those are pretty slim and slender for the moment. We just thought you would like to see how much they look alike :)

Friday, March 5, 2010

Starting Speech

Matthew has qualified for speech services and we start them on Wednesday! During his evaluation he did a great job with copying sounds and consonant/vowel clusters. He also did a great job saying words that stayed with the same consonant sound (such as puppy, mommy, daddy, bubbles, etc.) where the same consonant is repeated in the word. He gets lost with a lot of words when the consonant changes and can get the first sounds along with the syllables, but loses the other sounds of the words. So, he will be working on that along with comprehension and answering questions with yes and no correctly. I really liked the place we went to and have heard wonderful things about it. My speech and language pathologist at work came from there a few years ago and she told me about it. Our ENT also said they are wonderful and do great things. We are also curious to see how Matthew's upcoming surgery will effect his talking and listening. Since he continues to have fluid on his eardrum, he is not hearing what he should nor is he hearing himself talk as he should. Hopefully with the tonsils and adenoids gone and another set of tubes we will see results quicker. We'll keep you posted.