Success

Blake is done. No problems. Everything went very smoothly and without any surprises. Thanks for all of your prayers.

A Day of Firsts

One day before Blake's eight-month birthday, he had two major firsts.

#1 First Tooth (bottom left)

#2 Sitting Independently (sat up on his own for over 10 minutes on three separate occasions)

What a big day!

Now for tomorrow - boy surgery! I know it's no big deal and thousands of them happen every day, but because of Blake's "advanced" age he will have to be put under general anesthesia, and that makes me nervous.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers Monday.

The Joy of Christmas

Our Christmas was crazy, fun, and wonderful.  We had one celebration with eight people and 4 dogs in one house, and another with 11 people and 2 dogs - crazy I tell you.

The photos do better to describe than any words can...

Rock Superstar!

Blake went to the cardiologist today (12/22) to get his 3rd of 5 RSV shots (at $4000 a piece, it sure makes you thankful for insurance), and as always he was a rockstar. They were all so impressed with how great he looks and how big he is. And I had them check his oxygen saturations and they were an amazing 90%!  He always continues to outperform expectations. We are truly blessed this Christmas!

He Sits!

A new time record today - 30 whole seconds!

Silly Kids - Silly Pictures

Um, It's Snowing!

Seriously?

I feel like I'm living in some alternate universe.  It was 80 degrees at lunch today, and now it's snowing.  Way beyond my  realm of comprehension.

In the Christmas Spirit

This weekend, we attempted to get our house ready for Christmas.  Mason was suppossed to help me decorate the tree, but she was much more interested in playing with the lights, breaking the ornaments (3 is the current broken-to-date count), and dancing to the Christmas music.  So it mostly turned in to Mason helping me unpack the ornaments while I put them on the tree, and Blake and Bryan watched football.  Anyway, our stockings are hung and the tree is up, so we're all in the spirit of the season now.  

Heightened Awareness

Blake got his first cold, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.  A runny nose, and a nasty cough had us all worried.  I was terrified he had gotten RSV (despite having two $3000 RSV vaccination shots so far this year), so we took him to the urgent care associated with his pediatrician, and the on call doctor got really nervous about Blake's condition.  Because she was unfamiliar with his particular heart defect, she wanted us to check in to Dell Children's Hospital (DCH) for tests and observation although his RSV test had come back negative.  We had to reason with her that the worst place to try and rest and recover is at a hospital and promise that if we saw him going downhill we would go to DCH ER immediately.  After bringing him home and treating him with typical cold treatment (humidifier, rest, fluids, saline nasal spray), he started improving.  He's doing great now, and just has a little cough that he's getting over.  

It's funny how blithely I will write off Mason's cold, but the minute Blake got a cold it was a national crisis.  It makes you remember to step back and get some perspective.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day.  Because of the emergent situation with Blake's heart when he was born, they were unable to circumcise him.  In fact, we had to wait until at least 6 weeks after his second surgery until we could ever consider it.  So, we go to meet with a general pediatric surgeon tomorrow to talk about Blake's little procedure.  It breaks my heart to think about it, so I think Bryan's going to have to drive the conversation.