she told me to...

...walk this way, walk this way! Now that I have that catchy Aerosmith tune in your head, I hope you enjoy the video.

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life with a monkey

monkey (n): one who behaves in a way suggestive of a monkey, such as a mischievous child

We certainly chose the right nick-name for C, because he has become quite a little monkey. I'm waiting for him to start swinging from the ceiling fan.

• He's standing alone, unsupported, for very short periods of time ~ he even did it for Dr. B at Duke last week
• He took TWO STEPS all by his little self on December 13!!
• He loves pushing things all over the house. He either pushes his police car or crawls around pushing cars and chasing them. Poor Lucy seems to always be right in his path and has to jump outta the way just before being run over.

We also discovered that he's climbing. We were staying at a hotel this week and he went missing. Now, how can a baby go missing in a little ol' hotel room, you may ask. We were wondering the same thing. We followed this soft banging noise to find C up ON the bellman's/luggage cart, in the middle of our luggage, banging on the bars of the cart! On the cart...with wheels?!?!? I kinda freaked out...just a little bit. I mean, what if he had rolled himself down the hallway, onto the elevator, and right out the front door. Ok, ok, so that's overreacting just slightly.

But, let me back up a little bit to earlier in the week. I came home from work to find a rambunctious little monkey C playing in his room. He got tripped up because he was so excited, and fell, hitting his mouth on the edge of his little chair. He started the silent scream, you know the one where he looks like he's screaming his head off, but he's holding his breath, so no noise is coming out. And, BLOOD was gushing out of his mouth. Ok, well, his lip was bleeding. But to me, it seemed like it was gushing. I put ice on it and he recovered in about 5 minutes. As for me, I'm still trying to recover. And I'm pricing pillows, lots of pillows. It can't be that expensive to cover the entire house in pillows, right?

So, back to the hotel room. I mean, what if he fell off the cart and busted his lip again. Twice in the same week? Surely, that's unheard of. But apparently it's not because I've since heard many stories of spills, stitches, bruises, busted lips....

We were back home tonight, putting groceries away, when I noticed the monkey rounded the corner toward the stairs. He stood at the bottom, looking up and down the stairs like he was really assessing whether or not he could do it. And then he did. He hiked that little leg up, stuck his hiney out and up he went. He never stopped or slowed down and he went straight to the top. [Don't worry, I was right behind him the entire time as you will see in the pictures in the slideshow...in my slippers :)] When he reached the top, he had a HUGE smile on his face and was so proud. Then he turned, grabbed the handrail and tried to walk back down the stairs. He's FEARLESS and I'm not sure I'm going to survive.

For our own future reference, here are some other things he's been doing:

• Hugs Lucy *this one is super cute*
• Shows you his tummy and feet when you ask
• When you ask him what a dog says, he sticks out his tongue and pants
• Monkey see, monkey do: He is imitating everything, especially sticking his tongue out (picture in the slideshow)

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Fall-ing

I think along with cooler weather, Fall has ushered in fall-ing to our house. Just a mere 24 hours after he learned to pull to stand, everything in the house has become the next challenge to Carter to conquer. He crawls up to something, looks it up and down, reaches up and starts pulling up. This also means that he finally discovered the stairs and he reacted like we'd been hiding them from him (ok, maybe we have been). So far, he's made it up the first step before I caught him. Man, this little stinker is fast! Looks like we'll be adding yet another baby gate to our list.

p.s. I ordered the pumpkin shirt from Cindy, Claire's mom. If you want to see some of her items, you can check them out here: Embroidery By Cindy. (I also ordered a bib from her, but you won't see it until his b-day)

Mischief

What's Up?

I haven't really done an update on Baby C lately that didn't involve Gtubes discussions, so I thought it was about time. He's been giving us many gray hairs lately with 2 recent near-hospitalizations. As much as we hate the feeding tube, it has saved us in that he was dehydrated both times (once to a tummy virus + lots of vomiting and once to a bad reaction to the HepB vaccine + 102F fever). Instead of having to drive to Duke and have him in the hospital for several days to receive IV fluids, we were able to pump lots of Pedialyte into his NG tube (he would NEVER have taken the amounts he needed by mouth) and he bounced back quickly. He even managed to do get through all of this without losing any weight! He's still in the 25% for BMI.

C had his PT re-evaluation today. I can't believe he's already been going to therapy for 6 months. The re-eval is to look back at the goals they had set, what he's accomplished, and set new goals. He's doing very well and is on target for his age with the exception of two things: (1) pulling to a stand from sitting; and (2) cruising. His neck is still a little tight (a result of ECMO) so we have some stretching to do. She said that we will continue with weekly visits until after his surgery so she can help him bounce back more quickly and then we'll transition to once every other week.

Well, wouldn't you know it. Our little stinker came home from PT and while sitting in front of his crib playing, grabbed the railing, pulled right up to a standing position and then took THREE steps to peek around the head of the crib! I guess that means he's on target for his age now :)

He has his OT (feeding) re-eval next week, and I'm really excited to see how far he's come. When the progress is so slow, it's hard to step out of the box and see the whole picture. Being able to look back objectively, with goals and accomplishments, really shows us how much C has done since he's been home.

We have some great news in the feeding and reflux/puking department, but I'm so scared of jinxing it that I can't post it quite yet. Just know that he's a completely different child and it's a whole new world for us! We have made some big changes that resulted in over-night improvement for Baby C. He's also developed the attitude of "I can do it" and wants to help with everything. Even though he makes a big mess when he does it, I don't care. I told him it's ok if we have carrots on our ceilings and milk on the floor, as long as some of it ends up in his mouth. I certainly don't hear Lucy complaining about it. I'll let the pictures below give you a clue, but they certainly don't tell the whole story (and yes, that is a jar of applesauce that's almost empty)!!!! (oh gosh. I'm so scared to even press "Publish Post" for fear that as soon as I do, our nightmare will return)

I was recently discussing the feeding nightmare with another CDH mom and we were agreeing that our moods are directly related to how feeding is going. When our kids have good feeding days, it results in putting us in a great mood. The converse is also true and I am in the worst mood on days that he doesn't do well. I could totally chart my mood swings and Carter's eating habits and they'd fall on the same curve. I'm sure that all good parents feel this no matter what your child is dealing with.

We've also been wondering lately how something so small can get into SO MUCH? He's obsessed with crawling to the TV cabinet and opening/closing the sliding doors; he crawls all over the house from room-to-room like he's on a mission; he likes to play in the kitchen cabinets; he likes to crawl on top of the A/C vents and let the air blow in his face while he laughs. Today, I was peacefully sleeping and I was abruptly awoken by a piercing alarm, followed by a piercing screaming. I jumped up and went out in the hall to find Brad holding a crying Baby C in one arm and our Carbon Monoxide alarm in the other! Carter had discovered the alarm and pulled it right off the wall, making it alarm b/c it was no longer connected to its power source. Ahh....life with a toddler begins.

Scootin Around

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Honey Bear

• After seeing the post about the monkey drinking from a "real" straw, his OT told us it's not such a great idea, which we knew but I guess we just got ahead of ourselves with excitement. She is correct in her reasoning about why to avoid a "real" straw at this point. She suggested a therapy squeeze bottle or "Honey Bear" so that we can control the amount of liquid he takes in. This keeps him from gagging on it, and in turn, completely refusing it like he has done with bottle, which would be devastating for his progress and for any hopes of losing the NG tube in the future. A Honey Bear is just what you think, the plastic bear bottle that honey comes in, with flexible tubing coming out of the top. Luckily, we have wonderful friends who had to use Honey Bear with their son, so Monica & James passed along Connor's bears to us. THANK YOU! We got them today and they were a huge success as you can see below!
• He also had OT and PT today, and although he had not taken his morning nap, he did well. He did a few combat crawling moves for his PT and he ate a lot of green peas for Mrs. Leah. He also drank quite a bit from the squeeze bottle.
• I just bought a new camera, so you may see a lot of pics in the coming weeks as I play around with it. The last photos are of a doe that was in the neighbor's yard today. I took these from upstairs, through a screened window, so they aren't very clear. Poor Lucy wanted to play with her so badly!

8 Months

I've written a note to Carter on his "monthday" every month since he was born for his blogbook. I haven't made any of them public, but I'm going to post this one so I can update you at the same time. We're becoming increasingly busy, which means less time for blogging! I've added some pics and video at the end.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


C:


You are eight months old now ~ 4 months shy of 1 year! I actually ordered your 1st birthday shirt this week, which is surprising because I am very superstitious. Normally, I would have waited until just before your birthday and then had it overnighted. But, I think excitement beat superstition this time!


The last time we took you in, you weighed 17 pounds and were 27 1/2 inches long. I know you've gained more weight but I can't report it officially because it's not a weight from Duke. You are taking in about 35 ounces of 27 cal./oz Prosobee a day ~ you still take the bottle at 9p, 12a, and 3am and the rest are tube feeds. You do the funniest thing when you have had enough of the bottle~you slap your hand up and down like you're tapping out of a wrestling match. We still feed you every 3 hours and you will only bottle feed when you are fast asleep. You are doing so well with solids and your favorites continue to be sweets (you get that from me). Your intake is increasing so much that Mrs. Leah says we need to start measuring how much food you eat, which is about 2 teaspoons at a setting!! Great job big boy!


You are a true boy (I now think that there are boy traits that are genetic). You laugh at toot/poot noises and you love trucks, trains, cars...anything with wheels. You also get a big kick when we take your stuffies and shake them like crazy so their arms and legs flop all around. If you see water, you almost leap out of our arms to get to it so you can smack it with your hands splashing it everywhere.


You have the cutest laugh now~you wrinkle up your eyes and nose and it's a full-body laugh, showing off those 2 teeth. You have 2 more teeth trying to break through the top, which is probably why you've started sucking on your thumb until it looks like a raisin. If it's not your thumb, it's your toes. I think you must be the happiest baby in the world because it's very rare that you are fussy or even cry. We put you in your crib around 8pm and walk out. You are asleep by 9pm and sleep until 9am! Yes, we are SO lucky to have such a good little boy. One of the nurses at Duke recently asked us if we were ready for another baby and I said, "NO! We got so lucky with Carter that we're scared to have another one because the next one might be a terror!"


You are becoming mobile and we call you the Disappearing Baby. Just last week, I put you on your play mat, walked into the kitchen for something and when I returned, you were gone! You were almost to the door. You combat crawl and scoot around because your arms aren't quite strong enough for real crawling yet, but I don't think it will be long before you're really on the move. You're also sitting up on your own for longer periods of time and will catch yourself when you start to teeter over to the side.


You have started waving and say hey, mama, and booboo (which I think is Lulu because you say it when she's around). We're now working on dada before he gets a complex.


You are a joy to be around and every new phase we think, "this is our favorite age" and then you do something the next month and it becomes our new favorite. I can't wait to see what this month brings us!


Love you bunches,
Mommy & Daddy

The Disappearing Baby:

He started on the blanket & did the "spiderman" across the floor

He started in the middle of the mat...

...and within seconds was on his way to the door!