What an Imagination!

Lately Colin has been very into imaginative play. It's amazing what he comes up with - he cracks me up everyday. One of his favorite games to play right now is fireman. He pretends the couch is his fire truck and he gets out all of his tools and various other toys and pretends they're his equipment. He pretends to have axes, crowbars, hoses, gas masks, etc. He got a lot of these ideas from fire fighter books that we've read. He likes to pretend we're at the fire station and the bell rings and we have to jump into our trucks to race to the fire. Once there we tell spectators to "stand back!", we put out the fire with our hoses, break open windows with our axes, open doors with our crowbars, put holes in the roofs to let the fire escape, and rescue people from the house.

Here he is, proudly standing in front of his truck, ready to race to the fire.

Eli is 7 Months Old

Eli is 7 months old today and what a difference a month has made! As opposed to last month when he could care less about solid foods, he has started eating like a true child of mine and has tried almost all of the different fruits and vegetables. He is now eating solids for 3 meals and nurses 6 times a day. His unofficial weight (meaning his weight taken on our scale) is 18.2 pounds and he's 27 1/2 inches long. He's also starting to show more of a distinct personality. In addition to being a very happy and smiley baby, he's also mischievous. Whereas last month he preferred to be held over exploring, this month he is definitely becoming more curious (he's still a snuggler though!) He isn't crawling, but he spins in circles on his tummy to get across the floor and if left to his own devices will often get into diapers, Colin's toys, the cats, or whatever else might have the misfortune to be left on the floor. He loves to be tickled and thinks just about anything Colin does is hilarious.

Of course, he also had another surgery this past month which he recovered from like a champ. He got his catheter out last Wednesday and has been so happy ever since. The urologist said that everything is healing nicely and we'll follow up with him in another month.

Happy 7 months, baby!

Surgery #3 - Check

Yesterday Eli had his cosmetic surgery to correct his bifid scrotum and his penile torsion. Our day started at 3:30 AM because despite waking Eli up at 11:30 PM to give him a little snack (in the hopes of tiding him over until game-time), he still woke up at his usual time to nurse. We were at least able to calm him so he didn't wake up the whole neighborhood, but at that point he had no interest in going back to sleep. On the plus side, he stayed in a great mood until they took him away to anesthesia. He was even flirting with the nurses in between rubbing his eyes and yawning. The surgery took a little over two hours and then we stayed in recovery for about another two hours. It was nice to be able to come home so quickly because I think all of us are more comfortable here despite having to deal with Eli's catheter. They sent us home with some Tylenol with codeine so Eli stayed pretty comfortable and slept a ton yesterday. By yesterday evening Colin was getting him to laugh. Today he's already acting like his usual self. His face is still a little puffy but he's chatting, smiling, laughing, kicking, and doesn't seem to be in much pain. The worst part right now are the diaper changes. His genital area looks like Frankenstein's monster to me, but his surgeon seemed pretty proud of the work he did and reassured us that once it's healed, everything should look fairly normal. He's very sensitive to the catheter so he cries when we have to fuss with that. We currently are using 3 1/2 diapers on him with the intention of keeping the surgery area as clean and dry as possible. One diaper is folded up to provide pressure to prevent any bleeding, one has a hole cut in it for the catheter to poke through, 1/2 is used to go over the stomas, and the last one is pulled up over everything. We will be able to stop using the folded diaper this weekend and we can stop using the diaper with the hole once the catheter comes out. His surgeon said that it could fall out on its own, but it's stitched on, so we have a follow-up appointment with him next Wednesday to get it removed. Eli continues to amaze us by being such a little trooper. Here's a picture of him taken yesterday afternoon after his marathon nap. He's trying to smile, but his face is still a little too puffy to see the full grin. Just one more surgery to go, little man!

Happy Halloween!

The boys and I had a great Halloween this year. It seems to get more fun as the kids get older. Some highlights include Colin actually helping carve the pumpkins (last year he thought they were too gross to stick his hands in); shopping at Meijer on Halloween and finding out there were firemen, a fire engine, candy stations, and a cookie decorating station; making pumpkin pie (inspired by the book Pumpkin Fever, by Charnan Simon) and roasting pumpkin seeds; dressing up as a family as the Imagination Movers; finding out that Colin wasn't too shy to trick-or-treat and that he filled his pumpkin so full of candy, Chris had to carry it for him; passing out candy with Eli and then with Colin; watching Halloween at the end of the day (I finally own it - yessss!).
And of course, the scary man.
Hope everybody else had a great Halloween too!