Swimming lessons are going well

Taken by David Roseburg. Thanks David!! :)

We've got a Mover and Shaker

Things have slowly been getting back to normal at our house.

Wes has been working a lot and I have been hanging out with Little Buddy at home. I try to get out of the house at least once a day, even if it is just taking Sanggletooth for a walk around the park. Buddy loves going on field trips with me. We go to the grocery store, Fred Meyer, the off-leash dog park (which is right on the Edmonds waterfront beach), and sometimes the Mall (but I found out I'm allergic to teenagers... When did I get so old?!). We both welcome the change of scenery.
We have been loving the beautiful weather. We spend a lot of time in our backyard with our black lab Snaggletooth. LB loves to chase Maggs. He holds onto our hands and walks/runs towards a sitting Snaggs, who gets out of the way at the last second and moves to another spot. They can play this game for awhile! You can tell Snaggle is loving it. I really think she understands how little and young LB is right now. They are going to be great friends as they get older!

New things about Buddy:
He's on the move now! LB started crawling a week ago. And I suddenly found out how valuable free time is, lol! He is getting faster every day. Today he found dog's water bowl...what. a. mess.
He is really good at cruising too. He loves hanging on to the coffee table and shuffling along until he can grab something (he has a thing for the tv remote...it all starts so young...lol). I spent the morning clearing everything off that table. The baby proofing has really begun!

Buddy has also been figuring out he can say no. Oh boy! This has been a little trying during meal times. He decided one morning he didn't want pureed baby food anymore. Clamped his lips shut and shook his head when I offered him his old favorite mashed carrots. Pushed the spoon away and got it all over himself, everywhere except his mouth. (He now gets a bath every day!)
I have been giving him finger foods. Beans, raspberries, cooked vegetables, watermelon, avocado, and Cheerios.


And now, some good recovery pictures!

So happy to be hanging out with Dad a week after surgery...

...and Mom too!



Mama with her little 'Boxer'

His profile has changed so much. Interesting tidbit: The surgeon actually gave John the forehead dimensions of a 24-month old. So Jonathan will be 'growing into his forehead' over the next year. The results look great!

I found this toy at a garage sale. It even entertains me! :-)


Ooooohh......outside.....

Yay! I'm wearing him out!

"What is this for?"

"Dad, can I help you hang some pictures?"

Handsome little buddy!

I took pictures of LB in the Pampers box again. It is cool seeing the pics compared to the ones I took two months ago, before his operation.

New LB

Old Jonathan

New Jonathan

Old Jonathan

Recovery Pictures

Here are the pictures I have been promising you. I have been so tired and busy...it is like having a newborn baby all over again. Jonathan cries if we are not holding him and he will not go to sleep anywhere except our arms...our poor, tired, sore arms :-)
I wanted to say thanks to Hugh, Kate, Liam and Harper for dinner on our last night in the hospital. It was great to see them and dinner (and dessert!) was delicious. Kathy also stopped by with a present for John. And she cheered us all up :-) And Wes's friend Tim came by as well. Yay, great to see you Tim!

This was on Monday (4 days after surgery). Swelling had reached a peak and was now starting to subside. We were now waiting for Jonathan to be able to see.

Monday- John loved noisy toys that he could hear.

Auntie Kathy came to visit on Monday!

Tuesday- When he first started to tilt his head back, we knew he was trying to see. It was so cute :-)

Tuesday- He just saw Mama for the first time in 4 days!

Tuesday- Amber and John

Wednesday, our first morning at home. John got a bath in a tub!

Nice scar, eh? I'm glad he won't remember getting it!



Learning how to use a sippy cup.

Yay! I can see clearly now!

We are HOME

Tuesday didn't start out too promising for us to get discharged from Children's. We woke up at 6:30am (I only got around 4 hours of sleep total....ugh) and saw that Jonathan's eyes were still swollen shut. Bummer. His eyes needed to be open before the doctor would release him. We were so stir-crazy we had to be released on Tuesday.

At around 9am we noticed that Jonathan was tilting his head back and reaching out to touch things...yay! So, we kept him upright and slowly he was able to peek underneath those swollen eyelids. Jonathan was so overjoyed to be able to see! He was laughing and shrieking with glee, it was so adorable :..-)

After that, we got the clearance to leave. I've never seen Wes pack up so fast, lol!!
It was cute saying good-bye to all the nurses. They all looked so happy to be seeing Jonathan leave. We had some great nurses during our stay. The first night in the NICU we had a gal named Amy who I had some good conversations with throughout my first sleepless night It was a great way to relax & smile a bit and know that my baby was in good hands. When we were transfered to the surgery recovery area we had some great gals as well. RN Nicole was the best. She was a mom of a three year old and shared a lot of our thoughts on parenting. We got some great tips and advice from her. We also enjoyed meeting a student nurse named Geni who was from Somali. A mom of 3, this was Geni's last week of school before she became a Nurse. We had a great time talking about our children and she genuinely adored Jonathan. We wish her lots of success in life.

It is great to be home, John is so happy to play with his toys again. He seems even happier than before the operation, too. The surgeon told us that John's skull was starting to put pressure on his brain, maybe that was causing him some stress? I just can't get over how this little guy had major skull surgery a week ago and now he's back in business! Except for looking like he went a few rounds with Mike Tyson, Jonathan is back to his happy self. He really loves Wes more than ever. Wes held him just as much (if not more :-)) than I did during our hospital stay and they deepened their bond, awwww! Little Buddy now beams with delight every time he sees Wes. Makes my heart melt <3

The only hard time we are having is getting John to sleep the past couple of naps & nights. He is more clingy than usual, and hates sleeping in his crib. We rock him for an hour and just when we think he's asleep and are about to put him in his crib, he wakes up and screams bloody murder...sigh...its like back when he was a newborn and we had no idea how to make him go to sleep.
Any good tips from you fellow parents would be appreciated! I'm not liking this lack of sleep :-(

I'm going to go take some pics of Little Buddy today, and then when its Wes's turn to rock our little guy to sleep tonight, I'll post them :-)

Sunday

It has been 4 days since Jonathan's surgery. For the most part, he is doing good. He no longer needs to wear his monitor sensors while awake, this means he is finally cord-free while awake, YAY! Just in time, because I think he would have pulled them off by now. He is getting kind of feisty :-)
His eyes are swelled shut, totally normal according to the doctors. It looks kind of scary! Jonathan has been a good sport about it- I can tell he is confused about why he can't see, but he is getting good at using his other senses to figure out what is going on around him. He has enjoyed hearing us read and sing to him, and I brought a bunch of small noisy toys from home for him to rattle around.

We had a rough morning! Jonathan threw up a lot- from the medications, we think. Wes and I have gotten this 'baptism' twice each. Welcome to Parenthood, indeed! Poor little buddy is doing a little better this evening. Hopefully his tummy stays calm throughout tonight.

I was finally able to download more pics, here they are:

Right before surgery on Thursday, chewing on Daddy's ID badge

Love my boy!

This pic makes me melt


Our last family "before" photo

....And 10 hours later we finally saw him again.

His head is looking good!

Friday, Day 2 of surgery. Starting to swell.

Saturday, Day 3.

Day 3. We finally got to hold him a lot!

Day 4, Sunday. Wes reading John a story. Look how swollen he is!

These are pictures we took during the week prior to the surgery:

Happy times hanging with Mama

Bonding with Uncle Martin up at Tina's cabin

With his best friend Maggie.

We are on the other side!!!!!!!!

The past three days have been a blur of sleepless nights and long days. The good news is that Jonathan's surgery is done and without any complications! He is sleeping in my arms as I type this one-handed.

Here is a recap of the past few days:
Thursday we three arrived at Children's Hospital at 6:30am. John was in a great mood despite having an empty stomach (surgery requirement). He was all smiley to the nurses and anesthesiologists (poor little buddy had no idea what was coming...), then Wes and I went to the ICU family room and waited. And waited. And waited some more. A nurse would page us every so often to give us updates about how the surgery was going, thankfully they were always good news.

Finally, at about 5:30pm we got to see Jonathan. He looked like an angel. He was so peaceful- still very sedated. He had a long zigzag of stitches across his noggin (we counted around 80) but his head looked great. The swelling hadn't kicked in yet. We met with the surgeon, Dr. Hopper, who briefed us about how the surgery went and showed us the before and after CT scans of Jonathan's skull. The difference is amazing! John's skull is put together like a jigsaw puzzle, held together by plates and screws made from natural lactic-acid based materials that will dissolve in about a year. Cool, huh!

That night was a sleepless one, and the next day was exhausting. John began to swell everywhere, especially his poor little head. He was very cranky and it was hard to comfort him. Happily, his vital signs were great, so we knew he was healing good.

And that brings me to today. We finally got to hold him!!! Jonathan has been in our arms for most of the day which has helped his mood. His poor little face is so swollen...his eyes are swelled shut. He is frustrated because he can't see anything. We are down to one IV line now (he had three to begin with!) and a few chest monitors for breathing and heart rate. He keeps trying to rip those off :-P

Wes and I are doing good, just very tired. We are happy that we get to room in with Jonathan, but we cannot wait to go home, hopefully on Tuesday. I am grateful that everyone who is helping John has been great. The nurses are working hard to make sure that he is comfy and getting pain-relief meds.

Well, that about sums it all up. I was only able to download a few pics from the first two days. I'll post more pics tomorrow.
Thank you for all your support and love! We feel blessed that so many people care about our wonderful little boy.

Day One: Right after his surgery

Day One: you can see part of his scar

Day One: another scar shot. The tube is for draining excess fluid in his head.


Day Two: Starting to swell more

Below are some before shots. Our family picture was taken the day before John's surgery.

Can't wait to see this smile again :-)

Surgery Tomorrow

The day that I've been dreading is finally upon me. Tomorrow we are bringing Jonathan to Children's Hospital at 6:45 in the morning. His surgery is expected to be 6 hours long, I'll try to post an update here during that time.

We had a fun day today. Wes started his leave from work today so we got to hang out as a family. Took some really cute photos, which I will have to post tomorrow. I'll have a lot of free time to do so!

Thank you for all your good thoughts and prayers. We are so grateful and touched by the love and good thoughts from our family, friends, and even strangers.
Until tomorrow!

Lots of play in May

Jonathan's surgery is less than two weeks away, ack! Wes and I are holding up good- Wes has been extremely busy at work. As for me, I am a born procrastinator. I am really good at not thinking about upcoming deadlines until two days before the event. So, come Tuesday June 2nd...I might not be so calm. But for now I'm all smiles :-D

We have had some beautiful days here and I have been packing the Little Buddy around to various places (mostly just the off-leash dog park with Maggie). After such a long wet Seattle winter it is nice to feel the sun again!
Jonathan and I went to Ballard last weekend for the Norwegian Constitution Day Parade. John got to hear his first marching band, it was a huge hit! Do you think I could ask the Ballard Beavers Marching Band to march past my house every day at noon? hehe

Lately John has been getting his baths in the kitchen sink, much to his delight. It is way easier on my poor old back, too. Posted a bath picture below. Warning: You may die of cuteness upon viewing!...at least I did :-)

We have been working on finger foods. So far John has tried watermelon, avocado, and banana. They were all a hit. Unfortunately, more hits the floor than his mouth. Maggie is good at making the dropped bits disappear. Whadddya do? lol

I hope you all are enjoying your Memorial Weekend! We will be up at my friend Tina's cabin. Our last hurrah before the op.

Being all cute at the Norwegian Day Parade

This pic cracks me up

Annndd...its time to go home


I'm going to be so sad when he doesn't fit in this anymore

Play time!

Making a break for it...

Starting his break-dancing routine

the adorable bath picture



Another self-portrait attempt.