I have to say that my little boys were little sweethearts this morning. We had a good day with only a little bit of meltdown in the afternoon. We all worked hard but we had lots of fun. Brendan had a tremendous day of working out and practicing. I made him focus on crawling and his transitions from sit to tummy time and back. He also did some monster tummy pivoting like he has never done before.

Since I was alone, I had to give Trevor his morning bath with Brendan’s tub in the living room. He loved it, he just loves water. The trouble with greasing a baby up with baby lotion after a bath is that they are very slippery. This little wiggle-worm got away from me and decided to run trucks.

We worked on lots of puzzle time this morning

Usually you have to tell a kid to get his elbows off the table.

When Speech Therapy showed up, Brendan was going to pull his big meltdown again. But then Trevor was super-interested in the toys that she brought with her and Brendan decided he had better be interested too. Then he had a great session.

The therapist says that for someone that has never eaten by mouth, he has very good lip and tongue coordination and motor skills. Going forward his therapy will be less about exercises and the focus will be on eating real food, trying new tastes and textures.

During his free-time off the feeding pump, Brendan got to explore different parts of the room. He LOVED playing with the toolbench and putting things in the shelves and pulling things down from the top.

Trevor just was go go go as usual!

So I am ready to fall over, but it was a good Friday!

February is done, unbelievable!

It was just me and the boys today so we tried to keep it low key. Of course, that always backfires because if I don’t wear them out with positive craziness, they just wear me out with crabby craziness.

Brendan started the day with a fun book. Watch out, that pointer finger is working now!

Trevor has his own way to get up on the chair. (he is chewing on his cold hammer)

I wanted to spread out on the floor and join them

Brendan worked on his kneeling and climbing

Trevor is always working on his climbing

This is Trevor sitting on the “almost” naughty step

Brendan’s PT focus is supposed to be on crawling, but he has other ideas.

Motivation in the toybox

I tried to get around evening cranky Trevor time by having him help cook dinner.

It didn’t work

Brendan plays the magnetic ABC game on his toolbox while Trevor gets put to bed

Bill is going to the office tomorrow and the night nurse leaves at 7am. It is going to be a long day!

Days like today we look forward to with a little bit of dread. A trip to the hospital, all the paperwork, waiting and mess, packing all the supplies and hoping not to forget anything, timing food and meds and naps, anesthesia and risks, procedures and risks, traffic and more. We had it all today but I am so pleased to write about how well it all went!

We all had to get up early today to get ready to hit the road. Brendan was ready and waiting for everyone else.

Bill was able to take the day off so that he could stay home with Trevor. I tried to get everything Trevor-prepped before we left. Just look at this lunch! Chicken cordon bleu casserole with green beans & broccoli, cheese, buttered wheat toast, mandarin oranges and strawberries. All the fuel he could possibly need to wear his daddy out with antics!

Brendan was nervous and worried at first, but when we finally got through all the papers and crap and made it to radiology, he settled down.

He had to sit on my lap and play while we waited.

We finally moved to the last “holding pen” before we met with anesthesia and he went in for his procedure. Brendan was feeling downright silly (no drugs given yet!) and was being a real camera ham.
This is one of my favorite Brendan expressions he does when he is playing with me.

He was a real comedian.

Not only did they make him wear the pink girl-gown, the movie they were playing in the room was Tinkerbell. Brendan forced himself to watch it.

He did plenty of “talking” again today. He is too cute with his little sounds.

Here is a “before” picture of the feeding tube they are going to take out.

This is the piece that is permanantly attached to him, even when his feeding pump is disconnected. It is long and heavy and interferes with clothes, and it takes special syringes to be able to push in medications.

Under all this sloppy waterproof tape is a zip tie that holds the inner tube in place.

The whole thing took about 35 minutes and then he was back in recovery, sleeping and drooling.

He woke up pretty fast and super spoiled baby had to watch his Signing Time videos about the frog with booboos.

Discharged quickly! Woo hooo! This is how we roll with one baby and a pile of equipment in a double stroller.

Home and time for a bath to wash off all the ‘hospital’. Trevor has to quality check the bath water.

And here is the man now with his new and improved feeding port.

This squishy button is all that is attached to him when the feeding pump is disconnected. White port is for stomach, brown port is for jejunum (small intestine) and the blue port is to check the pressure on the balloon that holds the button in place.

This is with the feeding tube clipped in

The rest of the day was just lazy pajama TV time and lots of cuddling. Brendan was drowsy but feeling really good.

And if Brendan didn’t make you smile enough, I leave you with the return of the TrevorCam – bathtub edition.