Tommy's hearing...

A few have asked...yes so far there have been three big noticeable things....

First was last night Larry was napping for a few minutes while I made dinner. I asked one of the kids to wake Dad up, he seemed to take too long coming down and I commented to them "he must not have gotten up" and he was standing RIGHT behind me and I screamed which I do often as he's always around a corner being a brat!! This time Tommy cried!

Second was this morning....Tommy and I went to bed abit earlier than usual. He woke at 5am and I so didn't want to get up, he fell asleep until 5:30 and again I wasn't ready to get up. Finally at 6am when he cried I was full of guilt and went in his room, he was still groogy and rubbing his face in his blankie, when I said "hey there, good morning" he JUMPED and got startled!

Then after his bottle this morning I was "eating" his piggies and he was very intrigued by the loud kissing noises most moms make :) The little things like that are so cool to watch him process!

So, yep he can really hear now!

Our Valentine GIRLS!!

Kimberlyn!
Kaitlyn!
One of Kimberlyn's Valentine cards she signed to pass out to her classmates. I love her way of cramming all of the letters in the little heart....she started with K I M, then added B E up top, had to go to the bottom with R L and realized she had to fit in the Y N....so they became totally out of order, but by golly, they are all in that heart!! Notice the ink pen line on my nice dining room table??? We still love her!

Happy Valentine's Day and

Happy successful surgery day for Tommy!!

We are home from the hospital now. Tommy did wonderful! Well he woke up quicker than Robby did (8 yrs ago) and could HEAR!! He was very upset/scared and confused....it was sad. He immediately drank his bottle and then screamed bloody murder for about 5-10 minutes...in reality it felt like an hour or two, so maybe it was less than 5 minutes?!?! He snapped out of it and watched TV for few minutes, sucked on his blankie and then chilled out.

Doc said the staff in the OR was wondering what the deal was with the noise and length of time it was taking him. He told me Tommy had a severe amount of fluid and it was thick to the point of being difficult to get it all sucked out! He said to expect him to react differently to his normal surroundings since the thick fluid made his hear sound like having foam ear plugs in 24/7!?!? YIKES!

He's napping and glad to be back in his crib...thanks for all the prayers.

All loopy a few minutes before he was taken back for surgery.

Very fussy/upset after...

Ah, finally starting to relax!

TV?? This is like at home...

All better after his nap and eating lunch!

Family update...

Well no big news today like Tommy taking steps like last I posted.

I wanted to write a quick update. As I told you I expected, Tommy will get tubes in his ears. The ENT doctor said he's got a serious case of some fancy named thing, basically of having fluid in his ears with recurrent ear infections. To be a candidate for tubes you must meet one of three different criteria...Tommy meets all three things! Please pray for him to stay healthy and not get another ear infection which could delay surgery. He's scheduled for the surgery on Thursday (Valentine's Day).... I chose this date as it was the soonest surgery date the doctor had and I'm praying Tommy and his surgery will keep my thought off of the fact that my Mom would have turned 60 this day.

On a lighter, more exciting note....Thursday will mark Tommy's full official year home from the NICU...that's cause for way more celebration than Valentine's Day anyhow!

We have a busy few days ahead of us, all the while I'm praying for a big dump of snow! Forecast says 3-5 inches tonight with another few inches tomorrow! Yippee!

Tomorrow Tommy has an appointment to have his hearing tested again...his other hearing test was done as NICU babies are at an increased risk for hearing loss, it was done before his ear infection battle started. After this appt we'll go and do the pre-admission stuff for surgery.

Wednesday I have a check-up to check my thyroid (it's more in check now than ever) and then Kaitlyn goes to the dentist for a quick appointment...never-ending here lately!

Thursday is surgery day and should mark the beginning of a needed break...until next week :)

Lastly...I wanted to let you know about something burdening my heart. You see 10 months ago the opthamologist released me saying I had no permanent damage to my eyes from Tommy's delivery. Well, I have been seeing spots or floaters (not sure what to classify these things as) in my right eye off and on for a few weeks now. I finally got off my rump and made an appointment to see my PCM for a referral back to the opthamologist (obviously a new one since we moved)-- while making this appointment in person they basically told me if I see this, this or that to report to the ER immediately...that's scary! That has been in the back of my head since Friday...at the same time they told me they feel this isn't a big deal, I'm worried. When I lost my vision for those few days...it was scary to wonder if it was gone forever, what would it be like and so on. You can imagine where my thoughts have been lately... I'd appreciate you joining me in prayer for this to be exactly what they think...NOTHING important!

The exciting news is thi spast Friday Larry and I had a date night, we swap babysitting each Friday with our good friends....now we are forced to go out on a date every other week...WAY COOL! We limit ours to dinner, as Tommy STILL won't take a bottle from anybody but mom and dad!

WALKING?!?!?!???

Can you believe it....Tommy took his first two unassisted steps tonight after dinner....we're SO Happy!!





He also ate a chicken nugget, cooked carrots, peaches and peas....a true BIG BOY DINNER!! OH, my!!