Holy crap, an update!

Yes, yes, I know. I'm a bad mom and a terrible blogger. I'm not sure how long it's been since I've done a real update but here goes...

As you may have gathered, I have not none, not one, but TWO walkers now! Dax started walking on August 6th and Ty followed suit on August 9th. Best birthday present EVER :)

Since then our favorite game is cleverly called "the walking game" and it consists of both boys taking turns walking from an adult to a stationary item, then returning to the adult. Since both boys like to play at the same time it often looks like a very wobbly Titanic meeting a very wobbly iceberg... and then Ty plops on his fat butt and cries and Dax falls for 30 seconds hitting every available appendage and head space on whatever furniture, wall, or floor to be found in a 4-ft radius.

It's fun :P

TyTy is just trucking along like a champ. He says "Mama," "Dada," "Nana," "Papa," and "Day-Day," and he signs "block," "ball," and "more." He's 100% on sippy cups now, and, although he loves his milk, he's slowed down on his eating some as he's hitting his toddler phase. At his 1-yr check-up he was approximately 75% for height, 50% for weight, and 90% for head circumference (I'm not saying he has the Mills head, but you can draw your own conclusions.) He's sensitive and loving and gives the best hugs and kisses... and has just developed the best personality. He's my little man's man!

Dax continues to amaze us all! He's now in PT twice a week, ST twice a week, and OT once a week. He's still in early intervention preschool two days a week and continues to do well. He's making small, consistent improvements with both fine and gross motor skills, but his language is where he's just making leaps and bounds right now. Hes made huge gains with verbalizations, with lots of squeals and good increases in babbling, especially with "C" and "B" sounds. He can say a small assortment of words and has several sounds and words he can imitate, and tries to imitate many more even though he's not quite on target. As far as signing, we now have the following words and phrases:

more
eat
drink
Mama
Dada
TyTy
car
poop
block
ball
help (his personal favorite)
elephant (his very close runner-up favorite)
up
I want
bye bye
all done
head hurt
Brown Mama
Dax loves Mama

There may be more I can't think of, and there are several signs in his repertoire that we have not translated to English yet, but he uses them consistently and with great fervor... Will let you know when we figure them out!

As for eating... This child has turned into a glorified garbage disposal. He still turns his nose up at fruit, but just about everything else is fair game if it's in small pieces or mushed... with mac and cheese, oatmeal, yogurt, and green veggies being his favorite... The more butter and/or cheese the better. And, seriously, when I say this kid can eat, I mean this kid can EAT. Like, until I want to puke for him...

But, if you watch him moving and shaking for a few minutes, you understand where those calories go... That kid is BUSY!

We still use the g-tube twice a day; one 250mL bolus (over an hour) of  Nutren Jr in the AM, and one in the PM. We also flush with 7-10oz of water per day on average.

Cardiac-wise and pulmo-wise we're still maintaining at status quo, and we just saw the dentist who said our little green teeth look "great." (That's obviously a relative term!) We just had a sleep study with full EEG last night so we don't have the results back from it yet, but I'll update when we do.

Just as an aside, when I called our neurologist to tell him there was a sleep study coming up, I explained to him what happened in July and Vanderbilt's conclusion that we'd had a febrile seizure. He had me explain what happened one more time, and then told me that it didn't sound like a seizure at all; that if he had been seizing he would have most likely been rigid, not limp, and would have been having shallow breaths rather than no breaths at all.

So go figure.

At any rate, it's been relatively calm around here other than the normal hullabaloo... The little men and I were able to load up and go visit family in Mississippi over Labor Day weekend and we had the best time :) We were busy most of the trip and saw more family in two days than I've seen in two years, and everyone seemed appropriately enamored with my fellows... As it should be ;)

And I guess that's us in a nutshell!

I want to end by reminding you to please keep praying for Baby Bella! She needs our prayers now as much as ever!

Thanks, as always, for being so wonderful!