All is well

Backyard view

All is well here in the Berkshires.  It's the middle of October and the days are beautiful.  The kids are doing great.  Seamus is talking more and more.  He is still hard to understand, but is getting much better at enunciating.  He's also a total riot.  So funny.  The other day, he and I were laying on the bed.  We pretended to be asleep when Jim came into the room.  Jim asked, "Are you sleeping?" and Seamus said, "Yes, Daddy!!"  He drinks from a regular cup at the dinner table (but I only pour in an inch or so of milk at a time) and does pretty well with it.  He's a great eater and doesn't turn his nose up at much.  We're working on the potty.  He asks for it and will pull his pants down, but rarely is successful.  We don't make a big deal about it, or ask him to sit on it.  I will wait a few month before we actually work on training him.  Right now, we are just getting him comfortable with the idea.  He gets very excited when he is successful.  He's a sweet boy.  He likes to give hugs.  He accidentally bumped into another child at daycare and started signing sorry right away.  Then he said "sorry" and hugged the child (unprompted).  I'm pretty proud of him. 

Eve is also doing very well.  Night and day from a year ago.  She is healthy and happy.  She is loving school (2nd grade).  However, we are having a  bit of trouble with her stoma.  She just keeps getting granulation tissue and bleeding.  We've tried several applications of silver nitrate and also have been using calcium alginate and stoma adhesive to keep the stoma dry.  I finally brought in the wound care nurse last week.  It looks like there really is nothing we can do to keep the stoma from leaking, so we just need to do our best to keep it dry.  I think this last round of silver nitrate may have done the trick.  The granuloma has shrunk way down and is nearly invisible.  Hopefully it stays that way.  She gets her gj switched out at the end of the month.   

Josie, on the other hand, did not have a good week recently.  Neither did our wallet.  She must have eaten something that threw her GI system into a panic.  Three days of cleaning out her system from both ends, a crazy expensive vet bill, a new rug (after discovering our spot bot is broken), and she's back to normal. 

Jim is working hard - he has been put on the very very early shift.  It means lots of overtime, but he is totally dragging by the end of the week.  I'm enjoying the fall semester very much.  I have a great group of students, and my new building and office are awesome. 

Life is good.