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.

Doo doo doo

Eve needs supervision

Eve needs supervision, apparently.  Tonight she didn't want to sit with us during dinner.  So Jim let her color at her easel.  He put an orange crayon in her hand and we finished dinner.  She was pretty quiet.  Now I know why....

Thank God it's non toxic. 

Stickers

The other night we let Seamus play with a sticker book.  Here he is, hard at work:

 And here is the product of his work:

Uh.....you're supposed to put the stickers in the book,  not build a bionic sticker arm. 

Speaking of the little elf, this morning I went to get him out of bed and he was sitting up at the end of the bed reading, with no pants on and with his leather shoes on.  Because that's how you read.  I couldn't find his pj pants anywhere.  He had put them back in the drawer.
Oh, and he has twice opened his bedroom door by himself.  That was the last bastion of containment.  Oh, well.  

Accessible playground

Here are some pictures that Jim took of the playground near my parents' house.  It is truly amazing.  Eve's wheelchair can travel all along the structure.

They also have a "spray ground."  Jim took these pictures when it opened at 10am on a very overcast morning.  I had taken Seamus the afternoon before and it was packed. 

Dr. Updates

Eve had a followup with her GI last month.  She is 46.8 pounds and about 45 inches tall.  He is very happy with her weight and we are keeping her at her current feeding rate.  She has gained 10 pounds in the last year!  Truly amazing.  We'll replace her tube in October or November.  She also had her well visit at the pediatrician last week and no surprise, she's at about the 8th percentile for weight and less than the 5th for height.  But that's normal for her.   She got her flu shot and we went over all the meds.  All is well.  She has a tiny bit of granulation tissue at her tube site, but otherwise Eve is very stable and healthy.  She has started 2nd grade and just loves it.  She has the same teacher as last year, but a new one-on-one.  She is getting excellent care and we are so happy.  School has always been so fun for her. 

Seamus also had his well visit recently.  He is 88th percentile on height and about 55th on weight.  He had a great visit and was a very good boy.  He got his flu shot and didn't cry.  I think he was so distracted that she was handing him a band-aid that he didn't cry.  Instead, he thanked her.  It was so cute.  I'm sure the Doctor doesn't often get spontaneously thanked for a shot. 

I've started up the new school year as well.  We have a new science building at work, and my office is located there.  The moving process was a little hectic because school was started, but it's a beautiful building.  I'm very happy.  And it's wonderful to be back in the classroom.  I have a really great group of students this semester. 

Soon I will post pictures of our recent weekend trip to NJ.  One of the things we did was visit an accessible playground.  It was fantastic to be able to get Eve's chair up on the playground equipment.  We went there every day that we were in NJ.  I just have to get the pictures off of Jim's camera. 

Eve had a visit from some of her favorite teachers and a classmate.  She just loved having her school friends in her house.  And Seamus loved it, too.  He showed off quite a bit.  Here are two shots of buddies Eve and Judge hanging out on the floor.  My heart just about melted out of my body.  We truly are fortunate that Eve has such wonderful people in her life. 

And, just for fun, here's a shot of Seamus zoning out in front of the TV.  A rare moment of quiet from him.