Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
Ready to roll
Griffith and Allan, ready to lead the walk. Griff loved his Mardi Gras beads. Allan, a little less interested.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Hip, hip, hooray!
The boys did it ! (With a lot of help from a lot of you.) Big Al and Grif made their goal of raising $5000 for the March of Dimes -- they beat it actually. And on Saturday they led the walk. Well, sort of, anyway. The Sam's Club team (corporate bullies!) actually cut in front of us, but the boys were the lead in theory. We had lots of good company -- Dick, Steph and Bailey (who claimed to be worn out from the walk despite having ridden piggy-back nearly all the way!), Jennifer, Greg, Jim & Montell, Michele, Lee & Katie, Gretchen, Andy & Caroline (who were misled about how far the walk was by Jay but soldiered on anyway). There will be pictures but I left the card reader at work.
The weather turned out to be perfect and the boys were absolute angels for the whole walk. They got to see their buddy Dr. Joe (actually Griffith is still very skeptical of Dr. Joe who fixed his hernia. And he has every reason to be, really. Dr. Joe would rip off Griff's diaper and begin poking on his privates every time he came in the nursery and Griff has a long memory.) Allan is a little more forgiving and doesn't seem to bear any ill will toward Dr. Joe for putting in his peg. Or maybe he's just biding his time. Hard to tell with Allan. He's inscrutable.
Allan decided early on in the walk that this would be the perfect time and place for a nap and crashed. He slept the entire time. Not his brother, though. Griffith was beside himself. He's so nosy and such a flirt -- he didn't close his eyes for a minute. After it was all over we went to lunch and had burgers. By the time we got home, Allan was all charged up and Griffith was running on fumes. Allan spent all afternoon talking to his dad. Griffith spent most of the afternoon napping with his momma (I picked well that time.)
Griffith has mastered walking along furniture, but hasn't graduated to walking across open ground yet. I had my first real display of jealousy/sibling rivalry today. Both boys were hungry and I was sitting on the floor with Allan on my left leg, feeding him. Griffith was laying on my right leg drinking his bottle when he decided that this really just wasn't good enough. He crawled up on my right thigh, sat down and planted his right hand in Allan's chest and began pushing with all his might. Great. Cain meet Abel. We got it worked out for the moment, but I doubt this is the last time something like this is going to happen.
Allan is continuing to make good progress with his physical therapy and speech therapy. He has graduated to eating small curd cottage cheese. He doesn't seem to like it much (I don't either) but it gives him practice with chewing. So there's that.
Allan's heart rate had been unusually high for week or two and so we had an ultrasound on his heart last week and the cardiologist thinks that he has an A-P window. Basically it is a hole between the aorta and pulmonary artery. This is a rare (of course it is -- it is Allan, after all) congenital heart defect which allows blood to shunt from the aorta to the pulmonary artery. It means that some of his oxygenated blood ends up going back in to the pulmonary artery where there is unoxygenated blood. This may help explain some of his respiratory issues and why he is still on a fair amount of oxygen. They are giving him a high daily dose of Lasix for 2 weeks to dry him out and we will have another ultrasound to see if the hole is still there (there is a small possibility that it might close). If it is still there, then they will do a heart cath, just like Uncle Mark had, to assess the amount of shunting and the pressures in his heart. They will send all of the test results to the Wizard of Oz of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Michigan. Then they will decide if this is something that we need to have surgically repaired right now. He's doing fine. His physical condition is really no different than it was two weeks ago (except his heart rate is back down). We are just hanging out and waiting to see what develops. Allan is apparently bound and determined to continue to see the world via one doctor at a time.
The weather turned out to be perfect and the boys were absolute angels for the whole walk. They got to see their buddy Dr. Joe (actually Griffith is still very skeptical of Dr. Joe who fixed his hernia. And he has every reason to be, really. Dr. Joe would rip off Griff's diaper and begin poking on his privates every time he came in the nursery and Griff has a long memory.) Allan is a little more forgiving and doesn't seem to bear any ill will toward Dr. Joe for putting in his peg. Or maybe he's just biding his time. Hard to tell with Allan. He's inscrutable.
Allan decided early on in the walk that this would be the perfect time and place for a nap and crashed. He slept the entire time. Not his brother, though. Griffith was beside himself. He's so nosy and such a flirt -- he didn't close his eyes for a minute. After it was all over we went to lunch and had burgers. By the time we got home, Allan was all charged up and Griffith was running on fumes. Allan spent all afternoon talking to his dad. Griffith spent most of the afternoon napping with his momma (I picked well that time.)
Griffith has mastered walking along furniture, but hasn't graduated to walking across open ground yet. I had my first real display of jealousy/sibling rivalry today. Both boys were hungry and I was sitting on the floor with Allan on my left leg, feeding him. Griffith was laying on my right leg drinking his bottle when he decided that this really just wasn't good enough. He crawled up on my right thigh, sat down and planted his right hand in Allan's chest and began pushing with all his might. Great. Cain meet Abel. We got it worked out for the moment, but I doubt this is the last time something like this is going to happen.
Allan is continuing to make good progress with his physical therapy and speech therapy. He has graduated to eating small curd cottage cheese. He doesn't seem to like it much (I don't either) but it gives him practice with chewing. So there's that.
Allan's heart rate had been unusually high for week or two and so we had an ultrasound on his heart last week and the cardiologist thinks that he has an A-P window. Basically it is a hole between the aorta and pulmonary artery. This is a rare (of course it is -- it is Allan, after all) congenital heart defect which allows blood to shunt from the aorta to the pulmonary artery. It means that some of his oxygenated blood ends up going back in to the pulmonary artery where there is unoxygenated blood. This may help explain some of his respiratory issues and why he is still on a fair amount of oxygen. They are giving him a high daily dose of Lasix for 2 weeks to dry him out and we will have another ultrasound to see if the hole is still there (there is a small possibility that it might close). If it is still there, then they will do a heart cath, just like Uncle Mark had, to assess the amount of shunting and the pressures in his heart. They will send all of the test results to the Wizard of Oz of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Michigan. Then they will decide if this is something that we need to have surgically repaired right now. He's doing fine. His physical condition is really no different than it was two weeks ago (except his heart rate is back down). We are just hanging out and waiting to see what develops. Allan is apparently bound and determined to continue to see the world via one doctor at a time.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
WalkAmerica 2007
Okay, folks, we are in the home stretch for the March of Dimes WalkAmerica. The big walk is Saturday morning and Allan and Griffith will be leading the pack. They have broken out the new stroller and will be sporting their sneakers and bucket hats.
We would love to have as many of you walk with us as possible. If you aren't able to walk, but are able to make a donation, that would be great, too. We are trying to meet a goal of $5000 and are about $1300 short at the moment, but I know that we can hit it.
Thanks again for all your support -- can't wait to see you on Saturday!
We would love to have as many of you walk with us as possible. If you aren't able to walk, but are able to make a donation, that would be great, too. We are trying to meet a goal of $5000 and are about $1300 short at the moment, but I know that we can hit it.
Thanks again for all your support -- can't wait to see you on Saturday!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Allan, looking good
Looks like the boys are going to have to be Cardinals fans. Aunt Kelly and the Cubs have abandoned them....
Griff in his new Cardinals hat
Aunt Michele brought new hats, jerseys, sippy cups and a story book.
She says "Game over, Aunt Kelly."
Allan chilling in the back yard
As much as he can with his brother up in his face all the time, any way.
Griffith elbowing his brother (II)
He stayed like that for pretty much the entire walk. And that lasted about an hour and a half.
Griffith elbowing Allan
I would like to think that he was just making sure that his brother was safe and secure, but I don't think that was his goal.
Jen helping out with bath time.
Jen came over and she and Allan played in the sink with all of his new bath toys.
Griffith - crawling through
This is not how this is designed to be used, but it is still lots of fun.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
I am sure that we will have a lot more photos from the baptism and first birthday celebration, but here are a few to pique your interest. As you can see, the boys were excellent. The weather was wretched - cold and rainy. Griffith hated my hat so I abandoned it. The photographer had to make an emergency run to town to get a new memory card and the priest was late because he was annointing a bunch of elderly nuns. No matter. We were surrounded by family and friends and couldn't have been happier. The boys comported themselves with great dignity (except when Griffith peed all over Alissa, but really, she should be used to that. The first time we met her she was wearing a plastic gown because her baby kept spitting up all over her!) The boys acted like they didn't know a stranger and I kept having to look around to see where our babies were. Fortunately they were surrounded by masses of people who love them. We count ourselves as very fortunate to have good friends and family around us. The thoughtfulness and prayers have made the success that we have had possible. Now that we are getting to the end of cold and flu season we are looking forward to hanging out with you all. The boys have established that they can party like rock stars. It is only their old parents who can't keep up.
Bath time
Lottie, Joseph and Jess giving Griffith a bath. Joseph's observation?"He's got a willy !!!!"
The boys and their first girlfriends
The boys and Cheryl, Alissa and Krista. Allan wasn't nearly as put out as he appears.
Griff and Flora's hat
Griff wasn't really sure about all his favorite girls in hats.
I had a lovely one, but he objected to it.
Jess, Griffith and the sleepover
Cousin Jess spent the night and made popcorn which is very interesting. Mostly for swatting.
Sorry for the no post -- the boys' birthday went great. We had a big baptism/birthday bash. They were little troopers and didn't fuss a bit. They looked like little angels in their outfits, too. Unfortunately, Dad ran off with the camera this morning so no new pictures yet. Tomorrow we'll do better.
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