January2002

December 13, 2001

It has been awhile. I have been busy enjoying my boys, as I have had Zach home full-time since October. Jason has been doing pretty well. He is sitting by himself with no support and able to get down to the floor and roll all over. He is quite excited about this feat. He is really starting to manipulate toys and is dumping containers. He likes to bounce like Tigger when held and is really starting to put weight on his feet. Jason is beginning to enjoy the company of others and will actually let his mom escape the room for short periods. He is now sleeping in his room on a matress on the floor. His eating is making teeny tiny umprovements and he seems to like mostly olives, peas, carrots, apples, potato chips and puffed rice. He is definitely swallowing more bercause there is less mess on his shirt and he is better at getting the food into his mouth. We are continuing the elimination diet and are getting good at creative grocery shopping at Wegmans and other health food stores. Jason and Zach have the normal sibling love- hate relationship. They enjoy kissing and razzing each other just as much as getting into kick fights. We had to move Zach to the back of the car. Jason is using some language mostly "M" sounds. He has a few sounds that I recognize as words and he is understanding plenty. His favorite thing now is to look at the TV and yell at me until I put Thomas the Tank Engine songs on. This is conflicting with Zachary's all day quest to watch Batman and the Justice League. Prince Ali is just about all phased out, but only by someone with a "colmet"(cape) of course. Jason's really cute trick that he picked up while watching Rodeo is too kick his legs and buck his hips when you call him a wild bull. He gets such a kick out of it. He is becoming quite the delightful child and what personality. He must get that from his brother. Zachary really enjoys his crafts and is getting very good at them. He has been decorating ornaments for me for a few days now. He is attending preschool 2 days a week for 2 hours. Zach is excited about the holidays and told me today that he wants Santa to give him snow.for Christmas. Mommy and Daddy have a big Christmas surprise for the boys(We hope to drive to Florida and see Nannie and Mickey). We have all Jason 's clinic appointments tomorrow and next week. His IFSP is Monday so I will probably have more to update next week. He is up to 19 lb 3 ounces. I hope that makes everyone happy.

December 30- We are home and had a great time. The boys loved it and were very good, although they both might have had a touch of a stomach bug. Christmas was great. Zach received an acceptable amount of Batman toys and even enjoyed his quick change Superman. Jason slept in on Christmas morning which was nice for Zach to have the spotlight all to himself.. Jason enjoyed his preesents too, but really went crazy over Zachary's Thomas towel. We went to Disney on Thursday. It was a tough , long day, especially for the adults, but what fun. zach was in awe meeting his best buddy Alladin. Jason went on every ride and was amazed by all the action. Both boys snoozed throughout the day. The ride hom e was smoother than the ride down, except for an unexpected detour in Washington, Well we still have to do our Christmas and gift exchange with Miya and Papa. Happy New Year everyone. More pics to follow.

January 18 - Jason had an Echocardiogram on Tuesday, and the doctors tell us that everything looks good!! The valves are both working good and his squeeze is good. They also checked his IVC for blockages and found none as far down as they could see. We were very relieved. Still no talk of surgery #3. On the home front Jason is doing great. He is rolling alot. Nothing in the house is safe. The therapist are working this week on sign language. He has learned a sign for "I want." The signing we hope will lower his overall frustration. In the meantime, he make more noises everday. He has even started to go to the babysitters for 20 minutes at a time and so far he has done great. Overall, things seem to be moving ahead slowly but surely.

January 31, 2002

Jason has had some kind of little bug for almost a week now. He is riunning a fever on and off and has not slept great . His reflux is really acting up. He slept well last night and ate some potato chips tonight, so hopefully tomorrow will bring a brighter day and not too much snow. Zachary has been a bit whiny so I hope he is not coming down with anything. He has slept in his own room for 2 days. We put Roscoe in his room to keep him company. Poor Roscoe, Rob has to drag him up. I think that Roscoe prefers to sleep on the couch. A batmobille is waiting for Zachary if he makes it 3 more nights.

February 8, 2002

Well, Jason appears to be doing much better. He is such a trip and what a trouble-maker. He is after anything possible that he should not have in his mouth and if you tell him no or don't, he absolutely sobs. He is pretty mobile with his rolling and can scoot on his bottom and lower himself to the ground from sitting. Just about nothing is out of his reach. He has been going to the babysitter for 30 minutes and doing pretty well. Jason loves to play Zachary's new Wheels on the Bus game. The reflux is gone, but now Jason ihas been drinking less than 10 ounces of milk a day. He grazes on food all day long, mostly raisins with peanut butter and rice cookies. He is trying a lot of new foods too and drank 112 ounces of cherry juice today. I weghed him and he has hit 20 lb so I am not yet worried. He still spits a lot out, but is definitely swallowing some. Zach decided the wait for the Batmobile is not worth it and continues to come to our bed. Did I tell you that Jason is pretty much trying to sleep through the night which brings about more trouble with milk intake because he gets a lot of his calories at night. Don't worry, I'm still losing sleep.