Potty Training: The Sequel

It's officially started. We have started seriously potty training Dylan. He has been using the potty at school and we try to do it at home, but weren't real consistent. He had little interest. We started doing things they way we had with Zach but that soon turned out not to work for Dylan. (Shocking. I should realize by now they are not going to do anything the same.) Nothing really motivated him to stay dry. He would get wet and then just change and move on and do it again. Hence we waited until now to try again.

By George, I think he's getting it. The big draw for him...Tropical Sno.

This will be a common site for us this summer...

I'm just thankful it's cheap and open fairly late. Although the other morning, he woke up enthusiastically sat on the potty and went "number 2". He turned to me and said, "We go to Tropical Sno?" Oh buddy, I don't think it's open at 7:30am. A flaw to our otherwise brilliant plan. :)

Dylan is 1!!!

Look who turned 1 today!

My baby turned one today! He had a great birthday despite the fact that he woke up last night with a fever of 102. No other symptoms, but I'll probably call the doc tomorrow if it doesn't resolve itself overnight. I'm sure I'll be up every 6 hours to dose him up on some baby Motrin. So his birthday video, he's a little sluggish and not quite his smiley self, but he had fun nonetheless.

We did just a low key party for his 1st birthday, much like we did with Zach. We just had the local relatives over and did a quick cake and ice cream. I figure there will be plenty of time for the huge festivities with multiple children in the future. Dylan got a couple of cute PSU Gorillas t-shirts, a new swing for our swingset we got for Christmas and a fun little push truck that also teaches you things and sings songs. Now if he can just keep his big brother away from it, I'm sure he'll enjoy it. Our present to Dylan is coming on Monday because I can't even get my own kids gifts here on time. Blah! Amazon, I will not pay your ridiculous shipping prices! He is getting a neat little car track set and some matching egg game from us too.

You would have never guessed he was running a fever. Bring on the cake!

The cake was from Sweet Designs Cakery and I just loved it.
She does such great work and it tastes good too!

I just asked her to do a whale since we did some whales in Dylan's room.

Here's his "smash cake".

You can see why they call it that.

The new swing and playing with cousin Lilli

What is Dylan like these days?
(For Dylan to read when he is Zach's age and wants to know, "did I do that when I was a baby?")

Let's see. He's not walking yet. I thought he'd be early, but he seems just fine crawling everywhere and is quite fast too. He stands really solid and then slow and controlled he lowers himself to the floor. Today he started saying, "Uh, oh" and I think it's adorable. He also says "ba" every time we go into a room where there is a ball or any other round object that might be considered ball like. Even at the top of the basement stairs because he knows the two big exercise balls are down there. When you say, "ta-da" he throws his arms in the air and smiles really big. He just got a new carseat and is thrilled he can see out. Even though he's rear facing still (and probably will be until preschool at this rate) he loves the new seat and actually was making himself laugh on the way home. Dylan can climb stairs like it's no one's business and absolutely loves bath time. He's the first one in the water and can not get enough of splashing his brother even though we've said "stop" a hundred times. He has 8 teeth and is working on his one year molars. He's really a great teether just like Zach was. A little grumpy at times, but never miserable with the teeth. He loves to be outside and ride the Little Tikes car or his little push toy/ride on car he has. The swing will be a great addition to the backyard since I can now have my hands free with him contained within the seat! YEAH! Dylan is really into his big brother and doing anything he can to be near him and doing what he's doing. It's great to see and I hope they keep it up! I can't believe I almost forgot Dylan's dancing skills. He is a mover and a shaker. One morning I looked over at the high chair and we had the song Pokerface playing by Lady Gaga and Dylan's hands were literally in the air and he was bouncing in his seat to the beat like it was Disco night at Club 616! HA! I've never laughed so hard. Anytime there's music on, he's bopping. We went to Grand Lake with Craig's parents and ate at a little outdoor restaurant. They were playing that Mambo #5 by Lou Vega and Dylan immediately starting dancing in his high chair. He had the whole deck watching him and laughing. Later we were told that they had a little camera on in the kitchen and they were all laughing too! He's just a riot with the dancing.
What a great 1st year it has been with our little guy! Craig, Zach and I just love watching him learn new things and become his own person. A year ago I would have said you were just being nice or optimistic if you would have described life a year later like it is today. Here we are with a "perfect" child as if nothing ever happened. Something I prayed for continuously has come to fruition. Wow, God is good and miracles can happen!

Happy 1st Birthday, Dylan! Here's to many more birthdays ahead of you!

More Birthday Pics:

Lilli checking out our slide

Dylan just chillin' in his new swing!

The family

Dr. Porte Visit - finally

After some scheduling struggles, we finally got to follow up with the NICU doctor. Dr. Porte didn't actually get to see Dylan, but the "new" doc followed up. She was great and spent quite a bit of time observing Dylan and asking developmental questions. She was really impressed with him and said that if she hadn't seen his chart she wouldn't have any idea that he had had any issues. They checked his muscle tone (they explained that they look for them to be too tight or too loose - he definitely had too tight the first few days in the NICU). They checked his reflexes of course and his eye tracking. He passed all of those with flying colors and even impressed them by standing up next to a flat wall (not pulling up with a ledge). (He practices on the sliding door and our mirror/closet doors in our bathroom.) It was quite a relief and we will check back with them in 6 more months just to make sure nothing has changed.
I made some time on this trip to Joplin to stop by the Ronald McDonald House to say hi and see the brick we had placed in Dylan's honor. It was because of everyone's generosity that we got to have a brick engraved. Here's the picture I took.

Thank you to everyone who donated in honor of Dylan!

Next week is his 9 month pediatrician appointment. Time sure does fly!

Dylan Milestone - Crawling

While we were on vacation, and unfortunately after Craig had left, Dylan decided to become a full fledged crawler. I think it was officially the 15th of May. 7 1/2 months. As I'm writing this on June 2nd, he is also starting to pull himself up in his crib. It's a bit sad because he gets "stuck" holding himself up and doesn't know how to let go and lay down. I had to sit with him a little while tonight to lay him back down so he knew it was sleep time.
He LOVES being mobile. He loves just crawling around the house and following us from room to room. For those of you that have seen our new house, I'm in trouble with trying to figure out where to strategically place our gates. We have two sets of stairs that are just two stairs and then a full flight of stairs up to our bedrooms and then the basement steps (easiest b/c we just leave the door closed for now).
In the video, you can see my parent's kitchen and great tile. Loved their house, although I'm not sure I'd love to live in it with small children. Lots of walking around and hard to "find" everyone...kind of like a maze.

Dylan is scooting and my house needs to be cleaned...

Dylan is officially scooting now. He had been practicing in his crib by getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth. Now, he's got it down and has figured out how to launch himself forward and/or pull himself forward with his arms. Zach totally did the army crawl thing for about 2 months, but I fear Dylan is just going to go crawling away here very soon. He turned 7 months on Monday and is still hitting all his milestones like a champ. Here's the video of Dylan scooting with "help" from his brother and Dad. I really think Zach is the most entertaining of this thing. Dylan is just tuning everyone else out while he masters the crawl. You can tell he spends a lot of time "tuning" us out. :) Also, please excuse the messy laundry laying about the room, we were busy watching Dylan scoot and didn't have time to pick up! Guess I'll have to make time now.

I'm not sure that I wrote about Dylan's doctors appointments, but they all went really well. Again, I forget how bad he was until we see the doctors and they all are still amazed at how well he is doing. Still a relief to me. We couldn't be happier with everything in that category. The only interesting thing about the doc appointments is how much smaller Dylan seems to be than Zach was at his age. He weighs around 17 3/4 lbs...and Zach was a solid 20 lbs. He's also pretty short, but I think he is right around where Zach was on that one. It's just funny when he was so big at birth that now he's significantly smaller. We'll see how that turns out. Zach was always kind of short for his percentile thing, but now seems to be average or above average. They still look so much alike that I'll have a hard time keeping pics straight as they get older (or maybe I get older is more accurate).

Dylan - 6 months

I can't believe it's been so long since I've written on here. But here's an update on Dylan that is way overdue.

He turned six months officially on the 27th of March. I would say this week he's officially started sitting up. He's still a little wobbly but for the most part he can sit on his own for a couple of minutes and then comes crashing down to get a toy or whatever has caught his attention. I've been a little worried that he's a little on the small side. This week I think he's finally put a little more weight on. He's still no where as pudgy as Zach was at his age, but he's still got quite a few rolls so I'm not too worried.

I think he's working on his first tooth as well. Drool central and you can feel a little lump on his lower gum and a little fussier than usual at times. He's still such a sweet baby though. It takes a lot to get him upset. He's just happy hanging out and watching all the activity with Zach and Craig. The only time he really lets you know he's not happy is when he's hungry and you are not getting the food there fast enough. He seems to find his vocal chords then.

Our newest activity is sucking on our toes which always cracks me up. I love watching how excited he gets when they get to his mouth and he can hold on to both of them at the same time. He's also getting infatuated with the baby in the mirror. He likes that baby and that baby seems to have a mommy a lot like his! Such a smile!

He also had a hearing screening to check that everything is okay on that end. I guess babies who are in the NICU have a higher risk for hearing issues. His hearing is okay. Borderline on a couple things, but could be the noise he was making in his carseat and the other test he was too young to be too concerned about it yet. 3 months and another check.

Oh and in the last month we have totally cleared up his eczema. We had/have been weaning him off all milk to soy and it made such a difference. It probably took about 2 months to see the results but his skin is great now and before it was scaly and dry no matter how much Aquaphor I used. We'll have to be careful and see if he's got a true milk allergy or if he grows out of it. It has not helped his spitting up however. My laundry still runneth over! I think he went through 4-5 sleepers today - not exaggerating!

Next week should be fun. We have appointments with his pediatrician, the NICU pediatrician (Dr. Porte) and the pediatric neurologist in Springfield. I'm tired just typing about it. I think we'll hear that everything is just fine and he's doing great.

Happy 6 months Dylan!

Rolling on...

After an hour of trying to get him to rollover on video...taaaa daaaa! :)
Milestone - rolling over from back to tummy - 02/09/09!



Just being cute, swinging around...

The Appendectomy

Okay, so I'm finally feeling well enough to write about the appendectomy, or appy as they call it on Grey's Anatomy. :) It's really not that great of a story, but I'm okay with that. I had been feeling a weird soreness on my lower right side. I was chalking it up to starting to do some ab work after the c-section and it was just oddly sore on one side. Later, I thought, maybe I was getting an ovarian cyst. Nothing to be too concerned about since a)I've had one before and b) there's nothing they can do for them unless you are in real pain. Thursday night I thought I was getting a fever from a cold that was coming on, but no fever just weird chills. Friday morning I woke up with specific pain on my right side. Again it wasn't bad, but I thought it could be a cyst that was getting worse or maybe it could be my appendix (no, surely it's not that). Since it was Friday and I hate having things happen on weekends, I decided to go to our Urgent Care and have a doctor take a look at it to be safe. My mother-in-law was kind enough to watch the boys for me.
The doc examines me and I actually tested positive for a urinary tract infection. AAAh, that must be it, I thought. To be safe and again with the weekend, she wanted me to get a CT scan at the hospital to rule out the cyst or appendix. She said some of my tests she did could be appendix. I thought I was being silly, but just to be sure I'd get the scan. I got the scan and they let me go back to Urgent Care - I thought they would have kept me if it was my appendix, but they did check I was going back to the doc. Craig was kind enough to have come over from work so he drove me back to Urgent Care. I was a little more uncomfortable and getting nauseated, but I hadn't eaten and was tired, so still thinking I'd just go home and rest some. Anyway, yes, the scan showed appendicitis and I had to go back to the hospital, get prepped and have surgery. What?!?!? Craig and I were both surprised.
I got prepped, made sure I wasn't getting ketamine (the drug from Dylan's delivery) and off to surgery I went. This time was much better going under the anesthetic. It was super quick and the recovery at the hospital was much easier than the c-section. I went home in 24 hours and Craig nursed me back to health. Recovery at home was kind of crummy and harder than I thought since the first 24 hours went so well. I'm doing much better now and just a little sore if I stand too long or pick up things to heavy.
The biggest bummer is that I think I've weaned Dylan without really planning on it. Between being away from him for 24 hours and then being so drugged I didn't want to nurse, it happened. I'm pretty much a well run dry and he s ipretty much happy to suck back a bottle of formula. I can't decide how I feel. I wasn't ready for this so soon and formula is SOOOO expensive. :) It also makes him feel less of a baby for me. Zach was 9 months before we weaned and it was gradual so I had time to get use to the idea. Hmm, now I'm wondering, is this the last of breastfeeding for me forever if we don't have another baby? But part of me is relieved to not have to worry about what I'm eating or drinking and have some freedom. I think it will be fine in the end. Of course, you know what comes next...solid foods. Hmm, I'm not really looking forward to baby food like I was with Zach. With Zach it was this new thing that we were going to experience. With Dylan, I know that feeding him baby food is time consuming and messy! Oh well, let's just pray for no food allergies and that it will be a boring process of introducing new foods.

Dylan Milestone

I can't believe it's taken me this long to put this in the blog, but Dylan has learned to reach and grab for things. The first time he really made contact was with a musical toy on his little bouncy seat. It shocked Zach and me while we were in the kitchen cooking the other day. We both heard the music and realized Dylan had found the toy and was able to pull it to make the music start. He gets very proud of himself when he does this and doesn't let go for quite awhile!
This is the culmination of staring at his hands intensely for about 3-4 weeks. They seemed to be the most exciting things in the world to him - just fascinating. Maybe I should have done something in the field of human development because I find watching the way baby's brain work and develop fascinating. Ah, another milestone.

Another Dylan Update

It's been awhile since I've updated on Dylan's status. He's still doing fabulous. We had two home visits with early intervention services to see if we qualified for any type of support for Dylan. The first visit was with Rochelle who specializes in specifically the social/emotional side of cases like ours. She makes sure that mom and baby are getting what they need. It seems that she sees all kinds of cases around social/emotional concerns. She was great. We talked for awhile just about his birth, how it was for Craig and I, for Zach and family in general. She was really great about understanding how hard a difficult delivery can be for everyone, not just baby and parents. She watched Dylan for awhile and gave me some tips on calming him and helping him cope with just normal baby excitement. She really didn't see anything to be concerned about. He's making great eye contact, smiling, tracking people and engaging in general. He's giving me cues about what he needs - verbally and physically. So all checked out with that side of things.
Next we had Becky come. She does a more thorough exam to see what we could qualify for - speech therapy, physical therapy, hearing, etc. She did a full work up on nutritional things, physical things and "played" with him to see what he was able to do at this point. Again, I couldn't be happier that we don't qualify for a darn thing at this time. Thank God, I didn't really want to "qualify" but at least we are on everyone's radar. It's comforting to know that I have resources to contact should I have a concern. Especially with Rochelle, she seems like someone (other than my mom and Amanda) to call when I'm just being worried about something to reassure me or help me get answers to my concerns.
This week, Dylan started reaching for things and actually making contact. I love watching him do new things. The last two weeks he's been all about studying his hands intensely to see if he can move them and see what he can do with them. Ah HA, they made it to his mouth and I believe we will have a finger/thumb sucker on our hands. If only he can figure out how not to gag himself with said fingers. Not much I can do to help that process other than tell him, "that's what happens" after he starts gagging on his fingers. It's a little sad but somewhat amusing because you think he'd figure it out.
All in all, he's doing fabulously. There are absolutely no current concerns other than to continue watching his progress. I did look into the APGAR score thing again b/c it seems when I mention it to people who know, they are alarmed by his numbers. He was a 1 at 1 min after birth, 1 at 5 mins and I believe, a 6 at 15 mins. I looked it up online and realized why everyone is shocked when I tell them. The "perfect" newborn gets the score of 10. 2 points for each of the five components. Typically they look for a 7 or higher at one minute after birth to know the baby doesn't need any intervention. I think Zach was like a 8. He was a little blue right off but was fine after a bit.

	Score of 0	Score of 1	Score of 2	Component of Acronym
Skin color	blue all over	blue at extremities body pink (acrocyanosis)	no cyanosis body and extremities pink	Appearance
Pulse rate	absent	<100	>100	Pulse
Reflex irritability	no response to stimulation	grimace/feeble cry when stimulated	sneeze/cough/pulls away when stimulated	Grimace
Muscle tone	none	some flexion	active movement	Activity
Breathing	absent	weak or irregular	strong	Respiration

Here's what I found on Wikipedia. He scored a 0 in all categories except for Pulse Rate which was his 1 b/c it never dropped below 60. For him to only be a 6 at 15 mins was a little scary. We are SO lucky that we were where we needed to be. I can't stand to think about if we'd been at another hospital with no NICU. I wanted to be at a hospital with a NICU and thank God I listened to my instincts and stuck with my decision.

I'm going to post a new video of him so you can see how great he's doing. It's just remarkable.

Dylan - 2 months

Can you believe it's been 2 months already!?!?

Yesterday was his normal pediatrician appointment and he did great. He weighed 12 lbs 4oz, 23 inches long and his head measured 15 1/2 (cm's I think?). His weight and height are 50th percentile and his head is measuring 50th by his pediatrician and 60th based on the neurologist - so accurate?!?!? :) The pediatrician was excited that he was already rolling over and holding his head up well on his tummy. She did notice he didn't have great head control when you pull him up from the table from his back. But nothing too concerning at this point. He got his shots and CRIED a lot...probably more than Zach did with his shots. It's so sad, but again a relief for me - normal is good!

Today we drove to Springfield for his neurologist appt. We had to have an EEG prior to the appointment so he couldn't sleep on the way there. It's about 2 hours away and I didn't do very well keeping him awake. I used cold wet wipes and everything but he was pretty tired. We did manage to keep him up for about an hour before the test. They explained that the brain reacts differently when it hasn't had rest. If your child is older you have to keep them up all night prior to the EEG. What a nightmare! They attached 24 electrodes to his tiny little head by rubbing an exfoliant to his head and then adhesive. Finally, they put tape around his head to keep them in place. I then had to hold him for 20 mins or so while he slept and they flashed strobe lights and watched his brain activity. He slept through the whole thing. I'd say the worst part was taking off all the electrodes and watching his little baby hair get pulled out with the tape. Torture. We immediately got to go to the doc and get the results. His EEG looks good! Good, they said. Not pretty good, but we'll keep an eye on it, just good. I'm thrilled. He can come off his drugs and we don't have to go back for 4 months. The only bummer is you have to taper slowly off the phenobarbital and it's going to take 3 months to taper off. But hey, it's still great news no matter how you look at it! The neurologist also noticed the head control thing, but said not to worry too much about it. He said that's very typical in a child who experienced what Dylan has.
My parents friend, Tina, who works with little ones and physical therapy gave us some exercises to work with him. THANKS TINA! So we'll probably start trying those a little to help his neck muscles along a little.
The best part is he's cooing and smiling a lot. It's just melts my heart and makes me feel so blessed for all that we've come through. I told Craig tonight that I'm just amazed that in two months we went from an EEG that showed "little charge or brain activity" to "looks good". The brain is so amazing! AMEN! What a great Christmas season we are having!

Dylan Milestone

And so it begins, Dylan is already starting to reach milestones. About a week ago, he smiled for the first time. I find it hard to determine the first real smile because you're never really sure if it's just gas or not. However, in the last week it's become very obvious that it's a smile. Yea! How great are baby smiles?!?!? My favorite (that I forgot about since having Zach) is when they smile while they are sleeping. It's the best look. You just want to be a baby and sleep that peacefully.

Yesterday, he rolled over for the first time from his tummy to his back. It took a little practice but he got it. Both of these seem to be right on track from what Zach did too. This is why the whole, "make sure he's hitting milestone" thing is a problem. Normally, I would think I wouldn't want to compare the two so much because we all know how different siblings can be. However, I've been instructed by the medical profession to do just that. I promise I will stop (at least out loud or in writing) to compare them once Dylan turns 2. Hold me to it. :)