Summertime in the City

Bobby is doing great these days. The g-tube/nissen surgery have made a huge difference in terms of how well he feels. Now that he's keeping his feeds down he's had a nice growth spurt and, of course, feels much better without throwing up 10 times a day.

The feeding schedule is a little hectic right now. His stomach shrank when he was on continuous feeds so we need to work our way back up to being able to handle meals. He does a continuous feed for 12 hours at night and then in the day eats 3 ounces over an hour with two hour breaks. So we're tied to the feeding tube a lot of the time.

That hasn't slowed him down though. He's getting stronger every minute. He's very close to being able to sit up all by himself and is stable enough that we can do things like push him around in a little tricycle and put him on his wooden horse for a rollicking good time. We go to the park to swing and when its hot he plays in his baby pool. It's a blast.

We've had a couple of problems - last weekend at about 1 am Bobby was crying and I was trying to get access to his tube so that I could vent it (remove the air from his tummy). In my haste I pulled out the tube. We went to the ER and they replaced it, poorly. So, we were back again in about 36 hours when the tube fell out of its own accord. Yuck. Valerie and I estimated the total ER visits for Bobby's first 15 months at somewhere around, well, 10 or 15. I've included a couple of videos below to show how Valerie and I have developed a whole ER variety show to keep Bobby entertained.

Day care is pretty much set. He did a trial run on Wednesday and seemed to do pretty well. He didn't freak out when Luke, a cute little boy in his class, stole his toys, but he did push him away a little bit, which I think is a good sign. His teacher seems excited to have Bobby in class.

We are going to have to find a new physical and speech/feeding therapist for Bubs. The daycare is not within their coverage area. We're disappointed because they have been great with Bobby, but we need some sanity in our lives and trying to juggle day care 30 minutes from our house and therapy visits at the house is just too much.

July brings with it a fun trip to Kansas City to see family and friends. We are trying to get out of the house as much as possible - we're so stir crazy from the last year of not being able to leave. Today we are going to go see Snoopy The Musical. I really hope Bobby likes it because I love children's shows and its something I would love to be able to do with Bobby for years to come.

Next Saturday he and I are going to start a music class. In August Mama V and Bobby will be attending Aqua Babies swim classes. He takes another music class with Nanny Beth on Mondays. He's a very busy boy - and how wonderful that his busy-ness does not include cardiology tests or GI hospitalizations. He's thriving and its just a miracle to watch.