Recovery

Brayden made it through the two weeks of pureed foods and barely needed the no-no's on his arms!! He slowly became resigned to the fact that when he signed "eat" it meant he would be drinking and then last Friday he graduated to soft foods!! When I got home from work, my silly sweet little boy greeted me and we had the BEST weekend!! :) Benson said he ate TWO scrambled eggs and a bowl of oatmeal Friday morning....and he pretty much hasn't stopped! ;)

Yesterday was the ENT follow up for the tubes and they saw no fluid in his ears.  WooHoo!!!!!

Tomorrow is the palate follow up. We just pray everything is healing nicely and correctly and Bray will be cleared to eat anything and everything again (I CAN'T wait to see his face when we bring out the Cheerios again.....don't you wish you could be that excited about food?!?!). We might have another week of soft foods, and Bray is doing well with that, but my fingers are crossed. ...as long as the palate is ok!!

Again, thank you for all the love, support, and prayers!!!

Wiped out!!

Palate Surgery

His doctor says, "Technically it couldn't have gone better." What more could we ask for?!?! 

Thank you for all the love, support, and prayers!!!!!!

Now onto a smooth and healthy recovery! 

GQ called

One way to save money for college ;)

Another pic from his 2nd bday

This wouldn't show up?? 

Contemplating the great future ahead for this little boy!

He's 2!!!

Playing with some balloons from his party.

He looks like he is up to no good, but really he just has some goldfish in his mouth :)

At the Children's Museum in Naperville.

Being silly with Daddy :)

Almost 6 months!!!

We can't believe it's almost been six months since Gotcha Day!! Soooo much has happened: I went back to work (it was soooo hard, and still is, but I really do love teaching and have become so much more efficient so I can leave ASAP) and my dad watched him for a week, my mom watched him the following week, and since the beginning of March Benson has been on Paternity leave; we celebrated Brayden's second birthday; got him Dedicated at our church; he is pulling himself up on everything and cruising around; signs two words together (usually "eat more" or "more please"); somehow barely survived this horrible winter and will work on his outside stamina because the few walks we were able to take earlier this week wiped him out....and he just sat in the stroller! ;) and we all just love him more and more. 

Next Friday he is scheduled for his palate surgery. Recovery is about three weeks with pain meds for the first four or five days and hopefully only a one night hospital stay. He can only eat puréed food, and with how much this boy LOVES to eat that is the part I'm most worried about because he is going to be MAD (rightly so!!). 

My coworker and I submitted a proposal to job share next school year and it was approved so we will each work two and a half days!! It's the best of both worlds and we are thrilled!!!! :)

Attaching has gone well and spending the days with daddy has Bray reaching for him some of the time now when I'm around. Hopefully the surgery won't disrupt too much. We're looking at a few home day cares for May which will be a big adjustment since he won't be at home anymore and he'll be around kids again, but with a smaller setting we are hoping he'll still get a lot of adult attention that he loves.

Brayden will still have his four therapists come to the house over the summer, but we're hoping to spend a lot of time at the pool and find a music class.....on top of play dates!!! :)

Thanks for continuing to check in on us. Sorry I haven't been consistent with updating, but I'm still trying to figure out how to balance as much as I can. At the end of the day though, as long as I have snuggled with Brayden everything else is a bonus!

Irresistible

Sooooooo excited that I'll be job sharing 4th or 5th grade next school year with one of my coworkers so I won't miss this face too much!!!