FINALLY - a written update!

As you can see - Wesley is continuing to grow like a weed. Now I've always found that phrase a bit odd. As someone with a child who grows about an inch a month and weeds that grow about ten inches per month, I can now relate. Wesley has gone from being between the 1st and 2nd percentiles to the 65th percentile in height. For weight be was basically at the negative twentieth percentile (if there were such a thing) to the 65th percentile. Honestly though, Wes was between the zero and the 1st percentile for weight. The doctors were concerned about his weight, but needless to say, that's a problem of the past!! He has more than recovered physically from his surgery.

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We are struggling with eating by mouth, but that has more to do with the tube feedings. We recently went on vacation, and as soon as we got to the cottage, his tube came out. Thankfully we had a spare to put in, but it was the small mic-key button, not the long tube like he had before. The problem was that Wes couldn't be on the pump at night anymore because the button connector to the pump tubing sticks about 6 inches straight out of his stomach. Try and get a two year-old to sleep attached to that thing!! It ended up coming out of his stomach and soaking his bed with Pediasure about 3:00am after a rough half-night's sleep. So Damon and I decided to just feed him during the day to avoid the night feeding problems. Doing that though, we cannot get him to eat much during the day. He is getting five 8 oz. cans of Pediasure each day, so that doesn't allow him enough time to get hungry! And since he hasn't figured out that you can eat even when you aren't hungry, he won't eat. We go in a little more than two weeks though for a swallow test and to meet with the therapist and the surgeon, so we'll know more then.

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We went on our first family vacation to a cabin in Michigan with my family. I also realized that a vacation with a small child is not the same as a vacation without a small child. We had a great time, but it went by too quickly. I was so thankful to have so much of our family there because Wes wanted to go all the time - walking, playing, jumping. As you could see from the pictures, Wes did not like the sand between his toes! He loved playing in the water and drinking it (yuck, yuck, yuck). It wasn't easy to sleep in the same room with him though! We are used to him waking up slowly and talking to himself for a few minutes before we go in and get him up. But when we are all in the same room, he can just get out of bed and come stick his fingers in my eye sockets so I wake up!! Talk about an unpleasant awakening...

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We have stepped up the potty training efforts. Wes does great when we are at home, but things don't go so well when we are out of the house. As I came out of the bathroom earlier today, Wes was there to greet me and cheer "YAY!! Mama went potty!" Then he told me to go and get a sticker (a "goga" as he calls it that he receives when he goes on the potty). I am struggling with how hard to push him to be potty trained and when to just let him be an untrained two year-old. Any advice?

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I am sure there is more that I am forgetting, but I'll post when I remember!