3 months

One of Jared and Timothy's favorite games is to play bobcat...Jared is the bobcat, Timothy is the driver, and they run into stuff. :)

Happy boys. :)

The fringe benefits for using disposable diapers...the cat is always amused.

To celebrate his arrival into the 2nd quarter of his first year of life, Timothy has been especially cranky and is now giving his parents some peace by sleeping. I can't really blame him - he had three doctor appointments yesterday and didn't get a good nap in until we got home at 12:30.

The first appointment was with the GI specialist at Children's Hospital. It went well...she checked him over again and stated that sometimes they don't know why kids don't eat well and take so long to establish good eating habits. Evidently, Timothy falls into that category. She doesn't feel the need to see him again. Which is good that she doesn't see anything wrong with him, but we are still stumped as to why he is not eating. He also weighed in at 9 lb 9 oz. I was hoping for 10 something, but he is getting just formula now, not the breast milk with formula (I dried up), so it is lower in calories. She also suggested taking away the food thickener out of his feedings, which will not be wasting space in his tummy on non-nutritive volume.

The second appointment was a blast...a physical therapy evaluation that is part of his NICU followup. We spent lots of time playing, smiling, and talking with Jean, the therapist. She was really pleased with where he is and showed me some activities that we can do with Timothy to help keep him on track. We see her again in 2 months for his next evaluation.

The third appointment was with the feeding team (a nurse, speech therapist, and occupational therapist) and was also fun, but probably would have been more productive if it was before the physical therapy appointment because Timothy was REALLY sleepy. They showed me a few things I can do with Timothy so he will like to put things in his mouth, like food. At this point, we think he has just developed a mental block with the bottle (pretty impressive for a 3 month old). He also has a sensitive gag reflex, which he is thankfully growing out of. It was only a few weeks ago that he was gagging after every cough, sneeze, and yawn. At this point, it is only after coughing, but not every cough, and just a couple of times a day.

So at this point, we are not concerning ourselves with the bottle. If he takes one, great. If he doesn't, we progress towards sippy cups and solid foods. Our focus is now on getting him prepared for different tastes and bombarding his mouth with lots of pleasant experiences. This should also help him outgrow the gag reflex and help keep the food in his tummy.

At this point, we are feeling blessed. We have a little boy who is happy (most of the time), smiles all the time, tries to talk our ears off, prefers to be sitting up or looking over your shoulder, and sleeps through the night. He may not eat, but he will.

Where did the month go?

Well, so much for keeping you up on what is going on. :) I added a ton of pictures to our Picasa account, so make sure you check it out (look over to the left and click on the link). I reorganized all of our pictures since December into month albums to make it a little easier and will continue to do so as we take more.

Since I have last updated, we have gone to see the GI specialist, celebrated Valentine's Day, Jared finished winter quarter, we went on a Grace Place retreat for outgoing sem couples, Jared officially finished winter quarter by writing and turning in all of his papers, we drove to South Dakota and back to visit the Nies side of the family...and then we came home and crashed. :) Now the details...

The GI specialist didn't give us a whole lot when we saw her a month ago, but considering we were meeting for the first time, I didn't expect much. She doesn't think Timothy has acid reflux and suggested we take him off of his medicine. So far, we haven't noticed a difference. We see her again tomorrow to see what we can do now. We also have a physical therapy exam (part of his NICU follow-up) and we meet with the feeding team. Hopefully we will get some suggestions on what to do to help Timothy overcome his issue with the bottle. I personally think he has a mental block and will be fine once we get to the solid foods and sippy cups, but we will see.

Jared worked really hard and by the end of the quarter was behind only by 2 papers and a take home test. Not bad for missing 2.5 weeks of graduate classes because your son is born and then hospitalized. We went on a nice retreat about wellness and took Timothy for his first hotel stay. He actually did a really great job. We took his swing with us for him to sleep in (we can't elevate the pack 'n' play mattress on an angle) and he just chilled out in my arms or someone else's arms at our table during the day. When we got back from the retreat, Jared spent 3 days really working and was able to finish his work and we were free to travel, so we decided to take off to Spearfish to see the family.

We had a great time (Timothy, again, traveled like a trooper) catching up with all of the family and had lots of cousin time with Eli and lots of grandma and grandpa time too. It was nice for Jared and I to catch up on some sleep too with extra hands to help feed Timothy. The week ended too soon and we were back on the road. With a quick stop in KC to see friends at my old school, we made it back for Jared to preach today at his fieldwork church.

Tomorrow, Jared starts his last quarter of classes (!) and we will be finding out on May 4th where Jared's call will be and where we will be moving to. Please keep us in your prayers and I will attempt to keep up the blog. Timothy is starting to keep down his feedings better and I am able to put him down in his bed sooner after a feeding without him spitting up. Hopefully, this means I will have more time to sit and catch you up with our comings and goings.