Doing pretty well!

Still not happy about eating but doing much better with volume! I'll write out the whole story one of these days when I get on the computer! But I will say its been so much better than expected!

Poor baby

First day home

Obviously surgery, a brand new palate, Meds, and arm restraints aren't enough to stop him from making his usual mess!!!

Heading home!!!!!

Just got cleared to go home!!!!

He's drinking breast milk, and ate a few bites of banana and pancake.

Last night at midnight, a nurse came in and asked where I was getting the breast milk I was giving him.

Um, where do you think I'm getting it?!?!

He was up, relatively happy, standing up in the bed, smacking me in the face with his arm restraints and chuckling, and pulling off his monitors about 100x between 11-6 last night. I am exhausted! But he's barely cried at all!!!

Amazing

He woke up at 4 and sucked down 5 oz no problem!!!!

Done!!

He's out of surgery and awake and Dr S said everything went extremely well! Can't wait to see him!!!!!

Just took him back

Last day with an open palate

Trader Joes

John Paul got stickers.

My beautiful 5 year old

Scenes from a 5th birthday tea party

Novena Prayer for Leo's Surgery

Leo's surgery is coming up in just over a week. I'd love it if you would all pray this Novena (Nine days of prayer) for him. His surgery is on March 12. Please begin the Novena on March 4 and say it every day until March 12. Thank you so much for joining us in prayer. I feel very peaceful about the whole thing so far, and I KNOW it is because so many people are holding us up in prayer. Thank you!

Novena Prayer for Leo's surgery
written by my mom (thanks Mom!)

Dear Heavenly Father,
We commend Baby Leo into your care during his cleft repair surgery. His body is your creation, O Lord. Please guide the surgeon's hand and be with all who care for him. Pour your strength and grace into the hearts of his parents and all his family and grant them your peace.
In your loving mercy, minimize Leo's pain, shorten his recovery, and heal him quickly so that his life may continue to give glory to your Holy Name.
We consecrate Leo to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to St. Joseph.
Amen

St. Madeleine, Blessed John Paul, and St. Leo the Great, please pray and intercede for him.

I used to be sad....

When I had to feed him his bottle instead of nurse him. Now I love feeding him his bottle and i will miss it! Less than 2 weeks...

I'm not gonna lie...

I will be sooooooo glad when I'm done pumping. I will not stop until the boy is recovered from surgery (which is 2 weeks from Monday!) but probably soon after he's feeling better and cold and flu season is over. Can. Not. Wait.

Road trip!

Monday and Tuesday we decided to hit the road and visit our good friends in Chicago. (Side note, we met on the blogs almost 5 years ago, when these girls were weeks old.... Now they are great friends too!)

Since these pics are all out of order, we headed up Monday for Mary's birthday party, spent the night and finished off our trip with a visit to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was so fun and I can't wait to go back! (Or for them to come here!)

Leo went too but apparently I got no good pictures of him! (He was on my back for most of the Museum!)

This was Madeleine's first sleepover with a friend, and she and Mary had a great time in sleeping bags on the living room floor, staying up til midnight being goofy! (Cathy and I had a great time staying up til midnight enjoying some adult beverages!)

Thank you Cathy and Joe, we had a GREAT time! We love you guys!

Blog slacker update

Lots of good news and a little bit of frustrating news, I guess.

I'll start with the frustrating news. I'm still pumping at 14 months, however my supply is SO low. I seriously consider stopping just about every day. I get maybe 4 oz a day if I'm lucky, pumping about 45 minutes total. Some days I doubt that's even worth it, and some days I just want to hold on until his surgery. So who knows what'll happen. The good news is he is doing well on mostly whole milk, and he is also eating SO well. The boy can pack it away. He even had chicken and fries! All kinds of veggies, fruits, cheese, nut butters, etc. He's almost 24 lbs!

So some good news. Last time I went to the surgeon, I asked him if I could talk to another mom who has been through this surgery. (Which is 4 weeks from yesterday!!) He put me in touch with a mom who had two kids with cleft palates (out of 4). That kind of scared me a little but I guess I can't worry about that now. She was SO encouraging! She said her kids both got to go home the next day, and were feeling better very soon after surgery. She even said they didn't mind the arm restraints after a few days, and just kind of adapted. She said her 4 year old has graduated from speech therapy and speaks very clearly. Her 2 year old is saying quite a few words too. I felt a lot better after talking to her, and now I just want the day to get here so we can get it over with and move on!

Other big, huge news over here is that I did not register Madeleine for kindergarten, so we are officially starting out homeschooling! I am really excited about this. She is doing so well, we have more good days than not, she soaks everything up like a sponge, and she loves "school with mommy" as she calls it. John Paul is participating and listening in more and more, and it's interesting to see some things he learns just from being around. Madeleine is about halfway through first grade reading, so I guess we are going to do a kindergarten curriculum (Probably Our Lady of Divine Grace) but use the Catholic Heritage Curriculum's second grade reading program? She is flying through the first grade program. I don't even have to tell her any of the words. It's really amazing. She is working on writing and spelling too, and loves our math workbook as well. After a few years of really discerning and struggling with this decision, I feel very at peace now. She is turning 5 in just a few weeks. I just can't believe it. I was just thinking about Valentine's day 5 years ago. I even blogged about it! Ken got me a sling and we were weeks away from having her. It was very exciting :)
Today she was very naughty at bedtime. I sat her down on my lap and had a talk with her. Afterwards I said, "Do you know that Mommy still loves you?" She looked up and said, "You do?" I told her I would love her forever no matter what she did. I want her to be a good girl, but no matter what she did I would still love her. I also told her that Daddy, John Paul and Leo would always love her, and most importantly, God would always love her and always forgive her if she asks Him. Then I told her how happy we were when she came into our family. She said, "Were you sad before I got here?" I told her we were, and she said "Did you pray for me?" I told her we did. She got a big smile on her face. Then she said, "And I prayed for John Paul and Leo! And now I'm asking God for a baby sister! I think God knows I have enough brothers." :) (No baby sister yet, in case any of y'all are wondering!)

The boy hates the tub.

14 months

And walking everywhere!!

Happy Super Sunday!

Is he following in the footsteps of his Godfather? ;)

Super bowl in Indy

Success!!!

This is one happy boy!! Took a nap and slept all night in his big comfy bed!! Love it!

Before and after

Big boy bed style!



As you can see he liked to have a TON of stuff in his crib!

Look at that face!! Is he thrilled or what? He got bunk beds, new bedding, bed rails, and his room moved all around. He's up there right now for his first nap in his big boy bed... so far so good!

Madeleine also got new bedding which she loves! I can't believe we have two kids in big kid beds, and can't believe we have bunk beds in our house!!

Mommy daughter day didn't happen

Well we were supposed to fly to Philly for the day on Saturday to visit our good friends. Ken got home from his gig at 2:30 and said the roads were terrible and he thought maybe we shouldn't go. I got up at 4am and looked at the roads outside, and decided to try it anyway. So I got ready, got Madeleine up, went to the airport, got breakfast, got on the plane, and sat there. And sat there. And sat there. We got de-iced and then the captain came on and said that there was something wrong at the Philly airport and they were working on fixing it. They said they weren't planning on leaving for another hour and 50 minutes. We were already pushed back from the gate, but I decided then that if we got back to the gate we were getting off the plane. Since we were flying standby, if there were cancellations there is no way we'd get back on a plane in Philly. About half an hour later I was really HOPING we were going to go back to the gate. We finally did, so we got off the plane. Whew! Later we found out that our flight home, which was supposed to land at 10 something, didn't get here until 1am something. That is if we even GOT on that flight. I could not imagine leaving Leo for longer than a day, especially because I only have a 2 day supply of milk at any given time. We might try again next weekend ;)

Madeleine was SUPER on the plane and in the airport, and I had a great time with her. I think we need to do more things like this since so much attention goes to her brothers.

Anyway, it's a good thing we got home because today Leo and John Paul woke up with colds. John Paul kept looking worse and worse through the day, we gave him two breathing treatments and he was still wheezing and had a barking cough and a fever so I took him to the ER. (Our favorite ER in town, we've been to all 3 multiple times.) He got another breathing treatment, steroids, a big stuffed snake, a homemade fleece blanket, about 50 stickers and 4 red popsicles. He was having a great time (except for the rectal thermometer!) Also a doctor and a nurse both said he talked better than their 3 year olds! They all loved him. He was feeling much better by the time we left a few hours later. Whew! If y'all need me I'll be laying on the couch.

Big week for Leo

Leo had a surgeon appointment on Monday. We got the date for his surgery, March 12. Also, Dr. S told us that we needed to get rid of his paci, because if we try to do everything at once (surgery, no more bottle, no more paci) it would be traumatic for him. So I came home that day and threw them all away. I had been dreading getting rid of it and putting it off, because he had NEVER gone to sleep without it. He is such a great sleeper, I was terrified he wouldn't sleep and start waking up at night again. He probably cried for 3 minutes that day before his nap, and then slept for 2 hours! Then that night he laid right down in his crib with NO crying! It's been 4 days and he is still a wonderful sleeper and the best baby who ever lived! I cannot BELIEVE it. People must have been praying for him because it was so easy.

Leo also took his first steps this week! He has taken about 4 or 5 steps and practices and gets better every day. He still crawls super fast! He is eating so well. He turned a corner with his cup too, and his speech therapist was really happy with his progress this week. She said two weeks ago she didn't think he was quite ready for surgery (with drinking from a cup being the goal) but now he is! If they called me next week and said they had an opening, and everyone could get time off work, I would go for it. I actually think it would be easier for me if we had little notice, than if I have to wait almost 2 more months.

In the waiting room at the surgeon, there were several kids there with their parents who had cleft lip repairs. There was a 20ish girl, a teenage boy, about an 8 year old boy and also a sibling set adopted from China who both had cleft lips and palates (adopted siblings.) The older boy had already had his repairs, and looked great. The younger girl they JUST adopted a week ago, and this was her first appointment with Dr. S. She had just turned 3. I talked to her mom just for a minute before the nurse called us back. I asked her how the surgery was. She said that there was a lot of blood coming out of his nose and mouth, she wasn't expecting it to be that bad. But she said her son was ready to go home that day! And that he bounced back so quick. It was really neat to see a young boy and a teenage boy with Leo's same issue, being totally normal kids. He is going to be fine! That made me feel good.

So, best case scenario, Leo will go home the next morning if he is eating and drinking. If he refuses to eat and drink, they'll have to keep him there til he does. So everyone pray that he does! He will eat soft foods for 4 weeks, and wear arm restraints for 2-3 weeks, then gradually add more foods. The arm restraints are padded and wrap around his arms so he can't bend them and put things in his mouth. He won't be happy about it but we'll just have to try to make him as happy as possible for those few weeks.

On another note, Madeleine and I are having a girls day out tomorrow, and Ken is having a boys day in. More details later on that :)

He always hugs me when I get him out of his crib

Also, please check out my new favorite blog, Sugar Pie Blessings, on my sidebar. She's one of my oldest and dearest friends and has amazing writing talent!

Surgery

I know it's coming up. Most of the time I try not to think about it. But it is NEXT month. It will be here before we know it.

Leo went to the ENT this week to see if she recommended ear tubes at the same time as his cleft repair. While we were there she diagnosed an ear infection (I had NO IDEA!) and recommended tubes. It only takes 10 minutes during his other surgery, and anesthesia is the biggest risk. He'll already be under so it is fine with me.

The nurse practitioner came in and asked when his surgery was, I said February (that's all I know so far and it's making me annoyed they haven't called me yet). She said, "Are you excited??" I was like.... "Uh, I am excited to get it over with, but not looking forward to that day and the recovery." She said, "Oh he'll breeze right through it."

I don't quite believe that, but it was nice to hear a medical professional say it.

The truth is, he has to get the top of his mouth peeled like a banana, bone, muscle and skin stitched together, anesthesia, arm restraints for 3 weeks, soft foods for 4 weeks, and no more bottle and paci afterwards. He doesn't even know anything is wrong, yet one day he'll wake up and go to the hospital and everything will be different, he'll be in pain, and he won't get two of the most comforting things ever again. This makes me very sad and scared. I'm actually having some anxiety about it.

However, when it's over and he's healed, he will be able to eat so much more food, he'll be able to drink out of a cup, learn how to suck, learn how to talk, and start his normal life.

Sometimes I wonder WHY WHY WHY did this have to happen to him (to us?) But, then I think, what an honor it was to be chosen by God to be his mother! He trusted me enough to give me a child who needs some extra care. I will always do my very best to take care of him. He's changed all our lives for the better. I'm so happy we have him, cleft and all.

So everyone, please pray us through this. I know that Grandma will be praying for him up in heaven too, and that definitely gives me comfort. I'm hoping we get this thing scheduled soon.

And I was worried about the third kid getting attention

Madeleine: Mommy, Baby Leo is the most wonderfulest baby in the world.

Madeleine reading on my new kindle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peEYj7Zd9dc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Ragamuffins