Friday, September 21, 2007

Logan's eye surgery

Logan had his eye surgery three days ago. It went OK as he is now a little over-corrected. This is a real bummer because now we're pretty certain he will need at least one more surgery. We'll go back in 3 months for a follow-up. Disappointing.

Logan's eyes look rough, like raw hamburger on the whites of his eyes. I guess the pain is minimal and requires to pain medication. They itch a little bit but not bad as he isn't itching them at all.

Logan did a great job at surgery and tolerated the anesthesia nicely. That makes it a lot easier to deal with as parents. The surgery was about 1 1/2 hours long and we left the hospital a few hours later. By the time we made it back to the hotel, he was ready to play. A few minutes after that, it seemed, he was hungry. So we went to Baker's Square right next to our hotel where he ate like a pig. That was nice to see. He had a hard time adjusting to the change as he could not quite grab the things he was trying to. His hand would reach out for his milk or spoon only to find air. He remained pretty patient I'd say. It was hard for us to watch... broke out hearts... watching our son in pain and not able to function as he did. We really questioned our decision to go ahead. "Maybe we should have waited."

The next day, Logan started to adjust a bit more. He was his normal self in spirit even though he had little sleep that night and at nap time. Now today, he has adjusted even more and seems to be playing almost normally. Really, he has started using two hand to kind of gather up the toys as he still misses some times.

Logan still talks very fondly of the hotel. He REALLY enjoyed staying somewhere new. We'll have to do it again sometime. Also, Logan has enjoyed the 1 on 1 contact he has been getting. He's really soaking it up and we're enjoying the spoiling.

If I ever get the time, I'll try and post some picture of Logan's eyes. I haven't taken any yet but they haven't changed in the last 3 days.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Wow.... A lot to say.

I can't believe it's taken me so long to update the blog. I guess you can say grad school is taking up all my free time, which by the way is going really well. Having a blast and learning a lot.

So let's talk about the boys.

Logan is a potty training fool. He always has to go and sometimes he goes and sometimes he doesn't. I think he does this so he can wash his hands 20 times a day. For the longest time, we'd put Logan on the potty but he wouldn't do anything. Then he started saying he had to go so we'd put him on again just to have him again do nothing. Once he could go potty by himself - take his own diaper off and get on the potty without any help, he began to take off. He can go a day with just one or two new diaper changes. Sometimes, he doesn't do as well. And poops.... They are coming along nicely.

Logan started preschool this past week. I guess he gets on a school bus each morning and after his 3 hours at school, he gets a ride back to day care. For his first day on the bus, I specifically tried to make it back to day care to film his first day but the bus came 15 minutes early so I missed it. :( I was pretty bummed. He loves school and loves the school bus. It's pretty amazing the America feels a need to give extra help to those who need it. We're one of the only nations to invest in special education. I really feel that Logan has come a long way. He is very verbal and pretty easy to understand. He's just becoming a big boy.

PT ended late last month so I no longer drive to St. Cloud twice a week. After I stopped coming into therapy with him and instead waited in the waiting room, he just took off and blossomed. It was amazing to see. The St. Cloud PT people are amazing there. We'll go back in 6 months for a re-eval just to continue tracking his progress.

Logan will have eye surgery the week after next. I am a little nervous about how he'll do not that he's bigger. He was about a year old the first time and so his recovery was pretty easy. His inner eyes looked like raw hamburger but he didn't seem to care. This time, we'll have a little boy who will communicate how he feels and require us to communicate back in a way he can understand. We'll spend one night in the cities.

Gage is approaching 18 months of age and he's as busy as ever. He has started to beat up on Logan - - pulling his hair, hitting him, taking toys away from him.... Logan just takes it for the most part. I try and get Gage to stop it but he just keeps on going. It is hard to know what kind of temperament Gage is going to have. I guess time will tell.

Gage still has 6 teeth - 4 on top and 2 on the bottom. This seems to be enough for him though as he's a pretty big eater. He's catching up in size as well. I would expect at his 18 month appointment, he'll show some good growth and catch up to the 50 percentile. We'll have to see though.

Gage still sucks his fingers but he seems to listen to Daddy and Lola when they tell him to get them out. He listens to me, too, but only for a few seconds.

Dan has been spending a lot of time up north finishing his hunting shack in time for deer season. That's where he's at today and has been all weekend. I would expect that the end result of his cabin will be exactly what he's looking for. At least that's what I hope.

I will attempt to update again soon and this time try to include pictures.