Entry for January 26, 2010
Happy New Year!!! Since a lot has happened in the last several weeks/couple of months since I last wrote the blog, I thought I’d take the opportunity to get it all down and perhaps have a little bit of a stress reliever/emotional outlet that I could sure use! I actually started to write this on Sunday, but Alex’s nap was short, and I didn’t get much time.
Well, we started 2010 healthier than 2009…but only by a little. By this time last year, I already had strep throat and a chronic cough I didn’t end up shaking for several months…so far, just a few sniffles this year! We ended 2009 with all of us being sick (over Thanksgiving while we had a house-full!)…first Patrick picked up a couple of viruses at school, which he passed along to me and then Mark, and then Alex got pneumonia from what we guess was our bronchitis (and then also a sinus infection for me)…thankfully, a few shots of antibiotics and visits to the pediatrician during their “sick only appointments on the weekend” kept Alex out of the hospital. Patrick got a stomach bug between Christmas and New Year’s, which he passed to me, but not as badly as he had it. He picked up a cold last week, and has passed it to me, Alex, and now Mark. Poor Alex just can’t seem to catch a break…everything seems to affect him a lot harder than the rest of us. His sleeping had already taken a turn for the worse, and now he’s got this piling on!
Our big news is that both Alex and Patrick will have their tonsils and adenoids surgically removed on February 17th. We are just really hoping that the apnea is THE reason that Alex doesn’t sleep well, and not just another “interesting, but irrelevant and unrelated” diagnosis. Luckily, having no tonsils or adenoids won’t hurt him, so at least it will keep him from getting or at least making less likely a lot of respiratory infections. My mom is coming down to help us since both boys will have to stay at least overnight in the hospital, and we will need to lay low for a week, and with only light duty activities for at least two weeks.
Patrick has been eating a lot better since the first of the year - interested in trying new things, eating a larger quantity, and eating better balanced meals. As a result, he’s gained almost 3 pounds since New Year’s Day. Alex, too, has been able to put on a couple of pounds (and keep them on) - he was stuck on 22 pounds for months!! Patrick has clearly gotten taller - he’s now able to stand up to go potty, and is so proud he can do that all by himself (which is a big help to me much of the time!). Alex is also very tall…I notice from week to week that I don’t have to roll pants up so he doesn’t step on the cuffs. We’ll see how big both of them are on February 11th, when we go for Alex’s 15 month well-check and both of their pre-surgery physicals.
Mark and I are so pleased that Alex’s development doesn’t seem to have been negatively impacted yet by his terrible sleeping…he is talking up a storm and seems so smart. He knows at least 100 words really well, is very good at mimicing/repeating, and can correctly name a few body parts and what sounds certain animals make. He already strings together multiple words: “bess you” when someone sneezes (even when there’s nobody else here to say it first!), “all done,” “I dropped it,” “open it,” “want some,” etc. Our ability to understand what he wants and needs has improved dramatically! Patrick is also still very amazing with his talking. He carries on very normal and lengthy conversations (pretend or otherwise), and demonstrates an incredible grasp for how things should go in a conversation (waiting for replies, replying, etc.), using such segues as “actually,” etc. He is a hoot!
We had company for Thanksgiving and Christmas and a couple of days after, and I’ll bet that every one of those visitors would be amazed at the differences now in Patrick in Alex in just that short period of time. I think they both have changed more in the past month than they had for quite some time! We hope it won’t be too long before those who haven’t seen them in a long time see them again.
Well, Patrick is waking up from a too-short nap, so I better close…this is at least the 4th time I’ve sat down to write this, so I should quit while I’m ahead!
Until next time…
