Sittin'

Look at my big boy sitting up all by himself! He's not even leaning on the boppy, its just there incase he falls over. The cutest thing is that when he starts to fall, he catches himself (with his abs!) and tries so hard to pull back up! You can almost see the veins popping from his forehead cause he's trying so hard haha (true italian...just like his Popi Hartzell :)

Countdown to Braces!

Elias had his first checkup since surgery three weeks ago this past Thursday. We went straight to xray for some pictures of his right foot, the one with the pins, to make sure they're still in place. They took the casts off and I almost fell over. Blood doesnt make me queesy or sick, but for some reason, when it comes to my son, I have a hard time handling the sight of his blood. As they were unwrapping the casts, I could see the bandage underneathe was bloody. I had to lean on the bed...I wasn't sure what I was going to see. But he unwrapped them, and I dared to look. Annnnd it really wasn't that bad!

They did a wonderful job stitching him back up. The doctor was very pleased with how great they looked! He was a little concerned that on his heel on his left foot that the incision wouldn't close that because of tension on the skin from the foot being pushed upward. BUT it looked awesome! The xray looked great too...the pins have stayed in place. THEN he was measured for his new braces!!! He will get 2 for the clubbed foot, one for the day and one for night, and one for the other. We're going back in a week and a half to get the braces for his clubbed foot, which is SO EXCITING!!! They put the casts back on his feet to keep them corrected. He will still be casted on the right foot until April when the pins come out.

Look at how far we've come! In the picture on the left, you can see how his right foot was bending upwards slightly, and his super-duper clubbed left food. The picture on the right is how his feet looked right after the took the casts off. He's curling his toes a bit in his right foot, but its not bending up anymore! And look at the pudgy little left foot! Its FINALLY in the correct position! As you can see, its a little smaller than his "normal" foot, but I am told thats typical...clubbed feet are smaller than the normal ones. His toes are a little squished from being in the casts for so long, but they should stretch out once casts are off and he can move them around. I just can't get over the picture of him as a newborn and how severely clubbed that foot is! What an awesome miracle, eh?! I asked the doctor if the braces will hinder him from walking, and he said if anything, it will most likely help, because it will stabalize his ankles. Yaaaay!!!

Last night, I sat him on the floor while I was reaching for something, and realized he was holding his weight upright and really steady...so I let go. And he stayed sitting up! Now, he was leaning forward slightly but he was holding stready in his abs. He would fall over if he started leaning to one side, so he's no where near ready to sit up on his own, but the fact that his core is strong enough to hold himself upright without any help is amazing! Its those abs from having those casts for all these months :)

I should also mention that they weighed him and he came in at around 15 1/2 pounds. Whoa baby! AND he's 25 inches. He's tripled his birthweight and grown 6 inches in just 4 months. For such a little peanut when he was born, he sure is catching up quick :)

Reflecting

Elias has hit the ground running when it comes to baby food. I've been giving him different varieties of fruit over the past few days. His favorite so far? Pears. Peaches were okay. Bananas, he ate half of it. Apples seemed fine. But those pears, man....he just scarfs them right down! The first few days he was still getting the whole coordination thing down...you know, realizing he has to actually open his mouth in order to get the food. He gets so mad and upset when its all gone. I totally have video of it and really want to share it on here, but for some reason its not uploading from my phone (if anyone has any clue on how to format it from an iphone to here, let me know!)

mmm pears!

Kevin went skiiing today with some buddies of his, and it was just me and the boo (thats what we call him...boo-boo). We are just so blessed. I think back to this time last year when we had just found out we were pregnant and were freaking out.

The first night we knew, I was excited. The next, I was sprawled out on the kitchen floor crying my eyes out. What were we gonna do? How were we going to afford a baby? A baby was NOT in our plans. I mean, I always said "I want a baby" (in my pathetic whiney voice) whenever we'd pass one at the store, but I didn't really mean "I want one right now"! I was convinced we had to move back to PA. I cried everytime I thought about not being near our families. I grew up seeing my grandparents practically every day. I was/am so close to them, especially my grandfather (hence why Elias is named after him). I desire SO badly for my kids to be as close to their grandparents as I am. I wanted Kevin to graduate with his masters before a baby. I wanted a house. A dog. And THEN baby could come.

But as we all know thats not how it happened. Baby came. We're still here in Boston. Our families are still in Pennsylvania. We were able to move into a 2 bedroom apartment 2 doors down just one week before Elias came. No dog. Kevin took on more responsibility at church so we could pay our bills.

But you know what? I am SO content with it all. I know for a fact this is where we're supposed to be at this time in our lives. With our health insurance here, Elias' medical bills are completely taken care of. We're able to take him to see every single doctor he needs to see, to get every procedure needed to correct his problems.

God knew all of this. He provided. And He continues to provide for us. I don't think its a secret for those who know me fairly well that I'm not of fan New England and can't wait to move back to Pennsylvania. I begged and begged Kevin last year all summer for us to move back home. So he applied to a bunch of positions back in PA. But it didn't work out. God opended doors and then he closed them. One offered him a job, a few wanted to interview. But for whatever reason, we decided none were right for us.

But praise the Lord, because by Him not giving me what I begged and pleaded for so badly every night before I went to sleep, an opportunity to move back home, our son is completely taken care of. God knew. And I am so thankful for a heavenly Father that is all-knowing and gives us what we truly need instead of what we really want.

Our Little Valentine



Be My Valentine

Elias is finally back to normal.  The past few nights he's been sleeping pretty solidly through the night (in his own crib, might I add). Usually about twice during the night I'll hear him start to stir, so I'll run in and pop his binky back in, and he knocks right out again. Its pretty wonderful. He's also back to eating fairly normal, about 6 oz every 5 hours. I'm trying to slowing introduce baby food into his diet. Yesterday I gave him bananas and he seemed to like it/tolerate it. A few weeks ago, he would eat it, but wasn't able to hold it down. I think its just his digestive track changing, so hopefully by slowing integrating them into his diet he can hold it all down.

Our first Valentines day together in 2007 we had only been dating for 5 days. As you know everything on Valentines day is about LOOOVE. Well, having only been dating for 5 days and it was kind of awkward because everything said "I love you" and we just weren't there in our relationship yet. It actually ended up being a snow day and we pretty snowed in. Our friends were having a Valentines Day party and decided that it was going to be a singles only party. So, we decided to order-in and get Chinese. And ever since, its been our Valentines Day tradition. I love it. Tonight, we sat on the couch googling "good chinese food in Beverly". You see, ever since we moved here, I've yet to find a chinese place we really like, which is a huge bummer. One of the things that popped up on the computer was PF Changs. I called to see what the wait was like, they said no wait, so we hopped in the car and were there in 15 minutes. I go up to the desk, ask to put our name in, and they say "it will be about an hour wait". What?! 15 minutes ago there was no wait! Ughh! I was so frustrated, especially since I had to talk Kevin into it in the first place. We decided to stay, so we set up camp on a bench. It was time for Elias to eat, of course. So not long after he gets started on his bottle, one of the hostesses came over and said "we're gonna get a table ready for you right now, it'll be just a minute". We had only been there for 10 minutes. I was so appreciative to her as she sat us, and he said "Don't thank me, thank to manager at the desk. He's got a soft spot for children". It was pretty wonderful. And to top it off, Elias was so good and didn't fuss one bit. Maybe we'll go on dates more often with him :)

4 Months Old

I can't believe my little muffin is 4 months old today! So much has happened in just 4 months. Now I understand why everyone was saying "It'll go so fast".

I should fill you in on what happened after Elias' surgery last week. He made it through the night okay with the help of some meds. However, in the morning, he was practically doubled over and screaming.  I felt his tummy and knew exactly what it was...constipation. I called for a nurse and asked for something for his constipation. She said she'd be back in 10 minutes. 45 minutes go by, I'm sitting in the rocking chair with my screaming son whose hooked up to 5 different things, and everytime I try and put him back in bed to get the button, I get all tangled in the wires. So I stay put in the chair, fuming at this nurse. Finally the door opens, and a young girl comes in. She introduces herself as a student and that shes there for me if I need anything. I told her I needed medicine now. She goes out, finds our nurse, and comes back with her. The nurse had meds in her hand, and proceeded to tell me she had 4 other patients to take care of. I didn't care, I don't want to hear it. MY son is screaming his head off. YOU said you'd be back in 10 minutes. The LEAST you could have done is popped your head in and said you'd be a few more minutes than you thought. AHHH!!!

Okay...moving on...So he got the meds but they didn't really seem to do anything. The combination of him crying and the IV on the right side of his head made his right eye swell so bad he couldn't even open it. THEN I find out the morphene was what was making him constipated. So the medicine that was helping him not hurt in one area was causing excruciating pain in another...great. THEN it was time to be discharged. The student nurse and her teacher came in to remove his IV. She said her student was going to be taking it out.  Well, the first problem was that all the tape keeping it in place was sticking to all his hair, which was being pulled out of his head as she tried to take the tape off. He was in so much pain, I was crying with him. After having to cut some of his hair again to get the tape off, blood started dripping down my arm...she had pulled the IV out. It was awful. I'm not someone whose afraid of blood, but when its your own kids blood coming from their head...thats another story. Anyway, it was just awful. He survived. I survived.

We go back to the hospital 2 weeks for now and the Dr. will take off the casts, check to make sure everythings healing correctly, measure his left foot for custom braces/shoes, and put another cast on his left foot until they come in, then he'll be cast-free! His right foot will remain in casts until April when he has another surgery to remove the 2 pins that were put in to hold the dislocated bone in the correct position.

He doesn't seem to be in much pain with his feet, which is great. He was constipated the first 3 days home because of the morphene wearing off, so that made for some very long days and nights. He wasn't eating very well, which translated into him not sleeping very well. Today he seemed to have much more of an appetite though, so hopefully we're moving in the right direction.

ANNNDDD tonight for the first night he is sleeping in his crib in his own room!!! Well...we put the bassinet in the crib (cause he looks so tiny in it still) so he isn't in a totally unfamiliair place. So far so good!

Bedtime Story with Daddy

4 Months going on 14

Recovery

I'm pretty sure this has been one of the longest days of my life. I think I got an hour of sleep last night between each panic session when I'd wake up and think we were late. The was to get ourselves ready and just take Elias straight from his bassinet to the car seat. Well, while I was putting my makeup on I looked down to find a huge toothless smile. So much for him staying asleep! But that smile was what I needed to get this say started. He slept the whole way to the hospital and up until about 45 minutes before surgery. Then he wa pretty upset. I think he has a sixth sense for the hospital now lol.

At 730 the nurse took him from us and went right into the OR. We were given a number and told to go to the waiting room upstairs. In the waiting room their was a tv where you could track their progress, so we were able to see what stage of surgery they were on the whole time, which was pretty cool. The doctor came up when he was done to discuss how it went.

The first thing he tells us is that they tried for 15 minutes to get and IV in and just couldn't get it. So he said they had to go into his scalp to get it in. And that they had to cut some of his hair to do it. Thankfully he was already asleep and didnt feel it. The doctor then went on to tell us that he was very happy with the amount of correction he got with just the one release. He was thinking he'd possibly have to do a couple tendon releases, butthe first one he did really did the trick and his foot was then able to move up and down. Then he said he corrected the displaced bone on the right foot and put 2 pins in it that will remain in his foot until April.

After a few hours in recovery we were transported to the room where we'd be staying the remainder of our time here. Hes been in and out of sleep the whole time except for his bottle. Morphine and Tylenol are wonderful.

Im sorry if this post is all mumbo jumbo and filled with errors. I can't get the Internet to work on my computer so I'm typing this on my iPhone and falling asleep as I do it. I'll update again tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who prayed for us and Elias. It truly means so much to is!