We celebrated Thanksgiving here in Orlando. It was just the four of us this year. After we ate Thanksgiving dinner (part 1 anyway), we put up our Christmas tree.
Here is Eli speaking in his own gibberish speak. He likes to come up to Meri or I and have a conversation with us like this.
Here is a video of Eli walking. This was taken about 2weeks after Aaron’s 5th birthday.
Eli had his first birthday yesterday!! He, uh, turned one! He got a small cake and a simple present. He will get more presents this weekend when we have a few people over to help us celebrate more.
The cake
The Eli
The touching…
The tasting…
The destruction…
The cake…has died.
This is the only present we gave Eli. Aaron picked it out for him. Meri’s parents have a very similar toy at their house and Eli (and Aaron) really LOVE to play with it.
Aaron, Eli and I have had our fair share of ear problems within the past 6 months or so. Aaron has had it the “easiest”, with the least amount of occurrences. I had quite a few rounds of problems. Eli had it the worst, as far as we could determine.
We finally went to see an ENT and it was decided that he should have tubes put in his ears. We had that procedure completed 2 days ago. The procedure lasted about 15-20min. The recovery time was minimal, maybe an hour. Eli was groggy most of the day, due to the anesthesia. That took about 10-12hrs to finally get out of his system. The tubes have already made a HUGE difference in our lives.
I wish we would have had the procedure performed much earlier than we did! Eli was 10 months old when the tubes were put in, he is officially 11 months old today!
We’ve determined that Eli has spoken his first word! His first word was “dada”. I am extremely happy that despite all of the pain he’s caused my wife (many, many sleepless nights), he decided that “dada” was the best first word he could think of.
We were on the fence for a little while about it actually being a word since “dada” sounds like so many things that baby’s naturally say. He’s been saying it non-stop lately so it’s official, he loves me more! I tried to get him to say mama but he wanted no part of that! He was persistent in wanting dada to be his first word. Who am I to stop him?
In other Eli news, Meri and I are taking him to his ear tube pre-op appointment this afternoon. His “surgery” is scheduled for Feb 10th. From what I’ve read and been told, recovery time is about an hour after the procedure. We are both very excited about the possibility of him beginning to sleep through the night again. He did for a while, but then the ear aches/pains/infections started.
Over the last 5 or 6 months, the boys and I have had major ear issues! We spent approximately $700 on office visits and medicine during November 2007 alone, with health insurance!
I’m on either my fourth or fifth ear issue, either a lot of fluid on behind my ear drum or an infection. I’ve been to my ENT’s office so many times over the past few months that I might as well put in an application there! Aaron and Eli have been just as bad as me.
Eli is on his fourth double ear infection and Aaron has had three. I’m not sure if it’s some sort of environmental issue with either at our house or at my job or at their schools. I’m thinking that if it is environmental, then it has to be at our house somewhere.
It’s truly maddening. I haven’t suffered from ear-related issues since I was a little kid. I had to have tubes in my ears three or four times back then. Skip ahead 20+ years and here I am again.
I’m facing the possibility of having tubes put back in my ears. We aren’t sure what routes we should even consider with the boys. Eli is going to see his pediatrician today around 3pm and Aaron will have a similar visit (although we’re hopeful that the doc will just look him over today at Eli’s appointment).
The last few months have been horrendous though. I can’t wait until we can figure out what the issue is.
We’re leaving for our cruise to the Bahama’s this Thursday! It’s a short cruise, only four days and three nights but it will be very nice to get away. Meri’s parents are flying in Wednesday and they are going to watch Aaron and Eli while we are gone. It’s super nice that they are able to help us out like that because otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to go on the cruise.
In other family news, Eli has been sick all weekend. He woke up vomitting around 4:30 Saturday morning. He thew up six times in the following 90 minutes. We were going to take him to the ER around 9am or 10am if he continued vomitting but he stopped after the initial 90 minutes. Whenever we give him solid food, he’s thrown it up (we’ve only tried twice all weekend). He is holding down milk just fine so we’re sticking to that for a little while.
Aaron has started lying more and more lately. He has generally been lying about things that he will be embarrassed about – pooping or peeing on himself mostly, hurting Eli sometimes. We’re not sure how to deal with it, other than to continue the beatings (that’s a joke, seriously; NOTE: we do not beat our kids). We’ll need to do some more research but our initial thoughts are to reward the times when he does not have an accident, rather than make a big deal about the times that he does have an accident. This is something that I’ll have to work on more than Meri.
Aaron’s intermittent exotropia I discussed previously has been getting progressively worse. Meri and I have both been noticing that he is squinting more and more, even when he’s not outside in full sun and even when he’s wearing sunglasses. Meri and I have had a bad feeling about what we both [pessimistically] thought would need to happen next.
Meri took him to the ophthalmologist again yesterday to have him re-examined (since it’s been 6 months since he was first diagnosed) The doctor is one of the best in the area (from what we’ve been told). Meri works in an ER and has spoken with several opthamalogists that stroll through there and they recommend him (and more importantly, use him).
The doctor looked at Aaron’s eyes and told Meri that his condition was deteriorating. He told her that the only solution for Aaron’s case was to have the corrective surgery. We knew this day was coming and have talked about what we should do next. We’ve done a lot of research and have both anguished about this decision for a long time – we decided that Aaron should finally have the surgery.
I can’t speak for Meri, but I am not fearful that the doctor won’t do a good job and I am fully expecting that the surgery will be successful. We are both very worried about Aaron having to be sedated for the surgery. Meri working in the medical for so long is both a blessing and a curse in that she knows a lot about what to expect. Knowledge can be power but it can also be crippling, especially in the case of surgery for one of your kids. While the surgery is not exactly necessary (in my understanding anyway), if successful, it would greatly improve Aaron’s quality of life.
So the surgery is scheduled for just under two weeks away (July 10th). We have a pre-op appointment 7 days before the surgery so that we can hear about all of the details. Meri spoke briefly about recovery time and the doctur said that it would only be a few hours for Aaron, but he couldn’t go to the pool or play with sand for a week after the surgery.
Today, my sleep-deprived wife made me a big breakfast when she woke up. Aaron drew me a card and actually wrote several sentences in it! It was one of the best cards I’ve ever received. Meri got me a picture of my boys together and a picture of their hand prints. She also got me Metroid Prime 3 for our Wii.
