Surgery Update

Liam had his ear tubes put in yesterday at Children's Hospital. Everything went just as expected. Liam was a trooper and handled all the changes to his schedule very well.

The ENT did say that he suctioned out a lot of thick, mucousy fluid from Liam's ears, which he did not seem to think would have drained out on his own. He was able to treat the inside of the ears directly with antibiotics and some steroids to reduce swelling. He then put in the the tubes with no problems. Liam handled the anesthesia quite well - it was just breathed in through a mask... no IV, no intubation, which was easier for him. He took about 30 minutes to work-through 'waking up' and getting back to himself.

He came home by 10 am, took some good naps and was back to his old self by dinner time. He is home playing with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Clancy today and will be back at daycare tomorrow. Thank you all for your positive thoughts yesterday!

Will post some cute pictures of Liam in his little hospital gown soon!

Ready as we can be...

To prepare himself for his surgery tomorrow Liam crawled over to his turtle walker, pulled himself right up and started walking with it... so proud of himself. It was like he was saying, Mom, Dad, I am ready for tomorrow!

Liam is now sleeping peacefully with a very full tummy (hopefully that will help in the morning!)... we are scheduled to be at Children's Hospital at 6am, with Liam's surgery scheduled at 7:30.

Liam wanted to give a special thanks to both Grandmas and Grandpas for helping him get ready and recover from his first surgery... we very much appreciate all the traveling and days off of work everyone is taking!!!

Eating crackers... wanting more!

Walking with the Turtle

Reading with Daddy

The newest issue of Climbing magazine... big spread on Devil's Lake! Liam is helping Daddy plan their next trip :)

Reading and the Cat

A couple weeks fly by...

Whew. All of a sudden it is nearing the end of Febuaury... Liam, Jon and I have all caught and fought illnesses this month. Jon is better, Liam is still on meds and scheduled for his surgery this wednesday, and I am on another antibiotic feeling ehh to pretty miserable depending on what part of the day you catch me at. Despite all of our sicknesses, some pretty fun and very cute things have been happening the past weeks...

Liam has learned to walk with his turtle walker, pull up on everything, literally - everything! He is fascinated by pictures, loves finding himself, Bentley and Buckley. Loves pointing at things and having you name them. He is becoming more independent and able to play by himself sometimes. At the same time, I have seen some stranger anxiety come in the past weeks and he is definitely clingy to mommy or daddy depending on his mood.

He went from eating everything, to nothing, to only puffs or crackers, to now meats, crackers and yogurt. He still wants very little to do with veggies or fruits... but we keep on!

Liam had his very first 'ouchie' this weekend. He fell flat on his face while crawling on the wood floor. Somehow, probably a bottom tooth caught his upper lip frenulum (that piece of skin attached to your gum and lip)... there was a significant amount of bleeding and crying. He took some time recovering from that trauma. It still bleeds on and off when he chews on something the wrong way... hope that heals up soon. I am just happy there weren't stitches involved... this time anyway (I am sure they will come at some point...)

Liam has always loved Buckley and still does... but he has discovered quite the fondness for his puppy now too! He loves to be rough with Bentley and is always 'calling' for him!

Here's some cute pictures from the last week:

Walking with Daddy

Watching it 'snow'/rain with Bentley

Almost reaching Buckley... diaperless :0

Helping Daddy work!

Raiding the drawers, which he learned to open all by himself!

Surgery

**** CORRECTION****** Liam's surgery will be next wednesday, 2/23. The surgicenter could not schedule Liam until 11:45, with surgery sometime between 12:45 - 1:15. Liam would have only been able to nurse at 6 am and then no food at all until surgery... not going to work for him.

We all went to the ENT yesterday afternoon. He recommended surgery to put in ear tubes... not a big surprise there. I heard back from his surgery scheduler today and we are going in on Wednesday, 2/23 to have the procedure done at Children's Hospital. We do not have a time yet, but will hear from them sometime on Tuesday.

The surgery itself takes only about 10 minutes, but they told us to expect to be there for 2-3 hours total. The hardest/trickiest part is going to be the eating thing. Liam won't be able to eat like normal and won't be able to nurse in the morning... which is going to be a scream-fest... We can give him some juice or pedialyte... hopefully that will make him happy enough until after the surgery.

He should be perfectly fine the next day and definitely ready for daycare on Monday!

More babyproofing please

Liam found the stairs this morning and is fascinated with them... added item... put up another baby gate at the base of the stairs!

Liam is loving standing now... he can pull up on anything (including the dog!). He really likes standing by the back patio door and looking out, although I don't know how he can stand it... such cold hands!

In other news, we are going to start with whole milk pretty soon, which is exciting for Liam! Sometime next week daycare is going to start mixing a little milk with Liam's breastmilk in his bottle... slowly introducing it to him over a couple week period. Hopefully that all goes well!

ENT... here we come :(

We have been a bunch of pretty disgusting sick people for the last week. Liam responded very well to his antibiotics intially :) I have a sinus/cold awfulness that won't go away... and woke up to double pinkeye myself this morning... ugghh. Jon is fighting a cold/cough... We are so ready for spring!

This morning when I got Liam up, he had a fever of 101 degrees, which is not all that bad except he also was tugging on his ear and had a runny nose all while still being on antibiotics... So of to the doctor we went and sure enough... double ear infections still sticking around.

Liam is taking it all like a champ! He is a little bit cranky, but really quite fine. We are going to start zithromyacin (oops... spelling!) in hopes that that might be the magic trick, but doesn't usually work to get rid of resistent ear infections.

We have an appointment on monday afternoon with an ENT to explore our options, which I am pretty sure will end up with tubes. My only concern is how we are going to get his ears to clear up long enough to get those tubes in there! Well, that isn't my only concern, but that is the one I am choosing to focus on!

When Liam needs to have the procedure (much less scary word than surgery) done, it will be Children's Hospital, so that is comforting. I am hoping the ear infection clears up with this new drug otherwise our only medication left is a series of 3 shots of antibiotics, which I am also not very excited about doing to Liam.

So, we are all doing fine, although a bit sick still and definitely ready to be done with cold and flu season!

Sledding!

SNOW STORM!

Last week Wednesday we had a huge blizzard that hit our area... We had drifts in our driveway and backyard that were easily 5 feet tall. We shoveled for about an hour and then gave up, letting a guy with a plow come and get our driveway for 20 bucks... best money spent ever!

We took Liam out in the backyard to play for a bit... he likes going fast on the sled, but not falling sideways! Bentley of course thought everything was the most exciting thing to happen ever!

48 (and 1/2) weeks old!

Well a few weeks late, but here's the cutie just four weeks shy of one year old!

The ensuing moose fight...

No worries, they made up!

Some of the fun things Liam is currently doing include:

• Crawling everywhere and pulling up to stand on everything
• Just recently loving walking while holding on to your fingers
• Can cruise on furniture and when he is feeling daring can transition between the ottoman and couch and his standing toys
• He likes lots of different foods depending on the day, although no real favorites
• He is communicating more and more using 'ma', 'mo' or 'ba' for just about everything
• Liam will sign 'more' very well and uses it for many different things including more book reading, more food, more playing, more toys...
• He is into pointing at things and wants you to tell him what they are
• LOVES reading his books... will do this for 30+ minutes
• Loves balls... throwing, rolling, catching... loves them!
• He is learning 'in' and 'out' and will spend a lot of time trying to figure it all out
• He is starting to really play with some toys... like driving his car and pushing toys around
• He loves toys that make music and ones he can control!
• Starting to listen when he is told 'no', but let's us know that he doesn't like to be told that... tells us very loudly!
• Growing out of about half his 12-18 month old clothes and into 2-3 year old socks!
• Loves his 'mobile infant' room. It is much bigger and has so many fun things for him to do. Some of his favorites at daycare are the wall of mirrors he can stand next to, laundry baskets, the soft gym tunnel/climber and going to the gym with the big balls!
• He is eating two snacks in addition to his three meals now and is trying to figure out the whole sippy cup thing...

He is growing so fast! We are so proud of the little boy he is turning into and amazed at how fast he is changing and learning!

Mommy & Liam snuggling on the couch

Liam is turning into quite the bookworm... next book please!

In and Out

Taking things out!

Sick Again...

Liam has another double ear infection with a double eye infection to go along with it. YUCK! He will be home with me again tomorrow... hopefully feeling much better by monday. As long as he has no more oozing coming out of his eyes, he can go back to daycare on monday!

Liam looks pretty worse-for-wear with this illness... puffy, red, goopy eyes... poor guy :(