Hi Mom-eye!

I don't have to travel much anymore for work, but the occasional trip comes up and I really MISS being home! Last week I went to New York for a day of meetings, when I called home Lucas was on the other end of the phone and said as clear as ever... “Hi, Mom-eye!” This was the first time! You see, the word, "mommy" has been a transition... starting with “mama” (as all kids do), then it transitioned into “ma-eee” (which is so darn cute… my name for months has been a two syllable "my”). This time it was so clear... "Hi Mom-eye". Brings happy tears just thinking about it.

His language is really taking off, moving into more two syllable words. He's trying new sounds and words all the time and surprises us by just repeating a random word in a long sentence that one of us might say. I've learned just how often I say "yeah," instead of "yes".. because my little mimicker repeats me every time! I'm going to have to start watching my mouth!

This past weekend Bran and I were in the car and someone honked the horn. From the back seat, Lucas yells, "beep beep". We'd never heard it before, the nanny taught it to him. We had a good laugh. He has so many words now that I can't list them out anymore. He learned to say "g'ma" just in time for Grandma's visit a few weeks ago. The word, "G'pop" came a few weeks later and this past week I taught Lucas to say "Go Buckeyes!"... or as he says it, "go kies". So cute. We've got "G" (for Bran's Mom) and we're still working on "GranDan".

We are working with our speech therapist on techniques to use words proactively, and try to move beyond mimicking. I can't tell you how happy we are that he is making progress in the language area...this is a very big deal! Hopefully we get to officially put a "check" by this one for the neurologist who said he may never talk.

G'ma's Visit

Getting a special song from Grandpa Blain and Great-Uncle Brian. Lucas loves music!

Pumpkin Patch

Here are a few pictures from the pumpkin patch last weekend...

My favorite picture of my little punkin

It was naptime and he wasn't exactly cooperating when we started!

Pouty face
Abby came over and helped out... finally got a smile!
All the kids
Hayride - he loved playing in the straw
Playing on the tractor

Weight Gain

We saw our holistic pediatrician today and I’m happy to report that he is in excellent health and has gained weight!! He is “on the chart” for his height for his actual age (10th percentile) - yeah! His weight is still pretty far under the bar, but he is still following the appropriate curve (his own curve). I wish he would gain more, he's just under 22 lbs and can wear a lot of the same clothes he had last year at this time (I guess that is a good thing, right?)... but the important thing is we can see from the chart that he is gaining at the right rate.

So, I’m starting to relax a little with the weight gain stuff (this is an area of HUGE stress for me)… after all, Bran has always been tall and thin, and I was a tiny kid--I was not on the chart for height or weight until I was almost in middle school. Even if Lucas wasn’t a preemie, he is genetically bound to be a wiry fellow. I think his weight gain would have been a little better had he not lost some in the last few weeks. I noticed he was starting to decline in his eating and didn’t want to drink much water. I decided to put him back on Prevacid suspecting he’s still struggling with reflux. Since starting back, he appears to have increased his intake again. Dr. Razi agreed that we did the right thing, although her goal is as a doctor practicing natural medicine is to get him off any prescriptions where we can. She asked me to stop giving him Duocal (a powder we add to his food to add calories) because it is chemically based. I feel proud that he is gaining while eating very healthy. I think its been about six months now of his new diet eliminating dairy, and eating healthy whole grains, beans, vegetables, and fruits. We're doing it! This was all unchartered territory for me and very foreigh, and we've also made changes in how we eat as a result of having to do this for Lucas. I still have a lot to learn, but I have to admit I'm kind of proud of myself.

Now that the weather is changing, I’m getting nervous heading into cold and flu season. We got through the last two winters without any major sickness (excluding the three shunt revisions, of course). I hope this year doesn’t bring any surprises, especially since he doesn’t qualify for the Synagis shot this year that protects against RSV (the expensive $1200/shot times five months). Insurance only approves high risk infants for two years, and only will approve a 3rd year for babies that have had respiratory incidents in the past year. So we're on our own this year and he's much stronger, I'm glad we still have him at home during the day instead of in day care, that helps. I guess we'll see what all this flu and H1N1 has in store for all of us.