Peek-a-boo boy

John is doing well today. His hydration status is good, but he's had some loose poops through the day. So tonight he's getting some extra pedialyte.

Our little boy was sure entertaining today. At church today he was rather well behaved, even when he tried to use the church bulletin to play peek-a-boo with his daddy while daddy was conducting worship. Of course daddy didn't play along, and even then John didn't put up much of a fuss. After church the little fella was very happy to share bites of donut with mom and dad, smiling and laughing and talking about the whole thing.

After church he went down for his nap and woke up happy. He took bites of bread and noodles for lunch with us and excitedly played with the silverware and glasses. He enjoyed playing with toys on the floor with daddy while mommy worked on sewing. This lasted for a while until he got tired pulled his ears and went down for another nap.

After the second nap he was very happy to share his entire box of books with mommy until bedtime. He was happy to go to bed and we are looking forward to tomorrow morning when we will be getting labs and going to school at Moog.

Sweet little stinker

Our little boy has done well through the day. After charming the lab techs out of a mini bottle of bubbles and getting them blown for him as we awaited the lab results he spent a good hour and a half nap in his crib. After he woke up though we spent most of the time with a little insistent 2 year old. He played with a number of toys, spent some time in the exersaucer and even threw a little fit that ended up with hearing aids taken out as a sign of his defiance, which earned him a little more crib time that turned into the second nap that he needed.

After he got up a little while later he was having some issues related to yesterdays RSV shots and needed a little tylenol and some cuddle time. John ended up going to bed early tonight, but we hope that it will mean a better day tomorrow and then also a good day at school on Monday.

Hooray! Seems like we're staying home.

John slept through the night peacefully. He woke this morning talking and carrying on and when I went in to check on him he gave me a huge smile and was pulling his covers off, he was ready to get up. We called ahead for McDonald's so that we could get breakfast after 10:30 - yep even us non-Jack-Bauer types can get sausage biscuits after 10:30, but only if we call ahead ;-) John got so excited when we pulled in the driveway, an indication that we might be going there too often and eagerly ate all but a couple bites from an egg. His labs were up, 15.7 for CO2, better than yesterday, still not great, but good enough that we are staying home today and not rushing off to St. Louis. He had a great time with the lab ladies and is now taking a nap. Hooray! We're excited that we get to stay home today.

Totally Relaxed!

Mark and I just went in to check on John, his days been pretty rough and he's been in bed for several hours already tonight. It was so funny, so much of a relief, that we had to leave the room so that we would wake him up with all our giggling and carrying on. John is laying in his bed with his arms stretched out over his head and his left knee bent up in the air and his right leg crossed over it, at this moment we really regret not having the camera working.

We took John in this morning to get labs done because he just didn't look like he felt all that good. He didn't look terrible, but just not his chipper self. A finger stick blood test yielded a CO2 of 8, that's critically low, thank goodness we got to have a retest before he was to go to the ER where he would have been flown to St. Louis. The veinipuncture test yielded a 14.2, still not a great number, but good enough that we got to take him home again. The plan at the moment is to run pedialyte through his g-tube through the night and go and have labs again in the morning. If his number hasn't come up from 14 then we are going to St. Louis for testing and such. So far it looks like we won't be taking a trip to St. Louis tomorrow, our little guy doesn't sleep in entertaining positions when he is feeling bad nor does he eat and he ate at both lunch and supper today.

Of course today was also the day for his RSV shot. The last one for the year and the last one that he will probably ever get. He may not have gotten them this year if his central line had been able to be pulled prior to the onset of RSV season. Thankfully he has had a good winter for those things and only a couple little viruses and no major ones. It was of course the last time that our home health nurse will be visiting and this time we were glad that she was able to bring along her daughter. John enjoyed getting to have the charming little girl blow bubbles for him while he was getting over getting shot in both legs. Our home health nurse, Dina, has been a great help and we have truly appreciated her.

We'll update in the morning after labs, not obscenely early of course, so probably more like noonish before we get back home and have a chance to update.

Home Again!

John finally fell asleep about 2am and slept pretty soundly through the rest of the morning. His diarrhea stopped and he got several peaceful hours of sleep. His CO2 number came up some this morning but not back to normal by any means. But he woke up feeling much better and ready to eat. When the breakfast tray came he was so excited to see it and then well it was all clear liquids, poor little guy, he's not very impressed with clear liquids. So he waited pretty patiently until daddy came with the McDonald's bag full of breakfast. It wasn't too terribly much longer and they cleared him for real food and he gleefully ate the entire egg from a sausage/egg biscuit and part of the biscuit too! Afterwards we were all ready for a little snooze and woke up in time for the lunch tray to come. John wasn't hungry yet but he did rather enjoy taking the tray lid off and putting it back on and stabbing his dinner roll with a fork and waving it around in the air. The nurses who have cared for him before came by to see him and remark on how much bigger he was getting and how he was turning into a little boy and wasn't so much a baby anymore. He chatted and played with them a bit but was most excited when we got out his shoes and real clothes because he knew that meant he was going home. He slept part of the way home and is now napping peacefully in his bed. At this time of the evening he will probably get up in a couple hours for a little bit and then go back to bed for the night. We're all pretty worn out from the hospital stay and are soooo thankful to be back home and have John looking and feeling so good.

Back in the Hospital again

This morning John looked alright when he got up and after washing him up and getting him dressed he was looking even better. When we all sat down to breakfast he wasn't hungry and didn't want to play with the breakfast dishes as he is usually excited to do. After breakfast he was starting to look like he wasn't feeling well so we decided to take him to Marshall to the lab. As we were getting ready to go he started looking more uncomfortable and as we were leaving the driveway we decided to go to Columbia to the ER. About halfway there John started to vomit the pedialyte that we had running, this is a sure sign that his CO2 levels were dropping. When we got to the ER it looked like he was feeling better, but we knew that he needed to get enough fluids in him to get things back in balance. The ER team didn't think that he was that dehydrated when they looked at him, but when we told them about the mix up with the medications they called for an IV and blood tests.

Now for the good part of this adventure. The IV nurse is a very nice lady who has taken care of putting in John's IVs before. John didn't cry when she stuck him. John didn't try to pull his arm away from her while she set it up and drew some blood for the blood tests. Most importantly, John sat up without Gina holding him up the whole time this was happening. This is an incredible step forward for John's motor development.

More good news. As John was getting tanked up with IV fluids I got something for us to snack on and just to try we gave some pieces of the chex mix to him, he ate them, wanted more, and had to be shown the bag was empty. He had to stick his hand all the way to the bottom of the bag to make sure.

As we suspected his CO2 level had dropped further from the already low number that we got from Monday's lab work, and because he was also having some very loose poops along with having thrown up on the way there, we decided with the doctors that he needed to stay overnight and have some bowel rest (No G-tube feeds)and enough IV fluids to get him back in balance. I went and got some take-out and brought it up to the hospital room and John sat up next to Gina on the hospital bed and ate a good number of bites for us. The most he has eaten at one time since before the Good Friday hospital trip.

I came home to take care of things here and to update the journal while Gina stays with John. From what we see and what the doctors tell us, John should be able to come home in the morning without any trouble. I will update the news before I go to get them.

God's Miracles Despite Man's Failures!

John's lab numbers yesterday were not horrible, but they weren't good either. He kept having loose stools and we couldn't figure out what was going on. He's lost a pound in the last 10 days or so and we couldn't figure out why. This morning we did a little investigation and found that one of John's medications was dispensed incorrectly. Instead of being on a drug that binds up the bile salts and helps to prevent loose stools the pharmacy dispensed a prescription strength laxative. Plenty of blame to go all around, we certainly bear a lot of it as we should have checked into the drug further instead of dismissing it as the difference between the generic bottle and the name-brand bottle. Thank God John is doing okay. We found the error this morning before he got his morning dose and by afternoon had him back on his correct medication. Thank God John is so much stronger than he used to be. He was on this laxative for 12 days, had this been a couple months ago he would not have had the reserves to weather this at home. Thank God for good nursing staff who quickly helped us find the problem. John's labs weren't good, another day of incorrect medicines and he certainly would have had to go to the hospital for an IV and a good deal of fluids. Thank God that He is watching over our sweet little boy despite the fallibility of his parents.

All in all John is doing well. For having gone through this he is doing phenomenal. He is still not eating, but did take a very long nap today and seems to be resting better when he is sleeping. We are hoping that tomorrow will bring even better things. He made it through the day with no breathing treatments, no decongestant and not even a get-a-kleenex incident.

Serendipity

The happy accident took place this morning when we got to school. The new rig for John's enteral pump was causing a little trouble on the way in and so John and Gina went on in without taking John's special support chair while I got the pump squared away and brought it and the chair in about 3 minutes later. By that time his speech therapist Amy had him sitting in a regular child's chair and he was doing well. She had only ever seen John in his chair and didn't know how well he was doing sitting up by himself. So now, unless she calls us ahead of time, we are to leave his chair at home and therapy will take place with John sitting on the floor, on a little kiddie couch or sitting on his mom or me. Speech therapy went very well with him responding verbally and generally being too much of a cutie patootie.

We also went to his audiologist who made casts of his ears for new ear molds and took care of the routine maintenance on his hearing aids. It was so surprising how much bigger the casts were than the original ones made the last part of November. The audiologist was so impressed with how well he's doing, how much he's talking, and looking forward to seeing what he will do next.

John was a very good boy when we went to the lab for his blood tests, All the lab staff were so glad to see how well he's doing. They decided to use a smaller lancet and stick his finger on the side instead of the tip. It took a little more time to get the blood, but he stopped bleeding before we got home.

We put him down for a nap as soon as we got home, and a couple hours later he was awake again to enjoy some chips and stuff and watch a little tv with us before saying prayers and going to bed. It was so interesting and funny during prayers, he has become so attentive and often folds his little hands like his mommy and daddy, and he did so tonight but towards the end when we sing a hymn he decided to join in by grabbing his nose and snorting. Too funny.

He has made it through the entire day without needing a breathing treatment or decongestant and we are praying that we have turned the corner and seen the last of this nastiness.

Good Morning!

Just a quick note to say that John is feeling much better this morning, actually better than he did at any point yesterday. He needed no breathing treatment, no decongestant and he wasn't running a fever, he is however running his mouth, talking, talking, talking, sure is great to hear, just hope he's not getting it all out of his system so that he doesn't need to talk when he gets to school!

Dirty Shoes!!!

I know it sounds silly to be excited about dirty shoes, especially dirty toddler shoes, but today we put John in his gait trainer and took him around the block and for the very first time in his life his shoes are dirty and scuffed from the travel! He did pretty good and moved himself along for probably 1/4 of the block and stayed in his trainer for 2/3 and then dad carried him home. John was one worn out little boy but still had enough energy to play on the floor for a little while.

We did make it to church this morning. It was a near thing as John woke up at 4am with a fever again. With some tylenol, a breathing treatment and a little decongestant he settled down to sleep the rest of the morning with us. Unfortunately John is now big enough that he only has two real sleeping modes toes-in-your-ribs and fingers-in-your-nose, needless to say he is firmly planted in his own bed the overwhelming majority of the time.

He was pretty good during church right up until he ripped the page out of the hymnal. I was shocked and couldn't quite figure out what to do with him because if I'd have spanked him anywhere in the vicinity of the church the ladies group would have been lining up to lecture me. For the moment we are going to repair the page and who knows, I suppose if he does it we'll cross that bridge then. Little stinker then sat in the kitchen 'visiting' with the ladies, charming them to no end and entertaining them by forking the living heck out of a pancake. He did eat a few bites of it but mostly demolished it.

We are going for labs in the morning and hope that it is good news, or at least not bad. He did throw up today and that is the first time in a very long time that he has done that. But since he threw up only once we didn't take him in for labs tonight. Tomorrow is school, audiologist to refit his ear molds because he's grown enough that the left one just pops out every so often, labs and maybe a trip to the pediatrician to see if he has some new idea about what to do about this persistent little virus that is driving us all insane.

And the last news of the day - today during lunch John said 'daddy' and 'dad dad' clear enough that we all knew exactly what he was saying. He also successfully forked many macaroni's and fed them to us, of course not to himself, but he thought it rather fun to feed the parents. He's getting pretty darn good with that fork. We've declined the offer from a friend to sharpen the tines so that he could get more stuff, afraid we might be next ;-)

Late Morning - Long Day

John had a little trouble sleeping through the night. He needed some additional hydration too. When he finally went into deep sleep He stayed asleep until almost 11 am. This caused some consternation, but after talking with his nurse practitioner Sandy, she said that she doesn't expect him to pick back up and handle his formula and regular food for at least a few more days. When John was awake he did very well with his toys and with his markers especially. Gina was drawing on the same piece of paper that John was making little scratches and dots on, and while she was drawing he took a marker in each hand and started drawing loops with both markers at the same time. What an amazing little boy.

John went with Gina and I to the church in town tonight as preparations were being made for the breakfast smorgasbord and bake sale in the morning. As usual all the ladies there were thrilled to see him and he was just as much a ham as usual. It seems that he is at least feeling better. He went to bed a little later than normal, but not so late considering when he woke up. We are hoping that tomorrow will be a better day for him.

You Can Fork a Kruncher!

If you really try hard enough and are at least as persistent as John you can get a Kruncher chip stuck in the tines of your fork so that you can feed it to whoever is close enough. As you can tell dinner was again an entertaining event at our house. Of course John is still not eating and actually ran a fever again today, but he's sleeping peacefully now.

He woke up early with a fever this morning, but with a little tylenol it came right down and he was ready to ham it up at the church breakfast fundraiser. He did eat a few bites of pancake but mostly he just enjoyed smiling at people and playing with my fork. He did manage to fork a few pieces of pancake and feed them to his dad and also to fork a piece and plunk it down into my OJ glass and then fork it back out of there and put it on the plate. Thank goodness my glass was empty! For a little boy who woke up feeling bad he put on quite the show and even 'talked' to the people who came by to say hi to him. Ever our little social butterfly!

This evening he enjoyed sitting in the breeze of the open window while Mark read him some of his favorite books and then even held his own little hands together for night time prayers, well at least for a little bit of them. He was eager to get into his bed and get some sleep and we are ever hopeful that he will feel better tomorrow and be ready to do even more amazing stuff. He is really getting into pretend play and even though he has long tired of breathing treatments he was really enjoying pretending to put the medicine in the nebulizer this afternoon. He did finally say 'mom mom' clear and certain enough today that even Mark was looking at him like 'where'd that come from', we're hoping that 'dad dad' isn't too far behind and that its a good while before he's ready to repeat anything that he learns from listening to talk radio with us during the day ;-)

Have a blessed Lord's Day and we'll update you on how John is doing tomorrow evening. Our goal is to take him out for a walk in his gait trainer, here's hoping for pleasant weather.

Hard Working Little Boy

While John is still recovering from his virus, he is doing very well and during physical therapy today worked very, very hard. Normally he needs a little break half way through the hour of therapy - mostly an attitude rest. But today he worked for the entire hour. He scooted around the floor pretty well and then in his gait trainer he even stood up several times on his own and was taking individual steps on the carpet instead of just both feet together. Shawna, John's PT and I were both amazed at how tall he stood in the trainer. When we first got it we were talking about how even at the lowest adjustment he was just barely tall enough to use it and today we were talking about how we will need to start raising things up pretty soon.

John's still not eating but his supper time adventures are getting ... well more adventurous. Tonight he wanted the last of the chip bag, so I rolled the top down on it and gave it too him. After all we have the eager eater hanging out on the floor waiting for anything that might get close to her. At first he was happy just playing in the chips, then he flung a few to the dog and then he decided that it was time to fork them. After he squealed and 'talked' and made it clear that he was wanting my fork he then spent the next 5 minutes or so mixing, stabbing and crunching up the chips with the fork. It was way too funny. He finally ended up eating a chip or rather licking the salt off of it, but at least he was demonstrating that he is perfectly capable of getting a hold of a chip and getting it to his mouth - well at least when no one is looking right at him or asking him to do so.

Happy 1st Anniversary!!

Today is the 1st anniversary of the completion of John's adoption. Of course he didn't seem very impressed with this, but we told him anyway and explained to him that it wasn't really his 1st anniversary of being John Allen Hass because God knew that was his name even before he was conceived, and we knew that was his name 9 days before he was born, and everyone else knew when he was born, so this was the 1st anniversary of the government figuring out what God and all the rest of us already knew. He didn't seem very impressed with that either, but it's our story and we're sticking to it.

He's still not feeling the greatest from this viral respiratory infection and he has ever so graciously passed it along to his parents who aren't feeling so well either. But he did eat for us again today, hamburger, not fries, not hamburger bun, just hamburger and now! We're hoping that he feels enough better tomorrow that we don't have to call off his physical therapy on Thursday, but that remains to be seen. For the moment we know that he feels good enough to demand some hamburger and to throw his toys in the floor and even make what I'm sure was disparaging remarks to the dogs. For the moment he is sleeping pretty well and storing up that energy for some silliness tomorrow.

A Monday Off

In the wake of Easter it was a good opportunity to do as little as possible. Because John still hasn't recovered from the respiratory virus we decided to postpone his speech therapy at Moog and move his appointment with his audiologist to next Monday. We all slept in and spent the day relaxing. John is slowly getting better he ate lunch with us today, the first real food he's taken by mouth since this coughing started last week. Gina and I both have caught some form of this from him but we are recovering more readily. John only had one long nap today, but pulled his hearing aids and was put in his crib for a little while that turned into a short nap. John also did something interesting today when Gina was holding him up while he was standing on the floor. He started wiggling/dancing and ended up taking two or three steps in no particular direction. He has been amusing with the things that he has reacted to lately, he finds a lot around him that's funny, and when he gets the giggles it brings smiles to our faces as well. Blessed Easter Season to everyone out there who reads this.

Happy Easter!!!!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!!!

John slept pretty well through the night, despite a few coughing fits here and there. The decongestants and breathing treatments are doing their job and thankfully he is still at home and even got to go to church this morning to celebrate Easter. After the service the kids went out to hunt Easter eggs and John got to go out with them too. Of course they tried to put an egg in the very top of a nearby bush so that he could easily reach it from where I was holding him, but he found that he mostly liked to hunt eggs out of the other kids baskets. He was pretty thrilled with the whole egg thing, especially after we came back inside the church with the older girls and he figured out that if he threw the egg on the floor it would roll down the hall and Tiffany would go and fetch it for him. Ever the silly man he would look her right in the face, smile nice and big and toss yet another egg down the hall.

John's afternoon went quite well too. He stopped running fevers so we got to discontinue the tylenol but his cough required a few more breathing treatments and decongestants. He played with our friends kids, Steven and Tiffany, and dug around in his Easter basket a bit, but was more thrilled that the eggs would come apart than with the little frogs and lizards inside of them, go figure. After our friends left for home John sat in the living room floor with Mark and I and rolled the ball back and forth with us for a while before he was tired and ready to go to bed. He's quiet now, a few coughing fits after initially going to bed but is now sleeping peacefully, rolled up on his side cuddling his blanket, storing up energy for tomorrow's adventures at school and getting his left hearing aid mold refitted. He's grown enough since he got them that the mold no longer fits well enough to stay in firmly.

Happy Easter to everyone!

Another snotty day!

John's day started out snotty and needing a breathing treatment, but he did pretty good today and only needed two of them. So we have high hopes that he will be well enough to go to school on Monday, and we didn't call off his physical therapy for tomorrow.

He has had a few interesting highlights to his day. Did you know that if you stick your hand through one of the shape holes in a Tupperware shape sorter ball and grab one of the blocks you can't pull your hand back out? Well it's true and after he banged it on his tray for a while and said some rather unsavory toddlerese to it he let me pull his hand back out and dump the blocks out for him. Of course by this time the toy had misbehaved enough that it was dead to him and so he shoved the ball and each and every block off into the floor. I wonder if the ball knows not to do that again? He has also figured out that if he really wants my attention sitting in his chair and saying 'mom', 'mom', 'mom', 'mom' really works, not to mention that it makes mom really happy.

Supper was an adventure, he didn't want to eat but rather enjoyed playing with some noodles and flinging them on the dog. I'm wondering if we've read the OOPS page in the David book too many times. Of course the dog enjoyed this very much and rewarded him by standing up against his chair and licking the noodles off his tray which pushed him across the dining room and into the wall - this is enjoyable and quite delightful fun for the toddler of the house, and the parents really like the smiles that it brings, and thankfully the dog cleans up whatever mess ensues. So all in all even though he ate only a few bites at dinner both John and Maggie were extremely pleased with the fare.

He is putting himself to sleep at the moment, while his 'friends' tumble in the dryer downstairs. John has now gotten to where he can scoot around in his crib well enough that he can pull the stuffed animals from the sides and head of the crib and play with them. Of course this means that his 'friends' now take regular trips through the washer and dryer but they seem no worse for the washing and we think that they must rather enjoy that they are getting played with - or maybe we've read Velveteen Rabbit a few too many times in this household.

Holy Saturday

John woke up feeling cooler and in a pretty good mood this morning. Not long though and he was having some trouble breathing. We called the pediatrician and were told that all he needed was breathing treatments with albuterol every four hours and some pediatric cough and decongestant medicine. He has taken some extra naps and needed some extra ceralyte for the day but has gotten along well enough that if he wakes up well enough we will all be able to go to Easter Service together. John has some visitors for the weekend, our friends from Springfield Mo are up for the Easter Celebrations and John has loved the extra attention, hugs, and kisses from Aunt Becky Uncle Elmer and their hoodlums. A Blessed Easter to all who read this from all of us in Slater Missouri.

Maundy Thursday

John's day has been lively and interesting. Since his mom reported this morning he has been doing quite well. The bandaid came off without incident and the boy has been eating. For lunch he had potato chips and drank a lot of water. After lunch he pulled his ears, took his hearing aids out himself (he's not supposed to do that yet), and so we put him down for another nap. He woke up in a good mood and we had hopes that he would be able to go with us to church tonight. We decided that he needed to spend some time in his gait trainer. We rigged up his formula pump on one of the attached devices so that he could stay on his feeds while he was toddling along in his trainer. With this set up he was able to stay in his gait trainer for over an hour. We all had a good time playing together and going all over the house. At this point John tends to move his legs so that he goes backwards more than forwards. After spending so long in his trainer he was very tired. He went down for a third nap and slept until after I had to leave for church. When I returned home he was awake and had been for a little while. He spent most of that time with his mom as his captive audience because of a very snotty nose. We finally put him to bed but he woke up about an hour later and has had to have a breathing treatment to loosen up his chest congestion. He is now settled in for the night and sleeping quietly. We are looking forward to seeing his Occupational Therapist (OT)tomorrow (friday) morning and she has had us doing some weight training with John. (m&m minis tubes with quarters and nickels about 6 oz.) He has done very well with this and we are hoping that he will willingly show off a little bit for the OT. We will post again after the visit with his OT.

Phew!

John woke up looking much better and feeling better too! His finger still bleeds when the bandaid is off, but at least he's staying interested in enough other things that he's keeping it on for the most part. We talked to his GI nurse practitioner and we are going to try the med changes again, more gradually, but still taking those baby steps forward. At the moment he's down for a nap. Hasn't eaten anything but has played and smiled and is doing well.

Medicine changes aren't fun

John is just starting to settle down and get to sleep. We have been working on a couple medicine changes and they have not gone as well as hoped. So we are taking a couple of those inevitable backwards steps but those are only ever temporary. Given a few days I'm sure he'll be ready for a few steps forward again.

He did have a fairly good day despite the med changes. He played well this morning and had a ton of french fries for lunch. After going for labs he kept pulling the band aid off his finger and bleeding everywhere, at one point he seemed to be trying to paint with his bloody finger - this is not always appreciated by passersby ;-) At the moment he is keeping the bandaid on his finger and hopefully by the time he has gotten it pulled off again his 'finger paints' will have all dried up. What a silly boy! He had a fun time at Wally World with a couple of the girls from church who got big smiles out of him when they let him hold their cash.

Our best guess is that if he makes it through the night without puking, he'll be fine. If he throws up we'll be headed to Columbia to get him some fluids. He tends to throw up when his CO2 level gets low, it was 18 at labs, which is low but not critical, and since we are giving him Bicitra, a medicine which helps increase CO2 levels, back at his regular dosage and feeding him Ceralyte, an electrolyte replacement fluid like Pedialyte but more effective for short-gut kids, through his g-tube we are hoping that it will pick up and he will be full of silliness in the morning. At any rate I'll post again in the morning with his progress through the night.

It was fun with Papa!

John's day has been pretty good. He woke up early enough this morning to say good-bye to Papa, Mark's dad, who had gotten to stay with us for a week and now was going to stay with Mark's brother and his family for a week before returning home. Getting to spend time with Papa was a real treat and John enjoyed his company immensly, as did we all.

We did have a few new tricks for the day. John figured out that he could pick up a fig newton from his tray and put it in his own mouth and take a nice big bite and also that he doesn't particularly care for fig newton. The face was priceless as was the immediate handing over of the fruited cake. Shawna, John's phycial therapist, came today. Her usual day is Thursday but John was ready and had a great time in his gait trainer. He didn't even cry when she put him in it and then moved around quite a bit and with much more evident purpose than he had ever done before. Today was also John's first day to work on his homework from school yesterday. Amy, his speech therapist at the MOOG School for the Deaf in Columbia, Mo, gave him the assignment of learning to pretend to feed a stuffed animal. This is quite a delightful homework assignment and one that we will be enjoying through the week. Today we were feeding the elephant that Mark and I got him when he was in New Orleans. He liked sticking the spoon in the elephants mouth, he was even okay with giving it a drink from the cup, but most of all he liked to use one of his oral syringes and give it medicine in its belly and oh checking it's eyes, ears and mouth with the pen light was the best of all. The second time he played with this for dad he mostly just wanted to medicate the elephant, belly, mouth whatever, he was just sure that the elephant needed medication now! You can tell what happens a lot at our house.

Today at lunch he decided that he only wanted Sprite, which he shouldn't have, but when I gave him the empty bottle he hugged it, worked it around to where he could tip it up to his mouth and made sure that the very last drop went in him and not on his clothes. For supper, well the most fun was to poke the knife in the butter bowl, this didn't really accomplish much eating but it was rather amusing.

John is tucked in bed, sleeping peacefully and storing up energy for all of tomorrows adventures.