did you say something?

Age:  2 years, 5 months
Height: 36" (50th %)
Weight: 13 kilos (40th %)
O2: 99%

We were thrilled to see those numbers today!  I can't believe how well and how quickly he bounced back from that nasty GI bug he had.

In February, at a routine Audiology follow-up, Super Dude was diagnosed with significant hearing loss.  [As a side note, it is recommended that CDH kiddos have their hearing screened frequently until age 3 because of the risk of late-onset sensorineural hearing loss related to diuretics, mechanical ventilation and high-frequency oscillation]  Luckily, SD's hearing loss is conductive, meaning that he has a problem conducting sound waves, which, for him, is caused by fluid accumulation in the middle ear.  SD's (fantastically wonderful) Pediatrician, Dr. B, referred him to an ENT, so that we can solve this problem before it further delays his speech.

The ENT quickly confirmed that: (1) SD's eardrums do not respond to sound at all, (2) he can not hear anything below normal conversation and what he does hear, he hears as if he's under water, (3) his hearing remains unchanged since the Audiology report in February, and (4) that he needs tubes.  Dr. ENT mentioned that reflux can add to the fluid build-up in the ears and gave us some pointers on how to reduce those effects. The tubes should also help SD sleep more soundly and breathe easier.  It's amazing how related everything is inside the body!

She is willing to perform this surgery in conjunction with SD's abdominal wall hernia repair surgery that we had planned for late summer, but she doesn't want to wait that long before putting the tubes in.  So, we have moved up the surgical consult with Dr. H to next week in an effort to convince beg Dr. H to allow the ENT to insert tubes during his repair surgery.  We'd really prefer to only have SD under anesthesia and breathing-tube placement once, but if Dr. H (whom we literally trust with our child's life) doesn't think it's a good idea, we will be planning two surgeries for this summer.

We'll update more once we know more, but we'd appreciate any happy thoughts you can send his way!

Big boy sitting in the ENT chair!

For more info on tubes, click HERE

bubbles and sunshine

We've had beautiful weather this weekend, so we took full advantage of it by staying outside as much as possible. We bought new patio chairs, planted several new flowers and tried out Super Dude's bubble machine. He and Lucy had such a great time chasing bubbles!

elvis lives!

Super Dude loves to dance and tonight learned how to dance like Elvis.  At the start of "Jailhouse Rock" Elvis has his hands on his belt loops, so Super Dude copied him!

happy birthday daddy!

my daddy's birthday was this week and his co-workers with gave him a yummy birthday cake that he brought home to share!  i love it when mommy and daddy have birthdays because it means i get to eat birthday cake ~ i even convinced them to let me eat cake for breakfast today!!!

happy birthday to the best-est daddy in the whole world!

the dude loves mj

Super dude loves watching Michael Jackson perform.  He points to the laptop and says "moonwalk" when he wants us to play a video.  A few nights ago, after watching MJ moonwalk over, and over, and over, and over...he got down, ran to the hallway and started moonwalking!!!!

abcs and 123s

Super Dude gets a little carried away with his alphabet and his hands can't keep up!
[if you're wondering what he's looking at, it's an Elmo DVD...it's the only way to keep him still long enough]

it's finally warm enough to play outside

We've been stuck inside for weeks thanks to mother nature's temper tantrums.  She's dumped so much snow and ice on us that we were getting stir crazy.  Finally, the temps got into the 50s this weekend and we took advantage of it by going to one of the many wonderful parks in our little town.  I really can't believe that the dude is getting so big he can climb up the play ground equipment and go down the slides all by himself!  There was an adorable 3 year old boy at the park, whose parents had just adopted him from China a few weeks ago.  He and the dude had a blast racing up the stairs and going down the slides.  One of them would stand at the bottom of the slide and clap for the other one as he went down.  The other child didn't speak English, but it was wonderful to see them playing without a care in the world ~ grownups really could learn a lesson or two from toddlers.

p.s. no children were harmed in the making of this video!