Toys Toys Toys

So Although Bennett was born almost 5 months ago, since he was born 2 months early, we can only expect him to be acting as a 3 month old. We have been waiting paitently for him to be more enchanted with toys and really want to play with them. The last couple weeks he has been trying to figure out his hands and how they can help him explore the world.

Today Grandmama Ruth and I went to raid Babies R Us to get all those toys we have been dying to buy that make all those obnoxious rattling and dinging sounds and we came up with a few things that Bennett sure had fun with.

Here are some videos of him playing... He is just starting to grab at toys and use his little fingers to check them out.

He seems to not know what to make of the swing but sure seems interested...

I swear you will be friends someday...

Bennett had his very first play date with another baby... His good friend Hadley Block and her parents, our friends Andy and Shannon Block, stopped in to say hi on their trip home from Switzerland. She is a beautiful little girl and happily makes little cooing noises and plays. Joel and I had kinda forgotten that babies can make sounds like that. We were trying to get them to take a picture together but both of their naps had been interupted and they werent having any of it :)

It was sure fun to see the Blocks and we are excited they will be moving back this summer so that Hadley and Bennett can hang out more often.

Bennett is heading up tomorrow for his first outpatient Seattle Childrens Clinic appointment since his surgery. He has been quite the happy baby at home and just settling in more and more each day. The home nursing has worked out great and mom and dad are finally getting some sleep at night.

Dad is finally getting the hang of our high maintenance child in the baby bjorn... it isnt easy with all the cords so it definately takes some getting used to. But he is getting really heavy so it is a must while carting him around the house.

So this is what outside is like...

I guess when you have a baby in December it isnt too crazy to have them not see what outside is really like until they are a couple months old... but since Bennett has spent most of his life inside a hospital room it felt extra special to get outside in our backyard.

We just spent some time walking around the yard and I was a little worried about his little head getting too much sunshine so I found this hat... We didnt tell him he looked a little like a garden gnome.

He sure loves being outside and I know it will be part of everyday as long as it is sunny!

Best birthday present ever!

We got to come home on Saturday (my birthday :) and it did seem like the best present in the world... and Joel totally came through with the diamond earings and chocolate cake he made himself!! What a guy!

Bennett was scheduled to be discharged on Thursday but he woke up with an awful cough and goobers everywhere... nowhere better to get his first cold than a hospital I guess. So they kept him until Saturday to make sure he was fighting it well enough. He is still stuck with that awful tube up his nose because we havent completely resolved the swallowing air issue and this is the easiest way to retrieve air from his belly at the moment.

We're back!

I think Bennett missed his Drs and nurses at Seattle Childrens. On Monday evening Bennett started being a little stinker with some of his oxygen levels. He seemed to not be taking deep enough breaths. So after a few hours of not getting better we paged to the Craniofacial team at Childrens. We all decided it was best to be safe and bring him up to get him checked out. We all feared he was developing a cold that would quickly turn to pneumonia for little guys like Bennett.

So at around 1 am Tuesday morning we got a chest Xray where his lungs looked pretty good... but it did show that his bowels were up where his lungs are. It turns out his bowels were FULL of air. The Dr immediately came to the conclusion that all this air in his tummy was preventing him from taking deep breaths (he compared it to a pregnant person that gets short of breath, this was all too familiar to me) Trach kids are really prone to swallowing air. So we were admitted to work on moving some of the air south and prevent him from taking in more air.

Preventing him from swallowing more air has proven to be more difficult than we thought... we will see what they come up with. We are hoping to get out of here in the next couple of days and back to loving being home with the family!

The Easter Bunny's first visit to our house...

Bennett was pretty stoked when he woke up to see the Easter Bunny had visited our house in the night... It had some toys for this Summer, a strange Chicken puppet and some candy for Dad.

His Auntie Katie, Uncle Marty, Cousin Maddie, Auntie Jeanie, Uncle Kippy and Grandmama & Grandpapa came to our house to celebrate Bennett being home and to color Easter Eggs. We sure had fun and enjoyed a family day visiting. Grandmama brought this fun seat with toys all over it... He loved kicking and playing in it.

It took Daddy, all the uncles and Grandpapa to install a ceiling fan in the nursery and Bennett is a little skeptical of it... he stares at it with suspicion...

Redecorating the Nursery

We are home and working on setting everything up. As you can see there is some new equipment and new organization. Even some new people. The nurse above is Stacey and she has been a huge help getting us all settled in and giving me an extra set of hands for everything with Bennett. Thank you Grandpapa for the cool new cabinets for organization!

I cant even explain how wonderful it feels to be back in our home as a family. Even our doggie, Miss Hurlie, is loving having everyone together again.

Good thing I'm Cute!

Bennett may be a bit high maintenance but he sure makes up for it in cuteness!

Here we are having some play time waiting for Daddy to get here today. Enjoying some sunshine (well through the window but still nice)

This is Bennett's "I'm tired and I just want to snuggle" look... he may be the snuggliest baby in the world...

Wrapping up our hospital stay

This week we have been wrapping up all that needs to be done to get home. Grandmama Ruth and I finished our trach training and Joel will finish his at the beginning of next week. We are scheduling our home nurses and finishing up our dreaded insurance paperwork. It looks like we will be heading home on Wednesday and I am really looking forward to being home as a family again.

It has been quite a treat to have Grandmama Ruth here to help while Joel cant get off too much work. She sure seems to know how to get the smiles!