Wow! It has been a wild year. No wonder I haven't posted here in a year! Little J is ONE! 2016 was filled with a lot of surgeries for our baby boy. He had his cleft lip repaired in June, tubes put in his ears in July, received his hearing aids in August and had his cleft palate repaired in October. The surgery and recovery to repair his palate was awful and I definitely don't want to relive that. Thankfully he will never remember that surgery. He has been cleared by his surgeon for at least a few more years to not need anymore surgeries for his cleft issues. We see an audiologist regularly to monitor his permanent hearing loss that he was born with. So other then early intervention services and his hearing screenings, we are doctor free for a few years! Yay! Little J just took his first steps last week and will be running soon. He definitely will be our first child to end up in the ER with stitches or something broken. He keeps us on our toes! Big J just turned FOUR! How in world did that happen?! He is a wonderful big brother and loves him to pieces...except if he's taking his toys. He has been a good helper with his brother and is teaching him everything he needs to know about dinosaurs. He taught his brother to roar like a dinosaur. He was pretty proud. We continue to teach preschool at home for him and he loves it. It also helps this mama's anxiety. He gets tested again in May to see if his food allergies have improved at all. If so, then we will start thinking about public school. If not, we have some decisions to make about the best options to keep him safe. His food allergies are very severe and give me a lot of anxiety when we leave the house. We are praying for a decrease in severity. Big J is a very active little boy. He is our little fish and has really been doing great at swimming lessons. In a few weeks we will have the boy's 1st & 4th birthday party. It will be a swimming party with just close family and a few friends. Big J's birth family will be there as well. He is pretty excited.
