2 Years Old!

Where and how do I even begin to put in to words all I'm thinking and feeling today?!?Wow, I can hardly believe that two years ago today we met our sweet little heart baby for the very first time! What a blessing these two years have been for our family and also truly what an answer to prayer this has been for us to even be able to have a child at all after having miscarried a year earlier (and ironically enough who's birthday would have been later this month). This is going to be a long post but I promise there will be pictures!

We are very thankful for such a great team of prayer warriors we had during my pregnancy and delivery of Ethan. And, needless to say, we are also very thankful for the wonderful medical team that helped take care of him those first hours and days as we awaited his first open heart surgery at just 2 days old. Not to mention, the surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and more that cared for him before, during and after surgery and also our cardiologist that continues to check up on him every couple of months. We have overcome quite a bit these last two years, including a second heart surgery and the not so easy task of staying fairly healthy during RSV/cold/flu seasons. We continue to praise God daily for the gift of our little miracle - Ethan Scott Miles!

Since my last update (June VBS & Tatoo), there's been a lot happening. Ethan tagged along with me in July as I helped out with our church's July VBS (no tatoos this time!). He has become better at walking and talking since the first VBS and he just absolutely loves church - it's like a second (or maybe third if you count all the time he spent at UNC Hospital) home to him! LOL Each morning of VBS, I'd wake him up and tell him it was time for church and VBS and he'd rejoice and say, "Yay! Turt (church)!" By the time we'd walk up the sidewalk and into the building, he'd already be saying, "Bye!" like I couldn't get him to his classroom soon enough and leave him to play with his buddies!

Then one week ago (last Tuesday, 8/4) I took him in to UNC's Raleigh Clinic at Wake Med to see his cardiologist, Dr. R. We had not been there since January and I remember what a hard time we had in keeping him still for the echo so I brought nearly everything but the kitchen sink along in hopes of keeping him distracted long enough to do the echo. That last visit he was just not cooperative and didn't want to sit still long enough to get all the pics they needed so they sent us (back in March) to UNC's Cath Lab to have a sedated echo done. We never got any definite answers from that other than it looked "fine" and there really wasn't anything more to discuss. So, I was determined to "make" Ethan cooperate this time so we didn't have to go back to UNC again if this attempted echo failed.

At last week's cardio appointment, I'm pleased to say that Ethan weighed in at 12.6 kilos (27.7 lbs) and 34". His blood pressure was good (don't remember exact number) and his pulse ox was the best I'd seen yet - 87%! When Dr. R came in to talk to us, he said that he reviewed the March sedated echo and it looked so good that they didn't even need to do one that day and we can just wait 6 more months to come back for another visit! This was obviously an encouraging visit for us!

We know that given Ethan's particular heart defect, he does still have one more heart surgery to go but we know it won't even be something we have to even think about until after the next visit in February. Ever since we first heard of Ethan's condition and started learning about treatment options, we had always been told the 3rd surgery would most likely take place between 2-5 years old. This is such a wide age range for us - especially since he had his first two surgeries within the first 6 months of life!

Well speaking of Ethan's birthday, we celebrated with all our family (16 adults and kids) here at our house on Sunday evening. The menu was all of Ethan's favorite foods - "peesha"(pizza), cheese doodles, popcorn, M&M's, Kool-Aid juice pouches (thanks VBS church staff for that one!), salad (for the adults) and confetti cupcakes with Elmo candies and sprinkles! Yes, Ethan's still obsessed with Elmo so we did the same party theme again this year!

Ethan had a lot of fun eating all his favorite foods (did I mention this kid likes to eat?!) and opening all his presents. Some of his favorite gifts included a T-ball set from his Aunt Jenny, a collapsable tunnel from his Aunt Jessica (aka "Ca-Ca") and Uncle Brandon (aka "Bo-Bo"), a bubble blower (thanks Aunt Amanda, Uncle Reggie, cousins Rebecca & Marissa), and some new Elmo DVD's and Elmo puppet book (thanks Mimi and Pop-Pop). He also received some nice new clothes (thanks Uncle Chris - aka "Kiss" & great-grandma Jada), a shopping cart (thanks Grammie & Pap-Pap), coloring books and puzzles. It's been non-stop fun around here since Sunday night! Now if I can just figure out where to store all the new stuff!

And if you've made it this far through my post (or just skipped ahead), congrats! Time to see some pictures of the party!

Presents, oh boy!

Going Shopping!

"Oh, Ball!"

"...two, fee, go!" - Ethan as he waits for the tunnel to pop open

I love my new t-ball set!

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!

Oh, something to read! Toddler's are so easily distracted!

Look what I got!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY candles

Not sure if he's more excited about the fire or the Elmo candy and sprinkles!

Yummy - sprinkles and sugar...

Oh yeah!

Ice cream and cupcakes on my Elmo plate and Cookie Monster placemat!

Ethan's first tattoo & VBS

This week is VBS at our church. Last year was my first year to volunteer and I enjoyed it enough to return this year. It's so nice to switch it up and take care of some older kids (first graders) and let the nursery workers take care of Ethan for a couple hours each day. So much so that I've also agreed to help out next month when we do it again!

First, before I get into explaining the title for this post, let me just preface this by saying that Ethan came down with a cold and what I'm guessing is yet another (3rd one in 2 months) ear infection. These doctors appointments are not cheap with our current insurance so we're skipping the doctor this time and just waiting it out. The first night or two is always the worst for him, but nothing that a little Tylenol can't help. Ethan certainly had a rough night Sunday night so Dan was gracious enough to stay home from work so I could fulfill day one of my VBS commitment.

Day two rolled around (Tuesday) and Ethan's runny nose stopped and he felt better but then I started coming down with the same symptoms. We managed to make it to VBS and have a good time. When I went to pick Ethan up from the nursery, this is what I saw:

The nursery workers said that this is the tattoo that he picked out - how cute!

Well before ending this post, I just want to update that both Ethan and I are still sick (I'm actually feeling worse w/ a fever/cough and all over achy feeling) so we're skipping VBS today. Maybe if we're feeling better and get lots of rest today, we can go back to VBS tomorrow (Thursday) for the final day. For now, it's lunch time then (hopefully) nap time for us both. I'll end with some more pics of my tattooed son. Enjoy!

Family Beach Trip '09

So I guess I should've looked at our beach trip pictures first before promising a post full of pictures. I really only have one good beach picture to share. :-( Too bad since we had a busy, fun, full week when we were there!

Ethan, Pop-Pop & Aunt Jenny

Mid-late May at Myrtle Beach is a nice, comfortable air temp but the water is still a little too cool. Ethan took a couple of days to get re-aquainted with the sand and water but then he enjoyed it the rest of the week. In this picture, Ethan and company enjoyed playing in a little puddle where the water was a little warmer. This picture was actually taken on our last day - just hours before we drove home.

Now to back track and give a chronological description of our week. This may get pretty detailed so don't feel like you have to read it all. This is the only place I'm journaling our only vacation of this year and don't want to forget what all we did!

Day 1 - We started our trip with a drive to Columbia, SC to help Jenny move out of her dorm and attend graduation. Well, she had such a busy last couple of weeks that packing is all that really got done the day we arrived. If you remember my last post before we left town, Ethan had an ear infection and the day we left, Dan also started not feeling well. :-( By the time we made it to our destination, Dan had a full blown fever/chills and crawled into bed at the hotel and stayed there most of the day/evening. Fortunately, Ethan felt good for the trip - as I've come to learn with his 2 back to back ear infections that he had, the first 24 hours is the worst and then he feels fine for the duration of the ear infection. With 2 sick boys, I had to stay at the hotel to take care of them so I couldn't help with packing.

Day 2 - Graduation Day! We were all pleasantly surprised and proud that the baby of the family graduated Cumm Laude from her school. This is way better than I ever even came close to doing - and this was her 3rd school in 4 years! After graduation, we all went downtown for a celebratory lunch with a couple of her closest friends. Then it was time to head back to campus to help Jenny finish packing and moving her stuff off campus to storage for the summer. She'll be returning in the fall to share an apartment with a few friends still in school. Well, by that time, it was Ethan's nap time and there was no place for him to nap except in the car (which he actually fell asleep in during the ride back from lunch). So we were able to get out of packing/moving and got a head start on the rest of the family to the beach. We arrived at dinner time, found a place to go eat and then went ahead and hit the grocery store for the week. The rest of the family made it around 9pm.

Day 3-9 All the mornings at the beach started out pretty much the same. Dad (Pop-Pop), me, Brandon, and baby Annie (who napped after her first feeding) all got up around 6-7am and enjoyed a couple hours of quiet time until the rest of the house woke up around 9-10am. The first couple of days at Myrtle, it rained and was kind of chilly. We spent most of our time in the beach house just relaxin'.

Highlights during the week included my sisters and I having a girls day out - shopping and lunch at the outlets (while Mom (aka Mimi) babysat the grandkids), the men all going golfing together later that same day, Mom & Dad enoying an early anniversary gift from the kids - going to Le Grand Cirque, several yummy dinners out like at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville at Broadway at the Beach, Carolina Roadhouse & Crab Catchers, running into some church friends at the condo's pool, and shopping at Barefoot Landing! Mimi even bought Ethan a personalized children's CD that says his name more than 45 times during the 6 songs on the CD.

Some less memorable events included having the golf cart stollen from our condo the day before we left, Ethan busting his lip open at the playground at Broadway at the Beach, and Ethan having a diaper blowout on my leg at Margaritaville (oh the joys of motherhood!) during dinner, and me getting a striped sunburn on my leg from missing spots with the spray on sunscreen the day we went to the beach/came home.

Well that about sums up our one and only "summer" vacation for the year. Back to reality now - lots of hot, humid NC weather (except for the flooding, 3+ inches of rain and mid-70's day we're having today), and trying to keep cool finding by finding friends with free pools in their neighborhoods to go visit!

Pray for Lindsay

I really truly have on my to-do list for today to add the promised pictures and update on Ethan. But before I do that, I really feel it's more appropriate to start with an update on Ethan's heart buddy, Lindsay, that I mentioned in the last post.

Lindsay was right on track with recovery from her heart transplant and they were even starting to make plans to head home in a couple of weeks but things took a turn for the worse and Lindsay is now back in ICU (instead of moderate care) and on ECMO (life support). Please keep "The Princess" Lindsay and her family in your prayers. It turns out that Lindsay aspirated (something that's common to heart babies after surgery - Ethan struggled with this but not to this extreme), which caused her to have a seizure. She is stable at this point and the medical team, as well as Lindsay's family, think that staying on ECMO for a few days will help her body have some time to rest to recover from this event. For more information, please check Lindsay's blog.

OK, time to go edit pictures so I can get working on putting together our long-overdue beach trip post!

22 months!

I can't believe it's been 5 weeks since I last updated. Fortunately, I can safely say that we have all been healthy since our last post! So much has happened since then so I will probably post several updates to keep from having just one super long update.

First, I'll start with the most current news. Our little guy is not so little any more! Today he turned 22 months old. He's weighing in at a whopping 27 pounds right now and I think he's also going through a growth spurt, eating us out of house and home! Hard to believe that he will be turning 2 in 2 more months!

And also Ethan's crush (he gets this glazed over, goofy grin every time he sees her picture), princess Lindsay, turns 1 year old today! Happy Birthday princess Lindsay! For those of you that may not remember Lindsay, she has the same heart condition as Ethan (HLHS). Her first surgery went well, her second surgery didn't and she ended up on the transplant list. She has been in the hospital since October (her second surgery) awaiting her perfect new heart and last Friday she got it! You can read more here.

And in other news, my baby sister, Jennifer, just left home yesterday for her 6 week mission trip/school internship in Turkey. I have included her blog link in the side bar for those of you who want to follow her.

Well, that's enough for right now. Updates and pictures to follow in another post about our family beach trip and Jennifer's college graduation.

Ear Infection

When will this bout of illnesses leave our family? Fortunately, Dan and I are healthy for the time being. But poor Ethan, he (and I) barely got any sleep late Friday night/early Saturday morning. The poor kid cried his eyes out until 4am, when I think he finally passed out from sheer exhaustion. The only time he would calm down is when I'd pick him up from his crib and hold him and rock him in the glider. I could tell he wasn't feeling well but couldn't pinpoint what was wrong - no fever, no runny nose, no symptoms of any kind as far as I could tell. Saturday morning, Ethan woke up at 8:30 and did develop a 2 degree fever and was still fussy (who blames him with only 4 hours sleep!). So while I got to sleep in a bit and get ready for the day, I urged Dan to call the urgent care office of our pediatrician to figure out what was wrong. Dan managed to get Ethan a 10am appt. and graciously took Ethan to it so I could have some time off.

What did I do with that time off? Last year for Mother's Day/my birthday (same weekend), Dan gave me a spa certificate and here it is, a week from my birthday (aka - the expiration date on the certificate!) and I had yet to redeem it. So Friday morning, I called and booked myself a 1 hour Swedish massage appointment that I couldn't cancel. So I took full advantage of my morning off to pamper myself (funny that Pampering Ourselves was the topic at MOPS last week!). And while I had a nice, leisurely morning/afternoon, my boys anxiously waited at the peds for 30+ minutes past their appt. time before being taken to an exam room for their appt.

Turns out that our poor little man has a double ear infection. Nothing that more Amoxicillin can't cure, huh? So, we took it easy the rest of the weekend to catch up on rest and let the little guy try to get better. We're keeping him comfortable with children's ibuprofen and treating the infection with a more expensive form of Amoxicillin than what we were prescribed 2 weeks ago for the "possible" strep.

Not Strep

So Ethan's slowly getting better. We finally (last Thursday I initiated the call) heard back from the peds. office and it turns out the other strep test was also negative. I think it's just another cold/runny nose. Since the ped. was so wishy-washy about whether or not to cotinue all 10 days of the Amoxicillin after we found out the result of the 2nd strep test and since it didn't seem to be making any difference, we decided to d/c the Amoxicillin ourselves. Ethan's sleep schedule was getting thrown off by us forgetting to wait a whole 12 hours and we decided sleep was more important than an antibiotic that wasn't working. Sleep seems to be the best medicine right now. Ethan's been sleeping his normal 11-12 hours again at night and adding an extra hour or two to his afternoon nap time (4 hours instead of 2-3)!