Family Update

Well it's been a pretty uneventful past couple of weeks here in the Miles' household. Ethan is continuing to do well physically and stay very active like all the other kids his age. He babbles all the time but still doesn't say much that we can understand so we're continuing to work on vocabulary and adding more sign language for him. Below is a list of what he knows so far:

WORDS:

* Da-Da

* Ma-Ma

* Ba-Ba (for bye-bye)

* Nuh-Nuh (for night-night)

* Guh-Go or Ma-Mo (for Elmo)

* Hoo-Hoo (for dirty "poo-poo" diaper)

* Bah (for ball)

* Mimi (for Julie's mom)

* Bop-Pop (or Pop-Pop for Julie's Dad)

* Ca-Ca (for Aunt Jessica and for chocolate!)

* Bo-Bo (for Uncle Brandon)

* Be-Be (for baby)

* Ah Gun (all done/all gone)

* Nana (for banana)

SIGNS:

* more (accompanied by saying "m-m-m")

* milk

* all done/finished (accompanied by "ah gun" for all gone)

and we're working on learning please, thank you, help, hurt, juice & water this month

Ethan can also point to various body parts and knows the sounds for several animals. He loves the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes" and "If You're Happy and You Know It" - both usually get him giggling or at least distract him from crying if he's upset.

In other news, all 3 of us have had some kind of cold/sinus/allergy problem on and off since around Valentine's day. Just as soon as we think we're on the mend from one sickness, we get sick all over again. Dan's been feeling the worst and finally went to the doctor last Monday (3/30). His doctor said he's got Pertussis (whooping cough) and quite possibly also RSV - scary!

Fortunately, I think Ethan's received enough doses of the DTaP vaccine (P being for Pertussis) that I don't have to worry about him contracting it but I am still being very careful about Ethan's exposure to RSV. This is the big respiratory virus that can be life-threatening (if left untreated) to preemies and young babies (mainly under 6 months old) who have other heart/lung issues.

In case you don't remember or just found our story, RSV is the same virus that we had to safeguard against last winter by having Ethan get monthly antibody shots from Oct.-April. Due to several factors this year: 1) Ethan's older, 2) he doesn't have his next surgery any time soon, and 3) his 2nd heart surgery/hospital stay was significantly cheaper than those shots, we opted to pass on those shots this time around.

Well sorry for the long update. For making it to the end of this post, here's some pictures I took the other day!

Mimi & Pop-Pop with their 2 grandchildren!

Enjoy a home-made chocolate chip cookie!

Still eating and making a mess!