Monday night 2/19

Just a quick update tonight. Prayer requests: Please pray for health. For Solomon most right now. He’s fighting a couple things and needs to be healed! Please also pray for protection for the rest of us (especially Elijah) to remain healthy! Gideon needs to poop again. LOL. He’s loudly working it out right now and seems quite uncomfortable so hopefully he poops quickly and can get to sleep and rest well throughout the night.

Gideon is doing great. His belly button stump FINALLY fell off after way too many days. It was quite disgusting and really did smell awful but we were told repeatedly not to put anything on it or touch it at all no matter how bad it got.  ICK. I may or may not have obeyed doctors orders on that one. But it’s gone now and he’s got the cutest little swirly belly button just like his brothers. He seems chubby to me so I believe he’s gaining weight but hasn’t been weighed for 4 days so I can’t confirm that. I’m considering getting out my food scale and trying to find a way to balance him on it just to see, though I don’t think I need to do that, it would just be for fun because he is filling out nicely. His skin looks better and better and he is getting some meat on his ribs so his retractions are minimizing which is nice. Medically, he seems to be doing great. He just needs to keep gaining weight and staying stable to get strong and healthy and prepare for his big heart surgery in a couple of months.

His brothers love him so much, it is the sweetest thing ever. They just dote on him and talk to him and show him their toys, they can’t wait until he is a bit bigger and stronger and can play with them. Until then, they will lay down and talk to him and show him their cars and want to drive them over his head, lol.

The power went out here the other day. When we saw it was planned to be at least a 12 hour outage overnight, we decided to pack up and head out. His feeding pump does have a battery and we actually have a backup pump just in case but the breast pump I use to make his milk has to be plugged in to be used and I didn’t want to sit in the van with a converter to pump in there when I needed to and it would get pretty cold in the house with absolutely no heat when it was only 20 degrees outside so we crashed my parents house. The 3 big boys all shared a room and slept great, I wish they would do that at home! My dad kept the big boys quiet in the morning after I told them they could have silent reading time when they woke up, he quickly put the kibosh on that when they stopped being silent and he told them to go back to sleep. I don’t think any of them went back to sleep but they sure were quiet. That was nice! Mom got some snuggles in with Gideon while I drew up his meds and breakfast so that was nice for me to not have to rush as well because he was content being snuggled.

We were gifted this awesome co sleeper that I wanted to bad so he could have his own safe space to sleep in right up against our bed. Before he was born, we had no idea we would be having this first surgery, that he wouldn’t be able to exclusively breastfeed and have a feeding pump, etc so we planned on him just living in our room with us until after his “big” surgery and recovery when we felt comfortable with him going in the crib in the nursery. The wedge he has to sleep on didn’t fit in the co sleeper though so Bo cut it down and now we can use this and keep him up off of the floor where he had been. Of course he doesn’t give a tiny rats behind where he sleeps but I feel better with him being up off the floor and in a crib. It’s not at my bedside exactly since he has to be plugged into an outlet for his feeding pump but it’s perfect and I love it and am so thankful we  have the opportunity to use it now!

I saw the sun shining outside this morning and was so excited to send the boys out back to play. Then I looked in the backyard and it is just a huge pile of slush from the melting snow and didn’t want to send them out in 30 degrees in a foot of slush. So we bought an xbox game instead. Some workout game for the kinect that the kids can challenge each other at workout exercises. Squats, push ups, running, I’m not even sure what all is in there but they stayed busy for quite a while today exercising to the game from the tv. I’m assuming they will be sore in the morning from all the exercise they got today, I’m so thankful for that! This will probably become a daily game for us and hopefully I’ll get the motivation to get off my butt and join in the fun because I can use the exercise too! We do need to work on their form with squats and push ups. :)

This is typical for feeding time for Gideon. Because of his condition, he is extremely scheduled and calculated. I don’t have to weigh his diapers now that we’re out of the hospital but we calculate every ml that goes into him (except for breastfeeding bonuses since he doesn’t get a ton from that yet) but he is very scheduled and required to eat every 3 hours during the day regardless of whether he’s hungry or even awake! Lunch for him is at 1200 and this was him at about 1206 after I tried to wake him to eat. Starving? Not so much…….

I figure if I un-swaddle him and lay him out under the ceiling fan maybe he’ll wake up… Nope, still a no go. Bummer for our lunch time routine but I’m thankful he is getting plenty to eat and isn’t starving.

Thanks for following along with us! Oh, tomorrow will be my first day home alone without Bo here. The big boys may get some time to go play at my parents house which would  make it an easy day for me, please pray they stay healthy and can have a play date with them! I had a friend who was going to come over and have her older kids play with the boys but with Solomon fighting sickness and her kids just getting over sickness we decided it was best if we don’t mix them all together. Ok, it’s way past my bedtime. Blessings to you all!