Par & Jack Pics...(updated 11/26/11))

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The future is so bright...




Jealousy…it grabs hold of me every now and then. I can’t help but be jealous of all the little boys and girls that are friends from Mother’s Day Out. I can’t help but want to walk into a room and pass around my baby and yell—“Look at who I made—isn’t he precious!” But I can’t. My friends and family know me as a strong-willed and sometimes stubborn person—I like to have my way and I have a difficult time seeing that there are other ways to accomplish the same thing. But, when it comes to Par—my character flaws are over-shadowed by the love I have for him—therefore, our method of child-rearing is based more on his well-being than my stubbornness—although they can seem similar at times. So I thought I would answer some questions that come up pretty often…
1. Why do you take Par with you everywhere you go—can’t you leave him with a babysitter? I take him with me because I love my baby and I like spending time with him—and I would rather be out and about than stuck at home. To break it down, I am Par’s life support. As long as he is breastfeeding, I am a necessity to him. I know that most children his age don’t need to breastfeed so often—but Par expends his calories much quicker than a perfectly healthy child, therefore, he tends to eat frequently. His skills for drinking from a bottle are “so-so”—it is difficult for him to coordinate the suck, swallow, breathe technique and he chokes up on a bottle. Breastfeeding is a lot easier for him—thankfully. Additionally, baby-wearing is an aid in weight gain for babies—and weight gain has been an issue for Par (and continues to be one). All of this to say, having a baby-sitter doesn’t help when they can’t soothe him if he is crying—and letting Par just “cry it out” isn’t an option and we can’t risk him aspirating—also, those calories are too precious to waste when all he needs is a little “mama-milk.”
2. Why can’t Par go to pre-school or Mother’s Day out? Other than everything mentioned in #1, his body isn’t prepared to fight off colds and other kid germs—his lungs are still fragile and a normal sniffle for one kid could be a sniffle that puts Par back in the hospital. So, although we can’t put him in a plastic bubble, we do try to be cautious about the amount of exposure to other children. From what we’ve been told (and of course, this could change) a childcare type of environment should be avoided for his first 3 years. Thankfully, we don’t have a child older than Par because that would apply to him as well.
3. Why can’t I hold your baby? Well, sometimes you can hold my baby—it just depends on the situation. If we are out in public, I’m most likely not going to let you hold him because that only further exposes Par to germs. I try to be careful, I wash my hands, purell a lot and I am careful about what and how I touch things—all with Par in mind. I can’t say the same for anyone else. Also, if you have your own child with you or are suffering from a cough or “allergy”—it isn’t going to happen. Not because I think you are infested with germs—but because if Par came down with something—I would blame you—and I would never want you to be in that position. Now, if you are in my home or similar environment then Par definitely would love to get to know you.
4. Then why do you take him out in public if you are so scared of germs? Because socializing is important for Par for his development—and I can have pretty good control over situations when we are out, so it isn’t terribly risky for Par if we are careful. We rarely eat inside a restaurant, if we do then we eat away from the crowd. Fresh air and Vitamin D are good ingredients for a growing baby—so we try to spend a good amount of time outside each day—sometimes people are around, sometimes not.
5. I thought he wasn’t sick anymore? Yes and No. He no longer suffers from a herniated diaphragm, that aspect of his issue has been corrected, but he still suffers from the effects of the herniation and will for the rest of his life. Par’s breaths per minute are similar to mine after I’ve run around the block. If I try to breathe as fast as Par I get close to hyperventilating. And of course, along with that—his heart is always racing. These things insure that he will never suffer from being over-weight, hence the difficulty in weight gain, period. He will always have a difficult time putting on/keeping his weight up because his body burns the calories so quickly. He also has a high chance of reherniating—because the patch is sewn to his rib cage and not to diaphragm muscle, this first year has the highest chance of reherniation—we’re continuing to pray this will not happen—but there is nothing we can do to prevent it either—it either will happen or it won’t—we’ll just have to wait and see.
6. I thought you said his development would be slower? Well…we thought it would be too. One word—Miracle. Praise God for the blessings He’s given us! We were told he would be slower in a lot of the developmental markers because of his slow start and his major surgery—not to mention having probes and wires taped to him for the first 2 months of life. We were told he’d need a PT for a few months. Thankfully, it hasn’t seemed necessary. I figure all the probes and wires taped to him worked in his favor—sort of like resistance training. We’re baffled by it all—we thank God. We praise Him for the miraculous healing of his development.
7. How is he so darn cute? Okay, so we’ve asked ourselves this same question just about a million times! We don’t know. And he just keeps getting cuter! We asked Par to tell us why he is so cute and he said, “Well mom and dad, when I was in heaven I stood in the cute line twice—which is how I got the double dose. But when I went to the diaphragm line, they were all out. Don’t worry, I stood in the IQ line twice too.” We are yet to figure out what other line he didn’t stand in, but I think it might have been the line for common sense. We can’t wait to find out!!!!!

I posted this because I’m asked these things a lot—I don’t tire of explaining them—just like any mother, I love to talk about Par—it doesn’t matter the topic! But, I know people might be afraid to ask—so I thought I would just put it out there. Feel free to ask me anything—the more people know about CDH the better!!!



Par has been such a little monkey this week! He has been SOOOOOOOOO mobile. I can leave him on his play mat for only a minute and he’ll….well, let’s just say I can’t leave him on the mat only for a minute anymore! He loves to scream—instead of his 5-7 crankiness, he now does this funny screaming—it is definitely a happy scream—and he moves his entire body when he does it. He is a funny little boy.





As usual, we dined at Zoe’s with Boo a few times. Par was interested in showing off his new shades—Boo is the perfect audience! He totally made those sunglasses his own!





Our Saturday morning ritual of eating breakfast at The Crestline Bagel was fun. Tiffany got a lot of attention from people passing by—that did a lot for her self-esteem (she sort of feels left out sometimes).


As we were eating, Rusty noticed this license plate. We dare to pose the question: Do two teams that never play each other in sports truly constitute a house divided?
Please send answers to liz@elizabethsandner.com

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(On our way to church)
The Fun-Run was today. We walked to the end of our street to watch the runners. We enjoyed watching the little kids—and the parents! This neighborhood cracks us up—every weekend there is something going on!



He’s been showing TONS of interest in eating lately—he starts to stick his tongue out as if to taste it and he grabs my drink to “take a sip” whenever I have one in my hand. I was hoping it was just “exploration” but it seems that it is a real desire to eat. Dr. Farr told us to start giving him cereal. So we fed him Lucky Charms tonight. Just kidding—we fed him rice cereal (homemade rice cereal). He liked it—ate every bite. Of course, it was barely any to start with—but for a first time—he did great--in fact, HE GOT CLEAN PLATE CLUB!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



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