5 Months Old!

It has been a while since I have posted anything. Sorry.






Luca picked out the bear himself while we were Christmas shopping. He pulled it off the shelf and started sucking on it, so he got a new toy that day! (The proceeds went to a children's charity, anyway, so all for a good cause)



Luca is 5 months old! He is rolling over both ways now (but he doesn't like to roll onto his back often, he prefers to cry and wait for someone to roll him over when he is bored). He is eating infant cereal two times a day and loving it- he sure does love to eat! But, we already knew that! :) He also loves to play with the face cloth afterwards, too.














He is still as smiley as always and is getting to be quite vocal, too. Laughing and experimenting with volume of voice are fun things to do these days! His hair is getting thicker and darker, so he is not totally bald anymore! :)

Luca has really begun to notice the dog. Whenever Hope is nearby, he stops what he is doing to watch her, smile and "talk" to her. She is so gentle with him when he "pets" her. She sits there patiently while I hold him and let him see her. She has also come to lay on the floor near him while he is playing.














Surgery is a distant memory. His incision has healed nicely (you can see it in the pictures). It seems like it was so long ago, but it was only about 3 weeks ago.

These are pics taken in the last week or so.

Aliens Attack!

BEWARE OF MARTIANS!!!




Tee hee hee!

Luca's growing up!

Luca started on infant rice cereal yesterday and he really seemed to like it. Although he is only 4 1/2 months old, and not the 6 months that they now recommend waiting until before starting on solids, many factors precipitated this event. I have an infection that results in less milk production for him. To help with keeping him full, this was one way to go. Physically he was ready to swallow the cereal, so after talking to the doctor, it was a go.





Luca is also now able to roll over! Usually babies roll from front to back first, but in keeping with Luca doing things differently, he can roll from his back onto his front, but not the other way yet. This seems a bit strange to me, since apparently rolling back to front takes more strength and coordination than the other way. Oh well, he has had some unusual experiences in his 4 1/2 months.

His incision has been healing nicely, although we haven't actually seen it directly. The steri-strips will be coming off in the next few days, and then we will be able to see where the stitches were (they should be dissolved soon). He doesn't seem to even notice that anything is different.

Life with a baby gets more interesting every day!

Surgery

Well, today was the day that we had been dreading- Luca had surgery. He was the first surgery in the morning for our surgeon at the Stollery, so he got in on time at 7:30am. That was a relief since he wasn't able to eat for 4 hours before, and I wasn't looking forward to a hungry baby. We didn't have to wait around for as long as we anticipated before he went in. They put some topical freezing on his hands for the IV and gave him some Tylenol before they took him away. The anesthetist came and spoke to us prior, and she seemed really nice. She explained everything, then a nurse came and took him away. I had a really hard time with this. During our consultation, the surgeon had said that one of us could go with him while they put him to sleep, so we had decided that Chris would go (I thought that it would be too hard for me), but then they said that they were just going to take him in. In some ways, this was better, but it was also hard to hand him over to a stranger and watch him walk down the hall with him.


Luca and Mommy before surgery. Yes, they gave him pink pjs! (Real boys can wear pink, you know!)














Luca was gone for about an hour and a half total- the surgery prep, the procedure and recovery. We met up with him back on the day ward where he was a bit groggy and his eyelids were a bit heavy, but he was his usual smiley self, winning over the hearts of the nurses. He still had the IV in for a while, and had tape marks on his cheeks from being intubated (this was hard for me to see, for some reason, just thinking that he was intubated scared me even though I knew it was going to happen), and he was a bit yellow from the stuff in surgery (I forget what it is called). We got to hold him right away and I was able to feed him fairly soon after.

We had to wait for 2 hours before we could leave, and he kicked and smiled and slept and ate- his usual. He didn't seem to be bothered too much by everything except that he had a hoarse voice and a pretty dry mouth.



Luca after surgery- still his smiley self! He kept trying to chew on the IV cord! :)













The surgeon (Dr. Mark Evans- absolutely wonderful) came to see us before we left and said that everything went well, that it looked to be the cyst that he thought (lymph angioma). Other than the stitches taking about 7-10 days to dissolve, he should be back to his normal self in no time.

So, that was our morning. We arrived at the hospital at 6am and we leaving by 11:15am. The nurses there were great, and of course the surgeon was wonderful too. They don't say that the Stollery is one of the best places for children for no reason.

Thanks for all your thoughts and well wishes. It was emotionally draining, but it is good to have it all over with.