More updates!

I realized that it's been a while since I have sent an update on how Landon is doing, so I decided to spend some time getting everyone caught up. :)

We've been very busy in the month of April getting Landon back up to speed from when he got his surgery. He took about a month to get back to eating normally. This procedure was pretty hard on me and Braydon. Landon was having a hard time with swallowing, so he would drool a lot and then he would get it all over him. He hated it just as much as we did. But we are so happy that he is back to his normal self.

After that my dad came to visit for my birthday and he got to see Landon for the first time since last July. So there were lots of changes that he got to experience first hand. While my dad was here, Braydon and I signed papers to move into a house!! We're super excited to have more room and a place to call our own. We are actually building a house, so we won't be moving until September/October. The neighborhood is not very far from base, so we will still be in the same area of town. I'll keep you all posted as it's being built.

The weather is finally starting to warm up and we've been spending a lot of time with the windows open or going outside. Landon loves walking around the neighborhood and swinging on the swings. We took him outside with the sidewalk chalk yesterday and he really enjoyed coloring the sidewalk (and himself) with the chalk. :) If the weather is nice tomorrow, we are going to make a "bean box" for him to play in instead of a sandbox. He can't have sand because it's very dangerous for people with trachs...it gets everywhere. He also can't breathe beans into his trach like he could with rice or something like that. I'll have to take some pictures of that because I'm sure he will enjoy himself. :)

Yesterday we had a visit with Landon's Gastroenterologist, Dr. Zapata. He is the doctor that keeps track of Landon's weight and eating habits. We talked about my concerns for Landon wanting to eat more foods orally, but thought that maybe the Pediasure was making him too full to where he didn't experience being hungry. Dr. Zapata told me that we could try moving his feedings, so we are combining Landon's last two feedings of Pediasure and having the pump run slowly over a couple of hours when he's sleeping. That way we only have two feedings a day and can possibly spread them out so that we can get Landon eating more orally. We haven't quite figured out a good schedule for that yet, but we're getting there. Dr. Zapata reassured me that he shouldn't lose any weight because he's still getting the calorie intake from the Pediasure, we are just wanting to get him more interested in the tastes of foods.

Landon's teacher, Lois, is also going to bring a woman to our house to work on Landon's communication. She says that she has worked with kids with trachs before (or kids that can't communicate that well) and need other forms of communication to express themselves. She wants to start using a picture system where Landon will have pictures of familiar objects and will bring you the picture of what he wants. We're hoping this will help with the whining too. :) She will be out here next week and hopefully she will bring some other good ideas too.

We will be going to Denver at the end of this month to do another session of injections on Landon. Hopefully Dr. Yakes will be kind to us and concentrate on another area so we won't have to deal with the drool monster again. :) Who knows?