5 month pictures

My sister was here the other day and took some really good pictures of Max. These are a few of my favorites.







If you look really close you can see his dimple in his left cheek in this one.


Two thumbs are better than one!!

Max meets the Howards

Max got to meet his cousins Kalee and Jackson today. Too bad he cried during picture time!

5 month pictures

Max was five months on January 22.

5 months old

Guess who LOVES his cereal now! A few days ago he cried anytime we tried to feed him, yesterday John was feeding him and he couldn't get enough! He was grunting and had his mouth open for more before John could get it to him.

He's also found his feet (with a little help). I hold them up all the time trying to get him to notice them but today is the first time he's reached out for them and played with his toes.

Watch Out, Ladies

Ladies Man

Emma Cate, Avery, Shelby, Marissa, Zoe...you better watch out. Max is quite the charmer!

The old Max...

It appears we are on our way to getting our sweet, happy old Max back. Yesterday my sweet mother-in-law came and watched Max so that I could get some sleep. It didn't appear at first that he was going to separate from me, but eventually he did and did fine for a few hours. This morning John's dad came over and played with Max and Max didn't cry for me once. Ahhh, what a relief. I talked to a nurse from our pediatrician's office this morning and she said that the way he has been acting is consistent with how someone would act when being taken off phenobarbital. Thanks to Sue and Polly for suggesting that that could be the problem. I don't know why I didn't think to ask about withdrawl problems when I talked to them originally (or why they didn't tell me for that matter).

Shunt

The shunt still seems to be working as it should. We are very, very thankful that it is not what is causing the change in Max. Maybe he's teething, maybe it's withdrawl from the phenobarb, as a few people mentioned, we don't know. It is exhausting worrying about every little thing with him. As my dad said, if he didn't have the shunt we wouldn't even be discussing how he's acting, it would just be a normal baby thing. Thank you for all your prayers today.

Chunky Monkey

22 weeks

Do any of you moms have any suggestions for how to not let your kid scratch their face all up? Little gloves are out - they just make him mad and the therapist says it wouldn't be good for development. I can't possibly cut his nails any shorter. I'm afraid some of them are already too short. It seems that every day he wakes up with a new scratch on his face. You can see 2 in these pictures, but he has about 4.


Well, once again we have worries on our mind. We go in the morning to get Max's shunt checked out. He is showing some signs that there could be a problem, however, it could also be nothing. Let me just say, I am very thankful for modern medical technology, shunts, etc. Without the shunt, Max would have some serious, serious issues. However, shunts stink a little because there are no clear cut symptoms for shunt disfuntion or infection. There are things that would signal a problem, but they are all things that could have nothing to do with the shunt at all. I was just telling a friend yesterday that for the rest of Max's life, we will have to worry everytime he gets a fever, throws up, or acts out of the ordinary for no apparent reason that something is wrong with the shunt. Max is usually a very happy baby. He smiles, laughs, plays and entertains himself, and will go to just nearly anyone very easily. He usually only cries if he is really hungry or really tired and I usually feed him or put him down before we get to that point, so very few tears are usually shed around here. For about the past week we have been seeing a very different Max. He cries constantly, he doesn't want to play, doesn't want to be put down EVER and is extremely clingy to me or John. When anyone else holds him he cries a river. He also wakes up about every 30 minutes to every hour at night which is making for a very tired and grumpy baby, not to mention mommy and he hasn't been eating well at all but that's not terribly unusual. (He just got over a cold and had his ears checked out today, so he's not sick that I know of.) So, last night I got to thinking that those are all signs that I have read about indicating shunt problems. Today at therapy we couldn't even finish the session because he was crying so much and Lianne (therapist) noticed trembling in the upper extremities which isn't normal for him and she mentioned possible shunt problems. So we called Dr. Burson (neurosurgeon) and we are going in to see him in the morning. Please pray that everything is okay with the shunt. The second thing that brings concern to us at this time is his monitor. We've gotten pretty comfortable with him being off the monitor a majority of the time (never when he is sleeping or in the car), especially if we are right there with him. But, today I talked to the pediatrician's office and they just got the report from the latest download. It said that there has been recent significant apnea and/or low heart rate episodes and to continue use of the monitor. Now, that being said, the monitor doesn't go off often, so I'm not sure what the deal is with that. Although it did go off 4 times in 2 days. Uuugghh. Just one more thing to think about. I guess we'll probably keep him hooked up a majority of the time until we hear something further. Anyway, with lack of sleep and all the crying around here, I'm feeling pretty discouraged and a bit worried. Please pray that the shunt is fine and that there will be no more apnea/low heart rate problems. I'll update when I know something.

More Laughing

This is about 3 minutes of Max laughing. It's a bit long, but the cutest thing I've ever seen. Not much new to write about. Max is doing great - getting bigger and stonger every day it seems like. He seems to be making good progress with his at-home therapy sessions. We're getting a lot more laughs out of him, he loves standing up and looking all around him, he wants to be faced out where he can see people, he loves to play and he loves to be entertained by his mommy and daddy. His personality is getting really cute.

EEG Results

We got the results from the EEG Max had a few weeks ago. As far as seizures go, the results were really, really good. It does not appear that Max has any potential for more seizures and that there is no true epileptiform activity. We are weaning him off of his phenobarbital and he should be completely off of it by the end of the week. I will love not having to give him that any more but will miss the security in it. The results were considered abnormal because the brain waves in the occipital and parietal areas were slower at intermittent times which suggests a structural lesion. The way that Dr. Westbrook explained this to me and the way I understand it is that the blood did something to that area of his brain. She said you could think of it kind of like scar tissue being left behind. Of course, we knew that there was the possibility of something like this, but it's not something you like to be reminded of. We don't know what this means for the future or if Max will even be affected by it in any way. We pray that he won't - babies brains are very resilient and can compensate in many ways - especially with early intervention. Dr. Westbrook did say that we need to continue taking things one day at a time and rejoicing in his daily progress. She said that he is developmentally ahead of many 4 month old babies she sees in her office and she had three 6 month old babies in the other day that all lacked skills that Max has already accomplished. We have a lot to be thankful for. Thank you for once again praying on Max's behalf.

More proof that Max does not look like his mommy

John when he was Max's age

I do think Max is going to have dimples. Whether or not that is hereditary, I don't know, but I like to think he got something from me besides his fair skin!

Things I love...Things I do NOT love!

Things I love...


I LOVE my bed!


I love my new jumperoo!!


Thanks, Daniel, for letting me borrow this cool toy!


I love my exersaucer!




Things I do NOT love...Rice Cereal - yuck!


I see what you're about to feed me and I'm not happy about it!


You're making me really mad!


Really, I don't want any more!


Whooo, finally they put the rest down the sink. I've tasted worse, but I have definitely tasted better!


There are new pictures in the December album.