Belly Laughing And Mack

Jimmie is doing good. He belly laughed tonight for the first time!!! My mom said it was so amazing and so cute! Justin was holding him and making Jimmie's hand punch his face. Jimmie was just laughing so hard about it! Mom says she scared Kathy to death yelling for her to come down stairs. She was just so excited and tickled about Jimmie's laughing she didn't want Kathy to miss it. Kathy must of just expected a disaster or an emergency with mom yelling, "COME HERE QUICK!" (-: Unfortunately I have their video camera so they didn't get his laughing on film. )-: Maybe next time!

The formula hasn't yet made any miraculous difference. He seems to be refluxing less, but he's still fussy with his feeds and still refuses to eat by mouth. Both Rachael and my mom told me tonight they just don't think Jimmie will ever really eat by mouth with any kind of long term consistency if he has his NG tube in. Rachael is feeling more and more like she may push for the G-tube surgery (but not necessarily the Fundo procedure). She has researched it a ton and almost everybody who has been in her position says they wish they would have gotten the G-tube and gotten rid of the NG sooner. Rachael is going to go forward with the endoscopy, but is waiting for a call back to schedule it. Just keep praying for wisdom and direction in Jimmie's care right now. It's no easy task to be responsible for the decisions Rachael and Justin are going to have to make pretty soon regarding the direction this thing goes. They of course want whatever is best for their son. Pray that "what is best" will be made perfectly clear!

We are not completely sure, but Jimmie's supposed cold has never really turned into anything more than just a lot of mucous that is not even running out of his nose, just down the back of his throat. He's never shown signs of a fever or other symptoms. So now they are thinking all of this extra mucous is just possibly a reaction to the NG being in his nose. Either that or he is REALLY breezing through a cold. Or- again, maybe it's allergies.

My kids came down sick yesterday with a lot of snot and it's now running out of their noses and all over the place. And my daughter feels slightly feverish. That's how we would have expected Jimmie's symptoms to progress and they haven't so that's a good thing!!

Yesterday we kidnapped Rachael and took her away for the entire day. My mom and good friends Anna and Pam went to Sparks and White Cloud Kansas where they have a huge garage sale, flea market, antique type sale that takes over both towns this weekend. There are just booths and tents everywhere! We had a GREAT time getting things for our homes and toys for our kids and eating fun food and having lots of good conversation. It's about a 2 hour drive from where we live so Rachael was really brave and half forced to come. (-: She had a good time though. Rod, Kathy and Justin held down the fort with Jimmie. That went good. Jimmie did manage to pull his tube out which was a bummer, but over all he did totally fine without mommy for the day. Justin is the one that has been putting the tube back in anyway . . .

So you know that weekend when Rachael, Justin and Jimmie tried to go to the lake and it was a complete disaster and they turned around after they got there and came right back home? Well that weekend through a series of events related to a call Justin went on at work with the fire department- Justin ended up rescuing a Rottweiler puppy from the pound. Yes you heard that right! On top of their very high maintenance child they took on a crazy, but fun loving very energetic puppy. Justin says it'll be Jimmie's dog. His name is Mack and here he is:



Rachael and Justin are pretty sure they are out of their minds to have a puppy right now too, but he was going to be put down and they couldn't let that happen. He is- of course- living with Rod and Kathy as well. Rachael and Justin put Jimmie in his stroller and take Mack on walks together which is fun, but Mack is a puppy and a lot of work right now. The other day Rachael was talking to Justin about how they should have received the shipment of Jimmie's NG tubes by now. They need back ups in case the tube breaks (which has happened) or gets clogged or whatever . . . So Rachael called the company and they reported that they had delivered them a day or so earlier and had left them in the garage. Then Justin goes, "Oooooh yeah-- um Mack was playing with a box he got out of the garage." They ran outside and sure enough Mack had tore the box to shreds, but the NG tubes were still packaged and untouched. 0-:

Jimmie says, "hey Mack what's up with that??"


"Can't you see I hate my tube."


"You should have ripped those up too!"


"What?? "


"Nah my daddy wouldn't have your hide. He's real nice."


"Daddy lets ME punch him in the face for fun!" (-:


As always, thank you for your prayers!

Love,
Amber