1 year well child visit

Today Nathan went to see Dr. Bennett for his 1 year well child visit.

Here's the stats:

Weight: 17lbs. 13 oz. (its AMAZING what the microlipids (fat) in the milk is doing!)

Height: 28 inches

I've already forgotten what his head circumference was. (Even for an accountant, there are too many of Nathan's important numbers to remember in terms of feeding, calories, weight etc.)


Nathan's height and weight both put him in the 5th percentile, which is great. The doctor was happy to see him back on a growth chart!

From a development standpoint this is where Nathan's at:

speech: 7 month old
fine motor: 9-10 month old
gross motor: 9-10 month old

We are really only about 3 months or so behind where we should be. That means Nathan has been developing at an even pace; keeping up since his 9 month old well child visit. I'm so grateful that Nathan's only behind other kids his age in terms of the length of time he's spent as an inpatient in the hospital. After Nathan's total cleft palate repair in February, we will also be having a speech therapist coming to our home to work with him.

The yucky part of the visit is that if Nathan's tortocollis doesn't get significantly better by his 15-18 month well child visit, Nathan will be sent to a specialist to have Botox injections to loosen his neck muscles.

The best part of the visit? Dr. Bennett gave me permission to place Nathan in a forward facing carseat! Nathan's muscle tone and control in his trunk and head are great. He explained that since Nathan is getting closer in the weight and the muscle tone look good, Nathan can get a new seat! I think that I'll take him out of the infant carrier after we get back from Janice's.


Its nice to be told by one of the doctor's that we are doing a good job in helping Nathan progress.

A New Nephew!

Janice called me and announced that she had her little boy this morning!

Here's the details:

Ian Frost Borchert
8 lbs 12oz
20 1/2 inches long
Born: January 22, 2009 at 8:15 a.m.


Nathan and Ian share the same birthday! My best friend from high school, Katie (with whom I share the same birthday), also had a little boy born on January 22nd. I would have laughed if someone had told me in high school that all three of us would have little boys who share the same birthday!

Congrats to Janice & Don! By the way, Janice told me that Don actually was able to stand being in the operating room the whole time with this little boy. If you know Don, you know what a major accomplishment this is!

Ellie's New Bedroom Set

I was surprised to say the least that Elisabeth asked for her room to be painted for her birthday present. What 3 year old wants that? She has been asking to have her room painted since I was pregnant with Nathan and painted his room. I've been wanting to make her room look a little more like a little girl's room and not a baby room and so we've been looking around for a couple of weeks trying to decide what to do. We found an affordable bedding set that was on a good sale at Target a couple of weeks ago. The sheets that matched the set were out, however, we found the Circo brand of sheets that has polka dots on it and they look awesome too! I've been looking for a nightstand and found what I liked at the Getaway in Payson. They didn't have it in stock and so they ordered it for us. I took Jake along with me and since its pretty likely that I won't be going to Seattle this summer for work and taking the family with me, we decided to use the money that was put on that for a new bedroom set. We bought the dresser that has the mirror, the nightstand, and the bed. We figured that Nathan needs new furniture too and that we will just give Ellie's old stuff to him and sand it down and refinish it when I make him a BYU room in a couple of years. Our plan is to paint Ellie's room a pale yellow.

The lamp we choose:




The bedroom set we loved:



The quilt we found at Target:



The bookshelf I purchased to go above Ellie's bed for her bedtime stories:





We probably won't get around to painting her room until after I come back from Tennassee, but it all depends on when the furniture is going to come. Since everything is beige in the room at the moment, we are going to have to paint the floor boards, ceiling, and doors white. We'll also have to paint all of the walls the yellow. I think it will look good when we are done though.

Nathan's Crawling (and 1 year old pictures too!)

I've had several people wanting me to post pictures of Nathan and his glasses. We picked up his glasses on January 7th from the Moran Eye Center. Overall, Nathan has been pretty good about wearing his glasses and not taking them off. He had been really close to crawling by getting up on all fours and "rocking". That night, Nathan started crawling everywhere! It was so exciting for Jake and I. These developmental milestones mean a little bit more to us this time around as we have had to work REALLY HARD with Nathan to get him where he is. We're grateful for Nicole too who has spent many hours on the floor playing with him! Now, a couple of days before his birthday, Nathan can get where he wants to go and even pull himself up into a kneeling position. Nathan's physical therapist was super impressed with his progress these last couple of weeks. (Now if only Mary, the feeding therapist, and I could get him moving on the right direction in feeding!) A quick side note here, at the moment I have "Baby Signing Time" on the tv for both kids to watch. They are singing about eating and Elisabeth is very interested. Nathan just turned around and started playing with the blocks, being very disinterested that little stinker!

I had these pictures taken at Kiddie Kandids yesterday. I love them, especially the "old man" looking ones of him! Also, the one where Nathan is looking straight forward in a sitting position makes him look like Ralphie on "The Christmas Story"

Here's Ralphie:



Here's Nathan: (Give him a few more years and he'll look just like him!)





Here's the old man looking pictures:










I can't believe that Nathan is going to be a year old on Thursday! What happened to the time? Wait, a good majority was at the hospital as an inpatient or spending quality at the many clinics Nathan is seen at! Actually, its been quite the year of learning and growing for all of us. Next Saturday at 1:00 we are having Nathan's first birthday party at our house. It's going to be fun - even if he probably will have no clue as to what to do with the cake!

I'm so excited that in a little over a week I'll get to go to Janice's to help her with her new baby! Ellie is very excited to be able to see the new baby. It will be quite the adventure taking both kids on a plane to Tennessee!

The Snowball Effect

If isn't isn't one thing, its another.

One of the heart moms, Pam, put this very nicely the other day...


"If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" aka : "If You Take Nathan to the Doctor"


If you take Nathan to the doctor, chances are they will find several things wrong with him. He will be sent to 5 different specialist where they will individually delve farther into other unknown diagnoses. Nathan will then end up with 5 new doctors appointments. It will be found that he has severe sleep apnea, serious drainage issues in his ears, he will have glasses, need minor eye surgery, and then be sent to have an upper GI study done to check nissen placement. He will be starved and have barium poured into his g-tube where it will then be discovered...


Nathan has a hiatal hernia.


Seriously, I thought we were running out of body parts to operate on.



Nathan has an appointment with Dr. Downey in Pediatric Surgery on February 3, 2009 at 8:30 a.m.


I thought that Tetralogy of Fallot was the most serious issue that Nathan would face. While it is serious, so far, (cross your fingers) there haven't been any other complications arising from it. Its just the rest of Nathan's little body that's falling apart!

The "Big" Day

Its official...

I got a call from Dr. Crawford, my jaw surgeon, and I will be having MY (not another one for Nathan) jaw surgery on March 2, 2009. The doctor is going to be out of town for much of February and there are some special things that need to be done to my mouth several weeks before the surgery to make it work so that is when they can get me in.

Crazy that almost a year after Nathan got his jaw distractors off I'd be going in to get an adult version of my own!