A Good Day

Every one was excited our first night back at home!
It was pretty precious to see how excited the boys were to see each other! I pray they will continue to be blessings to each other as they grow older.

Loving making some Christmas cookies! And he loves his winter fleece jammies! :)

Check out all that sugary goodness! And he LOVES them. This is the first year he has gotten to eat Christmas cookies , as we have dealt with allergies in the past. He is absolutely loving it!

We are really thankful to be home again and have our family all together. Thanks again for all of your prayers and sweet messages throughout our time there. Our trip to Cincinnati was very productive, and we are so thankful that we were able to go, but there is nothing quite like the comfort of your own home, especially at Christmastime. We are so blessed to be in our home as a family. It is a little hard to get back into the swing of things after ten days away, especially during such a busy time of year. I realized yesterday that I had not yet bought gifts for any of our sisters, brothers-in law, or parents! Don't worry ya'll, I got it taken care of now! :) I didn't even have any gift wrap! Ha! So tonight I will busy myself wrapping gifts for our kiddos and the rest of the family while watching a cheesy Christmas movie...and probably eating some Puppy Chow or Muddy Buddies or whatever you want call that wonderful treat! I am really enjoying getting to do my normal (and favorite) Christmas activities now that we are home. Brant and I even got to make some fantastically sugary Christmas cookies yesterday! He really enjoyed it, and now he is LOVING eating them. I have to admit they are pretty good. While we were frosting the cookies, Brant looked up and said, "Jesus, we are making you some cookies right now. They are for your birthday." It doesn't get much sweeter than that. :)

We got the results of Beckett's MRI yesterday, and we are thankful to report that it was "normal!" His blood work had some slight highs and lows that we will investigate further in the months to come, but nothing to alarmingly high or low...if that makes sense. We continue to look for a larger diagnosis (if there is one?), but we are thankful to have ruled out some things. We have been asked several times if we are disappointed to have returned home from Cincinnati with no new diagnosis, and the answer is no. We accomplished a lot in Cincinnati as far as Beckett's quality of life goes, so that alone makes it all worth it. And we may never have a larger diagnosis, but we will continue to do everything we can for his comfort and quality of life. His current diagnoses remains as gastroparesis (which really can cause a slew of nutritional problems), failure to thrive, hypotonic (low tone, "floppier" than toddlers his age), a redundant colon, ideopathic constipation, and global developmental delays.

Beckett seems to be enjoying trying some baby foods, primarily peas and pears as those seem to agree with him the best. He also really likes puffs, a "meltable" finger food. Brant is enjoying snacking on the puffs, too! Beckett has also gotten 2 more teeth over the last month making a grand total of 3 teeth! But I can tell that his top two teeth will be coming in any day now!

And here is what made our day yesterday really, really good: The hubby was holding Beckett and asked him, "Where's mama?" And the precious little man reached his arm towards me and smiled. It was an absolutely amazing moment for us. He has been reaching for me or Daddy or pretty much anyone and smiling, for a long time, but not in answering the question of who/where we are. In the past when we would ask him, he would not acknowledge the question or really even attempt to look up at me. He just continued about his business. We have been working for months on him acknowledging "Where's mama?" and "Where's dada?," and yesterday, he did it!! What a blessing! Hopefully, we will hear his little voice say, "Mama," very soon. For now, we are enjoying celebrating his recognizing who mama is and who dada is. Truly wonderful.

So after Christmas cookies, eating puffs, some special shopping time with Brant, and my little man smiling at me as his "mama," I would consider yesterday a very good day. Thanks for checking in, and thank you again for all of your prayers for our family throughout the trip. We are blessed to have friends like you.