Trying

During all the busy-ness of taking care of Beckett and juggling dozens of appointments each month, it is easy to feel like we don't have much time for fun and "normal" activities. And while I will still say that things are not typical around here, I am really trying to find ways to work fun activities into our schedule. So, when we had our appointment at Texas Children's for Beckett's EKG, I thought it would be a great opportunity to make a trip to the zoo with my two sweet boys!

Playing in the waiting room with one of his favorite type of toys! He loves these wooden block toys and the fish in all the waiting rooms.

Digging into the toy box with determination!

Brant loved looking at the 20th floor windows. He could see the "ocean" from there. :)

And what luck! There was a construction site across the street that kept our little "Bob the Builder" fan quite entertained.

EKG- quick and painless until it is time to pull the tape off! That part hurts!

Photo taken by big brother! A bit blurry but he thought it was fun!

This boy absolutely loved the train ride! He waved at all the students on their field trips. Then, he got "tired of waving the people." We rode past the dinosaur museum, and that got him waving again. "Hi, Bracheosaurus! Hi, T-Rex!" He also loved going through the "tunnel" and over the bridge. Brant loves trains!

Beckett just sat back and took it all in. I think it was very calming to him. He was very quiet until we got to the bridge going over the water to which he said, "lalalala," making his little water noise.

Then we made it to the zoo. Brant loves making an awesome elephant noise. It is the cutest thing ever, and now he is teaching Beckett to make the noise too! His favorite animal is still giraffes.

Beckett is more entertained watching his big brother than checking out the animals.

Cutest little baby elephant! It was fun to watch the baby elephant and mommy elephant. They were eating lunch.

We definitely enjoyed our day out, and there will definitely be many more zoo trips this Spring. It was nice to just be outside and to watch the excitement on Brant's face as we explored. He had a lot to say about the animals and really enjoyed taking it all in.

I am pleased to report that Beckett has gained some weight! Whoo Hoo! Increased appetite and motility medicine + feeding tube= weight gain! The nurse will come again on Friday to check his weight, but I think it will keep going up! His development is also moving forward. He does seem to have more energy. I would like to know why it takes so many calories to make him grow and thrive.

His medicine is working, and his appetite really has seemed to increase even more. He ate so much over the weekend! He definitely eats enough during the day that he *should* be growing very well. He has once again improved his daytime formula drinking. We are still adding duocal to his foods and doing everything we can to feed him highly caloric foods. We want to fill his little stomach with food rich in calories and not waste the space with low calorie food as much as possible. Of course, he does have his opinions on what he would like to eat!

For right now, we are to feed him all types of food, disregarding any intolerances or suspected allergies. It is basically a situation where the only way we will know is if we try. We have been given the go ahead to feed him anything! (Of course, it's not really that simple). So far things seem to be going okay. It is hard to judge if something makes him sick or not as he really always has trouble with his processing of foods. He still primarily prefers crunchy food or pureed food and nothing in between. He did enjoy some cookies over the weekend, but we later discovered they might not have agreed with him so well. But we have to try. I think we are exposing him to allergens so that allergy testing will be more effective. We are also seeing what he is capable of digesting and eating with his new meds. It is all such a process of trial and error--as we have learned over this last 17 months! But we are trying!

Thanks for checking in with us! Happy Leap Day!