8 Months

Today you turned the big 8 months.. WOW! Time is just flying by. Everyday you change and everyday you get more and more fun. You are a great little man with a HUGE personality.

You're working so hard on sitting up. Everyday we practice and once a week Karla comes out for your therapy and she is helping you too. Soon you will be sitting up big and strong. You also get to play with Marcia once a week too and she helps you with your eyes. You love your light toys.

You love your bath time. You suck on your wash cloth and kick and splash. Such a big change from when you were really little and hated the bath.

You still don't like to eat much but you are getting so big so we know that we're doing something right. Peas and bananas are your FAVORITE. Oh and guess what? This week you started sleeping through the night.
Yes that's right... Can you believe it? We thought this day would never come. Last night you went down at 7:30 and didn't make a peep until 7:30 am. We are sooooo proud of you.

You love going to the gym with Mama because you get to play with all the kids in the daycare.
Everyone comments on how happy you are when they see you and we feel blessed to have such a special little boy. You've been through so much and still you have such a great personality.

I feel so lucky that I get to stay home with you and see all the milestone first hand. Daddy works 65+ hours a week so that you can have me home with you and we're lucky to have such a hard working Daddy. When Daddy comes home from work at night and you hear his voice you light up. You are really into feeling our faces and you know Daddy from his scratchy face. It makes you laugh because it tickles your hands.

We love you and are so excited for all your firsts and all the years to come.

Happy 8 months Buggy I love you sooooo much.

Sometimes it's fun to laugh for no reason

He just started to crack up for no reason. Sorry the video is so dark. It was taken on my digital camera.

Pictures!!

Jake and I met Jessica a fellow blogger for a photo session. She was kind enough to send me a sneak peek.. I will post more once they are ready. I wanted some with his glasses on but they are s thick the glare wasn't working out too much.. He is sooooo cute!

2 nights in a row

Some of you know that my son has a little bit of a problem sleeping. Well I am happy to report that Jake slept through the night two nights in a row for the first time. I can't even tell you how happy we are. We are hoping that he keeps it up and that our sleepless nights are a thing of the past.
I had an early education teacher come out to the house the other day and she gave me some good tips and they're working. It seems that Jake wasn't getting enough sleep during the day. He was taking one long nap in the afternoon. Now he is taking a nap in the morning and one is the afternoon and going to bed an hour later. He seems to be a lot happier.

I'm now feeding Jake in his high chair because he is getting really messy. Before I would just use his bouncy seat. I had to stop that when he started spitting his food at me.. He loves peas, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, pears... Pretty much everything. I can't wait until he gets some teeth and can try some more foods. We think he will cut a tooth very soon. We can feel it when we rub his gums.


One of Jake's favorite things to do is bounce and lately he has been falling asleep while bouncing.

Holding his head up has been something that Jake doesn't like to do. Here we are doing some tummy time to work those neck muscles. Therapy is helping so much.

This is one of Jake's favorite things to do with his NUK and it cracks me up.. He is just soooo goofy.

This is one of Jake's favorite toys.

He's doing great!

I feel like I have so much to say. I never though in a million years that I would have to worry about anything when it comes to my child. I thought it would be like FIRST words, walking, first everything. When I found out that my child would never see, it hit me like nothing I ever thought would.
I brought my 4 month old son to a routine eye appointment. I held him in my arms in the chair as they examined him. She looked into his eyes and took a moment. She then looked at me and said your son is blind. I sat in that chair and said to her "I'm going to cry" she gave me a tissue and said it's okay. I asked her, will my son ever see and she said 'probably not' I asked her if surgery would help and she said 'not with his condition'
my world collapsed around me. She told me that she needed a second opinion. The next week Jake saw Dr. Quiram. She said that he needed surgery. On July 17 Jake underwent double eye surgery to reattach his retinas.

I haven't been blogging for a long time because of everything going on but I decided that it's time to start again. I want to have a record of this time in Jake's life.

Here is Jake during therapy.

He is finally working on looking up.





We say to him 'look up Jacob' and tap him forehead and he looks up

Everyday he gets stronger and learns something new. He is amazing!!

TFT- Facebook vs Blogger

Yes that's right I am blogging. I bet you thought you would never see it again. Man I tell you, having a kid makes you busy. UGH. With Jake's surgery, therapy, benefit and just daily life I find myself only able to post on facebook. Which brings me to my thoughts for Thursday topic.

Facebook VS Blogger

How many have you found that since you started to use Facebook blogger has been put on the back burner? I have. It's so much easier to facebook. I get lazy and just upload pictures to facebook. One thing I love about blogger is having that record of my sons life. Everyday I say, today I will blog and then the day is gone and I didn't. I think I need to take a little time maybe two days a week to blog about life and about my son. Yes, that is what I will do. So starting today I am making this my goal. A blog twice a week and to also take time to visit my long lost fellow blogger friends.

Wish me luck

Jake's webpage

http://ourvisionsofhope.com/

Jake's Benefit

For those of you that have shown an interest in donating to the silent auction, if you could send me a message with your email address that would be great. I will pass it on to the girls in charge of the benefit so they can contact you. They would like to have donations collected in the next couple of weeks. Thank you all for all your help and support.

Love, Kim

6 Months

This week Jacob turned 6 months old. WOW!! Where does the time go. He has developed such a great little personality. He is very vocal. He loves to coo and yell just to hear himself. He has now mastered rolling over and is working everyday on sitting. Because of his blindness he still doesn't hold up his head. He can but he chooses not to. It drives me nuts when I am trying to take his picture. He also doesn't open his eyes that much. You will notice when I post his pictures that his eyes are closed a lot. I've found myself taking multiple pictures of him in the same spot just trying to get one with his eyes open.
Jacob had his 6 month check up and he is growing wonderfully. He is 26.5 inches long and 16.4 pounds. His weight is a little low but the doctor said it could be because of his surgery. Unfortunately Jacob has developed a nasty rash and we can't pin point why. We have been lubing him up with cream and giving him meds but nothing seems to make it go away. He is VERY itchy.

Jacob has started to sleep really good at night. He sometimes sleeps 10 hours in a row. There are still nights where he is up a lot but he is growing.

Here is a list of what Jacob likes to eat.
Pears
Apples
Bananas
Beans
Peas
Peaches
Oatmeal
Sweet Potatoes
Carrots
I love that he likes everything that he's tried. He is also taking about 5-6 ounces of formula every 4 hours.

His favorite toys are still his plastic rings but he also loves his teething beads and teething cloth that Nana Donna brought him while he was in the hospital. He is really good at entertaining himself for periods of time as long as we continue to talk to him to let him know that we are still there since he can't see us.

Next week Jacob has a pre-op appointment, an infant massage and a procedure with the surgeon and the eye doctor. He is going under for his procedure which makes me nervous but it's the only way they can really get in and do what they need to do. He is also getting fitted for his glasses next week. How exciting. He's going to look soooo cute. After he gets his glasses the therapy can finally start. On top of the therapy we have a develop mental specialist as well as a vision specialist that comes out once a week. We also have an infant massage person that will be coming out often.
Once we get him settled in to his routine we would like to travel to Michigan where there is a doctor that specializes in Jake's condition. He comes highly recommended and I would love to hear what he thinks about Jake's condition.

Although my little man has been through sooooo much in his short 6 months he is a VERY happy baby. No matter what obstacles we face we will face them as a family.

After dinner

Tummy time

Hanging at Auntie Rachel's

Starting to like Johny Jumper

Big B and little B

Sleep?? What is that??

Sleep is a thing of the past for Brent and me. With B having to work so early and with the baby refusing to sleep, sleep is non existent for us these days. Last night the baby woke at 10 pm and was up every hour after that until 6 am. Brent has to get up for work at 3:30 am so he was a walking zombie at work today. I am on robot mode.

I am not sure if we will ever figure out this sleeping thing with buggy but we are determined to try. His thing is the swaddle. He has a love hate relationship with it. He wants out but then when he is out he wants back in. Tonight I put him in a sleep sack and am attempting to get him to sleep without a swaddle. I know that if I am consistent he will get it down eventually.

His surgery has him all out of sorts. He just started to open his eyes last week which was such a treat considering we really haven't seen his eyes since his surgery on 7/17. He still won't hold his head up. The vision specialist says that it's because he has no reason to look up. We know that he can hold his head up he just doesn't because he can't see anything. We've been to the surgeon twice since his surgery and she said that because she had to remove his lenses his pupils are no longer normal looking. She is not sure if or when they will go back to normal.

Next month he will be put under to have a full exam and to be fitted for glasses. The surgeon said that until he has glasses he will not be able to fix or follow anything. His eyes are 6 months behind on development and his brain doesn't know how to use them so it will be a lot of therapy to teach him. The surgeon is still unsure how well of if he will be able to see. It's all just a waiting game.

We are hopeful and pray everyday. I hope all is well with everyone. Maybe someday soon I will have time to sit down and catch up on all the blogs that I miss so very much and actually get to comment.

Kim