I Don't Remember Giving You Permission to Grow Up

Remember how bald Jack was....well not anymore. Now his hair is always a mess. (He likes to use his morning banana as hair gel for the rest of the day).

Jack's angry duck face.

He is a definite walker now. He is getting pretty good at it.

He made it to his elephant. He is clapping for himself. 

And then up, up and away again. I'm starting to see Jack from this angle more and more. He is becoming so independent. He wants to do everything on his own. He hates being carried or held. 

Always on the Move

I guess we have said "awwww" so many times when Jack hugs his elephant that he now believes that is his elephants name. Wherever we are in the house if we say "awww" he runs over to his elephant and gives him a hug....or tackles him...whichever he feels like.

http://youtu.be/PyeiwetZzOI

Jack is walking now. He hasn't fully transitioned to only walking. He walks until he falls and then he crawls to another semi-sturdy object to help him stand up again. He hasn't figured out how to stand up in the middle of the room without help. But we can tell he prefers walking now. He is such a character. We sure love our little guy. 

http://youtu.be/AHQmvSfn0VU

Wrestling with a Giant Elephant

Jack loves his giant elephant. Often, he will be playing with another toy, and then he suddenly turns on his elephant and "attacks." The elephant never stands a chance. It is really cute to watch him wrestle with a stuffed animal that is bigger than him. 

Jack just recently learned how to say "uh-oh." 

Under Water

We went to the ear Doctor yesterday because Tony has been having a really hard time hearing for the last month or so. The Oncology doctor thought it would just fix itself, but it hasn't. He got to do a couple of hearing tests that showed that his ear drum wasn't vibrating like it should. It also showed how much hearing he had temporarily lost. So the doctor looked inside his ear and his exact words were "you are under water." 

 Essentially what is happening is that the Eustachian Tubes got swollen shut after Tony's radiation treatments. (That's the tube at the bottom right of this picture). The tube provided air to the middle ear and ear drum. When there is no air, the middle ear becomes a vacuum and then the membrane begins to leak water. His ear drum fills with water and makes it sound like he is under water. So now comes the solution. The doctor numbed his ear drums (which was actually pretty painful), then he cut a small slit in Tony's eardrum. Then the most uncomfortable part: he sucked out all of the fluid. (Tony said it sounded like being in an airplane engine. He said I could have screamed at the top of my lungs and he wouldn't have been able to hear me). But the awesome thing is that after this uncomfortable procedure was over, Tony could hear again. We are going back in 2 weeks and if the Tubes haven't healed (and Tony has more water) then he will have to cut another slit and then put a tube in it to hold it open for a month or so until it heals.  

Happy Birthday Tony!!!

Happy Birthday Tony! He turned 27 years old yesterday. He wants to thank everyone for the well wishes. This picture is of Tony with a bunch of his presents. His parents and Grandma Tia got him an awesome new TV. I got him the dresser that it is sitting on (off of craisglist). My parents got him the board game: Betrayal at House on the Hill. He got some snickers (of course) and then a Lego set of King Arthurs Castle (also found on craigslist). We figured it would be a good switch up from a regular puzzle. 

Even with his lungs still recovering from the pneumonia, Tony can still blow all the candles out in one breath. It was quite a chore to light them all. The first time we tried lighting them I blew out the match too hard and then blew out all the candles with it. Whoops. Tony picked homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for his birthday. I was going to make it look like a pirate ship but I ran out of time....so this year it was just a plain ol' cake.

Bearded Tony

So his beard is not actually made of hair yet....but a beard beanie is a good start. Tony's mama is awesome and crocheted it herself. Now Tony can keep his head and face warm. Thanks Mama Roring. 

Laughing with Daddy

When Tony has the energy he loves playing with Jack, and Jack sure loves playing with his Daddy. Tony can make him laugh more than anyone else. I filmed this at the end of the tickle fight, when the giggling was slowing down some. He had been laughing for at least 5 minutes. It was really cute. I sure love my boys.

http://youtu.be/WLHOdK9zHas

Tidal Basin Walk

We (Grandma, Tony, Me, Jack and Autumn) went for a lovely walk around the tidal basin today. It was a beautiful 60 degrees. We had a good time and Tony was glad to get out of the house for a few hours. But he was pretty tired after the whole thing. 

Jack tried and tried to climb up this wall, but it was just too slippery. 

Jack did not want to ride in the stroller....he wanted to push it. That was fine for awhile until he decided the best place to push the stroller was into the bushes. He is really good at steering and would fight me to steer it into the bushes every time. Funny little guy. 

Beautiful weather, beautiful people, beautiful day.

Can you ask for anything more? I think not.

Smart Critters

This is our little squirrel friend that figured out how to steal from our bird feeder. Pretty smart little critter. Shortly after this, the bird feeder detached and both feeder and squirrel came tumbling down. They are quite a show to watch.

Getting Better

We went back to the doctor's office today and he had mostly good news. His blood is testing negative for the CMV, so his body is fighting it off and it is nearly gone. He can no longer hear crackling in his lungs, but there is still some wheezing. So he has to use an inhaler for awhile, but the coughing should be going away soon. Dr. Orloff also told us that, while this has obviously been hard, Tony is "on par" with what they had expected. The super good news is that everything points at a very successful engraftment of the new bone marrow. His body is producing a good number of blood cells and he has had no real signs of GVH (gravt vs. host disease where the new cells would attack him instead of help him). So essentially, it's only up from here. All of the medication has really made him nauseas, so we are hoping he can come off of a lot of the medications soon. He is tired of having no appetite. He also has had some temporary hearing loss in one of his ears because of all the medication. The doctor says it will come back after he is off all the meds. So we move forward. Go Tony Go!

Home!

Got to have dinner and play card games with some of the best people in the world. They take ward "family" quite literally. We sure love you guys!

We were also able to bring Tony home Saturday night. We were so excited to have him home, but then we discovered that we needed to fill his prescription asap and all the pharmacies were closed except the 24 hour pharmacies. But none of them had the medicine he needed. We called the doctor and she said that they would help us look for a pharmacy in the morning, and just to skip one or two doses until we found one. It was stressful for Tony because he knew he wouldn't feel as good without the medicine. We were finally able to find a pharmacy Sunday morning and my grandma and I picked up the pills on our way back from the airport. (Grandma Watson has come out to help us out for a little over a week). Thanks Grandma!

Anyway, Tony had a pretty rough night last night. He felt super sick and got a fever of 101.2. He took some tylenol and it broke after an hour or so, but he was pretty miserable. We hope that the medicine will start to work a little quicker and get him feeling better. Thanks for all the love and support from everyone.

Jack's new game is to climb as high as he can. (Sound familiar mom?) He scared me pretty good when I walked into his play room and he was sitting on top of this green toy like it was no big deal. Then I realized I was kind of asking for it by putting the lego table right next to it. My bad.

Jack was super cheerful yesterday morning, so I let him do his 2 favorite things: wear only a diaper, and play with the ipad. He is such a sweet little guy, and look at all that hair!