Brother, I will follow you....

I love this photo of Noah. Whenever Jonah is in his Discovery Center Noah immediately goes over to his brother to play.

I love this video of Noah playing with his pony that Grandma Hanna gave him for Christmas! He has figured out how to scoot it all over our tile floors. So cute!!

Jonah is getting glasses! That was the conclusion after today's visit to Dr. Kelly. We will hopefully get him fit for them next week.

Another exciting thing for today. Noah pulled himself up to standing with his walking toy and took a few steps. We are making our way toward walking!

I will post some cute pictures soon of both boys.

Michelle

I haven't posted all week but we took Jonah in Monday to the doctor after a long weekend of cold like symptoms and horrible congestion. I had a feeling that his ear infection had not recovered. Sure enough, after a visit to the pediatrician we found out that Jonah's ear infection had not cleared up.

Now we have both boys on the same antibiotic and they seem to be finally turning a corner. Jonah still has a horrible runny nose and both are still coughing here and there, they seem to have caught something viral a long the way. I do think that we are finally turning a corner.

Jonah stayed home from therapy and today finally made it back for occupational therapy. Tomorrow both boys go for physical therapy and then we head to Fresno for Jonah's eye specialist. She called me today to confirm that she wrote a prescription to try therapy with the local developmental optometrist.

Earlier in the week we had beautiful weather and had a few nice walks around the park. Today was rainy and tomorrow is supposed to be the same.

We'll keep you posted regarding our visit to Dr. Kelly.

Feeding fun with Noah. I thought I would share what great adventures we have when trying to get food in to Noah. His favorite thing to do right now is stick his hand in my face to stop me from feeding him. Note: the below behavior is after only maybe 4-5 bites of food.

Poor Noah still has an ear infection! We took him in first thing this morning as both Shane and I spent a mostly sleepless night with Noah waking up every hour crying. Apparently the omoxicillin was not successful in getting rid of the earache so we are starting another 10-day course of a stronger antibiotic today. It sure explains his behavior!

We hope Jonah will not regress. He woke up this morning with congestion and a runny nose. Hopefully he will snap out of it.

I go in at 2:30 to meet with my doctor to see about a new course of antibiotics as I am sick again too.

I guess the saying is true, once one family member gets sick the whole family does!

We finally threw in the towel with Junior League of the Blind today. We have been disappointed in their vision services for Jonah over the past 9 months, during which I have even switched therapists in hopes the second would be better. She was marginally better with Jonah but now she is on maternity leave and her replacement is a waste of our time. I seriously wonder how the LA office would feel if they really knew the quality of specialists they send out to work with these visually impaired kids in Kern County. I am glad I have a good relationship with the boys' early start services case manager through Kern Regional. She has been following me through this journey and today we decided to give the developmental opthometrist here in town a try. It has been a bit of a controversy because apparently this particular doctor is too quick to put kids in glasses, even when a specialist says no. Our Fresno specialist does not have the highest of opinions regarding her practice but at this point we have exhausted the other alternative. So we will trial this and see if we see more of a benefit from the vision exercises this practice will provide.

It has been beautiful weather in Bakersfield. High 60's and sunshine. We went on a nice walk on Wednesday in the park and the boys enjoyed their new Baby Jogger stroller as we walked vigorously through a mostly empty park (thus no exposure to germs!) I wanted to get out today but between doctor appointments, no sleep and Jonah's physical therapy I'm not sure we will make it. I hope this great weather stays around for a long time! I was really getting tired of the fog and grey skies!

Have a great weekend!

I decided a few months ago that I would try very hard to remain positive while posting on our family blog. Prior to that I had been very honest and open about feelings, struggles, etc. about our journey as a family.

I have since decided to try and only post updates and or positive information but tonight I just had to educate you as our friends, family and others who follow this blog.

Please know that we are fully aware of our challenges as a family. Our days are not always easy, we have many moments when we wonder, why? What if? We ask ourselves all of those unanswerable and really, unhelpful questions. Thus far, we have been able to overcome these emotions...some days better then others.

However, as our friends, family and all those who support us. Please, please, never tell us that you are so grateful you do not live the life we have or you do not know how we live the life we have. It is hurtful and does not empower us as a family.

For those of you who have embraced us and supported us during our challenges we love you. For those of you who are still trying, please keep trying and know that we need you. Don't give up, keep trying.

Good news. The GI Clinic went well today. Both boys are doing really good for their height/weight gain. The doctor we met with was really impressed that they've gained and grown as much as they have, especially for being 24 weekers. Jonah is in the 50th percentile and Noah the 25th percentile. It is truly a blessing from above that neither has yet needed a feeding tube and has gained weight appropriately.

We have new goals for feeding. We are still trying textures out. We started today adding Wheat Germ instead of Oatmeal to all the Stage 1/2 foods the boys are eating. We also will be adding one piece of small pasta/veggie, etc. to a spoonful of pureed food and gradually as they tolerate increasing the amount until they can fully tolerate the Stage 3. We determined Jonah is just not yet ready for the sippy cup and may need a few more months over which we can still attempt trying him with one and we will continue with the NUK exercises for both coupled with holding Jonah's chin up after he takes bites of food to help him learn that eating requires closing his mouth and keeping his tongue in (he tongue thrusts a lot) when eating.

It was a long day, but productive.

Poor Noah is having a reaction to the antibiotics he was on last week. He has developed a nasty yeast infection and we started a prescription ointment yesterday afternoon. He had me worried last night because he had a couple of stools with small traces of bloody mucus. I did read this can also happen as a result of yeast infections but there is a lab order now at our pediatrician's office for Noah's poop to be cultured to make sure he hasn't developed any internal infections from the antibiotic cleaning out all bacteria from his GI tract (apparently this can happen, especially with babies). So tomorrow is his poop culture. He started up with a fever of 100.2 tonight. If this continues tomorrow we will take him in. In the past this has happened with teething. We just continue to give him Tyenol, etc. and it passes....but all the symptoms together are a little unnerving. We have been on the phone with his pediatrician all day and the GI Clinic ordered the poop study plus double checked his rash to make sure the ointment we are using will work.

So hopefully tomorrow goes well and Noah's fever subsides.

That is the latest at the Hanna home.

Tomorrow we head to Madera to meet with the GI Clinic as well as the boys' feeding therapist. I assume they will be happy that the boys are continuing to gain weight. I still wish that Noah was gaining more steadily as well as his length, etc. Hopefully they will be happy with what he has gained but I plan to ask specifically about his length.

We meet with their feeding therapist tomorrow and of course, our number one topic will be that the boys still aren't tolerating texture very well. Also, Jonah is fighting us on switching to a sippy cup. Change is definitely hard for him.

Today was interesting. We met with Jonah's orthotist. It seems that after consulting with the manufacturer of Jonah's helmet the conclusion was made that his head has changed as much as it possibly can. We were talking of doing a second helmet as we pretty much have gotten as much use possible out of his current one. Unfortunately the manufacturer said that even with a new helmet and another few months the difference would be so small it would not be worth our time. With Jonah now being 15 months old (adjusted age 11 months) his sutures are closing and change will be difficult. While I know Jonah's neurosurgeon mentioned last month he has not seen much change come from helmets I still hoped to prove him wrong.

So it was a bittersweet morning. I am glad that Jonah won't have to wear the darn thing anymore as it really has been hard on him. I am glad that we won't have one more appointment to try and juggle but I think I felt more disappointment this morning. I really wanted Jonah to have every opportunity to reshape his head. I am glad to say that there has been some change and his head is better. I think with a full head of hair (which hopefully will grow in better now that he does not have the helmet) things will turn out just fine.

So, this is the latest at the Hanna home. We'll post soon and let you know how things go in Madera.

Bath time fun!

I forgot to post earlier this week an update on the boys. Noah had his first ear infection this week. He is on antibiotics for the first time since being home from the NICU which is pretty darn good!! I started getting sick right after Noah (now I have lost my voice) and Jonah has started up with similar symptoms as Noah so tomorrow we both might be going to the doctor!!

Also, Noah is finally crawling and getting in to everything! We are having to start baby proofing. He is pulling himself up on things and loves to pester his poor brother. He crawls over to the swing when Jonah is in it and grabs his feet and stops it. He also loves poking Jonah's face and stealing his toys. Let the fun begin! I keep telling Noah he better not pester Jonah too much as Jonah is the bigger boy and some day it might be pay back time!

Happy New Year! We celebrated last night with good friends over a meal of fondue. Pictured below are Shane, myself, Tracy and Ryan Bond (yes, as in James Bond!) and Brooke and Blaine Hanson.

We put the boys down around 7:30 upstairs and they were very good. They slept soundly and didn't even wake up when our neighbors lit up fireworks at midnight.

We hope 2009 is a healthy year for everyone!