Thankful for a new lip!

Our Thanksgiving was very nice.  Low-key.  Alexander and Stephani got up to watch the Macy's Day parade and make pumpkin pie while Daddy slept in. We had a wonderful fried turkey and great fixins.  On Friday, Bob and Jason fixed the fence while Stephani, Cindy and Alexander shopped and decorated the house for Christmas.  We fried up some onion rings, pickles and jalapenos as we continued to us our new fryer with the beautiful weather.  I think Alexander enjoyed his first Thanksgiving because all four of us were home and having fun for 3 days in a row.  I think he'll enjoy his second one even more since he can actually partake of the good food.

His Hat Says: "My First Thanksgiving"

Mesmerized by the Parade

 

Our turkeys.  The one on the left weighs 3lbs more.

A week after Thanksgiving, we went to University Medical Center at 5:30am for Alexander's cleft lip surgery.  When we got to our holding room, they gave Alexander a funny hat to keep his head warm.  We had two hours to wait for Dr. Rowley to get there.  Alexander laid in his bed and listened to Antonio Vega, which always calms him down.  We were visited by our anesthesiologist friend, Greg.  And then he walked Mommy and Daddy to the waiting room while the nurse took Alexander to meet with Dr. Rowley. 

Mom and Dad had it pretty easy compared to the last surgery where the "30 minutues" took 2 and 1/2 hours just waiting in a quiet waiting room.  We were expecting about 2 hours this time and had some nice distractions.  After the anethesia had set in, they called and we headed down to the cafeteria for breakfast.  If you are in the area and have never eaten at UMC, you definitely should.  It is great food at a great price.  We had some free food vouchers from our lab tech on Tuesday who got Alexander's blood and urine samples all over Jason's pants.  Also, since Alexander is a Children's Miracle Network Miracle Kid, they came by to visit and pay for our breakfast.  After breakfast, we had more time and went to visit the pediatrician that had help Alexander his first two times in the hospital and who recommend Alexander to Children's Miracle Network.  It was great to see her and show off pictures of Alexander.  She promised to stop by our room later when we checked in, and she did get to see Alexander in person. 

So, we got back to the waiting room and just as I pulled out my Christmas cards and wrote a couple, the phone rang for us.  Alexander was in recovery and "wants his mommy."  So, we headed down to recovery.  This is by far the worst part of surgery days for Mommy.  Seeing your baby fresh out of anethesia, still groggy, bloody and obviously in pain, is not an easy thing.  I sat and rocked him has he moaned and whimpered.  It was also hard because only one parent could be in the "room" at a time.  So, I asked the nurse if he could at least come by to see Alexander.  I think this was even harder for him because he saw his moaning son for just a second but couldn't do anything about it.  Our room on the pedi floor was ready so he went to sit in it alone until Alexander and I could go.

We stayed the night in the hospital.  Nana and Bumpa came to visit in the afternoon and had lunch.  Children's Miracle Network came to check in with us again.  Then people from Jason's office stopped by a couple differnt times and one of Stephani's friends came by too.  It was a good night.  We took turns sleeping and taking care of Alexander and surprisingly we got quite a bit of sleep.  We were home by noon on Friday.  Nana and Bumpa said their tearful good-byes at the hospital and headed back to Tennessee.  Alexander didn't need any pain medicine the rest of Friday.

Grandma and Grandpa Simpson and Great Grandma Ruby came in to town Saturday for lunch.  Grandma Ruby stayed when they headed back to Booker.  Grandma Gayle came back on Monday to help out.

His lip looks great, but definitely different.  I had to ask him a couple times on Thursday who he was and what he had done with my baby boy.  Of course now we are getting use to it and it almost seems like he has always had a lip.  At first I was a little sad that his smile had changed and he can't move his upper lip, but now his eyes and bottom lip do all the work and his smile is great!  He's been in a great mood.  A little different than before with a new schedule and a new way of eating that he is slowly mastering.  But, his personality is still great and fun to watch everyday.

We had a great Thanksgiving and now we all have something to be very thankful for.  Hopefully, Alexander will be back to sucking for Christmas.  All he wants for Christmas is his two hands for his mouth.

Guns Up!

Tomorrow is the bigg surgery day.  We were kinda behind on blog posts, so here's three within 24 hours.  Wanted to make sure we let everyone know that we have been having lots of fun and life isn't all work and surgeries with no play.  We go in at 5:30am, tomorrow (Thursday) and Alexander will come out with a new lip!  Hopefully it won't be too long before we have another blog post about tomorrow with before and after photos.

Alexander has been to his first college sporting event. Although we went to two football games this year, we didn't take Alexander to root on the Red Raiders or Horned Frogs in football, but we did have a family outing to a Red Raider basketball game.  Alexander did great with all the lights and noise.  We even set across the aisle from the Goin' Band.

Alexander was decked out in his red and black clothes.  He had double T's on his shoes and jacket and the Masked Rider on his shirt.  Zia Lindsey would be proud.  He loved meeting Raider Red. But we think he liked the Spirit Squads (or their shiny poms) the best.

 

The Red Raiders won the game and Alexander even enjoyed cheering with his Nana and Bumpa.  But before the game was over, Alexander had had enough excitement and fell asleep in Daddy's arms.

More Friends

Our friends Brett and Abigail couldn't make the TCU reunion, but we had our own little reunion.  It was great to have them at dinner and spend the night on their cross country trip.  I wished we live closer because they are friends I would like to have around more often.  Their visit was very uplifting.  Alexander had lots of fun smiling and talking to them in his fun awake time before bed.

 

We also recently met our newest friend, little miss 4 week old London.  And Alexander met the triplets tonight as well.  He hasn't shown much difference in his attitude when meeting other babies or children.  He is still wide eyed and alert and just likes to look around, but not sure if he likes meeting them or not.

We'll keep introducing him to people and see what reactions we can see.

Go Frogs!!

We had a wonderful weekend in Fort Worth November 13-15th.  It was so great to see old friends and let Alexander meet so many people.  It was also nice of TCU to give us such good entertainment pounding Utah. 

We went out to ESPN's College Gameday.  We had seen it at Texsa Tech last year, but it was so much cooler for me to see it at TCU.  It was packed, but not as hard as we thought to find a parking spot and place to stand.  It was nice to see Lou Corso put on the Super Frog head.  That's twice this season!

 After Gameday, we met up with Stephani's college friends for a wonderful reunion.  Alexander's namesake, Dustin Alexander and Jason's other college friend, Ryan, also met us there.  It was great for everyone to meet Alexander and nice for Mommy and Daddy to see some people who love them.

 

 

 

 

We were very fortunate to be able to stay with the Raines familly.  It was very fun to have 4 adults and 4 adorable children in one house.  I am sad to say that all the time we spent there, I didn't get any pictures.  Failure!  But we were very glad to be there and really enjoyed the weekend.

Now TCU has finished a perfect season.  Can't wait until the BCS bowl we win and finish off with no loses.  GO FROGS!

Alexander's First Halloween

Alexander had a nice first Halloween.  Mom and Dad wore Army clothes to work on Friday and celebrated with their offices.  Alexander cried that he couldn't go out in his glow-in-the-dark Halloween shirt.

On Halloween, we went to the bank to open a savings account for Alexander.  Then we got ready for Trick or Treaters to come to our house.  Alexander sat on the couch and played with his puppy, just waiting for kids to come to the door.

 
We thought it would be cute to take a picture of our biggest treat in a bowl of treats, but he thought it would be fun to pick through the treats and take out different ones.

He answered the door in his Jack 'O Lantern outfit and many moms and dad's commented on it.  One other little boy came to the door dressed as a Jack 'O Lantern too.  Dad bought pumpkin masks so we could all match.

We played and tried to watch some scary shows while waiting to hand out treats.

After bath time, Mom and Dad watched scary movies and the end of the 3rd game of the World Series.  Alexander was sad the dress-up holiday was all over.  He's ready for a new outfit next year.

Surgery Numero Uno

Alexander in his Looney Toons hospital gown pre-surgery

Life and parenthood is unpredictable yet again.  In preparation for the first surgery, I think Mommy and Daddy were the most worried about the fact that Alexander was not supposed to eat anything between midnight and 7:30 (surgery start time) on Thursday morning.  He usually has two 4oz bottles (at least) between these times.  Plus, the longest he has ever gone without eating before this point was about 5 hours.  So, we came up with a plan to help ease this hunger and were prepared for the worst.  Little did we know that this would be the easiest part of the next 3 days.

Alexander went down for a nap around 6pm on Thursday evening.  We thought he would wake up to eat around 9 and then we could feed him again at 12am to give him as much as possible before his fast.  We were wrong.  (Alexander loves to change our plans and sometimes (like this time) the change is for the better.)  He didn't wake on his own from his "nap."  We had to wake him up from a sound sleep 5 and 1/2 hours later at 11:30pm.  We showed Grandma Gayle how much he loves bathtime before we gave him a large bottle.  We all went to bed hoping that he wouldn't be too loud when he started screaming for food in the morning. 

We needed to leave the house at 5am.  Alexander started stirring at 4:30am, perfect timing.  He fussed a little but didn't seem like he was starving yet.  He cried a little louder as we packed him up and buckled him into his car seat.  He fell back asleep on the way to the hospital.  We checked in, changed him into his Looney Toons hospital gown and set in our "room" to wait for the doctors.  The nurse checked all his vitals and he was awake and smiley most of the morning.  Final at 7am, he realized that he was hungry.  Mommy took him for a walk around the hospital floor and he calmed down by 7:15am.  That was all the crying he did.

Last family photo before surgery

We met with the doctor and handed Alexander off with the nurse at about 7:45am.  We had been told that it would be about a 30 minute surgery, so it was quite unnerving for Grandma Gayle, Mommy and Daddy to still be in the waiting room close to 9am.  Finally, the doctor came in to tell us that it went well.  There had been a delay because the drill didn't match the bits and they had to get a different drill from the other hospital. 

We headed back to the "room" where the nurse brought him back to us.  You could tell his mouth was sore, and he was still very groggy from the anethesia.  His mouth/nose was kinda bloody, but he wasn't really hungry or very fussy.  They wanted to watch his vitals for 2 hours before we could leave.  We tried to feed him, but a nipple (or anything) in his mouth was the last thing he wanted.

Chillin' with his panda the hospital gave him, just waiting for the doctors to come.

Our preacher came by to visit and Alexander seemed happy to see him until the end of the conversation and Alexander had a bit of a screaming fit.  Some pain medicine helped him calm down and try to sleep off the pain.  By noon, we were ready to go home, but Alexander was not himself.

Even at home, he didn't want to eat, needed more pain medicine and slept a lot.  By Friday night, we were starting to worry that he had only had 4-10oz in two days when he normally eats 28oz per day.  We called some of our wonderful supporters for help and had an in-home appointment for Saturday.  Finally, with tube feeding, Alexander was able to get a full belly around 1pm on Saturday.  Two more feedings straight to the stomach on Saturday helped him rehydrate and start to turn the corner.  After several hours of sleep, he ate 2oz via the bottle at 3am for Daddy and another 3oz from his bottle at 8am on Sunday for Mommy.

Sunday for lunch, he had 5 whole ounces from his bottle and had some fun play time.  Finally, he is back to himself.  He's laughing, smiling, playing, eating, pooping and sleeping in between.  He's such a tough guy and barely needs any more pain medicine.  It might take a day or more to get back to his normal 28oz, but he's already looking and acting great!  It was a rough couple of days for everyone, but we are so glad it was only a couple of days.

Grandma Gayle and Uncle Marcus have headed back to their homes, Nana and Bumpa are on their way back to Lubbock and I think we will get ready and go to our church's Fall Festival.

Talking with Uncle Marcus that weekend

Three Months

I apologize to the very few people who try to keep up with this blog that it has not been updated in well over a month.  So much to say, plenty to write about and many photos to post.  Yet, I never find the time to blog.  You might think that having an infant is my excuse, but it is not.  I get so busy at work and am on the computer all day, so when I get home and have family time, I never turn my computer on.  I blame it on my wonderful I-pod touch.  I check all my mail, look a Facebook and get updated, but blogging and typing in general isn't really worth the time so I don't write e-mails or blog much.

The weekends have been busy, but this weekend is just relaxing and having fun with the cutest baby in the world.

So, where to start with all that has happened since Labor Day weekend??

Nana and Bumpa arrived Septmeber 10th and have been having fun everyday with Alexander.  It is so nice to have someone at the house and teaching Alexander so many things everyday.  Nana makes sure Alexander is talking and having good tummy time while Bumpa makes sure he works on his laugh and smile.

Mommy and Daddy have both gone back to work full-time and been super busy with Fall activities.  Alexander has visited Texas Tech campus a few times.  He's been to dinner with the Interfraternity Council, celebrated a Syrian's 30th birthday and seen the cultures of the world at Culture Day in CMLL.

Grandpa Mickey turned 60 at the end of September.  We all went to Amarillo to surprise him with a birthday party.  Alexander got to meet his Great Aunts Robin and Debbie and many other great family members.

Alexander still doesn't love the camera.  But that doesn't stop anyone from taking pictures of him.  Also, in September, we did the vows of Christian Parenthood at our church.  Alexander received his very first Bible.

Alexander had his first shots at 2 months old and will have his first cleft procedure next week.  More to come.  Now to change a very, very full and stinky diaper.