Blessing Day

We were finally able to bless Jackson on the 9th of October. We had set a couple of other tentative times to bless him but he always ended up in the hospital. It was a very special day for our family and lots of our extended family came to support us. We are very thankful for the support our family gives/gave us so we were glad they were here for this special day.

This is how excited Jackson was to be blessed. He was perfect during the blessing and didn't make a sound. He got to wear the same outfit that Carter wore 3 years ago. I love to have them wear some of the same clothing and compare pictures. Jax is 4 months old at his blessing and

Carter is almost 2 months old.

Look how fat and rolly Carter was. Complete opposite of Jax.

Our happy little family. All together.

Carter had to give Jax a smooch! Thanks to everyone who came to support us and Jax. Jax is very lucky to have so many people who love and pray for him.

Jax

So much to catch up on. So little time. I'll have to do more than one post to get everything. We arrived home September 26th. After 5 LOOOONG weeks in the hospital. Boy were we glad to be home and sleep in our own beds. And most importantly, have our sweet little Jackson home with us.

I've thrown some random pics from the hospital in the post, just because.

Jax experienced the BUMBO chair for the first time in the hospital. He quite enjoyed it and it was a nice change from laying in his bed the whole day. He has great head control for being in the hospital for so long and not getting a lot of tummy time as a newborn.

Neil's sister Linsey is a Dr. at the U and also does some work at Primarys. We were so lucky to have her. Seriously, I don't know how we could have survived our stay at the hospital without her. She lives about 3 miles from the hospital and let the 3 of us crash at her house for 5 weeks. Without any complaint. And she even took time out of her busy busy schedule to stop by and see Jax almost every day. Carter was in heaven living with Aunt Linsey and she spoiled him rotten. She was so patient with him and they went on so many fun adventures to give Neil and I a chance to be at the hospital without carter.

During the 5 weeks Jax was in the hospital I only left once. It was a Saturday and we needed to come back to Logan to do some things and gather some things. When I left Jax was happy and doing great. Of course once we arrived back in Logan I found out he was throwing up again and not allowed to eat for 24 hours. I was so sad to be away from him and worried constantly about him. But Aunt Linsey came to the rescue. She spent most of that night sitting in the rocking chair holding a cranky baby who desperately wanted to eat. She said she sat for about 6 hours straight just holding him while he slept. Then she came back bright and early the next morning until I could get there. We really owe Linsey a lot for all she did for us and our boys.

This picture is from August when Jax really started smiling. He is still a smiley guy. He doesn't laugh yet but he is so close......when he really smiles his whole body almost shakes and he makes a soft grunting noise because he is trying so hard to laugh.

Loves his big brother and is so patient with a loud and overbearing 3 year old always in his face!

The first week we got home was a little rough. I was hoping since he didnt' have his ostomies anymore, life would be a breeze. I was wrong. The day after we got home he got diarrhea and that freaked me out. He doesn't have any weight to lose and I was worried about dehydration and him losing weight. I eventually pinpointed what was causing the diarrhea. Right before we left the hospital they started adding stuff to the breast milk he drinks. Microlipids and pectin. Lipids are just fats that were suppose to help him gain weight faster. And the pectin was just regular old canning pectin added to help thicken his stool and slow down the process for him. But once I took those out of his diet, the diarrhea went away almost immediately. And things got so much better. His poor little bum paid a dear price though. He had a wicked diaper rash from the constant diarrhea that took me until today to clear up. Now that the diarrhea is gone, he is back to gaining weight and I am breathing a bit easier now.

This was kind of a sweet moment for me.....Because of everything Jackson has had he had NEVER been in running water before. He was always sponged bathed. And because he still has that PICC in his arm, he cannot be submerged in water. He can't get the picc wet. So I bathed him in the sink the very first day we got home. He loves it. I can't wait until the day his PICC is gone and he can splash in the real tub. I have a feeling he will love every second of it.

He has really found his hands in the last few days and has them in his mouth frequently. He isn't so much sucking on them as he is chewing on them. I thought he may be teething at first but haven't seen any teeth pop in. Either way, it's causing a lot of drooling!

Don't you wish your bum was this cute?!? He is still very very skinny and super long. His height is in the 70% and his weight only in the 3rd%. We just started adding some alimentum formula to his breast milk to try and pack on the pounds. Regular formula or breast milk is 20 calories per ounce. Jackson's milk is bulked up to 24 calories per ounce. I am hoping and praying this will do the trick to put some meat on his bones. He is still on TPN. That is why he needs the PICC line. We brought him home on only 3 nights a week of TPN but I asked the Dr. to increase it to every night while he had the diarrhea to give him extra calories. The plan is to keep him on TPN nightly until he shows us that his weight gain is steady and he doesn't need it. I was really hoping he wouldn't need it after surgery but he does. The Dr. keeps telling me that a short gut patient, at only 4 months old, getting only 12 hours a day of TPN is remarkable. So I try and remember that. The research shows that most short gut patient's guts(did you get all that?!) don't start to figure stuff out totally until about 6 months old. So he still in right on track. And just because he needs TPN now, doesn't mean he will always need it. I pray very specifically each day for his gut to figure out how to absorb all he needs, with what little he has left. It can be done and I'm praying for it!

He still loves TV. Which is good and bad....I'll explain more about that later.

My tiny boy. This tiny boy has 2 temperaments. Happy and smiling or Screaming. There is rarely an in between. When he is mad he can scream like it's no body's business.

But when he's happy, he's quite the charmer. When he flashes that dimple I pretty much give him whatever he wants!

We are really trying to make up for lost time now that he is home and doing so well. He didn't get a lot of tummy time before due to all the hardware on his stomach and all the time in the hospital. When we left Primary Children's they referred Jackson to the "Up to 3" state program. Simply for the fact that he's spent most of his time in the hospital. His gut problems should cause no developmental delays but being in a hospital can. So the therapists are coming out and evaluation this week. He has great head control, can roll from tummy to back(rare, but he can) but the biggest problem she noticed was about toys. I noticed before that he has no real interest in toys. He'd rather look around and can entertain himself by just looking at things. Which is a common problem after being hospitalized for so long. He constantly had new surroundings and people around him that he was entertained by them. So we are going to work on him discovering toys and wanting to reach out and grab them. And once he grabs them, putting them in his mouth. Even in the last 2 days as I've worked a little with him, he's starting to recognize toys and get excited at the sight of them. Now we just need him to want to pick them up and play with them. He has the muscle tone and capability to do that, he just doesn't know he should. The therapist thinks he should catch on really quickly and won't need help very long.

And here is my sweet boy in all his glory. His 3 scars. Which are healing so nicely. I can barely remember 6 weeks ago and all the stuff he had attached to his abdomen. Modern medicine is truly amazing.

Jax is still not up to full feeds yet but I am hoping by the end of the month to have him to his goal amount. Which is about 120 mL per feeding. Right now he is at about 105 mL per feeding. So we're not too far off. I am increasing his amount very slowly as to not overwhelm his gut. If we push to fast, it can really set him back and we don't want that. I feel a lot of pressure being in charge of decisions like this. When to increase, when to stay where we're at etc...

All in all he's doing really well and we're loving having him home and doing normal things together. He is such a sweet little boy and we're very lucky to have him in our home and family. Because he still has the PICC line in his arm it is VERY likely he will get another infection and have to be hospitalized again. I don't mean to be pessimistic but the odds aren't in our favor. But today we hit 16 days straight of being home together. Our previous record was 10 days. So we're hoping no infections and many many more days at home together.

My First Baby

I can't forget Carter in all of these posts so this one is dedicated to him. I want to write down some of the funny and some of the horribly naughty things he does before I forget them.

Carter is the classic "First Child." At least classic as to what I imagine all first children to be like. Not spoiled per se, but waited upon and had my sole attention for 2.9 years. He doesn't really want to be independent. And I REALLY need him to be more independent now that Jackson is here and requires a lot of attention. I have had to really bribe and threaten him to start doing some simple tasks by himself. Dressing himself, cleaning up his toys, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, and etc. I really don't want to be putting his underwear on him when he's 11. This morning I told him we needed to get his teeth brushed before we put his clothes on for the day. I came into the bathroom, and to my surprise he had started brushing his own teeth! I'm not ready to relinquish complete control on teeth brushing yet but he is allowed to start brushing his teeth, and I finish.

He really loves his baby brother. We have lots of nicknames for Jackson and Carter has adopted them all and uses them frequently. He uses a high pitched voice he reserves just for Jax and Jax really eats it up. Jax loves to watch Carter and loves the attention Carter gives him. He saves some of his best smiles and coos for his big brother. Carter copies a lot of what I say and uses that with Jax. I don't realize what I say until I hear Carter repeat it.....Some examples: "Hi Honey bear, do you have any smiles for me? That's a good smile Jax!"

Both of my boys posing in their pajamas. Which I am really trying hard to have us all out of our pajamas before lunch some mornings!
He likes to be affectionate with Jackson and wants to give him hugs and kisses before I put him down for each and every nap. And if I forget, he calls me on it. He hates to see Jax cry and if he's in bed crying, he will sprint into his room and turn on his little mobile that's attached to the side of his crib. He's such a great helper and knows the names of all the supplies so I can tell him to please get me a blue flush, a saline flush and an alcohol swab please! He really wants to help me flush Jax's PICC line but that is a sterile procedure so no go on that one!

We bought an IPAD during our long stay in the hospital. Mostly for entertainment purposes and Carter is obsessed with it. He knows his way around and through that thing better than I do. He begs to play games and watch movies on it. I have to hide it when he's spent enough time on it because he will sneak it and play it forever! But man, it does keep him quiet forever.

Carter is really into practicing his photography skills. He's getting a lot better with heads only being cut off about 25% of the time. I don't even remember him taking this lovely picture of me.

Carter is really into riding his bike. He has a scoot bike, which has no pedals that he is a pro on. We bought him a regular pedal bike and he is terrified of it. Which is exactly how he was with his scoot bike at first. My cautious little boy. He gets that from me. This picture is from a bike track in Park City that we went to a couple of times during our stays in SLC. He loved it.

Here are Carter and Neil playing "demolition derby" on their bikes. A game made up by Carter. We took him to 2 demolition derbys during the summer and he fell in love. So now he plays demolition derby all the time. On his bike, just running around the house and with his toy cars. Keeps him entertained for hours.

He's great at playing alone but does occasionally want me to play with him. But really, he just wants me to sit there and watch him play. Example: He has a road rug in his room that he loves to drive his cars on. He'll ask me to play and I'll come in and sit down but I'm not allowed to sit or kneel on the rug. Only he is. Then when I grab a car and start playing along, he tells me that he wants to be that specific car....so basically I just watch. But it makes him happy.

Trying his pedal bike.....while whining the whole time!

He has got quite the attitude lately. He is getting sassy in his 3rd year of life. If I ask him to get in bed he will respond "You get in bed mom." No idea where he learned to be this sassy but I'm trying to nip it in the bud. When he gets frustrated with me or what i'm asking him to do his new phrase is "Momma, you make me tired(or crazy, or mad)." Said while giving the biggest sigh. I may or may not have said that to him before!

This boy is all about the food. I'm not sure where he puts it all because at his 3 yr check-up the Dr. said he was actually a but underweight for his height. He wants to eat constantly and I always have to tell him no. This night we were having his all-time favorite meal. Meatballs and rice with cornbread. Menu planned by Carter. He is so messy....granted cornbread is crumbly but it looked like a cornbread massacre after he was finished. I contemplated just bringing in a hose and hosing down the kitchen.

Here he is after drinking another love of his....a smoothie. He refuses to leave one drop in the cup and so his face ends up looking like the Joker. He had no idea why were laughing at him this day and why I was snapping his picture. It's even in his eyebrows if you look closely. While staying in SLC with Aunt Linsey, she spoiled him rotten by making him her famous smoothies almost every day.

While in SLC we had the opportunity to attend the Ringling Brothers Circus. He had no idea what a circus really was but he quite enjoyed himself. He kept his "ticket" clutched in his hand almost the entire show.

His favorite part was the elephants. Mine was the Tigers.

Me and Carter at the Circus. We forgot to get Neil in the picture but we all had a fun time, but missed having Jackson with us. He liked the circus so much that we are going to a different circus later this week. In Logan!

He has been such a great little boy through out this whole time in and out of the hospital. He is so patient and so adaptable. He is really growing up right before our eyes. He has always been a very clear talker and rarely mispronounces anything. But there is one word that he has always messed up. He would says GRILLS instead of girls. And so Neil and I (and others even!) would use the word grills too, just because it was so cute and fun to say. Then one day, while in SLC he started saying GIRLS. We were so sad because it was our favorite word to hear him say. We even continued to say GRILLS and he would correct us. He's growing right up.

We decided earlier this summer that maybe naps were a thing of the past. He was having such a hard time going to bed at night so we decided to try not having naps. This is what I found almost every day. A sound asleep little boy about 4 pm in the afternoon. He would fall asleep playing or watching TV or whatever he was doing. Which isn't like Carter at all. He is very much a sleep on in the bed kind of boy. And if we were able to keep him awake til bedtime he turned into a very grumpy boy about 5 o'clock and we could barely stand him. So naps are back on. They are only successful (him falling asleep) about 50% of the time, but either way I get an hour break.

Carter keeps us laughing daily at all his new tricks and phrases. Sometimes we have to try and hide our laughter as he is throwing a fit or sassing but we sure love him and his spunk!

Happy 4 Months Jax

My baby is 4 months old! Where has the time gone? I tried really hard to focus on the good instead of remembering that we're STILL in the hospital. Because rumor has it that we get to come home this week!!

Jackson and I took a walk around the hospital today. He is so bright eyed and curious about everything. He is only on his TPN for 12 hours a day which leaves lots of time where he is connected to NOTHING. You really take for granted walking around with your baby. We haven't been able to do that really until now. His whole short life he's been connected to 2-3 pumps at a time. So walking the hallways and even going outside was such a wonderful blessing.

He's finally feeling better and keeping his food down. Which makes him and us both very happy. And in return he has morphed back into the baby who coos and smiles a lot. At anyone.

If you look at the right side of his stomach you can see his scar. Which we will always look at and remember how that incision has brought us so many things. Tears, worry, stress, faith, hope, prayers. But mostly miracles. Our miracle baby.

Carter is obsessed with the play area they have downstairs and today we took Jax down to check it out. I may or may not have shed a few tears as we got to go somewhere together, and not hooked up to anything. And I think about getting home and returning to normal life and I can hardly wait.

How will the ladies ever resist this face? Or that dimple? Or those big blue eyes? And creamy White White skin?! Can you see the faintest little roll in his right thigh? The weight is finally starting to creep back on after surgery. He is a freakishly long baby weighing in at about 12 3/4 pounds!

When we come home, we are coming home with Jackson still requiring TPN. But the hope and expectation is that in a few weeks/months he will be off of it completely. Which is way faster than the 1-2 years they thought at first. They have great hopes that he can absorb the nutrients he needs on his own and ditch the PICC line completely. There was talk of weaning him off before we left the hospital but we do not want to stay a day longer than necessary. And since we already know how to do all that at home, our GI doctor has agreed to work closely with us from home and to do it there. It may take a little bit longer at home but it will be worth it to just be home.

Right now he is at about 2/3 of a full feeding by mouth. 2 1/2 ounces per feed. Once he gets to 100% by mouth the plan is to turn TPN off and see what his little body will do. The hope is that he will continue to gain weight without it. He is only on TPN right now 12 hours a day. He came home initially on 20 hours TPN so the progress has been great. And as he eats more by mouth, we decrease the hours even more. We've seen so many miracles occur with Jackson and we're hoping for one more.

Neil and I were talking about what we'd like to do, once we're home that we couldn't do before because of the ostomy bags and TPN. Neil wants to watch TV downstairs, all together. He said he doesn't care if it's Mickey Mouse! Jax rarely made it to our basement because it's not very easy taking 3 pumps and a pole down the stairs. I chose going to the grocery store! Jackson has NEVER been to the grocery store with me before. Small things that we are both so excited about. We are ready to get home and hopefully stay home and return to normal life. If there really is such a thing as normal!! I hope to see you all at Walmart or Lees. We'll probably go there every day....just because we can. :)

I've Stopped Counting...

I use to know exactly how many days we have spent in the hospital. I no longer count. The number is getting too depressing. We are still at Primary Children's and the end is not really in sight. Jackson has had so many setbacks that we've quit asking when we get to come home. We'll just be surprised one day I guess!

I can't believe it's September. One of my fears became a reality. Summer came and went without me every really acknowledging it. Or fully partaking in the events that make a summer a summer. Don't get me wrong... Jackson is worth every bit of these struggles, but it's still very hard.

Jackson went 10 whole days without eating before they were able to pull the Anderson tube out of his nose. I thought he would be cranky and hard to console but he did amazingly. He was so patient and so giving of his cute smiles and coos. But boy did he appreciate his first bottle last Saturday. He started by eating 1 ounce at a time and the plan to increase 1/2 an ounce every 12 hours. And to have him at full feeds in a couple of days and then head home. But that didn't happen. He started throwing up, occasionally. Which wasn't a big deal. Then he started throwing up every time, and lots of it. And he didn't want to eat.........and who really does when it just makes you throw up?
So it's been an up and down thing with his feeds. They'll increase it, he'll barf, they decrease it and he gets mad! Then to top it all off, Jax got another line infection. It's so frustrating to be battling the same thing over and over again. We hope to be home in a week or 2...but we can't promise anything.

In other news:

My 3 boys watching the TV. Like Father, Like Sons eh? Even Jax is enthralled with TV. Doesn't matter what is on, he will crane his neck to get a good view. You can't break his gaze once his eyes get ahold of the screen. And Carter has developed an obsession with ice. The hospital has ice/water machines and he wants a cup full of ice, no water, each and everytime we come to the hospital. Whatever keeps him happy.

We've been trying to plan fun activities for him to get him out of the hospital. We found a fun bike park in Park City that we go to and let him ride to his heart's content.

Carter has REALLY struggled these past few weeks. He stayed with Grandma the first few days and then came to SLC with us. I am convinced he is part monster, part 3 year old. I guess those are really the same thing when you get right down to it. Sleep has become quite the battle. And one we seem to find ourselves losing frequently. He's tired of being moved around but I think we've finally got it together. Last night found the 3 of us sharing a double bed. It was quite the night let me tell you.

Here I am sporting the water proof yellow gown. When this kid barfs, he can really barf. The yellow gown saves me from multiple clothing changes. This picture was taken courtesy of Carter. This is another thing to take his mind off being in the hospital. He loves using the camera and with a few pointers our heads are usually in the pictures. How did I ever grow up with a film camera that didn't have a delete button!

Once we get the line infection cleared and Jackson keeping all his food down we get to come home. He doesn't even have to be eating the full 3 1/2 ounces to come home. Just proving that he can keep down what he's taking and we can increase the feeds at home like we did before.

We're praying for no more puke and no more infections. Although this sweet baby can still manage to flash a darling smile after all the puking. That is not something I could do!

All is Right in the World

This morning, Saturday, was a good day. Jackson was able to ditch the vent and is breathing perfectly on his own. He gave us quite a scare yesterday but proved he just wanted to do things on his own terms! And now he gets his precious binkie back!

This is the first time I've held him since before surgery on Wednesday. And it wasn't really holding him because he is still in a significant amount of pain. He just laid on my lap. But we both enjoyed it. He could only tolerate being held for about 15 minutes but it was so nice to hold him again.

Funny thing about my 2 boys. But by funny I mean horrifying. They are breath holders. Carter started that lovely thing at about 1 year of age and it continued for about a year. Getting so mad that he would hold his breath until he passed completely out. Scared the crap out of us. He only did a handful of times but that is more than one person should be. The Dr. just told us to ignore him when he did this because he could start to do it for attention. It's pretty hard to ignore your child when he's purple and about to pass out. Carter did it a couple of times when I would suction his nose with the blue bulb syringe. Luckily, he seems to have outgrown it. Sadly, Jackson also picked up this gene. He's held his breath several times in a screaming fit, but hadn't come close to passing out. Until yesterday. The RT came in to give him a spontaneous breathing trial and decided to start it by suctioning his nose and mouth. And then turned the vent wayyyy down. Well Jax got ticked from being suctioned, held his breath, turned purple and passed out. Scared me to death. So at his next breathing trial, I left the room, and the RT didn't suction him. He passed with flying colors so they pulled the vent and he's been fine ever since.

He still has the Anderson tube in his nose to suction all the stomach juices out of his stomach. Once his bowels wake up we can pull that and start back with eating. Luckily he hasn't really noticed that he's been without food for 3 days.

The bad part of this stay.......SHARED ROOMS. We have been spoiled in all of our other hospitalizations with private rooms. But I will try to be patient and hope that we get transferred soon.

The plan is that once he starts eating, and keeping it down, we can come home again. Hopefully in another week or 2.

Thanks for all the prayers offered in his behalf and the texts and phone calls. They mean a lot.

Surgery

Tuesday was a busy day. We found out that morning that Jackson would be having surgery at Primary Children's at 12:30. So I did the panicked, fluff and stuff packing and headed down. We don't even put our suitcases away anymore. They are permanent fixtures in our room!

This was his "take down" surgery to connect his bowels. The plan originally was to do it in November but he was having minor, minor complications(annoyances) really with some things so the surgeon decided to not wait until they became major complications. Let me tell you, I could have hugged this man. This surgery will make Jackson's life and our lives a bit more simple. There will be less leaking and less poo. Enough said.

The cutest patient in waiting room. Who knew hospital gowns and pants could be so darling. The annoying part was that everyone who came in the room kept calling Jackson a "HER." Not sure why. What part of blue top, blue pants and red socks, along with the name Jackson did they not get.

I was so nervous that Jax would be a monster without food. Demand feeding (eating what he wants, when he wants) really suited the little guy. But this day he did amazing. What a blessing. He woke up hungry but was quickly soothed with a binkie for the rest of the day. And being in a moving car is like a sleeping pill for this baby. He was flirting with the nurses all day and flashing smiles. What a doll.
He was so happy to lie on the bed and kick around. He didn't end up going to surgery until 6 pm...12 hours after his last meal. This was MAJOR surgery but the surgery itself went really well. After they connected the 2 ends of his bowel they put blue dye through to check for leaks. There were NO leaks and it moved all the way through without any problems. We are hoping this continues. He was in the operating room for almost 3 hours. The end result is a 3 inch scar on his abdomen. 3 inches isn't much until you consider that his little abdomen is probably only 5-6 inches across. They put 2 drain tubes where his stomas were to keep fluid from potentially building up there. He has no more stomas though. No more bags, no more buttons, no more tape, gauze, and no more tears. And the tears were mostly mine.

This is my sweet baby after surgery. I almost didn't take a picture because I hate seeing him like this. But when he gets older, maybe he'll like to see how far he's come. While surgery went well, recovery has been a bit of a different story. He didn't come out of anesthesia very well and so they sent him to the Pediatric ICU. He wasn't able to come off the ventilator right away like hoped, but it's not unexpected. He is in a lot of pain from the incision and so they keep him on a lot of pain medication so he can sleep through the worst days. Another setback was that he didn't get to eat or be on his TPN for most of the day so he came out of surgery a little dehydrated. He also needed a blood transfusion while in surgery(which wasn't unexpected either, he's anemic).

They turned down the vent today and he was breathing so great by himself for about 2 hours and they were expecting to pull the vent when all of a sudden he quit breathing. Had a small apnea really. We had just left to grab a quick lunch when I heard the intercom say "Code Blue Room 2309." My heart dropped to my feet. That was Jax's room. I ran back and found everything ok. He just fell too deeply asleep for a moment and forgot to take a breath. With one breath for him, he was back to normal. But having a Code Blue called on your baby is not something you forget very easily. So they will not be extibating him today. Which I am fine with. He needs pain medication to handle the pain and that makes him so sedated so he doesn't focus too much on breathing. I just want him to rest for a few days and then try it. He will be able to come off the vent fine when he is not on so much pain meds.

I can't hold him. He's in too much pain to be manipulated. And I totally understand. 3 months ago I had my stomach cut open and it does not feel good. But I do miss holding him. This is the first time, since he was 3 days old that I haven't gotten to hold or snuggle him. Very anxious for that time and to have my happy, smiley baby back.

His intestines are reconnected now but his road is still long. Being a short gut patient is more complex than I first imagined. He will still be on TPN for a long time. Maybe even forever. It's hard to admit that and say it out loud. His lack of intestine may never be able to absorb all the nutrients it needs to sustain his body. Only time will tell. The surgeon did say that he, out of many short gut patients has many things going for him.

Some of those advantages include: his loss of bowel is not due to infection, he has his full colon(most of your water absorption happens in the colon), he has something in his ileum called the ilesocecial valve, some ileum and amazing parents. (i made the last one up because I can't remember the last one!) So they are hoping that if a short gut person can make it off TPN it can be Jackson. After surgery the surgeon did tell us to pray, and pray a lot for Jackson. Give him lots of blessings. Put his name on the temples prayer rolls. He has a long road ahead of him. But we are optimistic, as are the Drs. He has surpassed every expectation they have had for him and made progress at a fantastic rate. I pray each and every day for him and his progress. Will you join me? Will you pray for my baby? A few extra prayers never hurt anyone.....

And I threw in one last picture because it's cute. He's not pouting in this picture. He's just discovered his lips and tongue in the last few days and uses them in the cutest ways!