The Hartwells: Five Months Old!

Well, it's been pretty busy around here! Last Friday Blaise had his first cardiology follow up appointment at Children's since we left. He saw Dr. Danford and had rave reviews! In fact, when we were leaving Dr. Danford's exact words were "I"m just tickled with how well he is doing!" WOW! What an awesome thing! He said he thought all of the doctors made the right decision back in July when deciding to go forward with the Glenn Surgery. He has recovered better than we could imagine. He has absolutely no restrictions right now. His blood pressure was excellent, they were happy with his weight and growth, and his SAT level was 89! A normal human's is usually 100 and they consider 90 "normal" so heck, Blaise is right there!!!! God is so great! We were told to wean him off his Lasix and by the end of the week will be completely off all medications for his heart. UNBELIEVABLE!

After our appointment, we swung over to the 5th floor to see some of our favorite nurses! We were glad to see them and they all thought Blaise looked great and had grown up! From there, we stopped by the Ak-Sar-Ben Office to help out a bit then it was off to Grandma and Grandpa Sudmann's for the night.

Blaise got to go see the combine for the first time and was fully dressed in his John Deere onseie, coveralls and socks!! Aunt Jenna came back later that night too. On Saturday Blaise, Mom, Grandma and Aunt Jenna went on a big time shopping spree, as Blaise had NO winter/fall clothes. We all went to Starbucks, TJ Max, Charming Charlies, Target, Old Navy and Carters and Freddy's for lunch! Talk about a busy day for a little boy who hasn't gotten to do much!

Starting the middle of last week I started noticing a little cough that Blaise had. I thought maybe he was teething and choking on all of the extra saliva in this mouth and throat. Well, it continued to get worse, so yesterday I took him to the pediatrician since we have been told so often that getting sick can mean very bad things. As I thought, it was just a cold but she did put him on amoxicilan. He hates it! :) Any tricks to give babies medicine? We have three we give every day- and he is getting worse about taking them! Prayers for this cold and cough to clear up soon!

He has really taken off on eating! He does just under 5 oz every three hours. We can let him sleep at night if he chooses and the other night he slept from 9 p.m.- 5:45 am. I think it might have been because he didn't feel good. He is still doing fortified Nutramigin formula thickened to nectar consistency with Simply Thick. Last Friday the scale at Dr. Danfords had him at 13 lbs 4 ounces and yesterday at the pediatrician he was 13 lbs 11 ounces. He has pushed himself up to the 5% in weight and 25% in length now!! He absolutely loves rice cereal!!! He gets it once or twice a day and can't get enough! He loves to try and feed himself and also holds onto his bottle now- I don't think it will be long before he is doing it himself.

Developmentally, we are still just a tad behind most normal babies. But, with two heart surgeries before age 4 months and a month in the hospital I think he is doing pretty darn god. He holds his head up really good when we are holding him, does pretty good in his bumbo chair. I've been working with him non-stop on tummy time which he HATES and trying to roll from side to side and over. I've seen noticeable progress this week, so just will keep working on it.

He has started loosing all of that dark hair he has. He is getting pretty patchy and we laugh that he looks like an old man. It is definitely coming back in lighter colored so either blonde or a reddish-blonde.

Tonight we will be taking 5 month pictures of him! How in the world is the sweet precious baby 5 months old?!?!

His favorite thing in the entire world is being outside. It's truly amazing. He is absolutely memorized, obsessed and fascinated with being outside. We better get some pretty warm clothes so we can go out this winter!