Seven months old!

Well little Ben is 7 months old today! Time sure does fly. Although I've been ready for this year to be over for quite a while, so it's not been flying as quickly as it usually does lately. Ben is doing really well! He's eating better, his weight gain is on track, and he's generally just a happy little baby.

We're having to leave him on the floor a lot more to build up his arm strength, and he's not very excited about that. He puts up quite a fuss and it's hard to make him stay on his tummy - time for some tough love I guess. All of the doctors and therapists keep telling me he has low muscle tone, so he needs lots of exercise to build his strength up. But his weekly physical and occupational therapists are happy with his progress - he's behind but he's been progressing consistently so it's not anything that's getting any worse. So we're happy!


He had a CT scan on Tuesday and hopefully I'll hear from his cranio-facial surgeon sometime soon about exactly what type of surgery he'll need and when. We already have the testicle surgery scheduled for August 5th, so hopefully he'll get plenty of time to recover from that before they get to work on his head.

Will is such a cutie pie these days. I don't know what it is but he just seems a lot cuter lately. Of course as I type this he is flinging himself on the floor and whining because his pretzels aren't staying in the bowl. Well most of the time he's cute! He got ahold of some sidewalk chalk and decided to color his face the other day. He likes to watch me put on makeup - I think maybe he thought that's what he was doing. I made him go and look in the mirror thinking he would be upset, but of course he thought his face decoration was AWESOME. Which is a word he uses on occasion now, along with "disgusting". He's getting quite the vocabulary.

He loves corn on the cob but he always has to have my piece - as soon as we sit down at the table he's fussing for "Mama's piece! No Mama have it!". So we switch pieces and all is well. "No Benny have it!" is also one of his current favorite phrases. He's really into his books as always - He loves to go into Borders and browse the Thomas section. He has a lot of his books memorized and will finish sentences for me. He's also started singing along with his silly song CDs - it's hilarious. He only really knows the last couple of words of each line, so he kind of mumbles his way through every line and then shouts the last word or two. He also loves to go help Daddy water the flowers in the morning.

Brian is feeling much better as well. He had his latest blood test a few days ago and he's still considerably hypothyroid, so they're upping his dose of synthroid. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks we'll have his dosage right and he won't feel so sluggish anymore. But overall he's really feeling good these days. His tomato plants have FORTY-EIGHT tomatoes on them. :)

It's so nice to hear from people we don't even know who are thinking about Ben. We really appreciate all the prayers and positive energy everyone's sending his way. Thanks everyone!