The ultimate nude photo

These are the pictures of Ben's skull taken with a CT scan. The black lines that look like cracks are open sutures and are supposed to be there - they're what allow the skull to expand to leave room for the brain to grow. You can see that over his left eye there's a smooth ridge instead of an open suture like over the right eye. That's where the plate over his left eye has fused to the bone behind it prematurely - it's pulled everything else on his face slightly askew.



This is a picture of the top of his head with the bottom being his forehead. You can see a suture line running off to the (Ben's) right and one going down the middle of his forehead but not one to the left - there's an indentation where it's supposed to be but the surface is smooth. You can also see the bulge that's above his right eye - it looks like a goose egg. I'm not sure if the main suture running down the middle of his head is supposed to run that crooked - I sure hope not!

They've scheduled Ben's surgery for next Wednesday, August 23rd. They're basically going to take his forehead off, reshape the bones, and reattach them with dissolvable plates. It's so bizarre to me that you can take a bone out of someone's body and then put it back in and it will continue to grow! All of this has been a real crash course in medical technology.

I got a new baby carrier for Ben called a Mei Tai. The sling wasn't working too well - since Ben has low muscle tone he kind of flops around a lot and doesn't hold himself upright as well as some babies, so I needed something that was a little more secure. He LOVES this thing and insists on taking his afternoon nap in it. That will be a lot more pleasant when it's under 80 degrees outside!

Well despite everything else Will's doing great. Here he is with his daddy drawing choo-choos and signals (his two favorite works of art). Whe we draw with sideawlk chalk our driveway always ends up looking like a roadmap with lots of different trains, cars, and crossings.

Here's a cute picture of him and Ben together. It's always a challenge to get them together because Will doesn't really like the camera and really doesn't like Ben touching him. So this was a great accomplishment! Will's new word for the week is "sometimes". He'll say "Claire bite you sometimes!". (Claire is one of our cats) He usually deserves it if Claire bites him, by the way.

We got him a rubber booster seat that sits in a regular chair so he doesn't have to use a high chair anymore, and he's totally obsessed with it. It came UPS and he was there when we got it, so I told him it was a present and just for him, a special big boy chair! Which worked a little too well, as he had to sit in it while I read him his bedtime stories and he insisted on taking it to bed with him as well. I snuck it out of his crib before I went to sleep - he had it cuddled up next to him like a stuffed animal or something. And guess who woke up at 3 AM asking for his "booter seat"?