Toddler theology

It's been too long since I've updated the blog. There's a lot going on and it might take me a while to write an update. I have not done a good job of recording Nathanisms this week, so I thought I'd share another family's conversation. Tom and his family are also blessed with a toddler (though she's a girl) and a baby boy with an extra 21st chromosome. Link here for Tom and Silvi's conversation. I got a huge belly laugh from this one, which I desperately needed.

Make a Joyful Noise!

Here's a brief video of Micah's new-found voice. Sorry for the occasional focus issues... I did it on my camera, not the camcorder.



"Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!" ~ Psalm 95:2

We're praising God for the return (and strengthening) of Micah's voice.

Vocal cord has been healed!

Micah visited the ENT doctor (ear, nose and throat specialist, aka otolaryngologist) yesterday and was scoped and we found that his vocal cord is no longer paralyzed. Thank you, Lord! Both Mark and I were noticing for the past few days that Micah was much more verbal and sounded more like himself. I thought possibly he was just doing a better job of compensating for the paralysis. But... everything is working just fine in his throat. According to the ENT, Micah doesn't have to go back to see him again (unless he has ear or nasal passage issues in the future, but we would really rather not have to see him again, though he's a nice guy).


So, his lack of eating has nothing to do with the vocal cord. And the speech therapist, Katherine, who has loved on Micah since he was in the NICU in January, shot some milk to the back of Micah's mouth while the camera was rolling and Micah swallowed the milk. So he's physically capable of swallowing (at least when he's screaming)... he apparently just doesn't want to. He definitely has an oral aversion, but he does put his hands to his mouth and allow me to massage his cheeks, inside and out. The prevailing theory is that his reflux is so bad, he just associates anything in the back of the mouth with the pain of stomach acid.


Speaking of reflux... it's just awful. Micah is waking up screaming about every hour overnight. I'm exhausted. The GI more than tripled his dose of prilosec yesterday (to reduce the acid level) so we're hoping to see results from that in the next couple of days. The other thing is that Micah is getting a venting bag for his stomach (to attach to the g-port that goes into his stomach), which will possibly relieve him of some stomach gasses. Just what we need... another item to tote around. But hopefully it will help relieve some of his reflux and pain.

We had a great meeting with Micah's surgeon on Friday. He spent almost an hour with us and it was wonderful to have a doctor take a wholistic approach to Micah's belly issues. He feels as though he could make an adjustment to Micah's duodenum, but he's not convinced it will definitely help him (though it wouldn't make things worse). He feels as though we need to fix the front-end stuff first. He's supposed to be conversing with the GI about it.


I also forgot to post that Micah turned 5 months old on 6/5. Here are some new photos:


Yummy Micah today. This is the outfit Nathan wore home from the hospital. It's probably the only day Micah will wear it since his torso is getting too long for the 0-3months clothes now.

Micah on his 5month b-day with Uncle Dan (visiting from the left coast)

Nathan at 5months (just for reference... some of you didn't know us back then)



Micah with Katherine (speech therapist in Milwaukee)


Nathan with cousins, Lili, Henry, and Katie from Michigan (Nathan and Henry were having a bit of a disagreement over which song button to push in the book)

Thanks for continuing to pray for our little guy, specifically that his reflux would diminish so that we could hopefully convince him to start eating orally again.

Nathanisms for the week

Mommy: "Nathan, you need to obey."

Nathan: "Not today."

(thanks for the heads-up, buddy, on what our day is going to be like)

Mommy: "Nathan, I said 'no'."

Nathan: "I say 'yes'."

(my oh-so-agreeable child)

Nathan: "ABCDEFG... what does that mean?"

(seriously, child, are you going to ask for the meaning of life at age 2?)

Nathan: "Look, there are two granddad's."

(while looking at a picture of my dad and his twin brother)

Public debut

I snuck Micah into Bible study the week before his heart surgery. But other than that, he had never been in public until this past weekend.

My brother, Jim, got married on Saturday and it was quite a weekend of activities. Micah tolerated the noise and busyness like a champ... sleeping when completely over-stimulated.

This is what Micah thought of the wedding (he was a lot more social at the reception)

The whole family after the wedding

My beautiful (and single) mom

My dad and his twin brother (eery, isn't it?)

The bride and groom. Welcome to the family, Jen. I hope you enjoy your new name... I enjoyed it for 34 years! :-) More importantly, I hope you are enjoying Mexico!

(many thanks to Becca, Martha, and Karen for the photos... we didn't take ANY on our own camera)