6 Months Old

On Wednesday Robbie turned 6 months old. It is hard to believe that it has been that long ago that we were blessed with such a sweet little boy. Even though we have had our share of issues, we wouldn't change a thing because of how strong Robbie is and how much stronger he has made us.

Mimi was here last week and were able to get some good pictures of Robbie and the family, despite it being a little cool outside. Robbie is just growing up so fast and getting such a great personality. He is up on all fours now and is rocking, just waiting to take that first step and get crawling. He has figured out how to roll all across the room to get where he needs to though.

Family Pictures

Here are some pictures of the family.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend, the break from school was great. On Wednesday we headed up to Uncle Mike's in Nebraska and introduced Robbie to some good old fashioned Keno. He actually brought some good luck to the group as no one lost any money, usually losing money is a guarantee.

On Thursday, everyone pigged out on a great Thanksgiving dinner, thank you Sondra for making such a great meal. We headed home Thursday night because Robbie was not feeling great. We took him to the doctor on Friday morning and the pediatrician gave us a stronger antibiotic to hopefully get rid of this congestion and mucous that is really stuffing him up. We need him to be clear of anything before surgery.

On both Saturday and Sunday I took Robbie with me to our open gyms and he really seemed to enjoy watching the girls shoot baskets and loved rolling the basketball around the floor. We need to get him used to the sounds of buzzers and whistles though. Saturday night he wasn't a fan of the loud buzzer at the Missouri Western girls game. Saree was able to see all the girls from last year and talk to all of them after their big win. Robbie was such a trooper that night, considering he was up way past his normal bedtime.

Tonight marks the first basketball game for Saree as a high school coach. They play at 7:00 p.m. in the Savannah Tournament, so Robbie and I will be hanging out like some bachelors tonight.

Loading Up The Wagons For Cincinnati

We are going to load up the car tonight and head out to Cincinnati. We are hoping to get through St. Louis tonight and take it the rest of the way tomorrow. Robbie's appointments are Thursday morning and with the weather Cincinnati is getting we want to make sure we have time incase the snow is bad. Robbie has two tests scheduled for Thursday to determine if we have surgery and what type of procedure they will use. Between the blog and our Facebook accounts, we will make sure that everyone stays updated on what is going on. We are very grateful for all the prayers coming our way, we can definitely feel them surround us in our lives.

We Made It

The drive to Cincinnati was really pretty easy and we rolled into town exactly during rush hour. We got right to the hotel, after a 30 minute stay in traffic, and got everything into the room and will try to make it feel like home until we hear back from the Ronald McDonald House. We are on the waiting list and hopefully will get in there soon. Tomorrow our appointment is at 10:45 a.m. and there are two tests that they will do to see what the next steps are in the process. We will make sure to let everyone know what we find out as soon as we know.

Testing Is Complete

It took a little while to get back there, then the test took some time but Robbie was such a big boy and now the tests are done. They took some XRays of his stomach and pelvic area and then did a Colostogram. This test was done by injecting contrast into his mucous fistula to see what his colon looked like. The radiologist said that they got good images and will get those to Dr. Levitt today. After the colostogram is where there was some confusion on what the next step in the process would be. We didn't know if we were done or when we would talk to someone about surgery. After 45 minutes and Saree talking to a nurse in the colorectal unit, we are now waiting to see when we can meet with Dr. Levitt and he can go over Robbie's case, hopefully prior to checking in on Sunday. I guess if we don't hear anything before Sunday, we will check in and just wait to talk to him then. Right now we are still waiting to hear back from the Ronald McDonald House too. Looks like we have a Thursday of just hanging out in town and trying to catch up on some sleep, if Robbie will let us. More updates will come as soon as we find something out.

Dr. Levitt Meeting

We got a call last night and we will be meeting with Dr. Levitt at 5:30 p.m. today to go over what the plan is with Robbie. The nurse on the phone said that they have never cancelled a surgery before, but that each patient just has a different bowel management program that they will be a part of. The meeting today will just inform us on how all the xrays and pictures looked and what he thinks will be the best way to fix up our little guy.

Mimi gets into town this evening as well, so Robbie is really excited to see her. Today we might go to the Aquarium which is really close to our hotel, we will see how that goes. We switched to an extended stay hotel yesterday because the waiting list at the Ronald McDonald House is pretty long and they thought it might not be until later next week that we can get in there. We just need a room with a refrigerator for his medicine and it will be nice to not have to eat out all the time.

Meeting Went Well

Our meeting with Dr. Levitt went well and he was a very nice guy. He was able to look at his xrays and images along with a quick physical exam and gave us some positive news. He said by just what he could see from what was in front of him, that Robbie had a good, deep butt crack (which is good in these cases, guess Dad's big butt helped on this), and that his muscles in the anal area seemed to be good. When he looked at the xray he could see where the colon was and thought it was in a good spot to pull it through. The only concern he had was that there was a gap between his pelvis and femur that is somewhat common in bladder exstrophy patients because of the way the pelvis doesn't completely fuse together. He wants an MRI of the pelvis just to make sure that this gap just has a fatty tissue in it that can be removed before he gets in there and has to figure it out then. Again, this is common in exstrophy patients and shouldn't be a big deal.

We check into the hospital on Sunday at 9:00 a.m. (EST) and the MRI will be at some point during the day. Surgery is scheduled for Monday at 7:30 a.m. We are so grateful for all the prayers and thoughts for Robbie and just ask that they continue for a very successful surgery. If all goes as planned, we will be able to return here in 6-8 weeks, or after basketball season, and get rid of his colostomy bag and have to worry about changing poopy diapers.

As far as his bowel management goes, if everything goes well with the surgery and he is right about his assumption of Robbie's case, he thinks that he will be able to control his bowels, but will just be a little delayed in the time that he does this. We are praying that he is right and that Robbie will be able to poop whenever and wherever he wants to. More updates will come as we get them, but we are just anxious to get the surgery started and get Robbie on the way to a "normal" life.

Tomorrow we have some friends who Dr. Gearhart (Johns Hopkins) put us in touch with from Louisville, KY coming to visit us here in Cincinnati. They have a little boy who has a very similar case as Robbie and have helped us a lot in understanding what is going on with both the bladder and anus. It will be great to see them and see what we have to look forward to. He has had both the anus fixed and the bladder put away and is doing great. We really look forward to seeing them tomorrow and introducing the two boys.

Interesting Day

So about 9:30 this morning we got a call from Radiology to be there at 11:30 a.m. for his MRI at 12:30 p.m. So we had to change our plans of heading to the Outlet Mall and get him ready to go for th MRI. While we were waiting for the MRI to be finished the Ronald McDonald House called and said we were able to check in with them today. Robbie came out of the MRI around 2:00 p.m. and we went back to the hotel to pack up again and head over to the RMHC. We got all the paperwork done and were taken on a tour of the facility and just got things unpacked and going to head down for dinner.

The weather is starting to change here, as it's raining outside and will turn to snow by tomorrow morning. We hopefully will beat the weather in the morning as we check in at 9:00 a.m. The good thing about this RMHC is that it is right across the street from the hospital. So, even though plans got changed, it was an overall good day and Robbie is starting to feel like himself right again.

SURGERY IS COMPLETE

Robbie is out of surgery and in his Mom's arms right now eating a bottle. He is resting very comfortably and seems to be doing really well. Our last few days have been nothing but confusion and disorganization so to have Dr. Levitt tell us how well surgery went was an absolute surprise and relief. Robbie's surgery was scheduled for 7:30 a.m. and was not allowed to eat anything from midnight on. At 7:30 a.m. they came in to let us know that surgery was pushed back to 8:45 a.m., only after we asked though. At 8:45 a.m. we were still just waiting to be transported down to the O.R. Finally, around 9:00 a.m. we left for the O.R. and at 9:51 a.m. they made the first incision.

The surgery was scheduled for 3 hours so we had time to go get breakfast, lots of coffee and a chance to talk to some other patients that are staying in the RMHC House while we waited. About 11:00 we headed back to the waiting room and within 10 minutes they paged us to meet in a room with the nurse. We were both very nervous but Mimi remembered them saying that about half way through the surgery the nurse would come out and give us an update.

To our surprise though, Dr. Levitt came into the room and said that everything went better than planned and that he was done with surgery in about 90 minutes. The rectum was lower than he had planned, so it was easier to pull-through and that his butt muscles were so good that he was actually able to make his new butthole big enough where we won't have to do the entire process of dialations (which is supposidly the worst part of the entire process, pain-wise). Instead, he was able to make the hole the size he wants it to be so we just have to maintain that size and the pain level won't be near as much.

So now that he is all fixed up, we just wait for him to heal and have the opportunity of coming home even earlier than planned. We aren't going to count on that, but he said there would be a chance of being discharged tomorrow and be on our way home Wednesday.

Thank you to everyone that was thinking and praying for Robbie's safety and that he would have all the right muscles and parts. Once again, the power or prayer is an amazing thing.

GETTING DISCHARGED!!!!!

Dr. Levitt came by this morning while I was taking Mimi to the airport and said that we were getting discharged today because everything went so well yesterday. He had mentioned it yesterday, but thought everything was good to go, so they are currently working on the discharge papers as I write.

For today we will stay here in Cincinnati at the RMHC so we are close to the hospital in case something would hapen. We will take off tomorrow at some point and drive halfway, probably the Illinois side of St. Louis again so Robbie doesn't have to be in the car too long. This should put our return home on Thursday afternoon.

Robbie is doing great and if you didn't know you would have no clue he had major surgery yesterday, what a trooper. We are so happy to be heading home and now it is just taking care of the little guy and making sure he is comfortable. Thank you for all the prayers and support, we can definitely feel their powers here in Cincinnati.

Home & Crawling

All it took was for us to get Robbie home and he has just taken off crawling everywhere. He had been looking like he was going to crawl for quite a while, but finally figured it out and is now going everywhere. He is still doing really well after surgery and you wouldn't even know that it was Monday that he was in the O.R. for 90 minutes. We are so grateful for the great surgerical work of Dr. Levitt and his team to make a new poop hole for our little guy.

We go back out to Cincinnati on January 7th so Dr. Levitt can see him again and start to do the dialations. If everything went as Dr. Levitt planned, the most painful part of this procedure, the dialations, should be a lot easier and less painful because he was able to make the hole big enough.

It has been great being back home and starting to get into the groove of things again. We are here for a few days then head out to New Jersey and Mimi's house for Christmas.

Back In Cincinnati

We are back in Cincinnati for a follow-up appointment with Dr. Levitt today at noon. They are going to do an ultrasound first and then Dr. Levitt is going to check on his work and show us how to start the dialations. Robbie is doing great and getting into everything he is not supposed to be. He loves to pull himself up and stand around and look at everything. He has two new bottom teeth, that are as sharp as razor blades and loves to gnaw on anything.

We flew to Cincinnati this time and the flights were actually pretty good, one connection in Chicago and then a mad dash to our next flight to Cincinnati. We fly home tomorrow morning, so this trip will be short and sweet.

We come back out here in March for Dr. Levitt to reverse the colostomy and get all the poop coming out the new poophole. We were able to schedule the surgery for Monday, March 14th, which is the first day of our Spring Break. This helps us save days because the recovery for this surgery is similar to the last one, 3 to 5 days. We have both been to better locations for Spring Break, but to save 5 days and get our little boy pooping like all others will be worth it.

There will be Christmas pictures coming soon and I apologize for the lack of updates, I will be better from here forward.

Everything Went Well

Our trip to Cincinnati was short, sweet and to the point. Dr. Levitt said that everything looked great and then showed us how to do the dialations. We are able to start on a size 8 and have to work our way to a size 13, much better than the alternative of starting at size 1. Robbie was such a good traveller, everytime the plane would take off he would eat his bottle and then fall asleep.

It is nice to know we are back now for a few months before we have to head out again. We actually might get into a little routine and get our house picked up and clothes out of the suitcases.

We finally have some pictures from Christmas to share with everyone, hope you enjoy them.

New Pictures

Here are some new pictures of Robbie. He is getting so big now. He loves to eat vegetables in his new high chair and is starting to get really brave when he is standing. It won't be long before that first step is here.

Snow Days

10 inches of snow and -20 degree windchills has given us the opportunity to stay at home and spend a few quality snow days with Robbie. No practice, no games, no anything, just staying inside our warm house with our little boy. And truthfully there isn't much more that we could ask for! Wish so much in house time it to give a better update of how things have been going with Robbie. Over the past month he has really gotten to be so big. He crawls around in turbo speed when he sees something he wants, mom and dad are in a full sprint to keep him from getting into the things he shouldn't be getting into (i.e. the dogs water bowl). He constantly pulls himself up on everything. He trys to be brave occasionally and let go, however that doesn't go over to well since his balance isn't very good yet. He is starting to become a little woodchuck and eats everything he can put his mouth on. Needless to say dads cell is not nearly as nice as it used to be.
Robbie is now eating baby food a few times a day. He has liked everything we have given him with the exception of one thing..avacados. Mom was on the recieving end of that experiment and lets just say anything he had eaten prior to that come out immediately on contact. We have been giving him tons of vegetables and not fruit yet. He did get sweet potatoes the other day and really enjoyed them. I imagine if he is anything like mom he will love anything sweet.
We are working on trying to get Robbie to feed the bottle to himself. But surprisingly he likes when he fed and really isn't taking a liking doing it on his own. Milk ends up everywhere but his mouth.
During our 6th month check up (which was he was 7 1/2 months at) he was still measuring really little. He was in the 15% for weight, 50% for height, in this family that is really small. We will go back in March and get his weight checked again before we go to surgery.
So I know some of you guys are wondering how things work with both of us coaching girls basketball and where does Robbie go. Well we are more than blessed to have a awesome babysitter that is always more than willing to watch Robbie when we are running late after practice or sit a game and watch him when we both play on the same night. Unfortunately for mom Miss Michelle (the sitter) is a Blue Jay fan (dad's school) and so he goes to alot of dads games. About once a week he gets to come to a practice with mom or dad for 30 mins. Robbie loves this because of all the attention he gets from the girls, I don't think he will have a problem with the ladies when he gets older. Come the end of the week Robbie gets his fix of basketball......and girls.
That is a more detailed update on Robbie! We will try to a better job of updating, but with basketball games, practice, work, and Saree taking class it is not as easy as it was this fall. We hope everyone is staying warm and doing well.

Teeth and Grammy

Things around here have been pretty good. Not a whole lot has been going on other basketball games. Last week was a very busy week and both Mike and Saree had games 3 days. Friday night was the only day there wasn't a basketball game. Robbie has probably seen more basketball games in his short 9 months here than most have seen in their lifetime. Mom likes to think Robbie was her good luck charm as her team got their first win this season! Robbie was cheering her on and the team on the whole game. He is learning to clap and dance now so basketball games are lots of fun. (hopefully we can get some video loaded soon). This week was much less hectic with only 2 basketball games and Friday off to spend some much needed family/Grammy time. We were so glad that things weren't as busy as Robbie has been cutting his top 2 teeth. The week started off with a pretty good fever for Monday and Tuesday. Once we finally moved past the fever we went straight into runny/stuff nose. Like most kids he absolutely hates to get his nose sucked out. So needless to say we have a battle 2 or 3 times a day trying to keep his nose from being too stuffy.
On a good note we have finally quit moving up sizes in dialations. Once he doesn't fuss when we put in the dialation we will then only have to do the dialations once a day. He is almost there!! Sometimes its hard to tell if he is fussing because we have to hold his legs or because of the dialations. Either way he claps when we are done so you know he is glad it is over.
Yesterday we were able to spend sometime with Grammy at the hospital . Grammy had her surgery to remove her tumor yesterday! She is doing REALLY well and the doctors are optimistic that they got everything. Thank you to the WONDERFUL doctors that helped her out (esp. Dr. B :)).
We also celebrated Robbies 9 month birthday!!! We can't believe how big he is getting and how fast 9 months have gone. We will post pics and video as sooon as we get a chance.

Colostomy Closure

We are gearing up for our trip back to Cincinnati this Friday. We met Grammy last night in St. Joseph for dinner, so Robbie could see her one last time with his colostomy bag. The surgery is scheduled for Monday morning and we will take off Friday after school so we are there to check in Sunday morning. We are hoping that Wisconsin's basketball team can win their first round game in the Big 10 Tournament so Uncle Zach can try to get us tickets to the semi-finals in Indianapolis on Saturday afternoon. Things are going really well for Robbie right now, he is walking behind his push cart with no assistance now and is just days away from taking off on his own. We will make sure that we keep the blog updated regularly while we are in Cincinnati so everyone knows how things go.

Safe and Sound

Well we made it back to Cincinnati safe and sound. The trip was very uneventful and we are very grateful for that! Robbie is doing well. Riding in the car this trip was a little more difficult than last trip back in December only because he is becoming more mobile. Being strapped in a car seat for 5 hours at a time isn't exactly his idea of fun. We did stop a few times and let Robbie "walk" around so he could stretch his legs. We stopped just outside of St. Louis on Friday and stayed there and then finished the drive yesterday. We couldn't get into the Ronald McDonald house so we have hotel room at an Extended Stay hotel. It isn't luxury but for the small amount of time we will be spending there it will work perfectly.

We are officially checked into the hospital. We learned that when we checked into the hospital last time we really had nothing to do the day before surgery, so got a little smarter this time and accidentally showed up a little late. Needless to say we probably could have came a little later and still been ok. Suprisingly when we checked in we were put in the exact same room we had last time! We are located right next to the nurses to the nurses station which in so many ways its nice, but at night it can be a little loud. Hopefully we will have a quiet nurses this time and we won't have to worry about them being too loud!

Today they will be doing irragations in Robbies stoma. They squirt saline into his stoma and it makes him empty out. The first one went well, as we do a few more of these I am sure he will get to be a little more irratable. This beats having to do a bowl prep, which we hear isn't very pleasant.

One of the nurses from Child life just came in a put some toys on Robbies crib...he is so excited he can't decide which toy to play with. He just keeps walking back and forth from soother to soother. We are hoping he will manage to get some sleep tonight with all of these toys in his crib.

We thought we would add a few pictures 2 new ones in the room and 2 old flashback pictures from right after we brough him home from the hospital. What a sweet boy and I just can't believe that he is SO big now!

We will keep you updated tomorrow with things as surgery progresses. We aren't sure what time we are going in, but we are assuming in the morning sometime. Please keep Robbie in your prayers tonight!

Surgery Update

Robbie is out of surgery and doing good. He has a ROUGH day, but is trying to get some rest. Surgery went good with the exception of them poking him 14 times to try to get the IV in and weren't able so they had to give him a central line in his leg. For most babies that wouldn't be a big deal however with Robbie because of his bladder extrophy we don't feel it was a good decision. The IV is right in groin area and this is right where urine falls when he lays down. The entry point of a Central IV is to be a sterile area....sort of difficult to keep sterile when you constantly have urine dripping down on that area. We have STRONGLY recommended that they put a PIC line in his arm. However he will have to be put back to sleep to have that put in.....go figure. Needless to say mom is NOT happy about this and we are hopefully going to get it worked out. He also is in a quite a bit of pain. If you move his hand he wakes up and starts to cry. We are working on the the pain managment side of things right now and hoping we can play catch up and get his pain under control. I am sure sticking him 14 times with a needle and 2 incisions can't feel good.
Please continue to pray for his comfort and body fight off any infections! We will keep you guys updated with how he is progressing.

Good Night Sleep

Considering we are in a hospital room and they come in and check on Robbie every two hours, the both of us got some pretty good sleep last night. Robbie's was probably based on the morphine he was getting, but he was able to roll over on his stomach and look like he was resting peacefully. Mom was able to head back to the hotel and hopefully slept as well as Robbie. We finally have the pain under control and are starting to see our sweet little boy's personality again. There for a while he was behind on the pain medication and was pretty grouchy, which is completely understandable. So far this morning the only thing that is really bothering the two of us is his stupid monitor that beeps constantly because the leads that it is reading aren't sticking properly. You would think, with all the children that are in hospitals, that they would come up with a volume control or mute button for the rooms that they kids are trying to sleep in. We really don't know what today has in store for us, but hopefully we can start spreading out the pain medication and let Robbie, be Robbie.

Moving in the right direction

Today has been a better day. Robbie was almost back to his old self today. He was standing up, walking around the crib, charming the nurses with his smile, and of course being extremely nosey (he always has to be know what is going on everywhere). This was all mixed in with numerous naps throughout the day. We were able to give him fewer doses of Morphine today which helped contribute to his alertness. Fewer doses also means that he is starting to feel a little better. Which is so comforting to know after the long day we had yesterday. The nurse suggested that we take him off the morphine and try a different pain medicine that would keep him from feeling so groggy and have fewer side effects. So the last dose of pain medicine we gave him was the new medicine and it seems to be working well. We are hoping that getting him off the morphine will help wake his bowels up. He hasn't had any gas or bowel movement yet, so we are optimistic that changing this medicine will help speed that up. Dr. Levitt thought that it might take a little longer for him to have a bowel movement because the area of colon that he reconnected was fairly narrow and since having surgery will cause that area swell it would restrict most of anything that might come through. He thinks once the swelling goes down his bowls will pick up. We are hoping that happens soon, since our sweet boy hasn't had anything to eat since Midnight on Sunday. Not to mention the sooner his bowels move that sooner we get to go home, but that is the least of our concerns at this time.
This evening Robbie was awake for about 4 hours (with the exception of a 20 min cat nap) we were able to walk him around the floor and Skype with his Uncle Nate and Uncle J and Aunt Stac. He was so happy to see his family! While we were walking we also met another family from Kansas City that is here. They have been here for a few months and are getting discharged tomorrow. The girl is in her teens and gave Robbie a picture she painted of a Jayhawk to decorate our room with. Robbie was so grateful to have a color picture up.
While were are walking around the wing today we realized that we have one of the smallest rooms on the floor. We were so bummed when walked past rooms that had a pull out Loveseat that was the size of a double bed. We currently have a chair that pulls out into a single bed. This means that both mom and dad can't stay at the hospital at night. So we are taking turns and one of us is going to the hotel room at night and the other is staying here. We asked if it would be possible for us to switch rooms, but of course they don't have any available, so we will just have to deal with our situation. We are hoping we will be able to get into the Ronald McDonald house at some point, but we weren't able to get all the paper work completed until today so we are doubtful that it is going to happen.
Overall today was a good day and seeing our Little boy smiling again has given us a lot of comfort. We pray that tomorrow is even better than today and that we start smelling that stinky butt tomorrow...:)
Thanks again for all the prayers and support!

Poopy Diapers Are Here

Yesterday was a good day for us, as Robbie had his first official dirty diaper. Dr. Levitt came in to the room around 1:00 p.m. to check in and Robbie was sleeping. About 10 minutes later he woke up and we started changing his diaper, not even expecting anything to be in there, but to our surprise we had a little present. He has since had poop in each diaper that we have changed and today is starting drink clear liquids. Hopefully by tonight he will be able to have some milk and then get off the IV.
We had another really rough night last night. He is having some anxiety about his bed now and the second we put him in there he starts to cry and won't get comfortable. I finally got him to sleep a couple times last night, only to have the nurses come in and wake him up. We were up, wathching TV, from about 2:15-6:15 a.m. Don't know if there is enough coffee in this hospital to keep me up for the NCAA Tourney today.
We still don't have day when we are getting out of here, but the poop in the diaper definitely speeds up the process. Robbie is not on much pain medicine now, so once the IV is out he will be able to cruise all over and start to get back to a normal day.

We're Home

After five days in the hospital, they finally let us out on Friday around noon. Robbie is doing great and it is really weird changing a dirty diaper and not worrying about a colostomy bag. He is such a tough little customer, just cruising around like he didn't have anything done to him a week ago. On Friday, after he got out, we were able to head over to the world famous Cincinnati Zoo. As we walked up we saw that the zoo closed at 5:00 p.m., which gave us an hour, and it started dumping rain. After a 15 minute delay in the Zoo Store, we headed out and were able to see some really neat animals. Robbie would get so excited when he would see each animal, espeically the wolves, gorillas, lions and polar bears. Because of the short time on Friday, we made sure we went back Saturday morning before we headed out. The pictures above are from Saturday. Even though it was a little cooler, Robbie had a great time and really seemed to enjoy all the animals.

After the zoo, we cleaned up our room at the Ronald McDonald House and got on the road about 1:30 p.m. We were able to drive to the west side of St. Louis on Saturday and Robbie was great in the backseat. We then drove the rest of the way in on Sunday and were able to get back around 2:00 p.m. We took a nice long walk with Robbie in his wagon and went to the grocery store. We are now trying to get back into our routine and hope that we can have a few months of normalcy before we head out to Baltimore and Johns Hopkins to see about Robbie's bladder. Thank you for all the prayers and support during this past surgery, it really helps us out a great deal.

Trying To Get Into A Routine

We have been back now for a week and we are still trying to get Robbie back into his normal routine. He is great during the day, but has really struggled sleeping at night. It might have something to do with the fact he gets really uncomfortable when he has a load in his diaper, which is understandable. He also didn't get good sleep for the week that he was in the hospital and had to be held a lot, so we are trying to get him back to sleeping on his own.

Other than the lack of sleep, he is doing really well. The poopy diapers aren't near as bad as I thought they would be and it is really nice to not worry about his bag anymore. He loves being at daycare to play with all of his friends. He is just a go-getter at home, walking behind his walker and playing all over the house. On Sunday, Grammy and Uncle Rog came to the house so he was able to play with them. On Saturday we met Grandpa, Nana, Boston and Caroline at Jason's Deli for lunch. He loves seeing all his family and loves all the attention that they give him.

We are hoping to have a relaxed week this week, just hanging out with the family and enjoying some time at home. We had our basketball banquet last night and Marty, the phototgrapher, weas able to snap a few pictures of us. Robbie loves being around all the girls on the team and is such a little flirt. He also loved when everyone would clap so he could join in with them.

Update From KC

Usually if it has been a few weeks between posts we are travelling or in another part of the country, not this time. We have been home for the past 3 weeks and have loved every minute of it. Robbie is doing great and will be walking here soon. He now takes his walker and slams it around and bounces it but will not take a step without it. We have not had to give him any laxative yet, which is good. Dr. Levitt said between 5 days and 3 weeks after surgery he will become very constipated and need to get on a laxative. So far we are 4 weeks out and no signs of slowing down yet.

We spent this past weekend watching a lot of our players at various events. Friday night we went down to Shawnee Mission, KS to watch one of my players in an All-Star Basketball Game. Uncle Rog was at the game and that is where these pictures were taken. The gym was very hot but thankfully they had really big baselines so Robbie could move around. Saturday we watch the Liberty soccer team win a big tournament championship in Lee's Summit then headed to Independence to watch some of Saree's softball girls play in a tournament. The weather was perfect and Robbie loved being outside.

We did find out Saturday that Robbie is alergic to grass though. We were playing on a soccer field and his nose starting running uncontrolably and his eyes were watering up. If anyone knows how to take care of these allergies just let us know. Other than that not much has been going on, just trying to finally get the house organized and start some projects.

Beautiful Weather and New Ride

The last few days of weather have been absolutely perfect and we have taken advantage of them with our new jogging stroller from Aunt Janell. This thing is sweet, with speaker for an iPod and big bike tires to go over all terrains. We have actually jogged behind it yet, but Robbie loves the smooth ride and the soothing tunes. We alternate between the jogger and his Radio Flyer wagon from Mimi. He just kicks back and relaxes the entire trip, eating crackers and drinking from his water bottle.

Easter

I know this is a little late, but wanted to update everyone on Robbie's 1st Easter. We were very lucky to be able to spend that time with Mimi, as she flew in on Thursday and stayed until Tuesday. Easter Sunday was a nice day for the family, we went to church, then to a nice lunch and then were able to snap a lot of pictures of Robbie. I hope that you guys enjoy these pictures as much as we do. The little guy is getting so big and if he wasn't such a wimp, should be walking by now. Instead, he just scales the walls or uses his walking car to get anywhere he needs to get to.