On the Homefront

Life with Brendan at home is wonderful! Big sister Rory has been great about keeping us updated as to whether Brendan is "sleeping" or "woke up!". She has also been able to involve him in dress up and playing cooking...poor kid doesn't stand a chance with her! She also can't understand why he can't "get up and walk" or "do bubbles", but we think she'll give him about another week to figure those things out!

Brendan is feeding a lot better, but still not exactly where the doctors want him to be, so we have weekly trips to the doctor for weight checks, and at last weigh in yesterday he was 9lbs, 15ozs...sounded good to us!

We are looking forward to having our family under one roof for Christmas, and we hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas too! We can't thank you all enough for all of your prayers, phone calls, emails and postings on the blogs. I wish we had all the time in world to respond to each and every one of you, but please know that we are so thankful to you from the bottom of our hearts!

Picture Perfect

Our Little Champ!

Well it didn't take long at all..Brendan has figured out the bottle all by himself! All day today he took his feeds by bottle, no need to use the feeding tube! It's been a long few days for Bryan and I, as we've been at every feeding (which doesn't sound bad, but it's different when you have to get up, dressed, get in the car, etc) but he's done such an incredible job! We are keeping our fingers crossed that Friday morning they will take the feeding tube out his nose! We'll keep you posted!

Manga!

Brendan is doing pretty well on his bottle feeding, he's taking about an ounce and a half 3 times a day. Poor thing just gets tired easily, so it's harder for him to eat a lot. He does burp like a champ though! It's taken a little getting used to feeding him too. We had to start by feeding him while he was in his crib so that he wouldn't get too comfortable and fall asleep, tough I know! That's where all our focus is these days is getting those feedings going, and by the looks of him, he enjoys eating too much to not figure it out quickly!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 1 month birthday Brendan!

Bryan and I said today how it's hard to believe that he's just one month old, sometimes it seems like he's been here for so much longer! Our little fighting Irishman has been through so much, and lately it's been all good news!! Brendan is finally off all of his oxygen and his holding his numbers well. He's still struggling a little bit with his bottle feeding, but he'll be getting a visit from a speech therapist tomorrow, and hopefully she will be able to give all of us a little help!

One month down and a whole lifetime ahead of him to continue to amaze us all!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well, to add a little normalcy to our lives, we went and got our Christmas tree today. Rory of course scouted out every single one until the perfect one was found! I'm also posting this because when Rory gets older I would hate for her to go to therapy and talk about a web site that we had just for Brendan! So our tree is now up and decorated!

As for our "Mr. Man", as we call him, he was offered his first bottle yesterday. He took a half of an ounce, which may not seem like much, but it's huge for him! He continues to work on it, and we'll keep you posted, as always!

Are you ready for some football???

Brendan, as you can see, is resting up for the big game tonight, as he will be starting on the offensive line!

Brendan continues to get better each day. The big thing on his list of things to accomplish is to begin bottle feeding. Since he is almost a month old and has never had a bottle, it will take him some time to figure it out. As I told the nurses, well he's a boy so I'm sure as soon as he figures out that he's going to have to figure out the bottle in order to eat he'll have it mastered in no time!

Back to where he started

Today Brendan had his second ambulance ride, which went far better than the first one! Brendan is now back a Wilford Hall on Lackland Air Force Base, which is the original hospital that he was at. He is making incredible progress and impressing everyone, especially his doctors!

For the past 2 days he has been awake and alert for the greater part of the day. He turns his head when he hears our voices and he loves to stare at some black and white cards that one of his nurses hung over his crib.

When we left him tonight he was sound asleep, and we were waiting for him to start snoring!!