July Adventures

If you've wondered at the reason for the lack of blog posts recently, it is due to the fact that June has been a fairly boring month in the lives of the Whittingtons. Well, aside from Jackson's latest pattern of not wanting to sleep for 3 days, then catching up the next 2... I really have no idea why this is his new thing. He'll barely sleep for a few days in a row, then because he has exhausted himself, he takes the next couple days to catch up. Let's just say he slept two 10 hour nights following our last sleepless episode. Then he's back to not sleeping again.

We have, however, had the opportunity to house sit for some of our friends recently which has been nice. First for the Allshouses, now the Caldwells. We're leaving here today to pack up for the weekend. We'll be heading down to Seal Beach for the 4th and my cousin's wedding on the 5th. Then on the 10th, Jackson and I fly out to Austin to visit Daniel's family. Daniel will meet up with us following his work trip to Orlando on the 18th, and we'll fly home together on the 27th. Jackson has his craniofacial team appointment July 31st at CHLA. So it's looking like July will most likely be a more eventful month!

Just to give you a glimpse of the cuteness that's in store for us in Austin:


Hair Had a Party Dance from Sarah Combs on Vimeo.



Taylor Sitting Up from Sarah Combs on Vimeo.

Jackson can't wait to play with his cousins!

5 Months Old

Where has the time gone?! Oh wait... I know EXACTLY where the time has gone. NICU to home, dirty diapers and spit up, tube feeding (still doing that, by the way) to new bottles (tried every one ever made), train rides and car trips (CHLA), surgery to recovery, acid reflux and ear infections... our lives have been very full since Jackson entered this world. Yet, in all of its glory, he is our son and we love him to pieces.

Jackson is healing really well from his lip surgery. He looks better every day. We are very happy that this season is coming to end. His recovery has been a long, grueling process.

We have also started sensory integration therapy and we believe in it! Having been born 6 weeks early, Jackson is very sensitive and very easily over-stimulated. This makes it hard to take him anywhere! New places, faces, sounds and smells throw him off. We're making progress slowly but surely. With our new brushing program, Jackson is able to relax a bit more, and enjoy his surroundings. This makes life much more bearable for us, as we enjoy being out and about, especially now that summer's here.

This past week Jackson has done a 180. We feel like we have a new kid. He smiles more, LOVES his new swing (our sanity at the moment), sleeps 7 hours a night (at least for the past few nights), and has found his voice! Oh yes, he has definitely found his voice. I personally think he takes after his Dad - the kid has lungs! It's actually quite funny.

I'll leave you with a few recent pics of Jackson, now weighing in at 13 lbs. 15 oz. and measuring 25 inches. For now he's pretty long and narrow - we'll see what genes he ends up with!

3 Weeks Post-Op

We're getting thru, day by day. It's all we can do some days to survive. Jackson is currently recovering from an ear infection - babies with cleft palate are more susceptible to them. We just keep reminding ourselves that some day life will be different.

Here are a few current pics of our boy 3 weeks post-op:


He loves blankets...


So much, sometimes, that he gets himself all wrapped up in them.

First Mother's Day

Mother's Day. For as long as I can remember, I have longed for the day when I would be able to call myself a mother. This Mother's Day, however, held a mix of emotions for me.

Having spent part of Friday and most of Saturday in the hospital with Jackson, I wasn't quite sure what Sunday would hold for us. I was pleasantly surprised when we found out we would be able to take our sweet boy home with us on Saturday evening. We'd be home for Mother's Day.

We woke up early as usual on Sunday morning (sleeping in no longer exists with a baby), got Jackson fed, and made sure to give him his pain meds as we did not want to end up where we were the night before. Daniel was eager for me to open my gifts; one from Jackson and one from him. Jackson bought me a gift (pretty talented lil guy considering he was in the hospital the previous couple days)! I made sure Daniel brought me my coffee prior to opening gifts - I wanted to be awake for the event.

Here's what I found inside:

Yes, you see correctly. A John Deere Salt and Pepper Set. How do you tell them apart? For one, the salt always has more holes, plus the tractor with the black steering wheel... definitely the pepper! Daniel made sure that I received my first 'useless' Mother's Day gift - you know those gifts we kids think are perfectly brilliant but really have no practical use. Daniel tells the story of how his mom once gave his grandmother a spaghetti fork - a perfect illustration.

Later on that day, I got a card from Jackson. I have a very talented 4 month old - he can write (although a bit sloppy) and spell fairly well too!

So if you happen to visit our house in the not-too-distant-future, you might just find on our table a perfectly placed set of salt and pepper shakers along with one of the cutest little boys in the world.

What A Week!

This week threw us some interesting twists. Jackson, having just gone through major surgery, started out the week fairly lethargic. The doctors had prescribed Tylenol with Codeine every 6 hours which we initially followed religiously. However, Tuesday night, following his regular dose, Jackson was not falling asleep. In fact, he was awake most of the night, only sleeping in 15 minute increments. We had heard that codeine can have this opposite effect thus we decided to switch Jackson to straight Tylenol starting Wednesday morning.

Well, Wednesday started us on a downhill rollercoaster quickly headed for Disasterville. The days got progressively worse, climaxing on Friday where Jackson cried for 5 hours straight and the end to his tears were not in sight. At the five hour mark, I decided to put him in the car and take a drive (the car tends to rock Jackson to sleep). Not knowing where to go, or how long we would be in the car, I started to drive down Los Osos Valley Road toward San Luis Obispo... still not knowing where I'd end up. The tears were not letting up.

I was almost to SLO when the phone rang. Daniel had called Dr. Bravo's office - Dr. Bravo would see Jackson at 3:00pm (although he was supposed to be out of the country). Love him! I killed a bit of time at Daniel's work prior to heading down the street to try to figure out what was going wrong.

We arrived at Dr. Bravo's office. Jackson cried on the way in, in the waiting room, and in the room while we waited. Having seen Jackson that previous Monday, we found out that Jackson had lost 10 ounces... Not a good sign.

Long story short - we ended up admitting Jackson into Sierra Vista overnight. After running a bunch of tests, the doctor was pretty sure that the Tylenol and Tylenol with Codeine weren't cutting it. Poor baby was in pain. Crazy pain. How did we find this out? After a dose of Toradol and a couple doses of Morphine, our baby's disposition changed for the better. Sheesh.

We checked out of the hospital at 7:00pm Saturday, just in time for our friend's 30th birthday extravaganza and my first Mother's Day. More to come...

1000 Yard Stare

Our lovely (& a bit drugged up) baby:


Dazed Jackson (after surgery) from Halle Whittington on Vimeo.

Post Surgery

Here is a pic of Jackson right before we got in the car to head to LA.
One last shot of our wide smile boy with no face gear on:


The trip down to the hotel was great. We made it into LA with minimal traffic and were able to get a bit of sleep before having to be at the hospital at 6am on Thursday morning.

We spent an hour getting Jackson checked out and answering pre-op questions, and then sat with him waiting for the surgical team to show up.




5 hours later, we had our boy back and in recovery. Lip and nose fully repaired and ear tubes put in place. However.... it didn't exactly look like our boy anymore. Totally crazy.





Say hello to the new Jackson. He comes complete with arm braces, and movable limbs!




He was awesome on the ride home. He has slept almost constantly since he got out of surgery and is drugged up most of time. He breathes about 100 decibels quieter and is really mellow right now. It's taking a bit of getting used to, but hopefully he'll be getting off the medication soon, and then we'll have our boy back!