Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Parker is 2!!!

Can you believe it, Parker is 2, today. So we thought we should share some Then and Now.

A Few Months Old




Two Years Old





My, how far we have come. Can't wait to see Then and Now in 10 years if this is what we have in 2.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Finally Updating!!

Well life has been a little crazy and I started to think that I should really get back into the blog and updating everyone on the fam. Lately, everything has been going fairly well, except that all three of us have been sick for 3-4 weeks with a cold that we can't seem to shake. We are hoping to get over this bug soon.

Parker's stats:

18 Months and counting
17 lbs
Almost walking
Eating all solid food
Loves Chinese and Pasta
Loves Music and dancing
Loves Books

So what has happened since my last post. Well, lots of stuff. Erik turned 31 and I turned the big 30 and most of all, Parker turned 1. We had a great birthday party for him at the park with some of his friends (and our's too). We also had a party in Georgia with Parker's great-grandmother, great-great aunt and the rest of the Redden/Crawford clan.

Halloween was a blast and Parker went as an Astronaut. Thanksgiving was fun as well and we had a great time at Christmas.

Parker has been attending daycare and loves it. He is one of eleven boys. He has a blast and they love him there. We were so lucky to have found such a great place to take him.

Work for everyone is as usual, stressful but good. Erik's company Outdoor Spaces LLC is going strong and while being self employed offers new challenges, overall he loves it. I am still working for CLARB and traveling but really enjoy it.

What else....New picture's below and I will try and get back into this. Hope everyone is doing well. Keep you posted.







Friday, May 14, 2010

Growing Boy!

Well, Parker had two appointments this week. One was with his pediatrician. He is now 12 lbs and growing. He is still in the 5th percentile for weight, but "wait for it", he has advance to the 25th percentile for length (who knew). Grow baby, grow.

The doctor wants to hold off for about another month before we introduce solids so that was disappointing because we were so excited to get to start feeding him other stuff besides milk and formula. I probably have about another 2 weeks worth of frozen milk and then we will have to be on formula only (big bummer). I will say that the doctor thinks he is doing great and thriving.

The second appointment was back at the hospital with the Follow Along Clinic. This is in the Rehabilitation department. The did a few tests, with pictures, bells, rings, and people to see how Parker responded. As well as some tummy time and strength tests. According to the doctor, he is doing great. I think that this appointment was more of a benchmark and he will go back in 6 months and they will see how much he has developed since this appointment. The doctor did mention that we should not let Parker watch television, as preemie's have a higher risk of ADHD and television can cause that to develop even more. She said that not allowing television until the age of 2 has shown to reduce the risk of ADHD.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Back to Work!

Well, my maternity leave is now over and I am back at work full time. I have to say, the 3 months of not going into my office really spoiled me and this traffic is now even more annoying then it was before but I have to say that I don't really mind being back. I truly believe that it takes a special woman to be a stay at home mom and I know that I am not cut out for it. I believe that for me, it is quality time with Parker not quantity.

Well this is my second full week back and things seem to be running smoothly. Both my mother and Erik's mom have agreed to help us out for the next 12 weeks with child care by alternating weeks and coming to stay with us to take care of Parker during the day. We are on the second week of this routine and it is working perfectly. We are just so happy to be able to have Parker stay with family for a little longer before we have a stranger take care of him.

Parker has turned out to be an amazingly great baby. He is already going to bed around 10pm and sleeping until around 8am so that has been wonderful. He is a great eater, happy, laughs and smiles all the time and as we watch him, we just know that he will be rolling over on us sometime really soon. His personality is already so developed that it is scary. You can definitely tell when he is giving you the "Don't bother me look" and the "What do you think your doing" look. He also says "I love you", "Your funny" and "Please Don't" with just his facial expressions. He loves bath time TV time, story time and of course MUSIC.

We are having the best time getting to know him more and more each day. We can't wait for everyone to get to meet him and of course, based on my previous pictures, he will definitely be a Mountaineer fan.

God Bless.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

We know it has been a long time so we thought we would make a quick post. Here are some photos from the past few months. Everything is going really well. Parker is now six months old and doing awesome. He is over 10 lbs and 23 inches long. Growing rapidly. I am back at work and Erik's business is off to a great start this year. Hope all is well with everyone of you. Take Care. God Bless.


































Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Homecoming!

Well, I know that is has been forever since we have updated but here it is. Parker came home on December 21st just in time for Christmas. It was wonderful. Erik's parents were able to come over from West Virginia and spend the holiday with us. After Christmas, Uncle Tim and Aunt Kate stopped by to meet Parker as well before they left to go back to Turkey. We really enjoyed having all of them come.

We have been to see Parker's pediatrician and ophthalmologist a few times so far. The eye surgery for his ROP that took place right before he left the hospital went really well. His eyes are healing great and now we will continue to just follow his eyes with the ophthalmologist. The pediatrician is perfect. He seems to know preemies really well and is working out great for us. Erik and I really like all of the doctors that Parker has had so far. The major thing we have to get used to is adjusting Parker's age. With premature babies, they take Parker's actual age and calculate what they call an adjusted age to use as a guide for his development. For Parker, he is actually almost 5 months old, however, for medical and developmental purposes, his adjusted age is 1 month old. To calculate Parker's adjusted age, they take his actual age and subtract the number of weeks he was born early, which would be 15 weeks and 2 days.

For a couple of weeks Erik and I were just able to be alone and spend some time with Parker which was wonderful. We then took him on his first trip to the ski house which went really well. He tolerated the car ride very well and seemed to transition just fine.

On Martin Luther King weekend my parents were able to come up and see their grand baby too. We had a wonderful time. We went out a couple of times, took Parker and Erik to Fort Belvoir and just hung around. It was a wonderful weekend.

Since Parker came home Erik and I have been adjusting to his changing sleeping patterns. Some nights he does wonderfully, others, like last night, not so much. We have been told that in a couple of months, when he is roughly 3 months old, we can start trying to set up a sleep pattern but at this point he is still too young to not pick him up when he needs it.

Our next visitors are Uncle Ben and Aunt Vikki coming this weekend. We can not wait to have them. Then President's day weekend Uncle Scott and Aunt Danielle will come to visit also. Then we are hoping to have Uncle Trent and Aunt Jennifer come sometime in March.

Having Parker home has been a big adjustment but has been amazing. I will post some photos soon. I will try to get back into a regular schedule of updates. Hope everyone is doing well.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Short Update - Lot's of Changes

There are some great changes in the world of Parker, so here they are.

1) They took Parker off the CPAP machine and put him on the nasal canula. He is at a flow of 1 (which is great) and his oxygen is set to 21% (which is room air, what we all breathe) which is awesome.

2) They have moved his feeding tube from his small intestines to his stomach and he is handling that perfectly.

3) They have now started to compress his feeds. Currently, he is being feed through his tube for 2 hours and the he goes 1 hour with out food. This is to introduce the feeling of hunger and full so that he can tell Erik and I in the future when he is ready to eat. He is doing great with this also.

4) He now weighs 1710 grams which is a little over 3 lbs. 12 ounces.

5) Hopefully soon they will be able to introduce a bottle for feeding so that he can learn to actually eat on his own and soon they will start his vaccines that full term babies normally get.

6) He had another eye exam on Tuesday, which he hates but the nurses say he tolerates better the most babies do. He still has a level two ROP but at this point they are just going to watch him. They have said he may need Laser eye surgery but that the ROP could still resolve on it's own as well.

Even with everything that is going on he is doing great. We appreciate all the prayers and support. Please keep them coming. All of our nurses know of our great support group and of our Christianity since we talk of it. With that in mind, our nurse Megan informed us that another family (they are not allowed to give names), lost one of their twins on Monday. She asked if Erik and I and our group could prayer for them and I of told her absolutely.

Love to All.