Forgot something!!

Guess I could've given you a weight and height update, huh?!?!


Ready...?     His weight is up to 21lbs 9oz and he is 31.25in tall!!!   He's growing out of 12mth clothing and into 18mth clothing.  Carter's here I come!! LOL  I LOVE there clothes!! I seriously could blow a large sum of money in there in one day!  And I would never hear the end of it from the hubby bc Tripp would have clothes and we wouldn't...hahahahah...

Appt updates.. several..

Things have been pretty hectic in the Johnson household as of late.  Since Tripp started walking about 2 months ago we have been chasing him nonstop! :o)  He's also had several appointments as well.. so I'm just going to list them out.

- Orthopedics:  We took him to see Dr. Mazur at Nemours for a 6 mth follow up with new xrays of his spine.  The first set didn't look too hot because they took them with Tripp laying down, which is how we normally do it. Once Dr. Mazur came in and saw that Tripp was walking, we had to do a new series with him standing up.  These came back and looked much much better! There was hardly any curve where the misformed vertebra were.  While Tripp has been growing bigger so have the vertebra and we got a new diagnosis for him. Instead of having "hemivetbra", basically the vertebra are broken halves that grow independent of each other and have a good chance requiring surgery, Tripp has "butterfly vertbra".  Butterfly vertrebra are completely intact but basically look like a butterfly and these almost never require surgery!  How awesome is that?! But if for some reason Tripp's did cause a curvature in his back, surgery is the only option because of the location of the misformed verterbrae.  They are in the upper thoracic are of his spine.  We are going back in March to meet with a spinal surgeon to get established so he can monitor Tripp's spine as he grows to make sure his spinal chord isn't being pinched.  

-Opthamology:  At the beginning of January, Josh took Tripp for an eye exam. Much to our surprise, Tripp is still very far sighted.  His eyes had improved some but not enough.  Dr. Khuddus didn't want to put him in glasses again because he refuses to wear them. So we are going to wait a year, take him back next January for another exam and go from there. 

-ENT:  Tripp has been battling ear infections since the Fall, so he is getting tubes in his ears this coming Monday, Feb. 6th.  We'll follow up with the doctor a month later for a hearing test.  I'm hoping he'll start trying to say more words once he gets all of the fluid out of his ears.  He has a very limited vocabulary right now. Momma, Dad, Ba (bottle or ball), no, mine, stop, bye bye... I think that's about it.  And we talk and read to him alllllll the time. I have a feeling speech therapy will be in our future! :o)

-Ped Surgery:  This was a bittersweet appointment for me.  We took Tripp in for a 6 mth follow up for his esophageal atresia.  Since he has been doing so well and having no choking issues from a stricture in the scar tissue of his esophagus, Dr. Islam discharged us from the clinic!  This is really really great! But made me kind of sad because Dr. Islam has been his doctor since he was 3 weeks old.  He placed Tripp's g-tube at 3 weeks so he could get my breastmilk and thrive.  He fixed my baby's broken esophagus so that he could live a happy normal lifestyle!! And when Tripp had complications from the surgery, he's the one who would go by to check on him multiple times during the day and call in the middle of night to check on him.  I'll never be able to thank him enough for what he did for my son!  I looked forward to our visits with him so he could see how much progress Tripp was making!   I was also very sad because his fellow, Dr Dickey had moved away because she completed her fellowship.  She was actually the first person we met on the surgical team and we loved her too!  Dr. Islam was kind enough to take a picture of Tripp and text it to her! I hope it brightened her day! :o)

On the therapy forefront, we have our annual IFSP review coming up to see if Tripp still qualifies for his therapies.  I'm pretty sure he does b/c he's on a 12-14 mth level for most things.  His therapist did her review last week to get ready for it and there were a few things Tripp hadn't started doing yet.. Like, standing up without pulling up on something, crouching down to pick up toy and standing up without falling over, walking backwards..    Well, apparently Mr. Man heard the laundry list of things he wasn't doing and started doing all of them about 2 days later.. LOL  Unfortunately, she can't change her evaluation but she can add some additional notes to it. :o)

So, that's pretty much it..  I'll let y'all know how our ear tube adventure goes! :o)

Crainialfacial Annual Appt

Today was Tripp's annual appointment at the Crainialfacial Clinic and it went surprisingly well. I was nervous about how he would respond to 8 teams of dr's coming in to look at him and check his mouth out but he handled it like a rockstar! He fell asleep about 30 minutes after we got there, so he slept through 3 of the teams. And only the dentist looked in his mouth this time so I was nervous for nothing. :)  All of the dr's were very pleased with his progress. Developmentally for speech, he is at 12-14mth level which is right on track for his adjusted age.

Something interesting we found out is the Genetecist we saw back in February stated in his assessment that he would not classify Tripp as having VACTERL or VATER. The reason being that these associations typically involve renal and anal abnormalities and Tripp has neither of those! He also says the cause for Tripp's problems are unknown. So whatever the reason, God blessed us with unique fearless stubborn little boy who we wouldn't trade for the world!! :)

Fall Family Fun Day 2011

This past Saturday, we took Tripp to Roger's Farm in Alachua, FL.. Every Fall they set up a pumpkin match with a mini-carnival and corn mazes. With winter just around the corner, this is probably one of last outings together as a family until the spring. Enjoy the pictures :)

The boy hates sitting on grass, dirt and apparently hay..

He LOVED the pony ride!!

He was tired of pictures at this point..lol

August 2nd

Check out our ticker there to the right.. do you see it?  Adjusted age: 1 year, 2 days!  So I'm a little late, but Tuesday was my actual due date and the day Tripp should have at least been born near.  Surprisingly, this date didn't upset me this year.  I think I had more mixed feeling on his birthday than I did my due date.  Plus, with everything going on I haven't had much time to think about it. God takes care of us, even when we don't realize it. I'm so thankful for this precious miracle He blessed us with.  And my heart aches for those precious angels we met in the NICU that didn't make it home.. and also those I've never actually met, but know their stories.  Whenever I think about them, I hold Tripp a little longer and closer and say a quick prayer for those Momma's who will never get to have that.  I can't imagine the hole that must leave in your heart.  I don't know how I got to that  from where this post started, but its just something I wanted to say.  

He's a picture of our big boy!

Playing in cousin Kolby's Fire Truck :)

Time flies when you're having fun!

Tripp has been doing lots of new things lately! Its been really exciting! 

• He is eating more table foods.. He LOVES Nilla Wafers!
• Making a little progress with sippy cups!
• He started sitting up on his own last Thursday and started really crawling on Sunday. Not his goofy army crawl, but real honest to goodness crawling!!
• Playing peek-a-boo, covering his face himself!

I know I said "lots" and there's only 4 things on the list, but in the preemie world 4 is alot especially when there are major milestones involved.  :o)

We've also been really busy pretty much every weekend.. My dad visited the weekend before last, last weekend we made a day trip up to Savannah for our niece, Cloie's 1st birthday (she's Tripp's Birthday buddy, I'll explain), Monday he had minor outpatient surgery to close his g-tube hole, and this weekend we have the NICU Reunion at Shands UF in the afternoon, then a friend's wedding that evening.

The trip to Savannah went really well.. It was great to see Josh's brother and his family.  Although Tripp wasn't acting like himself that day. Normally when he's around kids, he wants to get down to be in the middle of everything and check the kids out.  But Saturday, he was being really clingy and anti-social. Only thing I could figure is his teeth must hsve been bothering him.  

The surgery on Monday went great!  He had no problems while under general anesthesia and his pain has been pretty minimal.  Dr. Islam and Dr. Shaw did an amazing job on the incision! We think its going to look much better once it heals than it would've prior to surgery. Everything, happens for a reason, right?!

I'm so stinkin' excited for our NICU's Reunion on Saturday.  I cannot wait to see the nurses and moms we met during our stay and also those whom either came before or after us.  Once we got home, I honestly did not EVER want to go back.  But now that I've gotten over the roller coaster ride, I miss our family at our home away from home terribly!  The nurses and doctors were so amazing and patient with us! At one point, I think we were one of the noisiest families in there.. we loved cutting up with the nurses and having a good laugh.  That's one thing I'm proud of us for.  We were able to see the light at the end of our tunnel and make jokes to keep our moods light.   Not that we didn't have down days, b/c there were plenty of those too.  But I feel like we tried to keep ourselves positive, especially when were there with Tripp.  No matter what our mood was though, the nurses and dr's were always empathetic, compassionate and understanding.  

Ok, so about Cloie being Tripp's Birthday buddy.  There are two pairs of cousins whose birthdays are just a few weeks apart in the Johnson family.  The oldest two, Jacob Jr and Skyler were born a month apart, they're 4 years old.  The middle child, Joanna, is all by herself..and she's 3.  Then Cloie and Tripp were supposed to be a month apart.  Tripp decided he wanted to be the oldest I guess, because he came 6 weeks before her instead of 4 weeks after her.  But she's made up for it, because she has the advantage since she baked longer and has 2 older siblings.. that li'l booger is walking all over the place.. and has the funniest expressions.. She'll give you the "F-you" face and not think twice about it.   I can't wait to see them get bigger and play together. I think these two are going to give the older kids a run for their money! ;o)

Tub Time :o)

I realized recently that I haven't been taking many pictures of Tripp unless its on my iphone. So tonight I pulled out the actual camera. :o)