Family photos

Here is the family photos. I think they came out great, the photographer was amazing and worked so well with Jacksen!
You may be wondering why it says Verizon Wireless on it. They keep the building where Josh works pretty top secret, no one gets in without a badge and there's not much opportunity for Jacksen to see where his daddy works. So once a year they do a "winter wonderland" where family is invited and they do a carnival kinda thing. Jacksen had lots of fun, of course after he freaked out about all the strange people coming up needing to meet him. You may notice a strange blue and red blob in the pic. They had a really amazing balloon guy who could make anything. So of course we had to have him make a Cookie monster and Elmo balloon. It was the highlight of the evening. And yes Josh is eating Jacksens head in the last picture.

I think you'll agree...

He's the cutest little monster you ever did see!

Talking

Over the past few weeks, Jack's vocabulary has exploded! He says tons of new words: "Cookie" (Cookie Monster is his favorite Sesame Street character & this years Halloween costume), "Elmo" (sounds like "Mehlmo"), "Car," "Spongebob" (sorta), "More" & "Please" (he signs these as well), "Shhh," "No," "book," and so many more. But for the past week, his absolute favorite has been "Uh-Oh" which he probably says 50 times a day! Jacksen also recognizes many objects: He will say and point to his ears, nose, eyes and hair if you ask him to. In some of his favorite books, he can point to a rubber ducky, the sun, bananas and other foods, and some other objects too. He also points to and says "Stars" and "Moon" when we go for night walks. He is progressing so much with his speech and we think he will soon be starting to say full phrases. We are really proud of our little guy.

Fall 2009

Dad here, I have never posted one of these things. But it appears the Jacksen Kyle blog has been getting neglected recently, so I figured I'd try to get things going again. Jacksen has been making slow progress with his eating with the support of Mealtime Connections, a feeding therapy group in Tucson that we have been taking him to over the past few months. He will most likely be progressing to a more intensive clinic with this group within the next month as well as going through a clinic evaluation with Phoenix Children's Hospital. We hope to see some more major improvements from those in the near future. However, even with the medical support, I know that Jack would not be where he is today without his amazing mother. Jessika is the most dedicated, loving, selfless and patient mother that I have ever known. Everyday I am in awe of how committed she is to working through the difficult challenges of feeding him on top of the normal "mommy" stuff (diaper changes, teaching him new things, keeping him entertained). She never appears to give in to the stress and frustration that I do when I cannot get Jacksen to eat "normally." I regret that I take for granted sometimes how lucky I am to not only be blessed with such a wonderful little boy, but also a strong woman like Jess to devote everything to raising him and strengthening our family always. I am so grateful for what I have.

That time again

Time for another endoscopy. Jacksen has to go in tomorrow to get scoped again. On his last scope his eosinophilic count came back high, so we're hoping the restricted diet he's been on will have brought his eos count back down. Which means nothing to most people but what it could mean is that if the count is normal we can start adding in some foods that he couldn't have before. I'm pretty optimistic, I don't know why I just have a feeling his biopsy will be normal. If it's not of course that could be a whole other story. A diagnosis that we have been hoping for a long time we would never be given, but no reason to go down that road before we even get the results. The endoscopy is not a very scary procedure other than him needing anesthesia. Not a huge deal but there's always some fear when my little guy goes under. Especially with my families history of not responding well to anesthesia. The saddest thing is when I have to lay him down in the surgery room. They usually let me stay with him until he falls asleep but the muffled and fading cry while he's going to sleep is something that would break any mommy's heart. I can always hear the sound in my head when I think about it. I'm sure everything will go fine and we should get the results back a few days after the scope.

Had to put some cute pics. Jack thinks its so funny to put things on his head.

This picture makes me laugh every time

I had to put one with him smiling so you know he really does enjoy it, it's not just mommy torturing him

Family

Jacksen got to spend the last couple months with his favorite aunt in the whole world. His aunt Delia came and stayed with us for a little while before she goes off to college. All my brothers and sisters are awesome aunts and uncles but Jacksen really loved spending time with Delia. He even try's to say her name, it just comes out as "DUH" but he knows what he's saying. Now that she's gone if I say her name he walks down the hallway to the room she was staying in, kinda sad. We had some good times and hope she doesn't forget us once she leaves. My family has been such a big part of our lives and so supportive of Me Josh and Jacksen and I couldn't ask for a better family.

It's the little things

We're all guilty of it.... taking the simplest every day tasks for granted. Feeding our son, something most people wouldn't even think twice about, is a daily struggle. So something so little that may seem like no big deal to most people is a huge deal to us. Well, yesterday was a big deal! After eight long months of feeding therapy last night Jacksen ate an entire chicken nugget! I was so happy I could have cried. It took him about half an hour to finish along with lots of distraction, encouragement and water to wash it down. With Jack everything seems to be two steps forward one step backwards, so I'm not counting on it happening again anytime soon, but it was still progress. I know that it will probably still be years before Jacksen eats "normally" but the little things are what keep you motivated to do it everyday.