Another Wednesday out and about....

Look Aunt Molly, the pants finally fit!!!
Will getting ready for summer in his cool shades....
Will in his great new sun shading hat, he seems to like it!

We went to Salvation Army as usual today and found a few things. We then headed to the mall and I found the hat and tiny sunglasses at Children's Place. I also picked up some PJ's there, as they are my favorite kind for this skinny fellow. A very nice lady gave me a 20% off my entire purchase coupon so I saved 7 bucks! I pre-made dinner for tonight so I don't even have to cook! Yippee!

William the Conqueror (of our hearts!)

Will is changing so much and very quickly. He smiles frequently, and is making lots of sounds. He is now holding his head up for longer periods of time on his stomach too. We have been having very rough evenings though. He seems to start a fussy period at about 4 or 5 pm and keep it going till around midnight. I am seriously considering doing "Sleep Training" in about 4 more weeks. He is 8 weeks tomorrow, and will be 2 months on the 5th! We have had a quiet couple of days. I called to check on my job applications today. It is hard to find places that will let you work 1 or 2 shifts a week. I am confident that I will get the job I applied for, I never get turned down. It will be good to return to work for a few hours here and there. It will give Jason and Will a great opportunity to bond and for Jason to appreciate what it takes every day. (He is very sweet and understanding already though.) I bravely took a bath with the baby tonight, fearing the whole time that he would poop in the tub. He didn't. Instead he greatly enjoyed himself as usual, and smiled quite a bit. He did pee pee on a towel though. More tomorrow!

Fun with Cousins

Alessandra shaking a rattle for Will

Alessandra holding Will "Very Carefully"

Gabriela

Alessandra telling Will all about things...

Mayhem with 3 cousins under 3!

We had a nice day today, Solon and Family came over at noon. We went to the diner for lunch and we had great burgers. We then returned home and enjoyed an afternoon of playing with all kinds of toys. Will slept much of the time, but payed attention to the kids for a while. This afternoon we need to go out for a new DVD player as our old one crapped out last night while watching a movie. Thankfully they have dropped in price a lot!

Saturday Well Spent

Today started off early, at 6 when William decided to begin his day. He and I let poor Daddy sleep in and ran off to see what we could find at yard sales in the neighborhood. I always find yard sales interesting in well to do areas. People with money charge a ridiculous amount of money for their used crap, just because it belonged to them. One lady today had a lot of well used kids stuff including an excersaucer. She was charging half or more of what she paid for everything, so she wanted 60 bucks for a USED excersaucer! Are you kidding me? She had one of those highchairs that fit on a chair for 15 and I talked her down to 10, so I felt that was a good deal. They are about 30-40 dollars new. When I have a garage sale I always figure I would be giving the stuff to goodwill normally so even if I make 10cents on something it's better than nothing. My sales are always HOT and I always clear out everything! This woman was also charging a dollar each for USED onesies! Ugh! After the sales we came home and I spent the day playing with the baby and going through stuff to clear out some space around here. I have 3 big bags and a box for the Salvation Army now so I feel pretty good having gotten rid of that much stuff. William actually put himself to sleep twice today, he didn't stay asleep more than 30 min each time, but it's definetly a move in the right direction. I made Taco Salad for dinner, which is one of Jason's favorites. Solon and Andrea are coming over with the kids tomorrow so that will be fun. I need to make sure everything is babyproofed for Gabriella now. I will also work on the baby book soon, I have been slacking on that. All in all a good saturday.

Random Pictures

More fun under the gym
New Eco Friendly Cloth Diaper, they finally fit!
Checking out the bird toy, note my foot next to him...Will ate to the point of exhaustion and passed out while being burped.

Fun Day to Day

Yesterday was nice, Will and I went to Salvation Army in the morning for their 50% off day. I found some nice things for him to grow into and a pair of jeans for me for 2 bucks! I love bargains. I also got a baby bjorn in like new shape for 5 dollars which I can sell on Craigslist for at least 15. I may use it for a while since it is much nicer than the one I have. We went to Target after that to get my prescription filled, and pick up some baby prune juice since Will is getting some constipation from his formula. My friend and former co-worker Rachel came and spent the afternoon with us, which was lovely. She brought Will an adorable outfit, so he is becoming very spoiled by all these cute clothes. I made chicken parmesean for dinner and then we gave Will a bath. He smiled so much when I put him in the tub. It is adorable to see how much he loves it. He didn't sleep all that well, but what are you gonna do? Today I plan on taking him for a walk, but otherwise staying home and working on the ever mounting piles of laundry and dishes.

Pathology of the Lump

So the path report came back as a "Myofibroma". This is nothing to worry about at all. It was in the muscle and the surgeon got it all out, so it shouldn't grow back. If any of my crazy relatives look it up on their own, don't get it confused with Myofibromatosis, which is very complex with a 80% morbidity rate. The type he had is more common in boys, usually found on the head or trunk, and has an excellent prognosis. I can't find a good image of one, or I would post it.

Picnic Pictures

Sisters
Gabriella looking very fetchingWill is on my chest hidden by the blanket

The Simmons Men with Babies
Will enjoying the picnic in his own way.

Never ending wonders of the baby gym....

Under the Baby Gym A little unsure of why I am under this thing...

Interest Peaks!

Delightfull!

The lights stopped blinking...Down right Giddy!

Today was quiet, I cleaned the bathroom and made pizza for dinner. Will is getting more and more strength in his back and is holding up his head really well. He even tries to sit up when you give him your hands!

What the heck is that mass made of anyway?

The surgeon's nurse called this morning to say that she spoke to the pathologist. He still has no idea what the mass is made of, but wants a few more days to look into more possibilities. I seem to have created something that stumps the medical community. Maybe it will make it into The New England Journal of Medicine! Will was 6 weeks old yesterday. He is recovering very well, off pain medicine all together. We have had a quiet couple of days. I went to the library with him yesterday to get some advice books on establishing good sleeping habits. The main problem seems to be that every night I make the choice of bringing him into bed with us which is easy at the time, but will cause us bigger problems in the long run. I need to get better about putting him back to bed after I feed him. He starts out in his crib every night, with the best on intentions, but then joins us from about 5am on. He is so cute in the mornings, smiling and being very alert. I am sure it's all in the name of self preservation.

Brave Little Sprout Recovers

Will is in very good spirits considering what he has been through. He is eating very well today and sleeping quite a bit. He is still in some discomfort when I move him, so basically I try not to.

Here you can see the actual site. It is covered in Steri-strips which keep a wound together as it heals. He has no external stitches, so that makes it nice. The faint line you can see around it is a guide to see if the redness around the area grows. That way I can keep track of a possible infection. It is slightly red now, it was much worse this morning.
He is still quite distended, and you can see that the right side is puffier than the left. The surgeon said this was normal, as he had to dig around quite and bit and there is a lot of soft tissue trauma. It should go away soon. His arms and legs look so skinny compared to that bloated belly.

A tough day for the little man....

Today started rough and has continued to be so. I was not supposed to feed Will anything but breastmilk after midnight, so I had pumped enough in the last 2 days to supplement. I could then feed him till 4 hours before the surgery, which was 9:30am. I woke him up at 3:30 to eat and then again at 5. He was very sleepy and I wish he could have understood that he wouldn't be able to eat again for a long time. We got him ready and ourselves to leave for the hospital at 6:30. As usual, things started to go wrong right before it was time to leave. Will spit up all over his sleeper and then pooped so naturally we left late. We got to the freeway and hit traffic. This is the clock when we got on the freeway, with a long way to go and an arrival appointment for 7:30am. EEK! Amazingly we ended up only about 10 min late, which was fine because the check in process was very slow.

They put us in a waiting room with a few other families and we waited for our name to be called. Will was fine, and slept through much of this time.

Finally they called us and took us back to a room. We undressed him and put him in two tiny little gowns that were still too big. They took his vitals and weighed him (10 pounds). Then they put us in a different waiting room where there were lots of other kids in gowns and many worried parents. A very nice grandma prayed for William. She was there with her grandaughter who was having a broken arm repaired.

Will slept through this and the resident came in and talked to us, as well as the anesthesiologist. The resident marked the lump with a pen and had us sign consent forms. They had given us a surgery time of 9:30, which Will slept through. Then 10am came and then 10:30... By now Will was waking up and getting very hungry. He was getting really ticked off!

I normally am a person who understands, but now I had a starving mad baby and full breasts that were feeling his pain. The surgeon came in then and he told us it would be another 15-20 min. I felt he should apologize to the waiting room for us. However soon enough they came and took my poor baby away and sent us to the parent waiting area. It was very busy and I felt bad for some of the people in there, lots of tearful mom's and worried faces.

After just 45 min or so our surgeon came back and told us it was all over. He had found the mass was between the muscle layers and had managed to remove all of it. It was encased in muscle tissue so he was not able to see what the actual lump was made of. He sent it to pathology and we should have a result within a week. He doesn't think it's anything serious. It still doesn't point to malignancy. So we will find out soon.

He said Will was already waking up and that they would come and get us soon, and in a few minutes we were paged and sent back to his little room. It was very strange to see him there lieing on this big bed with lots of monitors and 2 IV's. It made me remember the NICU again.

They told me we could hold him and that I could feed him as soon as he wanted to. I tried but he was having a hard time latching. I had some pumped milk in a bottle so we tried that. His throat was sore and cry was very raspy. It seemed to hurt to swallow and he seemed to gag easily, so not much milk got down. We waited there 2 hours watching the monitors and listening to other kids cry, and the kid in the next room snore very loudly.

Jason and I were intrigued by the glowing thumb. It was just his oxygen monitor, but because he was so little it glowed all the way through and lit it up like Rudolph's nose.

After a while the Dr came in and said we were ok to go home. He was still very sleepy, and cried pitifully every time we moved him even a little. I was very nervous about dressing him and putting him in his car seat, but it actually went ok. We drove home and Jason held him for a few hours and I took a much needed nap. I will try and let Jason get extra sleep tonight because I can sleep tomorrow. Will is fussy and gassy, still having some eating issues but seems to be waking a little. I feel so bad that he had to go through this, but I still think now is better than later, when he would be more aware of what was happening. Let's all hope for the best pathology report and wish this guy a speedy recovery!

Surgery update and the cost of baby clothes

Monday is the big day. We have to be at the hospital at 7:30 am, which will be interesting. Surgery is at 9:30. Another great reason to breastfeed: I can feed him breastmilk until 4 hours prior to the surgery. He can't have formula after midnight. Can you imagine how he would be if we haven't fed him for 9 hours? He is doing well, though is spitting up more all the time. We are going through lots of outfits for all 3 of us. The onesie that he is wearing is from France. I saw it at a consignment shop for 1 dollar. I later saw the same one, same manufacturer, at a boutique for a whopping 28 bucks! Who in the world would pay that kind of money for a onesie? Also, French kids must be a heck of a lot smaller. This is supposedly 6 months size but it fits him perfectly. No wonder they never win wars......

Enjoying Naked Time

This is one we may have to destroy, or keep it as a blackmail picture......

Weight Update and Tub Time Pics

Will is now 9 pounds 11 oz! Pretty good weight gain, considering the rocky start we had. He had a nice bath tonight, he really loves the tub and could stay in there all night.