Viruses...

Jonathan has had the dreaded cold for the last week. And to our great encouragement, he's been fine. Oh, he's been sick - he runs a fever every once in a while and he's been sneezing and coughing - but there's been no danger of going back to the hospital.

This is good. Next time we have a cold, Mom won't be scared that Jonathan's goin to get sick. None of us wanted him to get this and we tried very hard to keep him from getting it - he was quarantined in the bedroom and no one who had the least suspicion of a scratchy throat could even go in - but now that he's got it we're all glad that's over with. We're using the nebulizer we had to buy in January and it helps him breathe much better, so even with the cold he's doing better than most of the rest of us did with this virus.

He's healing up everywhere else, too. His stitches are out and while he still has quite a scar on his belly, it's healing more every day. Both the surgeon and our family doctor took one look at it and said, "You can't tell this was done only two weeks ago." The surgeon said, "You couldn't be taking any better care of him, Mom."

He lost weight, but he's back up to 14 lb, 6 oz; that's a few ounces less than he weighed before surgery, but he's coming along. He also has graduated to eating only one or two bottles a day and Mom is only pumping once or twice a day. That's just been since surgery - all he does is nurse, but he's sucking hard enough that Mom doesn't have to pump after nursing to keep her supply up and he's not hungry when he's done. That is a really, really BIG improvement!

He still hasn't recovered his strength all the way, though - before surgery we would do exercises everyday where he would hold onto our hands and we would pull him to his feet and have him stand for about fifteen seconds, then lower him down and do it over. Sort of like extended sit-ups. He could do ten of those on end many times through the day. Right now he can barely get up once. I think this is partly due to the fact that all the belly muscles got cut and they're probably going to have to heal a bunch more before we start exercising with him again. It's also partly due to the fact he hasn't done any sit-ups in two weeks and he's lost some muscle tone.

He is rolling over in his sleep so he can lay on his stomach, though - when he was really stuffy with the cold he would roll to sleep on his side or stomach instead of his back; I think it was because he could breathe better that way. He's never done that before, so it's a sign he's figuring out to be more mobile.

And he's been SMILING up a storm for the past three days. It's as if something "clicked" in his head that this was a great thing to do and if you walk up to his bouncy chair and say "Hi Jonathan!" he smiles and wriggles and makes lots of noises. He's been doing that a lot more, too - babbling and waving his hands and trying to communicate. Every time he coughs, he gets all done and then wrinkles his face and makes a disgusted noise that sounds like, "Maaa". We laugh every time he does it because it's so cute and so funny.

Personality wise, it's as if he's been daydreaming for six months and all of a sudden he woke up and is looking around and paying attention. Sort of like the babies usually do at three or four months. He is so intensely curious about everything that it's almost funny. We go to violin lessons and he sits in his car seat and watches so intently that he hardly blinks. If he can't see whoever's playing he fusses until we move him around so he can see.

One thing is for sure: Jonathan is a family project. I hate that "It Takes a Village" mentality (it does NOT take a village to raise a child: it takes that child's PARENTS), but Jonathan is getting constant attention. If one person isn't holding/playing/feeding/cleaning him, someone else is! Even Katherine...