Almost There!

Brennan has made huge progress in the last three weeks.  Some people say it was their prayers and God that did it and I don't know but I like to think it was mostly the good care we took of him and his ability to heal fast because he's a kid.

His face is totally healed up, only pink skin is left and we put aloe and vitamin E on it several times a day.   We are only wrapping 2 of his fingers, and soon to be on only 1 finger.  His ring finger received the worst burn, followed by his pointer.

He visited the doctor today for his follow up and they were very pleased with how everything looked.  They told us that we are shifting from the wound healing and and bandage phase into the scar prevention phase which lasts the next 20 years of his life.  The doctor said that any burn injury that takes longer than three weeks to heal is more likely to scar, as well as people with fair skin.

He said the scaring, if it occurs, will peak within the next 3-6 months.  We have to feel his skin every day for bumpy lumpiness or change in texture and if we find it, call them immediately.  The faster they catch it the better they can help him.  If we notice scaring, we will take him to the burn center and they will see if they can use scar reducing techniques such as making him a tight glove he would wear at night or putting silicone patches on his face at night. 

They said that he will grow and it could even be 10 years from now that he has trouble, if he hits a growth spurt it could be that all of the sudden his hand feels really tight and uncomfortable and so we won't know what the future holds for him long term.  I think if he has any trouble it will be with his ring finger but all of his fingers are pinkish purple and look like they have very strange skin on them.  I guess we'll have to see what happens.  Maybe we'll get lucky just like we did with his wounds healing up.

We've been giving him extra supplements in his diet to maybe help him.  I've been giving him green shakes with purified fish oil caps, chia seeds, liquid vitamins, and we have been feeding him eggs to hopefully give him lots of omega-3 fatty acids.  Omega 3's are supposed to help reduce inflammation and hopefully will help his skin from the inside, along with the aloe and vitamin E topically.

I'm also glad to report that he is totally off his pain meds.  He had a little withdrawal from the lortab, because he was taking a lot of it for a while, but he's good now.  Also, he is finally sleeping through the night again!

He has to go back to the burn clinic in 1 month to check for scaring.  They are going to keep a close eye on him.  We are glad that our weekly trips up to the U are now only monthly trips.

Also, he has been his usual active self.  He has learned some not so good behaviors lately, probably typical boy behaviors that we didn't see as much with Sara.  We've been trying to teach him not to hit lately and it's probably a result of him having someone else to hit.  He thinks it's funny to go up to Sara and bonk her over the head with his hand.  However he likes to drum on lots of things by whacking it with his hand, so it might just be an extension of that.  She however has become quite sensitive to it and we've been trying to teacher her to teach him how to be nice.  He does seem to listen to us though when we tell him no, he has a good memory, and he has not done it as much.

Also today he learned to say the word "Go".  It was really cute, he kept saying it over and over again.  It's a pretty fitting word for our family, we like to go a lot.  He also will "quack" like a duck, it's really cute.

He got his first pair of tennis shoes and he really likes wearing them and he loves to walk in them.  His walking has really improved, he will walk beside you while you hold his hand, without deviating too much.  He is at a really cute age where he's learning a lot and he's a barrel of monkeys.  He loves to laugh and throw himself in my lap with wild abandon.  We really enjoy our little Moosey guy and we are so glad he's getting better so we can play and squeeze and tickle him again.

Also he loves to play in laundry hampers just like his sister.

My fav pic of them

Healing and Recovery

It has been five days since Brennan's accident but it feels like it's been a month.  Things are much improved here.  He has healed up faster than we had imagined he would and we have a better hold on the situation than we had anticipated.  At first it seemed like just an unbearable thing but we have adapted and we have taking care of him down to a science, especially the bandaging part.

His face has really healed up and maybe look almost normal quite soon.  We bathe him every morning and wash his face to get the old ointment off and then we put ointment on it about 7 times a day. 

Brennan's hand still looks a little bad to me.  Dan says he can see the difference in it and it looks better to him every day.  It will be interesting to see how his doctors feel about it next Tuesday.  I hope they think it has improved a lot. 

Other than bath time and bandage time, where he still screams a lot and he's miserable, his life is pretty normal.  He laughs and plays as rough as always.  We have even adapted so that he can spend time outside because he loves it.  We try to walk in the early morning or early evening so there isn't direct sun on his face.  If the sun is out, we just pull the stroller backwards.   He has really been wanting to go outside in the back yard.  Today I put a plastic band over his sock hand, with tape, which is the same thing we do when he eats.  That way he can play on the ground and not get his bandage dirty or wet.  It worked perfectly.

He helped me pick up the apples with his one good hand:

FIRST HAIR CUT!

Brennan got his first hair cut tonight.  We decided to take him because his hair was getting really fuzzy and sticking up from his head and falling over his ears. 

He got to wear a kids cape and he wasn't too happy about it.   I think he didn't like the clippers either, even though they were almost totally silent. 

We were really happy with how it turned out, it's way shorter in the back and it does not hang over his ears now. 

We got lots of pics and vids of him getting his hair cut, of course.

Post haircut pics, he looks like a big boy now.

The hair cut video.

Brithday Party post

I'm finally getting around to doing Moosey's actual birthday party post. 

We decided to have his birthday at the splash pad this year.  It's kind of nice to have one kid with a summer birthday party.  I was looking forward to it because of the outdoor party options.  It was perfect for all the cousins too that got to have fun in the water.

For some reason it was my idea to make Brennan snake cupcakes.  I have always wanted to try out rainbow cake, so we went to the local cake store and bought all the special dye colors to make the vibrant rainbow cake colors with.  The cake store in Spanish was amazing.  Sadly we will probably only go in it once or twice a year.  Sara has already requested that we go back to the cake store for her birthday party next year too.

Dan's job was to make the frosting for the cupcakes.  He made a lemon/lime frosting for the rainbow cupcakes and chocolate for the chocolate ones.

Sara got to work sorting the candies for the designs on the cupcakes, she liked this job a lot.

The pretty rainbow cakes baked up perfectly.  I can't say it was worth all the effort but it was fun to do it this one time and they were pretty.

At the splash pad, we claimed a pavilion and set up. 
Brennan waits for everyone to show up, wearing his party hat.

The snake cakes

Blowing out the candle. Birthday song video.

The cake mess, I think he enjoyed his birthday cupcake!

Then after everyone got good and covered in sticky cake and frosting, we hit the water jets.  Smart idea I thought.  We didn't have a messy baby for long.

I think Brennan had a great birthday, I'm sure he won't remember it but hopefully someday he'll look back at this blog and smile :)  Happy 1st Birthday sweet little boy, we love you lots!

We have walking!

A couple of weeks after his first birthday, Brennan started to walk.  We were excited that Nanna got to be here to witness it.

Evidence that Brennan and his sister have fun with his new car.

It's not very graceful but he can get into his car by himself by climbing over the side.

At his last doctor's appt we found out his slightly anemic and we also mentioned to the doctor that when he gets angry and cries he will sometime hold his breath, turn blue, and pass out.  The doctor said that being anemic correlates with that behavior and makes it worse.  We are treating him for the anemia and hopefully the breath holding spells will lessen.  So far, he has a passing out spell sometimes once or twice a day, and some days not at all.  Seeing his Dad walk away into another room seems to set him off the worst.

He is a very intense little dude.  He really knows what he wants and when he wants it.  He likes things all his way.  He's also really observant and smart.  He has already figured out how to drink his bottle and hold it by himself.  He maneuvers obstacles really well and he repeats sounds and makes up funny games.  He turns the turn signal on on his little red car and turns his head back and forth with the clicking sound and looks at you and wants you to do the same.  Also, he likes to blow raspberries a lot.  He will also give little toys and dolls rides in his scooter.

He is getting a ton of attention for walking and he really likes it, it has encouraged him to practice a lot this week.  He can take about 25 steps consecutively when he gets on a roll.  It's strange to us to see him walking and we'll miss the turtle crawl which is getting less and less common.

Other random videos :

More scooter pushing   

Brennan pushes Sara in the car

Mr. Moose turns 1 : has hot wheels and rainbow cakes

Dan stayed up late last night putting Brennan's car together and we all waited anxiously in the living room for him to come out and see his present the next morning.  He was surprised and very attracted to it right away.  The first thing he wanted to do of course was push it around, then Daddy put him in the driver's seat and took him for a spin around the house.

I worked long  hours putting together a special cake mix for Brennan.  I've always wanted to try a rainbow cake and I decided to make a snake cupcake with rainbow cupcakes.  It's complicated but I'll get the final pics up and all will be made clear.

Here are the preliminary pics from putting it together.  Sara and Nanna had lots of fun watching me make the different color batters for the cupcakes and then put them all in layers.

One color down, 5 more to go.  It took me about an hour to layer all the batter carefully into the 12 cupcake wrappers.

This is what they look liked baked.  I'll get a cross section so you can see the rainbow when we eat them.

Dan is making a special lemon/lime frosting that tastes amazing and then we'll decorate them to form a snake!!!

Scooter Dude

Brennan is almost a year old and he really gets around.  Anything he can do to scoot around or push on things he will, so that he can ride them around. We recently got this little airplane out from the basement and he's been having a blast pushing it around.

Sometimes he rides this little cart on wheels too.

His favorite thing to ride though is this little cart on wheels.  We even took it to Lisa's when we stayed with her because he can't go without it, he rides it all day all over the house.

 I took some cute vids of him riding his "scooter" as we call it.

Scooter 1 vid
Scooter 2 vid

He also pushed Sara around on the airplane.  They had fun chasing each other and taking turns pushing.

we got him a little shopping cart for his birthday, I hope he likes pushing it around too.
 Brennan really likes anything involving motion, he much more of a "doer" than Sara was.  He constantly has to be on the go where as Sara would sit still with you and was more socially interactive.  Brennan lives for the thrill of the wind in his hair.

He is different from Sara in a lot of ways. He can be pretty insistent and demanding, he for sure knows what he wants.  He will scream really loud in restaurants which is something we didn't expect  because Sara never did that.  However he is also very friendly and loves to laugh and smile.

 He always has to be around people. Wherever Sara and I are, that's where he wants to be, he will rarely play in a room by himself.  Usually he's under our feet.  His favorite thing recently is to be held and especially if Daddy is holding him.  He's gotten the idea that Dan comes home at night and about two hours before Dan is due home form work, he starts saying dada in anticipation.  He really loves his Daddy's attention.  

He eats everything now except for recently we tried peanut butter and he did break out in a rash, so we're holding off all nuts for now.  We just switched him over from formula to whole milk and he's doing well with that.  

It's hard to believe that his first birthday is coming up.  It went by so fast.  He is such a great addition to our family, we can't imagine life without him.  I feel really lucky to have him here since having kids for me is not that easy and he was a big kid.  Getting him here and making it to a year for me feels like a big milestone.  It was a lot of work but it just gets better and better and hopefully easier in some respects, from here on out.