And He's Home

What a joy. 'Nuff said. Okay I'll fill in a bit so as to not get anymore nasty comments from my cousin :)

He is so happy to be home. It's amazing to watch him as he takes everything in and just smiles. He especially loves to hear his siblings play the piano and was dancing and squirming with glee as he listened. You see it everywhere, in his coloring, his eyes, his excitement, his peaceful sleep (with the door open so he can still hear all the noise that is home), his calm eating. It's just so wonderful to have him here. What a blessing. What a miracle.

We have our charts for eating and pooping and we have our 'sophistication' as Dr. Aiken likes to tell us, and we are off to the races. There are all sorts of typical things we are on the look out for; constipation, decrease in eating, decrease in pooping, fevers signaling entrocolitis (sp?), and so on. We've been here before and we are ready.

Among the typical we also get to watch his hand closely. The IV was digging into his little knuckle unbeknownst to us all and created a nasty sore that is now infected. He's also got the nasty bandage hand issue that smells wonderfully awful and is just sad to look at. It has improved since this morning when the IV was removed so we aren't too worried about it, just sad that our little guy has something else to endure. His heinous rash has been tamed somewhat, partly due to the constant changing and gooping, and partly because the pooping has been decreasing.

Decreasing poop is never something I thought I would mind, but around here it is cause for playing close attention. Did you think I was going to say cause for alarm? Well I am learning

(s l o w l y) that alarm doesn't really ever go anywhere good. So we watch and we pay attention. We pray and hope, and so do all of you, and eventually we end up in the best place, whatever that may be. We celebrate the good poops and count the hours with none. We pay close attention so as to not end up back in the hospital. The irrigation tote and station remain at the ready for whatever may come in the next few weeks. Dr. Aiken says the first 6-8 are the toughest. We're veterans now he informs us.

Sometimes it's comical to sit and ponder on the number of lengthy conversations we have had with this humble, yet, amazingly gifted, and supremely ivy league educated surgeon, about poop. Quite comical and yet so normal. Our lives have revolved around it for months now and it's not likely to stop any time soon. Malachi had a particularly exciting one earlier today and Sam asked me if I wanted to take a picture of it. You may be laughing, but he was serious and I almost got the camera.

We are in awe of all the blessing that have come our way through all of this. Most especially our children and the blessings that they are. Interestingly enough I had a conversation with the children at the dinner table the other night that went something like this;

me: "So what would you think if we had another baby? It's quite likely that it would have Hirscshprung's too and we would be going through all of this again."

chorus of beautiful children: "Yeah. Great. We love babies. You should have a few more. We need 12. Babies are fun. We don't care about Hirscshprung's that's what Dr. Aiken is for, to fix our babies. I'll help with the laundry and cleaning. I get to cook." And so on, for quite a while.

You see my life is just amazing. Simply amazingly wonderfully simple. I just love it. I am off to bed so I can be awake again in an hour or so, hopefully with some poop to deal with.

Hopefully.