Big kid and smiling baby

I went to visit and observe James' preschool this week, and it was a lot of fun to see how he has adapted to the new setting. He was totally outgoing about playing in the kitchen area with pretend food, not engaged with the other kids but not bothered by them anymore either, and eager but shy during the music session. He loves music, but stays completely frozen and won't shake his instruments, as though he really wants to join in and just doesn't know how. He doesn't dance much either, but did a little butt wiggle that was super cute.

He insists on waiting each day to watch the school bus leave so he can say "bye bye bus".

Some pics of James' new haircut, and Elise giving her new toothless smile:

James goes to school

It's been a long time since we've posted a James update, mostly because he's been doing so well. He started a two-hour morning preschool in January and seems pretty happy to go off to school each day. He now has about 25 hours a week of therapy, a big increase that started in October, and the results have been dramatic.

In October, he only knew a few words and only said them when prompted, meaning he could repeat but not communicate of his own volition. By November, he was saying a handful of words without prompting. By December, that had increased to dozens of words - some more clear than others. He knew the colors and was getting pretty good at the alphabet. By January he was stringing words together. In February, he frequently said sentences and started counting up to twenty without prompting. He babbles all the time now, and while he might have around 100 words that we understand, he clearly is trying to say a lot more. Some favorites? "bum-bo-bay"(bumblebee), "ssi-do" (sticker), "toy tway" (toy train) and "mooey" (music).

He weighs about 25 pounds now and looks great to us. This is still too low to please his doctors though, so he has been back on the ng feeding tube since last summer. He hates it, but with another surgery coming up, it's in his best interests to grow as much as possible beforehand.

Surgery #3, the Fontan, is the last planned surgery and will hopefully repair his heart enough to last for years before any additional interventions are needed. It has been tentatively planned for this summer and will likely be scheduled in July. However, it is dependent on his weight gain so we'll update accordingly as summer approaches.