The Good, the Bad, the Weird, and the Ugly.

The Good:
What a difference a good night's sleep makes! I slept for about 12 hours last night and it was heavenly. Craig is on feeding duty again tonight.

Maddox is really accepting his feeding tube. Tonight he asked "Dad, can I not be hooked up while I eat my cereal? (his bedtime snack)Can I wait until after?". It probably doesn't sound like much here, but in the moment it was incredibly sweet.

Maddox feels the formula is helping him grow and get stronger, run faster, and jump,higher. He was able to open a brand new pack of gum today by himself. For the first time.

He ate part of a sandwich and some lunch meat at lunch today. With chopsticks. Whatever works.
Maddox believes the formula is making his "peanut" grow bigger as well.

He does seem to have a little more energy and at time a LOT more energy. Crazy, loud, energy.

He is sleeping better at night and sleeping more soundly and still taking 2-3 hour naps.

My brother and his fiancé stopped over with the suit Maddox is going to be wearing in their wedding. He. Looks. Adorable. He looks like a CEO.

I've lost some weight I've been meaning to get rid of.

We were only short 88 calories today, compared to 300 yesterday.

My cousin is going to make a spreadsheet with all the math formulas I need to know. (as soon as I get my brain functioning enough to get him all the numbers)

The Bad:
We had several leaks today. First the cap came off the bag that holds his formula. Then the cap came off the cap of one of his ports on his tubing twice at bedtime. Maddox gets really anxious whenever there is a leak. We taped his port shut after the second leak, so he should be good for the night.

Maddox is wide awake right now (I shouldn't have mentioned how well he sleeps)

Maddox absolutely cannot handle it when I need to clean around his nose or adjust the tape on his nose and face. It is horrible. He screams and cries so loud and says it hurts inside his nose. I feel mean. As soon as we are done, he recovers almost instantly, so I don't know if there is real pain or if it's fear of pain.

When eating his fake cheese tonight (his favorite), it got stuck on the tube in the back of his throat. We'll have to take that "cheese" off the menu for a while.

Cleaning boogers off the tube is very, very hard to do.

The Weird:
I had a dream that a boyfriend asked me to marry him, but then it turned out he was a girl who was going to have a sex change operation. And she gave me a wooden engagement ring. I had to tell her I couldn't marry her. (I think that bizarre dream comes from the fact that this feeding tube is a whole lot harder than I imagined and nothing like I imagined)

Last night, I had a let down and had to change my shirt in the middle of the night. I'm not even sure how that was possible, but there you go.

The Ugly:
My taping skills. Man I need to figure this out. Maddox is in my brother's wedding on the 16th. I can't have him all covered in white tape. Maybe for Halloween he can be a mummy. Hmmmm, Halloween. We could have a pretty sweet costume incorporating the tube and backpack.

Mason:
Mason is doing well, but he can't eat much because looking at Maddox gives him a little tummy ache. Hopefully that will go away soon for him. I've been giving him a second lunch after Maddox goes to bed. He is also struggling with all the attention and visitors Maddox is receiving. We're trying to help him with that. I think I am going to have to call the child life specialist.

Hey, the items under The Good category outnumber the items in the bad category. That is a good thing!