The Dress Obsessed: Playing catch up

It has been so long since I have blogged but I just haven't been in the mood and finding the time just hasn't really worked out. Since Aiden just had a 15 month check up, I thought I would post a few stats and catch up before I forget.
Clothing Size: 12-18 months
Diaper Size: some 3's and some 4's depending on brand
Sleep Schedule: one morning nap around 1-2 hours and an afternoon nap that is getting shorter and shorter by the day. He goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up around 7am
Feeding Schedule: bottle still in the morning and night with 3 meals and 2 snacks.

From the time of our first birthday til now we haven't reached the milestone of walking yet, but I really feel any day we might take off.  When Aiden started mothers day out the last week of August, I really thought that would speed up the process but it hasn't. I can't say I am shocked though. Aiden basically army crawled til he turned one and then started crawling like a normal baby so I knew his walking would be delayed some. He walks pretty good holding my hand but refuses to let go. He will cruise as long as he has something to hold on too. His MDO teacher says he steals the walking lawn mower at playtime and won't give it to anyone else. Little stinker will walk when he's ready I suppose.
To date, we have 4 teeth. Two bottom teeth and two top which have come in the last 2 weeks. Clearly we are a late bloomer! He is not as good of an eater as he used to be. He still eats a ton, just not what we do. Even Aiden's teacher says she's never seen a baby his age eat as much as he does. At his checkup he weighed 20lbs 4oz and was 31.5 inches tall. Measuring in at the 5th and 75th percentile for weight and height. His head hasn't grown in quite awhile and the doc is a little concerned so unfortunately we will have to have a full neurological exam the beginning of January from Dr. Pena.  This requires a cat scan so they will sedate him. I think it's unnecessary but better safe then sorry i suppose. To me, of course, because I am the parent I think he's super smart. I mean, I can't shut him up if I tried. Some of his words are "Hey Lola (our dog he is obsessed with)," "bye bye (insert whoever we are leaving behind)," Daddy, Mama, Nana, Grandad, Memie(for Emilea), Eric, bubbles, thank you, go go (for anything he can push and make go), racecar. He also loves to make a rooster sound, moo for a cow, roar like a lion, and bark like a dog. Everyday is a new word or language I don't understand. He is obsessed with cows and trucks. I could barely contain him during pumpkin patch pictures at the Townsend house because of cars going down Bonner Street. He also attended his first Tech game and many Cedar Creek games and pep rallies this year. I can't watch a single play but I know he loves it so it's worth it and he sleeps so good.
On October 24, Aiden got his helmet off. We had a rough September because of illnesses so we didn't wear the helmet as much as we should, therefore, we were encouraged to give it one more month for a certain measurement they were trying to achieve. Thankfully, we got it and 6 months after we started, we were finally done. His heads looks so much better.  It is far from perfect but unless you were examining him closely, you probably wouldn't even notice.  That same week, we got a phone call from Dr. King saying he and Dr. Lucas from New Orleans had finally reviewed the results from his Echo and wanted to proceed with heart surgery. Apparently some hardening around his vessels and valves had developed because his heart was working so hard to to overcompensate for the blood passing though his ventricles. This happens in 5-10 percent of people that have a VSD and needs to be fixed so the heart can return to functioning normal and the hardening will subside. Last week, we got a call from Oschner in New Orleans walking us through what to expect and when the surgery would be.  We had to plan around my vacation and football season and we finally decided that Nov. 30 would be best for us.

So many people have already given us support and I know many of you have questions so I am going into a lot of detail here for those interested. We will go down the day before and do Pre-Op stuff which basically just consists of paperwork and a overall check up to make sure he is ready to go for surgery. The surgery will be the next day at 7am and last about 6 hours. They will obviously break his breastbone to open his chest up and look at the 2 holes they are fixing. We have only been concerned about the hole in the ventricle but they are also fixing one in the upper chambers of his heart while he is there as well. They will graft a patch to place over his holes and that is what takes so long because until they can take see the holes, they don't know how big ect...to make the patch. After they are done, they will wire his sternum closed and he will live with that in his chest forever. The part that really gets me is that they will not allow us to stay with him for the first 24 hours. I understand why, but it is still really hard knowing you can't be there when they wake him up. Thankfully, there is a hotel connected to the hospital so we are literally right there if they need us. We will be in the PICU for several days and then a regular room for around 3-7 days depending on how he does. Once home, recovery is about 2 months and of course there can be no interaction with children for at least a month. We will also not be able to pick him up under his arms or allow him to pull himself up. This I can't imagine because trying to control a 16 month old is virtually impossible. Babies have a much higher pain tolerance than adults because they haven't experienced pain before and think it is normal so we have to monitor him closely to make sure he is not doing something that may hurt him. That's pretty much all we know for now. As hard as it is, I know people deal with this everday, and I am so thankful we have the medical technology to find the problem and can fix it. Hope everyone has a good week and will be in touch much sooner rather than later. Here are some pics of our adventures over the last couple months.