Backyard Wildlife and an appointment with the Neurologist

(The doe was actually chewing in this picture but it looks like she's talking or surprised at something.)


I know that for many people, seeing a deer isn't all that interesting. But I know there's a number of people with kids who follow the blog and also some people from areas where there just aren't deer wandering all over the place. So this morning when I saw a deer in our back yard, I figured I'd snap a couple shots and post them.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, we were going to pressure the doctors to move forward with seeing and hopefully treating Colby's seizures. At first Yale said they didn't get the fax from Colby's Neurosurgeon. So they refaxed it, and refaxed it and still Yale says "nope, didn't get anything." Well, Tracey apparently let them know a little about how she felt and miraculously, they found the fax to get Colby referred to Yale. They said they'd call back and let us know when we could bring him. A little bit later and Tracey called me in the office to say Yale could see him........on January 8th, 2009! Can you believe it!?? That just seems totally screwy!!!! Tracey then called the neurosurgeon and told him a little about how she felt and we now have an appointment NEXT WEEK (though we don't yet know the day) right at CCMC. The whole medical system drives me absolutely nuts sometimes.
So, it's a step in the right direction. Once we get more specific information, i.e. the day and time, I'll let everyone know.

Colby & Hannah

(Colby says "Um...Mary....would it be OK if I ...um....touch Hannah's arm?"
(Colby says "Wow Hannah, I just LOVE your arm!!!! So...beautiful!" Hannah was awesome with him...very patient and like playing with his toys. Thank you for having us over, Randy, Mary and Hannah

I mentioned a couple weeks back that we went to visit my cousin Randy and Mary and their little cutie Hannah. Here are some pics from that visit. Thanks for sending them along Mary !

Still no word from the doctors about Colby's EEG. We've been plenty patient. Starting today we're going to start bugging them to get things rolling more quickly. We hate to see Colby having the seizures. They're certainly not as bad as some seizures can be, but it's still affecting our little boy and we want to address it. Whenever we're trying to work with Colby, be it helping him grab things, push up from his belly....anything, he has the seizures. I have to think that if you or I were trying to concentrate on something and our eyes kept rolling to the bottom of our heads that it would distract and affect us. Having said this though, Colby is a very happy and content little boy. The seizures don't seem to bother him one bit and that's a good thing.

Thank you "A" for sending the suggestion about using a towel to help Colby lift his body up. I bought that roller thing I was telling you about last week, but it's bigger than Colby's whole body. However, if I roll up a both towel it fits perfectly......now we just have to keep working with the Colbster! LOL He's getting stronger and can certainly push himself up. But he'd almost prefer to lay his little head down and suck on his fingers. All in time....

Thank you guys for your comments !!!! I love reading them and to hear feedback. I can see from the counter that plenty of people are looking at his blog, but I have no clue who everyone is. So keep the comments coming.

Colby has a relatively busy day today. I have to work but Tracey has arranged to go see a puppet show with him and then to a kid's sing along thing. She's wonderful with planning things to do both with Evan and now with Colby. I'm more of a "wake up in the morning and figure out what the hell we're going to do today" kinda guy. Yup, drives her nuts sometimes but hey, we're each our own person and that's what relationships are all about.

I've been sitting on the couch at home, doing some work and nibbling away at this posting for well over 45 minutes now. All along Colby has been in his jumper just as happy as can be. Trying to figure out what all the little toys are around him and making all kinds of sounds. Some sounds he makes just with his mouth and others with half of his hand in his mouth and you get a slimy raspberry sound. I can't wait for the day when he starts to talk!

Our happy little boy

And here's Colby jibber-jabbering away.

A quick video

Although this video may not seem like much to some people, things are in a much different perspective when your child's future is uncertain. Each little "normal" thing he does is a victory for us. In the last couple weeks he's been reaching while lying on his back. He won't quite roll from back to belly, but this is the next step to get him there. He'll get onto his side and then flop back onto his back.
We're optimistic about Colby's future. The doctors have been very pleased with his progress when compared to other children with a level 3 brain bleed and hydrocephalus.
I do what I can to read up on his conditions and it seems that most people with a grade 3 brain bleed are very delayed and have some sort of life long affect. But we'll continue to work with him and help him do all that he's able to.
Tomorrow's video will be of him finding his voice. He's so cute when he just lies there and talks to himself. He's definitely found the "B" consonant sound. He'll also do the "G" sound. He won't do it in correlation to anything yet, but just the fact that he's figuring out what sounds he can make is a cool thing to watch.

11 months old!

Wow, as of yesterday, Colby is 11 months old! Less than a month now and the Colbster will be the big.......One.
He was a crank pot today. I love him to death but when I'm tired and he's tired....yeah, babies can loose just a smudge of cuteness when you're tired to begin with and then they're tired and cranky and they cry...and cry.....and cry for no apparent reason. I'm sure they're just trying to tell us what's happening. Today he was cranky and no matter what we did, he'd just fuss. I think he's just tired. Don't know. He'll get a good night's sleep, so will and I tomorrow will be a different day.
We're still waiting to hear something from the EEG. Hopefully sometime this week.
I took some video and broke it up into a couple of small movies. I'll post one every day or so. The first is of our boy eating his dinner. He's a VERY GOOD eater!!! Especially his fruit and cereal. Don't you love how it looks like he's chewing! He's like a little bird. He'll open his mouth and wait for you to scoop some fruit in. You can see his seizures a bit in the film. They do seem to happen a bit more when he's eating from the spoon. Not so much when he's eating from the bottle. Again, hopefully this week will shed some light into this.

Just some pics

(Colby has figured out he's got a tongue and has been sticking it out a lot lately. )

(Colby and mommy)
(I love my boy!!)
(Colby and daddy)

(Our friend Celeste rented a house on a lake here in CT and invited us over last night. Our friends Liz and Chris went with their little girl, Caitlin. Colby did great until he got tired. We had a hard time getting him down but hey...that's all part of parenting. : ))
(Colby says "Ow...um.....yeah....that's my eye."
(Colby, Caitin and Celeste's son, Holden.)

Colby's EEG

( Colby wants to stand and he can just barely hold himself up by himself now.)

Colby's EEG is done. We now just have to wait about a week for the doctor to call us with the results. It's amazing how things take so long....first to get an appointment, then to get the results...and then there will probably be yet another wait to determine our course of action to hopefully stop his seizures.

I've gotten a couple e-mails from people asking about his seizures. Does it hurt him? Will they have any long term affects? What are they from?

I don't have all the answers but I'll do my best to address the questions. Do the seizures seem to bother or hurt Colby. Not at all. It seems to be more of a nuisance than anything. If he's playing with a toy and it happens, his hands continue to play with the toy, he'll still laugh or do raspberries, but because his eyes have dropped down he can't see what's happening. You can tell it frustrates him sometimes. Some of his seizures are really quick....just a second or two. Other times they're more consistent, just one after another or they'll last a good 10 seconds or more. That's when it's hard for us to interact with him and hard for him to focus on anything.

At least thus far, they've been solely in his eyes and face. Sometimes it seems to pull his neck and head to one side (usually the side his eyes are turning to). So we're happy that at least for now, it's not spreading to other parts of his body.

Will the seizures have any long term affects? I don't think so. We asked his neurosurgeon about this when we met with him last week and he said it's more the seizures that last hours or incorporate the entire body that at times can affect the person down the road. I don't know if that means it affects the brain or the body and muscles. Hopefully I'll never need to learn those details.

What is causing his seizures? Again, I'm not certain. I guess the root cause is either because he had a grade 3 brain bleed which has traumatised parts of his brain. Or it could be from when his ventricles were so enlarged from his hydrocephalus that it pressed his brain against his skull for a prolonged period and may have damaged something. Or I also wonder if it could be from the two surgeries he's had on his head. In each one the doctor went right through parts of his brain. The areas affected would be small, but you're still disrupting the brain. So I'm not totally sure. I guess the EEG will in some way tell the doctors what part of the brain the seizures are coming from and that in turn may tell us what is causing them. At least that's our hope.

Apart from this, Colby is doing so well. We continue to try to help him with his upper body strength and his tummy time. I can't say that he's liking is tummy time any more than before, but he does seem to be holding himself up a bit better. I'm on a mission today to find a roller. I was reading online about how to help your baby start to crawl and there were a couple articles that talked about using a roller. I guess it's an inflatable cylinder that you put under the baby's chest/belly which helps support their body weight while getting them used to having their arms and legs beneath them. While we're out I may try to swing by the NICU. I enjoy visiting there. The people there became like family as we would see them every day, sometimes for hours at a time. And they had such a huge impact on Colby and our family.

Then this afternoon it's crawling bootcamp for the Colbster. LOL It's funny because if he's on his back, he'll push himself around a bit with his legs. Almost like he's crawling, but on his back. Or he'll lift his legs, arms and head up toward the ceiling, trying to move himself around. So the interest to get moving is there, but he just doesn't get how to do it. I want to capitalize on his interest to get around and help our boy crawl!!!

Colby is also gaining some more weight. He seems to go in spurts, both in development as with everything else. He's had a renewed appetite lately and is starting to take 4 bottles a day along with his fruit and cereal versus his usual 3 bottles.

He's taking nap now so I'm going to try to do a little work while things are quite!

EEG Tomorrow

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Colby is scheduled for an EEG tomorrow around noon. We don't expect any results tomorrow. They'll probably do the EEG, then we'll have to wait for anothe appointment to sit with someone down at Yale for the reading. But hey, it's the first step.

Sunday Mornings

(Trip to gramma and grampa's on Saturday)(Colby and grandpa playing)(All that playin' tires a boy out you know)(Colby wearing his hat on the kitchen table. Kinda looks like a sombrero...Anda le Colby! Arriiiiiiiiiiba!)

(And at the Jazz Festival last night. He loves anything that makes a crinkling or crunching sound. As long as we're watching him, we'll let him play with a plastic bag. Or when I bring him grocery shopping, I'll plop a bag of pretzels, chips or anything than he can get his little mits on and make a crunching sound and he'll play for that until we check out. By the way, see how he's sitting up all alone !!! What a big boy!)

(Colby and momma)
(If you get close enough, Colby loves to grab your nose or lips. It's a really quick way to know if he needs his little fingernails clipped ! His little hands and strong and sometimes he'll get a hold of you, start pinching away and man does it hurt !)
(....still playing with the bag...)

A long while back, either before the twins were born or maybe once they were in the NICU, I posted an entry talking about how I wondered how our Sunday mornings would change once we had a baby at home.

So here I am, coffee in hand, listening to some nice music, Tracey playing with Colby....yup, life is good. I would say the only thing that's changed is our schedule. We still enjoy our coffee and start the day slowly. And although our 6am alarm clock (aka Colby) sometimes wakes us up earlier than we'd like, it's nice to start the day early that way by 8 am we've had our coffee and are awake and ready to start the day.

Colby's been doing very well. The last Birth to Three visit gave us some good exercises to do with Colby and we've been working with him to get him to push himself up from his stomach. Though he's not doing push-ups yet, he's getting used to the feeling of having his body weight on his hands and arms. He's also increasingly vocal. It's not a huge change but I notice the difference and just to see him progressing is all I could ask for. He's also to the point that he wants to roll from his stomach to his back. If I put something he wants just out of reach, he'll roll onto his side, but then his arm acts like a kick stand and stops him.

I bought him some Baby Einstein videos yesterday. Tracey is watching "My First Signs" with him now on her laptop. He's always been captivated by what we do on our computers.

We went to the Hartford Jazz Festival last night. It's a nice event. You bring a blanket, lawn chairs and whatever food/drink you want. We met some friends there and just sat around and enjoyed the music. At first, Colby was having seizures more than we'd ever seen it before. Even on the way there. I wasn't too alarmed because they came on relatively quickly, so I hoped they would quit just as quickly. We don't know what triggered them, but sure enough, they just stopped after a bit and he did very well with the music and all the stimulation. Our friends Tina and Ken have a 9 month old. Colby wasn't all that intrigued but Cason would touch Colby and Colby was fine with it. I also brought Colby to see my cousin Randy and his wife Mary. Their daughter Hannah is certainly mobile. But again, Colby did very well and was interested in what she was up to, trying to grab her arm.

Hopefully this week we'll hear from the doctors and get an appointment for his EEG.

Ow.....do you realize it's just over a month until COLBY'S FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!!!!! YIPPIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Little video of our little boy

(you can silence the music by clicking on the little pause button on the right hand side of the blog)

I took a video this morning. You can see Colby having a couple seizures. They're just in his eyes and face. There's no rhyme or reason to when they happen. Though we do see that when he eats with a spoon, it happens every time he takes a bite. We're still in the process of getting transferred to Yale and we'll tell the neurosurgeon about that when we get there.

Tuesday took the wind out of our sails. But as the video shows, Colby is doing very well and we'll continue to work with him to help him continue to progress. Having PVL, a Brain Bleed or Hyrdrocephalus doesn't mean a child will have issues. Each one increases the likelyhood having something wrong. So the more things he has stacked against him, it's just the more we'll have to work to empower him to do all he can.

We had been going along the past couple months thinking we were in the clear and that all we had to do now was teach him, help him and empower him. So the thought of some new hurdles shocked us. But I thought back to when we first entered the hospital about a year ago and how our vision of having twins was suddenly rocked by our situation. But here we are just about a year later and all things considered, we're all doing very well. So the fact that Colby has some seizures and PVL is just something we'll deal with. Period. So let's move on.

Colby is a strong little boy. He's happy to be with us and we're so very happy to have him. That's what's most important.

Birth to Three Visit

This morning's visit with Birth to Three went OK. Colby was much fussier than normal. I told her about his recent doctors visits and his PVL. She was disappointed to hear that he had PVL, but told us to keep stimulating him as much as possible. We're going to work harder on trying to get him to push himself up on his belly. He'll do it, but just for a minute. Then he'll just lie face down and either start doing raspberries with his mouth and making his normal "baby talk" sounds....or he'll cry. So we now have a variety of exercises we can do to help him build some upper body strength. We're also going to start having a occupational therapist come see him every other week. I don't know the details of that yet as this all got set in motion this morning. She was happy to see him sitting up so well and reinforced that he's come a long way given his history.
Colby has been a bit more tired lately and I read online that some kids who have seizures have them while they're sleeping too which interferes with their sleep pattern. When Colby's awake, he's alert and happy, but he seems to get tired more frequently now and is taking more naps than usual. So we'll keep an eye on that too.
We've started to process of getting Colby to see a neurologist. There's some paperwork to be done and probably a bit of a wait to get in to see him/her, but we want to push to get him seen as soon as possible. We'll be bringing him to Yale. It's a bit of a drive for us but well worth it if they can help our little boy out.
I can't thank you guys enough for your comments and e-mails. The support is worth more to us than you could ever imagine.
I'll try to take some pictures and maybe even some video in the next couple days and get that up.

1-2-3

(taken this past weekend)

Well, we saw the neurosurgeon today. We thought that Colby may not do his "eye thing" while the doctor was looking at him so we brought a video tape of him that we'd recorded in the last couple days. Sure enough, Colby didn't do it when the doctor was in the room. So we showed him the video. He said it did look like a seizure, but to be 100% sure, he is ordering an EEG to be done on Colby in the coming weeks. He also recommended we see a neurologist once we get the results. Connecticut Children's Medical Center is apparently short on neurologists right now so the doctor said that if we can't get to see one there, he would refer us elsewhere. He said that most seizures can be managed with medication, so that's a good thing. I've heard kids will outgrow certain seizures sometimes....so we'll hope for that.

Although we had been hoping Colby's eye thing wasn't a seizure, we knew in the back of our minds that it was a good possibility. We were a bit bummed to hear this news, but there's nothing we can do to change it.

So that was the first bit of not so good news we got today.

Then, as the doctor was looking at the CAT scan that Colby got while we were in Maine, he was showing us how his ventricles had gone back pretty much to normal size. That made me feel good. While we were at UCONN, they had told us about something called PVL. PVL are areas of the brain that die due to lack of blood flow. Once that area dies, that's it for that particular portion of the brain. I'ts possible for other areas can rewire themselves to compensate. I mentioned to the doctor that as least Colby has made it through all of this without having any PVL. The doctor pointed to the screen and said "Colby has some PVL in this area here." That was like a punch in the gut. We'd been going through all of this feeling "lucky" that Colby didn't have any PVL...... His PVL is most likely as a result of his brain bleed. I guess in the big picture it doesn't change anything. He had it yesterday, maybe for weeks or months now, but we were under the impression that all his brain matter was in good condition. As I thought about it on the ride home, I kicked myself for not asking how much PVL Colby has, exactly where it was, etc. But when he told us I was a bit numb and was trying to digest what I had just heard. The questions didn't start bubbling up until later. Those questions will need to wait until next time we see the doctor.

That was the second thing.

Lastly when the doctor was assessing Colby's progress he mentioned that developmental he's at about 5 months because Colby doesn't push himself up while he's on his belly. Now he's not a pediatrician or developementalist, he's a neurosurgeon. So although he knows his stuff about the brain and all, I don't think we should listen much to his assessment on Colby's development. Colby is sitting up well, his motor skills are progressing. His judgement was based solely on Colby not pushing himself up. Having said all this, I shouldn't have let this bother me, but given the other news we'd gotten thus far today, that was just the last straw. I really felt beat up inside..... a bit empty.

Having said all this, the doctor has been absolutely wonderful and I don't mean to in any way speak negatively of him. It's more the news that we got that hit me today.

As Tracey and I left the doctor's room, pushing Colby in his stroller ahead of us, we asked each other how we were doing and we both had the same response ..."OK"....but our faces said something different.

We're just in a bit of shock I guess. Things have been going so well. We just want Colby to get to some point where we can start ruling things out....not adding more questions and hurdles to his future. The reality of it all though is that he was born very premature, he had a grade 3 brain bleed, hydrocephalus and now PVL. We need to digest this, accept it and focus on what we can do to help our boy.

Both Tracey and I had to head right to work after our appointment. On my way home I stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up some more small toys in an attempt to give Colby something new. Something that would interest him and make him want to use his hands, his brain, etc. Not like he really needs more toys, but I just want to stimulate him as much as we can.

My mom comes over to help us on Tuesdays. Tracey works in the afternoon and I usually have appointments. If I have evening appointments I usually don't care if my mom puts Colby down in his crib. But tonight I wanted to see him so I called my mom ask asked that if he wasn't totally tired and cranky, that she keep him up so I could see him. When I came home, I could hear my mom playing with him in his room. I heard him laughing and squealing away. I looked in to see him happy as could be. That somehow made today's news a little easier to manage.

Tomorrow morning Birth to Three is coming. We've got some questions lined up for them. Not sure how many answers they'll have. But we have to ask what we can do. My questions are always around the other kids they've seen with conditions similar to Colby's.

So, that's the scoop from today. Sorry for being a bit down. Tomorrow's a new day.

Big day tomorrow

Colby has been doing so well lately. Very vocal and interactive. He continues to do the thing with his eyes and tomorrow is our followup appointment with his neurosurgeon. I'm not afraid or anxious for tomorrow. Rather eager to hear what he has to say, what the source of the seizures (if that's what they really are) are, and what can we done. I guess the one question that does weigh heavy on me is if they will continue, get worse or spread. I'm sure the doctor's reply will be a typical doctor's answer "We don't know. We'll just have to wait and see." Of all the answers, that's my least favorite. I just want to know.....good or bad. If it's good news, EXCELLENT. If it's not so good news, then let's figure out how we'll tackle it and move forward. Like I said way back in one of my postings...I'm black and white when it comes to this kind of stuff.
I am fully booked with appointments tomorrow afternoon and into the early evening. But as soon as I have time, I'll post to let everyone know what the neurosurgeon has to say.

A Trip to Maine, a trip to the ER and a broken window

We had a wonderful time up in Maine....always do. The weather was just beautiful, the water was relatively warm, the fish were biting.....and so were the bugs.


In the past week or so Colby started squinting his eyes. At first we thought he didn't like the light. Then we just thought it was just an odd thing he was doing. After a bit, we noticed when he squinted that his eyes would roll either down and to the right or just straight down. And they'd go so far that you can barely see the color of his eyes. On the trip up, he was doing it a lot and we started to get concerned. A malfunctioning shunt can cause the person to do something called sunsetting where their eyes go straight downward. Also, people with brain bleeds can have seizures. We weren't sure what was happening with our little boy so when we were up in Maine we called Colby's neurosurgeon. After a brief discussion, he suggested we bring him to the hospital in Bangor to get a CAT scan. Our concern was that his shunt was failing. So we packed some overnight clothes in the event he was admitted and headed off for the hour plus trip to Bangor. I was quickly thinking through all the Plan B's if Colby was to be admitted up in Maine. I thought of how we'd get the rest of the family home who all came up with us in the minivan. How to let them enjoy the rest of the vacation, what about work and my upcoming appointments. And Tracey's work..... Long story short, his CAT scan showed his shunt seems to be working wonderfully. His ventricles are really small which means the shunt is draining things well. However, having ruled the shunt malfunction out, this now points towards seizures. When Colby is doing his eye thing, the rest of his body moves fine. He doesn't stop whatever it is he's doing. But you can lift his eye lid up and his eye is straight down. You clap your hands or do anything and his eyes won't come up until they're ready. Each episode lasts only 1-4 seconds, but at times it's one after another for a minute or so. And then he'll go hours without doing it, then maybe just one or two here and there. We do find that if he's concentrating on something, he doesn't seem to do it.


We followed up with the Neurosurgeon after we got the results of his CAT scan and now have a follow up appt on Tuesday. We've been doing a lot of research online about seizures and I guess they're not as devastating as I thought. At least if these do turn out to be seizures and if they limit themselves to what he's doing now, it will probably be manageable. Well just need to tackle this next hurdle and keep moving along.


Apart from that the only bit of drama was the morning we were leaving. Everyone was up at the house packing. I brought the minivan down to the shore to put the fishing stuff, snorkels and masks and the tube we use for tubing into the van and drive it up to the house to put it away. Everything fit in the van fine, but I thought I had a brilliant idea to put the tube on the roof of the minivan. The drive up the driveway to the house was short. I wouldn't have to deflate the thing....sounded just great! So I picked the tube up and threw it up onto the roof of the van. Just as it hit the roof I heard what sounded like a POP then something like little stones running down the side of the van. Evan was putting his fishing stuff in the back of the van when this happened and I heard him say "What !!! Ow my god !!" Turns out the thick plastic part of the tube where you attach the tow rope had gone over the far side of the van and hit the back left window just right to totally shatter it into a million little pieces. I walked around the other side to find little pieces of black glass all on the ground and worse yet....all in the back of the minivan. "hmmm, " I thought "this will delay us getting on the road!" I had to drive to town (about 1/2 hour away), spend about $10 on those quarter operated vacuum machines to get all the glass out of the van then buy some plexiglass and a boatload of duct tape to make a make-shift window that would withstand a 7 hour drive home.


We'll just chalk them both up as part of the adventure.


On a more positive note, Colby has been doing absolutely wonderful with his motor skills and with sitting up. His hand movements are very deliberate and precise. He'll take his binky out of his mouth, look at it, turn it around a bit and try to put it back into his mouth. He'll also reach right for something that he's interested in.


Just a couple weeks ago, we were trying to get him to sit up on his own. But he didn't want anything to do with it. He's simply fall over and cry. Now, if you have him on your lap, leaning against you, he'll pull himself upright and seems to prefer to sit upright rather than leaning back on something.


I've been watching him today as Tracey had to work. He's been very vocal and playful all day. I love to see him grow and progress !!!


Below are some pics from our trip.

Amie on the lake in a kayak with coffee in the early morning....life is good.
My niece, Gabrielle, with Colby. You can see how well he sits up. We got him this little driving tow thing and he loves it!

Colby and Daddy in the morning. (Great picture honey)

Colby says "Daddy, I love camp!" The lake is about 15 miles long and at one end there's an awesome cove. It's pretty much a private pond. There's only two camps within this cove. It has a huge river running into it. The cove is pretty shallow so we go in, trim the engine up and pull the boat onto shore. We then walk along the shore or up the river. I brought my two nieces, Gabrielle and Alexis, my sister in law Aime and Evan up there for a couple hours on this day.
Everyone getting their fishing rods in order before we hop of the boat.
Evan, Gab and Lexi.

Our friends Dave and Nikki were able to come up for a couple days. Here's Davey getting ready to hook a big one!
Dave giving Evan some pointers on the guitar in camp.
Nikki looking quite happy to have a glass of wine in her hand.
Dave playing some Dave Matthews out at the fire one night. Nice job Davey !!Some wildlife....a big snapping turtle crossing the road. There's all kinds of stuff up there. There's often at least one pair of bald eagles up there each summer. Foxes, coyotes, deer, moose, black bear....you name it...it's probably in the woods up there. Ahhh yes. Mosquitoes really suck! Remember that cove I brought them to? Well, you have to get out of the boat and to into the woods on the shore to make your way up the river. The mosquitoes, black flies and horseflies were horrible. Poor Amie just had her bathing suite top on. She had to turn back about 1/4 of the way up the river. I can't imagine what her back would have looked like if she kept going!

Our growin' boy

(Colby and Aunt Amie)
(Colby and Mommy)(Colby says "Haaaa Yahhhhhhh!!!!!"
(Colby feeling strong after knocking over some blocks)

Sorry for the delay in posting. But I honestly just didn't have much to write about. Colby has been doing so well. He's a happy little boy. I'm not sure how much we weighs now, but I can feel he's gaining weight.

We're heading up to Maine tomorrow. This will be Colby's second trip. But the boat is in the water and we'll be up there a little longer, so he'll probably do some swimming and take his first ride in the boat. YIPPIEEE!

I'm sure when we get back I'll have tons of pictures.

Have a wonderful 4th of July.