chug-a-lug!

Braden continues to impress all with his eating. I fed him 3 times today and he took 25, 18, and 22 cc's by bottle. He is supposed to take 70 cc's ( 2 ounces) every 3 hours as Steph said earlier.

It is really amazing to watch his little personality come out too. The faces he makes, his reactions to things that happen is pretty cool to see. You can see him becoming a little person.

We had lots of good father/son time today too, while mom was snoozing. We watched Notre Dame pound Penn State today, for our first football game together. In all honesty I did most of the watching and he slept a lot, but I filled him in on what he missed. He definitely has been paying more attention to Texas/OSU tonight though.

Other father/son fun time also included the changing of my first 3 nasty diapers today. I did pretty well I must say, I didn't even gag once. (the cats litter pan is another story of course)

I seriously think this is the best day we have had here in terms of his stability and progress, and undoubtedly the bonding for us with him as a family. He has hardly been in his bed all day, Steph and I just hold him for hours on end some times.

On a side note, I just checked the numbers on this blog and 1,626 different people have looked at our blog in less than 1 month! That is not the number of hits on this site because I know some of you have checked it 1,600 times on your own. I find this to be just absolutely amazing. To think that this many people, a vast majority of which have seen two pictures of him, are pulling for him, praying for him, and are in his corner is truly a special thing. Thank you for constant watchfulness over our little boy.

The doctor's we spoke with today said that if he continues to eat the way he is and improve through next week they would start to discuss a target date to come home. Now we aren't marking the calendars just yet or trying to get ahead of ourselves by any means. However, you can't help but get excited when you hear the mention of home and the possibilities that it involves. Steph and I know that there could be setbacks still and we are sticking with our day at a time philosophy. What he has done in the last week is truly amazing though. A week ago I was worried sick about all the issues with the breathing tube and the potentially horrible consequences he faced if he failed to get off of it in a timely manner. Now we look at him and he is a totally new kid...and it feels so good, it really does.

Our little man with half a heart is going to have a lot of hugs to give to his fan club someday, to pay you back for all of your help.

Good night,
Rich

ps I will get some more pictures up tomorrow I promise.

Oh by the way, he will be rooting for the BEARS for his first time tomorrow too.......