He continues to surprise us every day

Are you ready to read some miraculous events that have occurred with our little Samuel in the past couple of weeks? Well, get ready. He's continued to surprise us every day!

First, a quick medical update. Since the last blog, Samuel has been to the ENT (ear, nose and throat specialist) the dentist a couple of times, and has had the appliance to stretch his palate for almost 2 weeks now.

The ENT gave us good news, saying that Samuel can definitely hear, although it may be muffled due to some fluid behind one eardrum and a hole in the other. The doc is going to put a tube in one ear, to help with drainage, and may have to surgically repair the hole in the other a few years down the road. He also pulled out the biggest "Shrek" ball of earwax I've ever seen!! YUCK!! We're pretty sure Samuel had to have heard better just after getting that removed. And so the first of our miracles in the last couple of weeks... Not one ear infection since our appointment there!! The doc was prepared to keep us supplied with ear drops, anticipating the ear infections to be a pretty constant occurrence. We are so thankful, and I'm sure Samuel is thankful for less pain in his ears. We also think he is hearing much better as he is responding much more quickly to his name and other stimuli these days.

The visits to the dentist over the last couple of weeks have not been too pleasurable for our poor baby. He has had to get an impression of his mouth, which included 3 people holding him down while they squirted a whole bunch of goo into the roof/open pallet of his mouth, which had to set up for a minute. Now, these guys are amazing, and did this incredibly fast. But, for a little guy who is used to breathing through the opening in the roof of his mouth (which was now clogged) and who is very defensive about anyone touching anywhere around his mouth, this was even more of a traumatic experience than would be for anyone else. He was a trooper and held on tight to his mama afterward. With impression goop all in his hair, we met daddy for lunch and the world was good and happy again.

We received his appliance the next week and received a special story with it. Samuels dentist has developed a relationship with the guy who makes these special cleft appliance for him. The man lives hours away, works a full time job during the day, but after hours has set up a shop in his home to design and make these cleft appliances. Years ago, his son had a cleft palate, and this man, who makes retainers and other dental appliances for a living, set out on a mission to create these very unique apparatus' to help our special little ones. We also found out he even prays over them before he sends them out. Pretty amazing!! God just continues to show Himself all over the place along this journey. So very comforting knowing His hand is in all of this.

Samuel was supposed to have this appliance for 6-8 weeks. The goal is to expand his palate 7mm by expanding it 1/4mm twice each day. We do this by turning a "key" on the expander once in the morning and once at night. The appliance stays in place by hooking into his palate, holding onto his upper molars and some Fixodent. He wears it at all times except when he eats. Look at the math for a minute.... Because of Samuels tissue being soft, they will be expanding this in 2 weeks rather than the 6-8 we thought!!! Wow, this seems to all be happening so fast!!! We have gone through quite a bit of Tylenol, as this has been pretty uncomfortable for Samuel, but he is doing great, and leaving the appliance alone as it does its work. How many people can say their 2 year old uses Fixodent?? Pretty funny if you ask us.

Now for some pretty incredible fun facts from the last couple of weeks. Samuels eating has dramatically changed. Going from struggling to eat baby cereal a few weeks ago, he is now eating adult oatmeal!! In fact, he can eat an entire bowl full for breakfast!! Just this last Friday, Elijah was eating a corn dog and some cheesy broccoli for lunch and Samuel started reaching for it. Within 20 minutes he had taken out 1/2 corn dog and a big scoop of the broccoli!!! I was in shock!!! Since then he's eaten pizza, pasta, and just last night, jambalaya!!! Our little man is reaching for the stars, and accomplishing great feats right now.

He has also greatly expanded in his toy play!! He just recently began to hold a marker so we could begin to work on coloring. This has been really hard!! He has not wanted anything to do with even picking one up. So we've gotten a couple of scribbles thus far, but the way he explodes with everything else once he learns something new, I'm sure we'll have an artist on our hands by the next blog.

He also is now pushing a dump truck around the house, which is great work for his motor skills, and he LOVES to throw balls. Over handed and with pretty good force behind it!! Unfortunately for Matt, we have another right handed boy. No left handed pitchers yet.

We had a really nice day, weather wise, a week or so ago, and Samuel had his first experience with sidewalk chalk and the park. He loved being outside!! His brothers helped him go down a slide for the first time. They are so good with him. Elijah even insisted on pushing his stroller as we took a walk down by the lake to see the ducks.

Samuel will be going this Thursday to see if his palate has expanded enough for surgery. If it has, we should be scheduled for lip and palate repair in the next couple of weeks!!

Thank you again for all your prayers for Samuel and our family. We are continually thanking God for all of your support and for giving us another miracle baby in our family. God is GOOD!!!