Happy 3rd Birthday to Joey

On April 1st Joey turned three years old. We didn't have a big party this year, as we were leaving for Florida the next day, but we decided to have a low-key pool-side BBQ while on vacation. I can't believe it's been three years since Joey came into our lives! In some ways it feels like yesterday, but in other ways I can't remember what my life was like without him in it.

And in keeping with the tradition he started last year, a few days before his birthday Joey went on a bottle strike. For the majority of 3-year-olds this is not a huge deal, in fact there are few 3-year-olds still drinking from bottles (I know this because of the judgemental stares I get from people while giving Joey a bottle in public). But for Joey this is a huge source of nutrition completely cut out of his diet. Up until now Joey would drink about 2 cans of Pediasure Plus (1.5 calories per ml.) from a bottle per day, one in the morning and one before bed, but now he's decided he wants none of it. Last year he replaced this with eating a huge amount of varied foods...this year, he's just increased the amount of the 3 or 4 things he already eats, namely Minigo (strawberry only), pudding (chocolate only), yogurt ("pink" flavours only) and blueberry baby food. This new phase is troublesome for so many reasons...Joey still does not feed himself at all, and does not eat a lot at one sitting, so that means he has to be fed at least 6x per day, which is time consuming, and he will only eat for a select group of people (right now that's Jason, Grandma Phyllis and to a lesser extent, me). Joey's caloric intake has dropped from about 1200/day to about 900/day, if we're lucky. I'm not even sure that 1200 calories a day was enough, given that he is still EXTREMELY thin and weighs less than 25 lbs at 3 years old.

So the light at the end of the tunnel, if things don't take a major turn for the better, is that we received notification that our appointment with the GI clinic at Sick Kid's hospital in Toronto for a G-tube consult is May 19. I can say for sure that if things don't improve drastically we will be going ahead with the surgery, and Joey will likely have a G-tube in place sometime this summer.

I've always said that pictures of kids covered in food were completely disgusting and should be viewed by the parents only, but since Joey has such a negative relationship with food I tend to celebrate any milestones, such as this little beauty:

Smiling while covered in chocolate pudding and strawberry Minigo...yummmmy!

Joey did extremely well on the flight from Toronto to Tampa. We had some very nasty turbulence that scared me out of my mind, but didn't bother Joey and actually seemed to act as a tranquilizer on him:

Joey also got a chance to sport his new fancy schmancy Superman swimsuit on the beach, courtesy of Zia Jodi and Uncle Jason for his birthday:

Last but not least, while we were in Florida decided to go ahead and get an "elective" ultrasound, something not readily available here in Canada. This was for the sole purpose of finding out the sex of this baby, since I am one of those people that would find out the sex at conception, if there was a way to do so. I was 15 weeks exactly, and the person doing the ultrasound said right away that this baby, much like her older brother, put her goods on display immediately and she could tell us that it's a GIRL! Joey is getting a little sister :) Here are some of her first pictures:

Umm, apparently since there's nothing "pointing back" towards the arrow this indicates that the baby is a girl. I'll just have to trust them on that one, since this just looks like a messy blob to me.

Now this one at least looks like an outline of a baby :)

So Joey is still in Florida with Grandma and Papa Roy for another week, lucky guy. We're both enjoying some lazy time but I miss the little guy terribly. Only 5 more sleeps!

- P, J & J