Happy Birthday Joey!

It's hard to believe but Joey turned two on April 1. It's been a crazy couple of weeks so I haven't had much time to update the blog, but the little guy is now in sunny Florida so Jason and I have had a bit of free time.

When Joey was born my very thoughtful friend Lori (who was also our labour coach) bought a giant stuffed bear for my Mom. We didn't understand why at first, but the card attached explained it all...it was to be kept at our house and we were to take pictures of Joey with the bear to send to my Mom, who lives far away, so she could get some perspective on how much Joey has grown. We took pictures of Joey with his bear every month for the first year...it really shows how much he has grown! Here is the first picture we took of Joey with his bear at 6 weeks, again at one year and then the one we took most recently at 2 years old:




At one year Joey wasn't able to sit up on his own, he really needed the bear to support him. What a difference this year! As I stated taking the pictures he was almost getting up on his knees without support and the actually got down on the ground and crawled over to the camera!

We think Joey *knows* he isn't a baby anymore...we had to keep a very detailed food journal for three days because we were attending the feeding clinic at Sick Kids in Toronto on Monday the 31st. The day we started the food journal Joey suddenly decided he didn't want to drink his PediaSure from the bottle, which for the past 9 months has been 90% of his overall food intake. So, we decided to try and feed him with a spoon...complete shock, Joey WANTS TO EAT!!!! Since last summer the only things Joey would eat was yogurt and pudding, and rarely did he have more than one serving a day. Suddenly he was eating chicken, vegetables, fruit and the dreaded beef, which he has never really liked. Of course these are all baby foods, not adult table foods yet, but we don't care! Since turning two there have actually been several days where Joey hasn't had even an ounce of PediaSure from his bottle, which has NEVER happened before. Needless to say we are extremely excited. We didn't find the clinic at Sick Kids all that helpful (actually, it was a colossal waste of time to be honest) but we also have a dietitian that comes to the house, and she came over on April 2nd and spent almost 3 hours with us, reviewing Joey's food intake, calculating his daily caloric needs and coming up with suggestions on how to fortify his foods without changing the taste and texture. Joey needs about 950 calories a day to maintain growth, and when we added up the three days of solid food he ate it was an average of almost 1200 calories/day! We're hoping this will translate into some weight gain very soon....he was 20 lbs 8 oz when he was weighed at the beginning of February and was the exact same weight as of March 31st. If he doesn't gain at all, or if he loses weight, when he is weighed next on May 5th we will definitely have a problem. But for now, we are just thrilled that he is back to eating real food. As a Mom it is very disheartening when your kid won't eat. Even though logically I know it's not my fault, I can't help but feel that in some way I have failed in my job as a mother. Mothers are designed to feed and nurture their children, we're born with the ability to produce the perfect food for our children. To watch your child struggle to eat, and not be able to do anything about it, is extremely tough. Joey is very thin, when he is in just a diaper you can count all of his ribs and vertebrae by sight. When I take him swimming sometimes I can see and feel the judgemental stares from the other mothers, probably wondering if I'm not feeding my child properly. I've even had people approach me and say "oh my God, he's so SKINNY!", and while most people don't mean any harm with their comments, it is just as hurtful as if someone said "oh my God, he's so FAT!" It's funny, most people wouldn't dream making a comment about an overweight child, but an underweight one seems fair game. Okay, now I'm rambling....

So, Joey left for Florida last Friday with Grandma and Papa Roy. We're in contact every day by phone or by webcam, but I am starting to ache a little bit to give him a big squeeze. Jason and I leave on Saturday morning to join them for a week and I can't wait! Apparently the weather is agreeing with Joey and is continuing to eat well. Hopefully it has the opposite effect one me.....

Pamela, Jason and Joey