November 3

Will is doing pretty well. His hernia appears to be getting better. For a few weeks it was always sticking way out and shiny, now sometimes it's back in and all wrinkly. Hoping that means it's starting to heal. I've made a habit of poking it back in whenever I change him or think of it, it seems to make him less cranky even though it pops right back out. He's getting huge, he's still wearing newborn clothes and size 1 diapers but not for long. He's getting so fat the torso of his clothes is starting to get tight on some outfits, even though they're all plenty long enough and the arms and legs are all too long.. lol! And we finally got a smile! He's given us a couple smiles in the last couple days, he's not very confident about it yet but yay!! He's also started watching our cat, I've been giving him a bath in the big tub and the cat sits on the edge of the tub to watch us. Will thinks he's so interesting, the cat is the only thing he reaches for. He's started enjoying the bath in the big tub too, I float him on his back and he kicks around and slaps the water. He doesn't smile about it, but he seems excited and does a whole lot less screaming than he does for bath time in the baby tub.

I got the formal results back from his physical therapy evaluation, and he scored in the normal range on a lot of things. They wrote up a lot on his vision, tracking and responses to sounds, but there's no plan to schedule therapy right away. Maybe in a few months. I'm not totally convinced heneeds it after reading that report, most of the problems sounded like things I can work on with him just as well as they can without dragging him 30 miles and exposing him to other kids in the waiting room with his weak immune system... plus I'm not sure how long he'll have SSI to cover what my insurance won't, and we don't make ends meet as is, we can't afford a bunch of co-pays and fees. I've been doing some of the exercises with him that the therapist recommended, trying to get him to look left, track items all the way from right to left and exposing him to interesting sounds to try to get him to look for them. He's showing some progress already, and a few times each day I catch him looking to his left on his own which he didn't do before. Still to the right most of the time, but not all the time.

Justin started working from home so he's taken over the bedroom. He's on the phone all day so I have to keep Will out of there, no crying baby in the background on the phone with customers. Been napping on the sofa instead. I got a sourdough starter going that I'm excited about, I made biscuits with it already which turned out incredible and today I'm making bread! I've never played with starter much, I tried to get one going before but it went bad before I had a chance to use it. It's a lot of fun! If you want to give it a shot it's really easy, it's just 2 cups of flour mixed with 1 pack yeast, put in a container at least 4 times the size of that and mix in enough water to make a thick batter, then leave in a warm place not sealed for at least 24 hours. I put it by my food dehydrator which has been running making dried apples all day, and in the oven with the light on and door cracked for ventilation at night. When it's all bubbly and smells like beer it's ready to use!