"Solids" and Some Company

(July 13, 2007)
Sawyer has started to eat "solid food". It really isn't very solid at all and so far he is NOT a fan. You would think that at 20 lbs and 28" he would be a great solid food eater but so far he's pretty sure that it is quite gross.












(July 15-21, 2007)
Cory's parents came to hang out with us for a week. It was a lot of fun. They brought their new dog, Jovie, and she was a big hit. Too bad that it rained all week. We found somep fun inside things to do though!

July Pictures

(July 11, 2007)
Sawyer's fine motor skills are really developing. It is fun to watch him learning to play.























(July 13, 2007)
The boys couldn't wait for me to help them with the watermelon, so they helped themselves! Mmmmmmmmm. . . .

And So Begins The Harvest!

Here I am, sitting at my parent's computer, crying. For two reasons.



One, Dad and Mom are at Nate Towes' funeral right now and I have been thinking and praying a lot for Rosanna and the rest of the family. I can't imagine their pain. But in their family's pain there has been a gift to our family. . .


. . . as the boys and I were making a fruit salad for his family to have at supper time an amazing thing happened. They wanted to know why we were making this salad. I explained that there was a man who was in a car accident and he died, this has left his family here on earth very sad because they miss him. I explained that making the salad was a simple way to show them His love. They decided then that it really wasn't a fruit salad but a love salad! So as we were cutting fruit and adding lots of love to the salad I got to tell them about how Nate loved Jesus and lived his life the way the Jesus asked him to. I got to tell them that he is in heaven singing with the angels. They both told me that they want to live the way that Nate did and the way that Jesus wants them to and we prayed together to tell Jesus that!!! AMAZING!!! I never go to meet Nate but I have heard wonderful wonderful stories about him. It is my prayer that my boys will grow up to be men of God, as Nate so obviously was.

He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Psalm 40:2-3

Praise the Lord!

Sawyer has been doing really well! He is completely off of pain killers now and is generally back to his happy, carefree self!!! He is also beginning to sleep better which is very encouraging for me. Thanks everyone for your prayers. I am so thankfull that we are now on this side of the operation and that he is healing well!!!


Sawyer is very enamoured with his hands. He can spend a lot of time examining every different angle of them.













I have added a link on the blogs that I read. The link is for Andrew, Marie and Josiah Haak. Andrew and I went to the same church as children and a couple of months ago my sister sent me the link for their blog. They have a baby just two weeks younger than Sawyer who hasn't left Children's Hospital since he was born. They have lots of prayer support but more can't hurt. . . I had the opportunity to meet Marie and Josiah while I was waiting for Sawyer's surgery to be finished. She really inspired me. Thanks for adding them to your prayers too!!!

Before and 1-week After

?? Sleep ???

Sawyer seems to be healing well. Thankyou for your prayers for him. He has had trouble sleeping since his surgery though. Day and night it he has difficulty falling asleep as well as staying asleep. Last night he was basically up from 1:30am to 5am! If you could add this to your prayers it'd be greatly appreciated. I think that it would help him to feel better (and me too!)

hangin 'round

We're having a pretty sweet day today. Sawyer has been pretty ornery at times but he's eating better and also napping not bad. The number of smiles and squeals is also growing exponentially which we are all loving. Here are some pictures of Sawyer today (scars and all).


Caution: this next picture is ridiculously cute...


Last night was a little like the picture below. Corinne guessed that Sawyer's longest stretch of sleep was 45 min. Here's hoping tonight is better. We're sure it will be.


We have so much to be thankful for! Not the least of these being that Sawyer's surgery is done, it went really well, our family is home and together, and he seems to be healing well.

Home

Sawyer and I arrived home on the 1pm ferry. He is feeling pretty well I think. I am pretty tired but glad to be home. The incision on his head is healing well and the swelling seems to be going down. He hasn't been eating (well, drinking his formula) though. He had about 4oz all day yesterday and only 4oz so far today. He is obviously not on IV anymore so it is important that he drinks or we'll end up in emergency for another IV. . . . so if you could pray for that that'd be great!! Thanks again for all of your love!

Today

Today has been ok. There hasen't been very much swelling. . .well there has been quite a bit but not as much as I thought there would be. . .he can still see out of his eyes! This morning was good. This afternoon has been hard. Sawyer has been very uncomfortable. They tried lowering his morphine and it was evident that he was very uncomfortable, so after about an hour they turned it back up. I think he is sleeping right now while Anika is giving me a little breather. This afternoon was really hard for me. Kirsten came for a visit right at the perfect time this afternoon. Sorry for the random thoughts, I'm tired. Cory may write more later. For now, thanks for all your prayers, they are working!!! Please keep them coming!!!

For those of you whom we missed on the email. . . .

Cory's email to family and friends Tuesday evening. . .


Hello family and friends,

I just got off the phone with Corinne. Here's a summary of how everything has gone over the past 24 hours (sorry if this is review for some of you).

Corinne, Sawyer and Mom Isaak got to the hospital yesterday at 9:00. Sawyer's surgery was scheduled for 11:20 but the surgery before his was taking longer than expected. Sawyer was getting quite cranky but settled down nicely right around 11:20. Not a coincidence from our perspective! Sawyer was taken into surgery at 1:15. It took the doctors more than 2 hours to get an arterial line set up (it was eventually set up by a cardiac doctor that they called in). Although the surgery was only scheduled to take about an hour and 15 minutes the doctor only came out at about 5:00 to let Corinne know that everything had gone well. She finally got to see Sawyer at 7:40, a very long time from all of our perspectives.

Sawyer is doing well. The surgery was successful in that the doctor was even able to do an additional step in the surgery that is purely cosmetic and only done if things are going well. He did not need a blood transfusion and came out of the anesthetic well. He drank 4oz of sugar water immediately after getting back to his room and also had three 4oz bottles through the night (without showing any signs of nausea) which is a great sign.

The swelling has also been relatively low so far. Although it's hard to tell under the bandages his face has not swollen too much yet. The nurses say that his eyes may swell shut today which would be hard but it hasn't happened yet (here's hoping it doesn't). His pain has seemed reasonable. They did give him some extra morphine last night when his heart rate was rising a bit but that seemed to be effective and he relaxed quite soon after. He's been doing normal baby things like shaking his toys and enjoying Corinne playing with him. His heart rate has also been going down when she sings to him which is very cool.

Today Corinne and Sawyer are mostly relaxing. Sawyer is sleeping (usually in Corinne's arms or holding onto her hand) and resting and eating well. He's starting to tug on the gauze covering the top of his head and itching his face a bit (itching is normal after anesthetic and while on morphine). At the time I'm writing this message the doctor hasn't been by to check on Sawyer today.

I have some pictures from yesterday that I thought I'd share with you all. It's just a shutterfly link, so I hope it works for all of you. Click here to go to the shutterfly album. I've attached a few pictures from the album in case it doesn't work for you.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Please feel free to email this message to anyone that I've missed (I'm not working from a list so it's certainly possible that I missed lots of people).

Peace, and apologies for the long email,

-COry (for Corinne and the boys)

Tomorrow

(I'm not at home so I had to steal this picture from Anika's blog-thanks!)
Well, I went for all of the pre-op stuff at Children's Hospital today and only cried once! They had someone who was just learning in the lab take Sawyer's blood and he cried . . . a lot, that made me cry too. But we were better as soon as we could hold each other! I feel pretty good about tomorrow. I got a few questions answered, know when and where to be in the morning, bathed Sawyer with a special sponge, put him to bed and now it is just time to wait. Sawyer's surgery is tomorrow at 11:20am and should last for an hour and 15 minutes. It should be about an hour after that that we can see him. My mom is going to be with us. (Thanks Mom, I wouldn't want to do it without you!) I will try to get a blog up and let you all know how it went as soon as I can. . . thanks for your prayers!!!!

Parenting Within Christian Community

Yesterday evening we had the privilege of dedicating Sawyer at The Place. One of the verses that we chose for him is Isaiah 58:10+11. It says "Feed the hungry and help those in trouble, then your light will shine out from the darkness and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring" (NLT). The verse speaks both about living a life that is focused outward and about God's provision for us.

Our desire for Sawyer is that he would come into relationship with Christ, seek to know Him and live his life being an expression of Christ's love in the world. We believe that raising him to be this type of man requires a commitment on our part and on the part of our community.

Dedicating Sawyer is a public commitment by us as parents to raise Sawyer in the way God teaches us to. At the same time our community was committing to hold us accountable to that goal and to be involved with us in the process of raising Sawyer. That involvement started almost immediately when we had the privilege of having the leaders of the church pray for Sawyer's health, his surgery and his recovery, during the service. We are feeling the impact of everyone's prayers in the peace that we're experiencing as we start off this week. There's a lot on our minds and we're anxious sometimes but we're trusting God and feeling at peace knowing that we're in good hands.


Today Corinne and Sawyer left for the mainland to get the pre-op stuff done for Sawyer's surgery tomorrow. We have a challenging week ahead but it will be made considerably easier by two things. The first is the support of our families. My Mom is out in Victoria to help me hang out with Tyler and Riley, and Corinne's parents are helping Corinne out at the hospital. The second is the support of our Christian community at The Place and elsewhere.

Thanks to everyone for your support in its various forms! We'll keep you posted on Sawyer's progress.

Fun Pictures

Anika and Jonathan came over for the night Friday night and we had lots of fun with them. Today the boys went to their first T-ball "game". We took about 200 pictures. . . .here is a "small" sampling.









Afterward we played at the playground.










Sawyer's first time on a swing. I'm not sure if it was the swing that he liked or the funny sounds that I was making.

Little Gifts

So today I went clothes shopping, with my three boys. An adventure. However, bringing them along today provided me with a special blessing that I wouldn't have received if I didn't bring them. As I was trying on several different clothing items the boys kept saying, "Wow Mom, you are so beautiful". They even said it when I was standing there in my underwear! Now right now I am really frustrated with my body, I don't have time to work out and I don't look like I want to so the statements that the boys were making were 100% different than the thoughts that were occuring in my own head. Thanks boys for loving me for me. What a blessing!!!

Some Thoughts and Pictures

Sawyer's surgery is next Tuesday. I've explained to Tyler and Riley that right now Sawyer has an oval shaped head but that for his brain to have room to grow he needs a circle shaped head. I've told them that Mommy and Sawyer will be going to the hospital for a few days and Grandma will stay with them and Daddy. Today, sort of out of the blue Tyler says, "How will they make Sawyer's head a circle? I don't want them to cut him. That would hurt him." I agree. Most of the time I'm okay with this whole thing but every once in a while tears well up (and overflow). Thanks for praying! Here's a few shots from a couple of minutes ago.