There's no crying in Baseball!

But there is crying in the Stewart house! We are very sorry to our loyal fans for the delay in this post, it has been a very trying time since returning home.

Our baby boy has endured a rough 2 weeks. His perfect and wholesome world has been turned upside down, shaken and stirred, smacked on the butt and told to figure it out all over again. Jack has shown great improvement since the surgery, but he has yet to regain his former self. Before surgery we joked about his personality changing, "If he comes back with an attitude, we want our money back!" and "If Jack cries after the surgery, we want the surgeon to go back and fix it." Little did we know the life changing experiences we were going to encounter.

Last Wednesday, the 20th, we visited with Dr. Singhal, the surgeon, for our one week post op visit. We tried to explain that Jack is not a fussy baby nor does he cry uncontrollably and yet since bringing him home from the hospital he is fussy and that he does cry, a lot (and very loud I might add!). And while Stefanie and I are explaining this horrible home experience we are having, Jack proceeds to blow bubbles and motorboat his lips at everyone in the room. WOW!! Did we look like idiots! Thanks son, for making your mom and I feel like we have no idea of what we are talking about to your surgeon! Dr. Singhal looked at us, smiled and said, "He looks pretty good to me."

After looking like the idiots in the village, we started to ask about when kiddos start to eat on a normal feeding schedule since Jack hasn't shown much interest in eating his baby food at all. Dr. Singhal started to explain how the swelling and bruising in the temporal area can be painful while chewing when our Academy Award winning son opened wide enough to shove not 1, not 2, but 3 fingers in his mouth and begin to gnaw on them. This time the good doctor's reaction was slightly annoyed, "Hmmmm...guess that's not it either. So.......any other questions?"

Jack, being our little devil in disguise, has continued to be quite a handful. There are happy times and smiles in between the bouts of screaming and crying and whimpering. We have had several nights where he wakes up crying and will refuse to go back to sleep for 2-3 hours. Which means Stefanie and/or I are also up for 2-3 hours. It is like having the newborn experience all over again. In the morning and afternoon he detests taking a nap and in the evening he has worked himself to the point of exhaustion and...yep, you guessed it, he is too cranky to fall asleep. The single hardest parental experience, other than the surgery, that Stefanie and I have had to deal with has to be the utterly helpless feeling of not being able to comfort our child. Not sure what to do with a crying baby......we've never had one. The only thing that seems to calm him is picking him up and walking around. We don't want to encourage the "If i cry, they will pick me up" mentality, but what else can we do? We constantly are asking ourselves...what is it? Is he in pain? Is he teething? Is this just normal 9 month old behavior? Does he need to cry it out? Did he get used to our undivided attention for the last 2 weeks? Will it get better when we all get back into a routine? Is it separation anxiety? The list goes on and on....

Jack's eating habits have also drastically changed. He relies more on the bottle than ever before and still won't eat the foods he used to love. However Puffs and Cheerios are now the food of choice. I will admit he has had a few shining moments when it comes to meal time, but the road ahead seems long and bumpy!

On a softer note, the other night Stefanie and I were watching TV wishfully thinking that Jack would fall asleep sitting in between us on the couch since he would not go to bed. After a while of sitting Jack turned his head to Stefanie, pulled his arm from under the blanket and reached for her. He did not make a sound nor did he move any body parts other than his head and arm. He was close to her lips so she kissed his little hand. He then let his arm rest and smiled at her. I think it was his way of saying, "I love you mom." A precious moment in time as a father and husband.

And the good news of the day is that Jack has kicked his narcotic abuse and pain medication habit! Our little junkie is no longer on any pain meds. He surprises us every day with how quickly he is recovering. He seems to be regaining his strength and is getting used to carry around his big ol' head. He doesn't appear to mind his helmet too much since he only has to wear it when riding in the car or when playing if there is a chance he might bump his head.

Hopefully the next post won't take so long. Thanks for thinking about all of us!

~Cory & Stefanie