Another appointment at Children's Hospital

TongJie had an appointment with an endocrinologist at Seattle Children's Hospital this morning.  We had to wake him up so we could leave by 6:15.  He's a morning person (like me!) so he seemed happy getting up and eating breakfast earlier than usual.  His appointment was pretty uneventful.  He had been referred to the endocrinologist by Dr. Davies back in July at his last checkup, and today was the earliest they could get an appointment for us!  There's still some concern about TongJie's small stature and weight, so Dr. Davies thought it would be good to have him checked by the specialist so everyone's minds could be put more at ease, or just in case there is some underlying issue.  The endocrinologist today asked us a lot of questions about TongJie's nutrition and behaviors, his height and weight (and other things!) were measured, and he had an overall checkup.  The doctor pretty much confirmed what we have been thinking already, that TongJie is now getting what his body needs and has a lot of catch-up growth to do.  He's still well below the 5th percentile for height and weight (2nd for height and 3rd for weight, according to his measurements today), but appears proportionate and is growing well at his own curve.  His weight for height went down a little from the last measurement (at the 13th percentile now, as opposed to the 30th in July), but that falls in line with what Dr. Davies said usually happens - kids' weight will go up before they have a spurt of height.  Anyway, the doctor today wanted to do another blood test just to check a couple more things, so of course that was not fun for TongJie.  Poor kid - he remembered the examining rooms in Children's and as soon as we walked into the room, he got very upset and started crying and clinging onto me or Jeff for dear life.  Every time we go there, he's always getting poked at by strange people - no wonder he doesn't like it!  So, unless something very unexpected is found in the blood test results tomorrow afternoon, TongJie will be having his palate repair surgery on Tuesday as scheduled.  That means we will head back to Seattle Children's on Monday for his pre-op appointment, and he goes "under the knife" on Tuesday.  The palate surgery is very common and routine, but it's also long and intricate.  He's also getting ear tubes put in at the same time, which is a minor surgery.  We're not looking forward to the recovery from the palate surgery, but we are looking forward to TongJie being able to eat better and also to be able to start speaking.  I'm sure you will hear more about how the recovery is going when we get to that point!

On another note, Jeff and I have been wanting to purchase a Vitamix blender for a long time, and we decided it would be our big Christmas present this year.  Then we decided to just go ahead and get it early because we'll be putting it to good use pureeing TongJie's food after his surgery.  We ordered one of their refurbished models, which are still really expensive by the way, that comes with a 5-year warranty.  It arrived on Tuesday, and we like it already.  It's a pretty cool piece of machinery!  We've already made smoothies and soup, but you can do a lot more things with them that we want to try.  The Vitamix came with an instructional DVD that showed a lady making a bunch of different things that the blender can do.  Jeff put the DVD in and we all sat down to watch it.  We've never actually watched anything on the TV (except for my workouts on the Wii EA Active) since we've had TongJie, so he was completely mesmerized by the DVD.  He didn't seem to care that it was just a lady talking and putting a bunch of stuff in a blender over and over again - he loved it!  As for the Vitamix itself, it's pretty loud and poor TongJie is still terrified of it.  We're hoping he'll get used to it like he did with the Dustbuster and vacuum cleaner.  For TongJie, the highlight was the box that the Vitamix came in.  He's played with that box for hours already!

     

He likes to pile papers and things on the "roof" and then sit inside.

I recently posted a video of TongJie singing, but I couldn't resist another short clip of him singing some more, this time at the piano with his portable "microphone."

This time, his microphone is a bungee cord.

Here are a couple of pictures of me and Jeff with TongJie.  He's blurry in the photo with me, but I still like it because you can tell he's laughing.

That's all for now . . . you might not see another blog post until after the surgery, but feel free to keep us in your prayers on Tuesday!  :)