'Tis the Season

We hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving. Max was a busy guy over the holiday! On the family side, his Aunt Dr. Becky, Uncle James & Aunt Katie all flew in from their respective homes and on the friend side, Shawn, Brian & Andrew and Pisor visited as well. Max was passed back and forth all weekend and was never at a loss for attention! (I even had to cut in at one point for dibs on MY personal time with him!) Some highlights were: Nana's deeelicious Thanksgiving meal, playing the hilarious board game 'Don't Be a Dork', taking turns documenting the holiday with the awesome video camera Uncle Dave bought us and (as mentioned in one of Michael's previous blogs) actual SLEEP! Becky and I also went to see the new holiday movie Four Christmases and I fell asleep 3/4 of the way through it and woke up just in time for the credits. Sweet.

Since that blessed Thanksgiving Eve, Max has been giving us about 4-4.5 hours of sleep each night. FOR REAL! It's been an incredible gift. We've met with both his physical therapist and massage therapist in the past two days as well. Both are very nice ladies who will be a great asset to Max's development. The physical therapist will visit us once a week for the next two years and the massage therapist will visit us three more times in the coming months. The physical therapist was very impressed with Max's strength and alertness. She gave us several exercises to use during play time. The massage therapist taught me a couple techniques to help aid the end of his regular constipation as well. He goes back in for his next synagis shot in about a week and they'll probably weigh him again. We estimate that he's definitely over 10 lbs now! He has rolls of baby chub on his legs and neck- "it's okay to have rolls of fat when you're a baby, especially a preemie!" as Michael says. He's also starting to give us what we think are actual smiles. Talk about melting your heart...

A Michael update: he has an appointment this coming Monday with the chemotherapy oncologist at Geisinger. We should hopefully learn more then on when they intend to do it. Due to the potential side effects, we wouldn't be surprised if they wait until right after the new year so he can enjoy the Christmas holiday. He also has another CAT scan on the 22nd. On a side note, he seems to be loving grad school. It's nice to see him so excited and intellectually stimulated by the work and people. Sometimes it seems like we talk on the phone in between classes and work more than in person (thanks, Verizon!), but we knew it would be like this and we know it will be worth it once the three years are up! I'm so proud of him.

Next weekend we'll be introducing Max to the glories of the local Victorian Christmas extravaganza. It's apparently quite the sight and I'm a big fat sucker for all things Christmas. Max has recently started a love affair with lights (you should see him sit and stare at the dining room ceiling at Nana's), so I'm thinking he'll love all the gussied-up trees just as much as I do.

I had my first yearly viewing of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" while my mom was here a few weeks ago. It's a family tradition dating back many years when we'd watch it at Grandma & Buddy's (Grandpa) house over and over. I dare anyone to a quote fest- I pretty much (to my husband's chagrin?) have the whole thing memorized back and forth. ("Is Rusty still in the Navy, Clark?", "She'll see the tree later Clark, her eyes are frozen", "See Russ? Can't see the line", etc etc etc.)

And with the holidays comes festive music... I won't lie- I pulled out the Mariah Carey Christmas Album a couple weeks ago and just added Andy Williams, John Denver and the Muppets and Mannheim Steamroller to my mp3 player yesterday, too.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other very merry holiday tunes?