We're outta here...

Just a quick update before we head out for vacation...
We survived 5 different therapist and doctor appointments last week. Benjamin is quite a trooper. He had his 3 month check-up with his kidney doctor. The doctor reviewed his labs and thought everything looked pretty good and stable other than his parathyroid level is increasing. That means we have to put him on another medication that he will have to take three times a day. Unfortunately, it only comes in pill form, so we have to crush it with a coffee grinder and put it in through his G-tube (this is despite the sticker on the container that says swallow whole, do not crush). Alex had his 9 year old well check. He is growing like a weed. He gained almost 10 pounds this year and grew 2 3/4 inches. He is in the 85th percentile for height and the 70th for weight. There's hope for a 6 footer in this family yet!

The kids also caught up on play dates last week since they'll be missing their friends for a little while. We did a little swimming, ran lots of vacation errands and listened to Alex play the piano. All in all, a pretty good summer week...

Saturday was the kids' swim meet. Emma swam in her relay and then got a serious case of nervous butterflies and wasn't able to swim her individual races. She has assured us she will swim at the next meet, so we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, Alex swam like a little torpedo. He improved his time in all 3 races which is quite a feat. He also qualified for breaststroke and freestyle at the special season end meet. Now he has the very nice problem of choosing what 3 events he wants to do.

Well, it's time to run. There are lots of empty suitcases calling to me. Happy 4th of July!!!