Tyler climbs into Andrew's crib more and more lately. Andrew loves it, and I usually know when Tyler's in the crib when they both start laughing. Tyler still can't get out of the crib by himself, so they both play in there until I go haul them out.

Andrew is shadowing Tyler more and more. I'm pretty sure he thinks he's 2. Tyler is getting more into the oldest sibling role and letting Andrew know how to do things, and what he can and can't do (according to the rules of Tyler).

I can hardly believe that Tyler will be 3 in just two weeks! And it's almost been a year since Andrew came home from the hospital. I'm sure I'll reminisce on that next time I post, so I'll leave it alone for now.

So what have we been up to? Hmm. . . well. I just posted the pictures from our Oregon Trip last month. We really enjoyed the trip. Oregon is so beautiful! I loved the mossy trees and watching the waves on the ocean. We made a lot of stops just to watch the ocean. We also went to the Tilamook Cheese Factory, the Hadfield Marine Science Center, an aquarium that was kind of like a water animal zoo, and an air museum. Even with all the driving the boys did really well, and had a good time too.

When we got back from Oregon, Andrew had another appointment to check on his esophageal stent. Unfortuneately it had moved down past the stricture, so the surgeon pulled it out. (We got our statement from Primary's a few weeks ago and just the stent was nearly $5k). (Oh, and Andrew was approved for disability medicaid last month. Hooray!!) The surgeon did some x-ray test while they were in the OR and was concerned that they may have been a tear in Drew's esophagus, so he had to stay in the hospital overnight on IV anti-biotics. They next morning we did a dye test under x-ray that showed there wasn't a leak, so we got to come home.

The stent had been difficult at first because it really irritated his reflux and was uncomfortable, so Drew was pretty miserable for about a week before he got used to it. He did great after that was able to eat whatever we fed him. The idea behind the stent was to hold the scar tissue in place and let it settle, in hopes that when the stent was removed the scar tissue would stay open. However, once it was removed it wasn't long before he started having trouble swallowing foods again.

So yesterday Andrew had dilation #14. I asked the surgeon about any other options and he said at this point we just keep doing dilations. The only other option is to do surgery and cut out the scar tissue, basically redoing the sugery. That's a pretty extreme measure though, and our surgeon said he's never had a stricture that didn't eventually give in to the dilations. So we'll just keep doing them.

Andrew is getting better balance and is able to stand sometimes, when he doesn't think about it. As soon as he realizes he's standing he sits down. He will hold on to supports with just one hand now though. He's getting closer and closer to walking.

We were really enjoying the warm weather that we had for a few weeks. We started going for walks and playing at the park again. Both the boys really like it. It's been stormy this week, so we've been staying in more. Next week should be nice again though. Tyler loves to be outside every chance he gets. I'll really have to keep an eye on him this summer.

Mostly it's just life as usual around here. We are so blessed.