Incredible Mister Owen

Owen is such a happy, funny, spirited little guy.

He is sweet natured, relaxed, loving and oh so cuddly!

He can also be spunky, determined, stubborn and knows his physical limits.

Sometimes he is bashful. Most of the time, he is outgoing, social and loves to meet new people! His big smile and bright blue eyes light up a room!

We love you so much Mister Owen!!!

Now it's time for an update!!

Owen is doing so great! I have been giving him a diet of only "real" blended foods, through his Gtube. He has SO much more energy and the puking is down to only once a day. It still takes me about an hour to give him his full meals, so he is still not on a perfect schedule, but that's all his little tummy will handle. He hasn't been interested in eating orally, but I don't blame him. With 1400 calories a day and only getting little 2 hour breaks between meals, I can't imagine he is ever hungry enough to want to eat orally. If he were a little more stable, cardiac wise, I would just take a few days off tube feeds and try to get him to eat orally. But, we just don't have that option. He lost a pound in the last 3 weeks, but I added another 200 calories to his daily diet, and he is quickly gaining those back!!

Owen's vocabulary is exploding! He can tell us what he wants, says "plzzzz" and "Da doo". I love to ask him where something is and he says "Ni, Dno Nooooo" (I don't know). He asks for a "Baf" (bath), "Ea" (eat), "Drin" (drink), "Moome" (movie), "Boc" (blocks), and the list goes on and on. He continues with speech therapy once a week and we're working on ending his words.

Thanks to the new energy he feels, he has offically started CRAWLING!! I can't believe it!! We have been working on this since he was 8 months old. All of a sudden, he started getting on his hands and knees. He still exhausts after six crawls, but he's trying. We're working on going up the stairs, but he's petrified to come down. He still tries SO hard to pull to a stand. Crawling will help him build up his upper body strength so pulling up will be easier. I hope. He watches other little kids walk and you can just see how badly he wants to be able to do it too. He'll get there.

The weather is perfect in Phoenix this time of year. Owen loves to swing at the park everyday, go for walks and always asks for his window to be open in the car. Pretty soon it'll be 115 degrees and we'll be living in the pool. I love living in the desert!

It's so nice to have a post about how wonderful Owen is doing. He is still in heart failure, takes 7 medications 3x a day, gets blended foods 5x a day, has therapy 3x a week (sometimes 4) and has multiple doctors appointments every month. Despite all we do on a daily basis, I am constantly amazed at how normal our lives seem these days.