Frankie's Balloon Obsession

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Or "Boon" as he likes to call it. This past weekend, Frankie and I headed to Houston for the social event of the season, The Official Zuri (3) and Catalina (2) Birthday Party. When we arrived at Momma Gina's house, Zuri gave Frankie a big hug and kiss and Catalina offered him "coffee" in her tea set. Frankie happily obliged but was more interested in one of Zuri's newest presents, a walking, yowling dinosaur. The party was at The Little Gym which was like Gymboree only 10 times better because it was huge and way more dangerous. There was a "swimming pool" of foam blocks to jump into and 8 trampolines lined up to make jumping from one to the other an excersize in disaster and FUN. I think we can tell who had a good time (uh, me)! Despite all this ankle breaking goodness, I could not tear Frankie from the balloons attached to each chair at the table (or the fruit tray). I would get him interested in something for about 4 minutes, turn around and he was dashing towards the balloons, laughing. I didn't think he would make it to the end when he would finally have a balloon to call his own. He even tried yoinking them from a nieghboring party. Thankfully, there were cupcakes, which even the normally cake-shy Frankie was excited about. As you can see, guest of honor Catalina enjoyed hers quite a bit. I think Zuri got the most out of the experience - he was running around like a madman. Frankie and Catalina were maybe a bit intimidated. Either way, we were happy we got to make it! Happy Birthday Miss C and Mr. Z!

Zuri Hula-Hoops

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Catalina Enjoys Her Cupcake

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Perhaps Basketball Is In Frankie's Future

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At last year's one year check-up, Frankie was off the growth charts -- he was one short little dude. Yesterday, we went in for our two year check-up and the nurse measured him. Then, she came back in and measured him again, proclaiming she was sure it was wrong. But she wasn't - Frankie grew almost five inches this year, putting him solidly in the 50th percentile (meaning 50% of kids his age are shorter and 50% are taller) of height. Way to go, F-man. Maybe one day you'll play basketball yet!

Notes From St. Louis

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"Frankie eated it all!" he proudly declares...

Missouri Botantical Gardens - Climatron

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Missouri Botanical Gardens

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St. Louisians are proud of these lavish grounds in the south part of the city, near Tower Grove Park (not far from my childhood home). Frankie really enjoyed all the flowers, fountains and feeding the ducks.

St. Louis Zoo Carousel

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Frankie was too scared to ride, but we cheered on Andrew, Leland, Caitlyn and Carolyn from the sidelines.

St. Louis Zoo

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Frankie, MawMaw JoJo and I joined one of my high school friends (well, she's still my friend, but I have known her since high school) Carolyn and her three kids at the St. Louis Zoo. I hadn't been in quite some time and the changes have been phenomenal. It's a gigantic zoo and I think it was somewhat overwhelming for Frankie. He was very upset with me because I wouldn't let him feed pretzels to the puffins.

Medical Update

Some of you are aware that in the past month Frankie has been tested up and down in an effort to determine why he gets so many respiratory infections. We’ve done blood tests, a cystic fibrosis sweat test, a swallow study and a bronchoscopy. Luckily, everything was negative – the kid is normal. The pediatric pulmonary specialist determined Frankie does have trachealmalasia (a softening of the cartilage of the trachea, otherwise known as “floppy airways”). Basically, in the area where Frankie had his TEF repair, a small fold of skin can easily house errant bacteria, increasing the risk of infections. However, because the case isn’t severe, there’s not much to be done and eventually, as he gets larger, he will likely grow out of it. One thing the doctor did prescribe which has, so far, seemed to help immeasurably was a super dose of antibiotics. I am afraid to jinx us by saying Frankie hasn’t been really sick in a couple months now!