My Train Engineer

Xander is such a sweet big brother. After rigging this toy up for Dexter, Xander bounced into the room where I was settling Elodie down for nap and exclaimed, "When Dexter gets big, I can share my trains with him and we can play together!" He was literally jumping up and down; all I could do was share his excitement with him, "Oh yeah, that'll be so fun to share trains with Dexter!" Even though part of me wanted to cry because Dexter may never get to that point. Last Thursday, Dexter had a neurology appointment. She noted that Dexter's EEG's haven't really progressed since birth--even on what she called relatively high doses of two pretty strong medications, Dexter is still seizing. Dr. Expert said that while she had initially been hopeful that Dexter would mature neurologically and eventually catch up, based on the subsequent EEGs and examinations, she wouldn't be surprised if Dexter is doing just what he's doing now in a year. In a year! Part of me kinda senses that, but it was hard to hear, especially from the doctor who had been so optimistic as to compare his brain abnormality to a brown freckle. Anyhow, back to Xander. I was pretty impressed with how he engineered a bungee and a couple train cars to make a hanging baby toy thing. He's so good at showing love to his little brother.

Elodie is a sweet big sister, too. While I was pumping on the couch, Elodie decided Dexter didn't look cozy enough just lying on the floor, so she carefully placed her special blanket on him. "Not on his face," she reassured me. Then she retrieved blanket after blanket from her bed to make him super "tozy," as she says. After Elodie got Dexter all snuggly in her blankets, she told him a story: "One time, there was a Jesus. And he go to the temple, and he helped people." Xander wasn't to be outdone, so he put his two favorite blankets on the top of the pile and they both snuggled up next to their little brother. (FYI, Xander's gift to Dexter on his first day home from the NICU was permanent. I swaddle Dexter up in Xander's special blue blanket every night and am touched by Xander's sacrifice. That's pure, unselfish love. I mean, Xander used to say, "I need my blue blanket!" so much that Elodie used to call her special pink blanket "myblueblanket.")