We'd love to have you!

Dexter's funeral will be on Friday, April 3 at 10:00am at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints building on 950 Laredo St. Aurora, CO. We would love for all of you--of course our family, my sweet young women at church and the rest of our ward family, Aaron's classmates and co-workers and professors, my good friends from high school who are back in Colorado, our babysitting trade friends, all of Dexter's dedicated nurses, therapists, and doctors, any of you who can make it--to join with us! We love you all and appreciate your expressions of love and your continued prayers for us. We feel strengthened.

We decided not to have a traditional viewing. Instead, we will be showing a slideshow of Dexter's little life in the Relief Society room at the Church between 9:00 and 9:40 before the funeral service itself. All are welcome to drop in and remember Dexter and give us as many hugs as you can spare!

Families Can Be Together Forever

I'm not sure how to say this. We sent our first missionary off to preach the Plan of Happiness. Dexter has left us to begin the next phase of his eternal progression. I feel peace and I'm so sad and I miss him already.

Warning: This post may cause occular leakage

Look at that scrunched up little face! Dexter has gradually gotten less responsive and more floppy since Friday, and today he is really not doing well. He woke up so cold, despite being swaddled and covered in multiple blankets. I've tried sharing my body heat with him and I just can't seem to get him to warm up. He's really pale. I haven't heard him cry since last week. And now his abdomen is hard and swollen and his eyes look puffy. He hasn't been requiring as many diaper changes, despite getting the same amount of milk pumped into him, and I just don't know what to do for him. Should I keep giving him milk when his abdomen is that distended? I don't think so, but then what about dehydration? It's hard to know. Dexter had an EEG at TCH scheduled for this afternoon, but I canceled it because, as strange as this may sound, we want him at home when he's not doing well, not at the hospital. We made some hard decisions before leaving the hospital last time, but we felt peace about them and we still do. We aren't going to admit him to the hospital again. We feel good about that. The Lord has gently given us the impression that Dexter won't be with us on Earth for very long. And I feel submssive and grateful to have him at the moment and for eternity. But it's still so hard to watch him get worse. I think I'll just hold him all day.

More visitors!

Grandma Dahleand SNOW! (Spring snow is just a visitor around here. The sun is already working on melting it off.)Grandma flew in from Texas Thursday morning just as the snow was starting to accumulate. It kept snowing all day yesterday, and by evening, Aaron's professors had already decided to call off class for today. Woohoo! So Aaron got to play in the snow with the kiddos and spend extra chill time with his mom. We LOVE snow days!

We're enjoying BOTH of our visitors, especially Grandma. And we're looking forward to Grandma coming back with Grandpa and Uncle Ron and Aunt Marj in April.

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.")

SURPRISE!

Aaron's three best buddies in the world popped in for a last minute male-bonding weekend and everyone had SO much fun. His nephew Ryan drove up from Texas; his buddy Ricky drove down from Montana, and his brother Ben flew in from Washington. Adventure, fun, survival, dreams, brotherly love, it was all shared. We had a GREAT time together. All of us were so grateful that they sacrificed their time and means to come vacation with us. In case any of you are getting any ideas, yes, we LOVE visitors and all are welcome on little to no notice! This surprise visit sure spiced up an otherwise laborious Spring Break week for Aaron.Relaxing after the guys worked themselves over skiing all day. I don't think Aaron had been since we've been married (nearly 6 years).
Xander LOVED playing with "Uncle" Ryan--Xander found the little stinkpuff game they made up especially hilarious!
Now that Xander actually knows these uncles, he's been periodically reminding me all day how much he loves them.
Everyone got to bask in Dexter's sweetness. And you can, too. Come on over!

He's a growing boy!

Last week, when the home health nurse dropped in, he was 9 lbs 10 oz. Today he was 10 lbs 9 oz. Not bad, eh? The nurse also took some blood today because they're still trying to solve the sodium mystery. She ran the specimen over to the lab at Children's and they ran the BMP ASAP (Basic Metabolic Panel). When waiting for lab results, I figure no news is good news. But his doctor called back with the results just after dinner. Good news--the sodium is still normal. Not so good news--the calcium and bicarb are well outside the normal ranges. And Aaron didn't have time to explain the implications of that before he had to rush off to Scouts tonight. The doc wants to take more blood tomorrow to rerun the BMP. We'll already be in for a Neuro visit, so why not throw in a blood draw, too?