Happy 2011

I guess I'm not that big of a blogger. A lot of stuff has happened in 2011. Her is a pic from Avery's Birthday. We had a wonderful party here at the house.

Garrett's PT is coming along well. He can even pull up and stand for a short while on his own.

Garrett loves bath time. Sometimes he takes baths with Avery. When that happens, the floor gets pretty wet!

These two love each other so much they are always laughing. Avery is the best big sister ever. Garrett completly adores her.

This is a great pic of G. For 3 reasons. 1. We have one of Avery doing this, but I can't find it. 2. The Hangover is a Top 10 all time movie. 3. And every pic of G is great!

December Updates

Merry Christmas. This was on Christmas morning. Both of our kids were sick during the Christmas break, and to make matters worse, Lori Got sick too. Despite all the sickness in our home, it was the best Christmas ever! Avery is so appreciative of every single gift, and she loves watching others open gifts. Garrett and Avery love each other so much. It is so amazing to watch them. Avery is so concerned about her little brother. She always wants to help in any way possible, and Garrett's joy when he sees his sister is priceless.

Kids at Papi and Nana's house.

Avery and Garrett with their Great Grandmother.

On a side note, Thank you so much for all the prayers that you have said for our family this last year. We found out a year ago about Garrett's Spina Bifida on December 22nd. We decided that we would make December 22nd a positive day for us, and call it family day. Unfortunately this year on family day both kids were sick, so we all hung out at the house together. The important thing was that we were together. Lori and I are so grateful of all the thoughts and prayers that were said for us and more specifically Garrett.

Garrett is such an amazing boy! He is right on track developmentally. We think that he will start crawling soon. He gets up on all fours and rocks. His PT believes he is doing well too. Garrett can also lock his legs and stand too!

As always thanks for all you thoughts and prayers for Garrett.

November Happenings

November was a great month. Who doesn't love Thanksgiving? Aunt Heather and Uncle Will came over to visit from Wales. Aunt Heather brought over Dr. Pepper Zero. For some reason we don't have that here. She also came with us to Avery's Thanksgiving Feast at her school. Thanksgiving was great we had Thanksgiving at Uncle Keith and Aunt Meghan's new house, and then we went over to my Dad's house for Thanksgiving.

October Updates

Thank you so much to Aaron and Kathryn for running in The Washington D.C. Marine Corp Marathon (Aaron) and the Portland Marathon (Kathryn). Kathryn and Aaron raised over $2500 for the national Spina Bifida Association.

Thank you Lori for taking me to Austin for my birthday. Lori surprised me with Longhorn tickets to see Iowa State play Texas. I guess the real surprise was how crappy Texas played this year. Anyway it was a great weekend in Austin we stayed with Kathryn and Chance. They were excellant hosts. We went to an excellant Italian restarunt Friday night, and we had a room all to ourselves in the restuarant. There were also chicken bones on the ground.

For Halloween, Avery was Minney Mouse and Garrett was a Cheeky Monkey.

Garrett and his Papa. G-Man didn't actually get to go Trick or Treating he hung out at the house and passed out candy with Mama, Nana, Papa, Uncle Kee Kee, and Aunt Meghan.

Avery helping me carve the Jack O Lantern. Didn't realize how cute this pic was until now.

Avery right before her Trick or Treating started.

Spina Bifida Awareness Month

October is Spina Bifida Awareness month, and in honor of my son, Garrett two people very dear to our family are running marathons in honor of Garrett.

Kathryn, one of our best friends, is running the Portland Marathon on Sunday, October 10th. If you would like to make a contribution in honor of Garrett please follow this link:

https://www.kintera.org/site/c.liKWL7PLLrF/b.3876151/k.68FB/Tribute__In_Honor_Of/apps/ka/mt/createCard.asp?c=liKWL7PLLrF&b=3876151&en=6oJFLLNkHaJLKNMkG9KEJHOjGaIPI2OwEbKLJVMALmJUL3OIGOn

October 10th I will be running the Portland Marathon. I decided to raise awareness and money for the Spina Bifida Association (SBA) in honor of a very special family. My dear friends Lori and Adam had a son born May 2010 with Spina Bifida.

Because of Garrett, I’m inspired to support the vital work of the SBA. If you don’t know what Spina Bifida is, it is the most frequently occurring permanently disabling birth defect. Every day about eight babies born in the United States have Spina Bifida or a similar birth defect of the brain and spine. To learn more visit http://www.spinabifidaassociation.org/

Now I would like you to join the cause. Would you please consider making a flat donation or sponsoring me $1 per mile ($26), $2 per mile ($52), etc. Please complete the attached reply form and send back to me (email or mail) with cash, check or credit card.

1306 W. St. Johns Ave

Austin, TX 78757

Thank you so very much.

Best,

Kathryn

Aaron, my brother, is running the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. please see his write up. If you would like to make a contribution in honor of Garrett please follow these directions too.

26.2 Miles through
2 Non-States for
1 Very Special Kid

On October 31, I will embark on a 26.2 mile marathon to honor my nephew, Garrett, born with Spina Bifida and to benefit the Spina Bifida Association of America (SBA).

The goals of this event are to:
Honor Garrett

Raise awareness for Spina Bifida

Fund the important work of the Spina Bifida Association (SBA)

I will be running the Marine Corps Marathon (winding through the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia).

Please help make this a memorable run and support an organization that will be supporting my family for many years.

Goal: to raise $5,000
Yes Aaron! I want to support the SBA.


Please follow the steps below:

Go to http://www.sbaa.org/
Click on – Contribute to SBA
Next click on – Send a Tribute Gift
The contribution process involves two steps.
In Honor of
First Name: Garrett
Last Name: Douglas
Note: you can send a personalized card with your name and a message if you would like

Underneath, please populate the First Name Field (Aaron), Last Name Field (Douglas) and Email (aaroncdouglas@yahoo.com)
On the next page – please enter information about yourself (name / address/ credit card info)
Click Submit!

Spina Bifida Association4950 MacArthur Boulevard, NW, Suite 250, Washington, DC 20007 (800) 621-3141

As always, thanks for your thoughts and prayers for our son. God is great and has blessed Garrett. He is truly amazing!

September Updates

I'm Getting really big!!!

Okay, so the Weekly Douglas Digest should really be renamed to the monthly Douglas digest.

Garrett is now 4 months old! He is doing really well. Eating and sleeping like a champ. He is up to 15lbs and he is in the 67th percentile for height and 30th percentile for weight. In comparison to Avery at about this time she was maybe 5th for height and 3rd for weight. Garrett had a check up this week for his kidneys and bladder, and everything looks good. Thank God.

Garrett is getting very vocal. He makes all kinds of sounds now. My favorite is his laugh, but he also makes this funny Tarzan yell.

Avery is learning so much in school. She is starting to trace letters now. I can't believe my little girl is getting so big! She is doing great in Gymnastics right now. I let Lori know that club Volley ball starts at age 5, and she laughed and said we should probably stick to Gymnastics, since Avery's maximum possible height will probably be 5'4" tops.

Garrett started sitting in a high chair this week. He is trying the rice cereal. His PT is very happy with his development. He seems to be still falling in the average range for development.

Garrett is such a hard worker. His PT wants him to get at least 3 hours of tummy time a day.

3 hours is pretty tough to get especially when Lori and I are both at work on the same day. Fortunately Garrett has a great babysitter on days that Lori works. She helps us out with his tummy time.

Well gotta run, but before I go gotta post a cute pic of Avery.

I'll try to be better about updates, but before I go thanks again for keeping our little boy in your thoughts and prayers. He is definitely a real life miracle. God listens.

August 2010 Updates

It has been a while since I've updated the blog. We've been pretty busy. Lori and I are both back at work full time. This is a pic of Garrett with his uncle Zach. Garrett is now 3 months old. I can't believe it. Like I said, we've been pretty busy. We had a good/bad surprise this week, Garrett had to go in for a shunt revision. The bad is surgery, the good is he is back to playing around and sleeping through the night (knock on wood).

As far as I'm concerned, he's beyond hero status for me. He had a little pain after the surgery, but he was eating about an hour after the operation. He had the surgery Monday night and we came home Tuesday night. Normally they like to keep kids a couple of days after a shunt surgery, but I guess Garrett was ready to come home. He is such a trooper. I'll have to say my daughter is amazing she stayed with him all day Tuesday from 8:30-7:00 in the hospital room.

This is a pic of Avery watching her first ever VHS tape. I had to explain to her that there was a movie on here. She keep crying and telling me that it wasn't a DVD so it wouldn't work.

Avery is showing off her medal to me and Garrett. Garrett is so proud of his sister!

Avery's favorite thing to do at the gym is the rings. Sometimes she thinks it's optional to let go.

Well I'm sure I've missed something, but these are the highlights. Really all this happened this week, except for the pic of Garrett and Zach. Things are going well. We have two amazing kids. Thanks again for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers.

Family Vacation

We just got back from our family Vacation yesterday. We had a great time. We went to Acapulco in Galveston. We rented a beach house and stayed for 4 days. It was great.

Avery and I went down every morning and made a sandcastle and played in the water. Garrett and m0mmy came down one day to join us for about 30 minutes. It was just too hot for Garrett. This was the only thing he wanted to do on the beach.

Avery's Castle.

Avery picking up shells at night with her mommy.

Garrett started to notice the TV.

Avery's Uncle Mark took her fishing for the first time. She absolutely loved it. Every time I'd cast her rod for her she would slowly start reeling it in yelling, "I think I got something!!!". It was so funny. Actually she was right, once. She then freaked out once the fish got in the boat.



We also went into town and got a great picture of Avery on the Strand and a great picture of Garrett in his stroller.

We had such a great trip, but now back to work for me on Monday and Lori goes back in two weeks. It was a great summer, and I wish we had another month together. Oh well, I can't wait for Christmas. That will be awesome too!

4th of July

Garrett has been full of facial expressions lately. I thought this one was funny because we started bathing him in the kitchen sink. We were using the bath tub, but this works much better. He actually loved this compared to the bath tub. I guess this is the deer in head lights look.

We had a great 4th of July. Lori's brother Keith and his Fiance' Meghan invited us over for some sweet BBQ, then we came home and took Avery outside to enjoy some Friendswood fireworks.

Okay... Seriously! She is just too cute. Avery is all about our new camera she's always posing. This was her watching Garrett's bath.

Garrett is so active now. He will stop in his tracks and find his mommy when he hears her voice. He is very active on the ground. He rolls on to his side, and he hits the rings and rattles on his tummy time mat. He is gaining more head control by the day. He holds his head up very well.

Garrett's bladder has been a little inconsistent lately, but he is only 6 weeks old. Mine is inconsistent and I'm 33. So with the recent inconsistency, we have moved from the once a day cathing to morning and evenings. Hopefully this will make it a little more consistent. ECI comes to work with Garrett on Monday. We will let you know how that goes. Last time she was pretty impressed with him. As always thanks for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers.

Every Girl is crazy about a sharp dressed man!

This was such a good find by Lori. I know she couldn't wait to take a picture of him wearing his shirt and tie. I'll have to say, I'm a little jealous of the tie. Okay we have gotten some good pics of the kiddos, but first a quick update on Garrett.

We went to the urologist today and he was very impressed with how well Garrett has been doing on his cathing. He actually said we could probably quit doing it all together. We talked about it with him, since we were a little apprehensive with quitting all together, so we are just doing it once a day! We are so excited about this! Garrett doesn't really enjoy the cathing, but really who would.

Avery has been doing great in Pre School. She's talking in Spanish now. My dad is very fired up about that. Avery and I watered the yard the other day, and Avery had a blast! She loved it we sat in the hammock and got sprayed by the water. It was awesome. My mom came over the other day to see Garrett and Avery. Here is a good pic of Garrett and his Grandma.

Pic of Mommy, Garrett and Avery. Garrett is letting us know he's #1! I'm sure Avery would debate this...
That's about it for now. We will update again soon. As always thanks for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers!

One Month Old!

Today is such a great day! I can't believe Garrett is one month old. Of coarse we have no pictures to post at this time, because we are in the process of getting a new camera. So we will take 1 month pics on the iphone. I know what you're thinking... Awesome!

Garrett is doing great! His caths have gone from 4 a day to 3, and we still are getting low levels of urine. We meet with ECI tomorrow to see if they will need to work with Garrett or just monitor him. Next week we meet with the urologist. Hopefully we can stop cathing or at least move to morning and evenings only.

Avery is doing great! They moved her to preschool 2 months early, and today was her first day. We have gymnastics on Wednesday and I think I'm gonna bring the video camera.

Lori and I are doing well. We cooked dinner for ourselves tonight for the first time in like 2 months. It was the Adam special: Grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, and don't worry Lori made dessert.

Thanks again for all the support. As always thanks for praying for Garrett!

First Week Home

What a great first week we have had at home as a family. Avery has been such an amazing big sister. She constantly helps and makes sure that her brother is okay. Garrett is doing great! He is such a big eater. He probably eats as much now as a 3 week old as Avery ate as a 3 month old.

As you know we had 2 Doctor appointments this week. The first one was with our Pediatrician, Dr. Q. He was very impressed with Garrett and it was great to see him treating Garrett like a normal child. Everyone else has been so careful with him, but Dr. Q was moving his legs all around and measuring him. We also went to see Dr. W, the neurosurgeon. He also was amazed with Garrett's leg strength. He said his back looks great and we can take off all bandages, and that his shunt looks good too. Garrett has a renal ultrasound on Monday to check his kidneys and bladder. His cathing is going great. They wanted his residual to be under 30 ml, and he is averaging 11! Here is a precious picture of how much Avery loves her brother.


We are so proud of Garrett. He is even rolling from his back to his side. This isn't a great picture, but as Shrek would say, "It'll do Donkey".


And a picture of me with the kiddos. I went from beard, to goatee, to clean shaved.
Another pic of Garrett.
Garrett and his Papi.

And our Princess. She's eating one of her main food groups.


As always thank you so much for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers.

We're Home!!!

Finally after one full month in the hospital, Lori 17 days, Garrett 15. 3 of the days overlapping. We are home! It is such an amazing feeling to be home. We are so blessed to be so fortunate to have two wonderful children. Avery is such an amazing helper with her brother. She gets us burp clothes, blankets, bottles, diapers, basically whatever we need. She has even helped with the laundry and giving the cats water.

Garrett is such a good baby. He hardly ever cries. He loves his papasan chair. He got a great nap in it today. We have some really good pictures on the camera that I need to load on the computer. As soon as I do that, I'll get them on here. It has just been great being home.

Thank you Cindy for the chicken spaghetti and the baked ziti. Thanks Patrica and Larry for coming over to help us get resettled, and thanks for the steaks. Also thanks Dad and Carolyn for the BBQ and beer.

I also thank you so much to Dad and Carolyn for basically reworking their May calendar. They pretty much had Avery for the whole month that Lori and Garrett were in the hospital.

Garrett has a couple Doctor appointments this week. Tomorrow he meets Dr. Q. He is our regular pediatrician. Then on Friday we go see Dr. W. so he can check out his back and shunt. I'll give updates about those appointments. Our Strong Boy is doing very well. As always thank you so much for praying for our little boy.

Tough Tuesday... Surgery Wednesday

We found out yesterday morning that Garrett needed a shunt. It was really hard to handle. He was progressing so well. His head circumference increased quite a bit during the 24 hour period and spinal fluid was building up in his lower back. He had surgery on Wednesday morning at 8. Thank you so much for the support of our parents. Patrica was at he hospital at 6:30, and Carolyn took Avery to school again and then she arrived at 9 with Whataburger. My dad also got up there around 8:30. Also special thanks to Jodi and Brooklyn for dropping by to stay with us during his surgery.

Garrett came out of surgery around 1o:30. He is so strong and tough. He was back to his normal bed within the hour. He had no complications from surgery, and he was already ready to eat. The surgery has already made a difference on his back. To my non medical eyes, I can already see that there is no more swelling. We have some major shunt milestones that we have to get to. These things are really great. It is amazing how much it has already helped him. Hopefully he will never have another shunt procedure in his life. That's definitely what we are praying for. As always thanks for praying for Garrett.

Update... I'm okay. Actually I'm doing Great!

I know it has been a while since I have updated the blog, but apparently it is pretty hard to do when you are always on the move and you have 2 children. I thought this was an awesome picture of Garrett. He has had his own way of showing us all along that he was going to be okay. Whether it was kicking or wiggling his toes in an ultrasound, or this sign right here. Dr. W, the neurosurgeon is very pleased with Garrett's development. Right now he is showing no signs of requiring a second surgery. Thank God. Thank you so much for praying for Garrett. God is definetly shining through with our Son.

In other news, Avery's life is slowly getting back to normal. She spends every night with us now. We are at my Dad's house, but she's loving it. She went back to school on Thursday and Friday. She met her little brother last night and gave him a 3 kisses. Lori is doing well, as long as she doesn't laugh to hard. We had a good laugh the other day when we left the hospital, because there was a man that walked by us. He was dressed pretty decent, but he had Beyond B.O. I was so proud of Lori, because she said that and that is a total Seinfeld thing. Good job Lori! We gotta run. Everything is going good. We have some big ultrasounds next week. Please pray that they continue to look normal. As always thanks for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and Prayers.

Thursday the 20th

Garrett is doing very well. He is eating like a champ! Lori got to spend the whole day with him the last couple of days. Everything is still developing real well. We are still very hopeful that his head will continue to develop properly. His ventricles have gotten a little larger, but they are still not too concerned. He is a very strong boy. I'll put some more pictures on this evening of Garrett and some pics of Avery at gymnastics. As always, thanks for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers.

Monday 17th

Tough day today. Not really for Garrett he keeps trucking along. He is such a trooper. Lori was discharged from the hospital today so it’s tough not being an elevator ride away from our son. The good news is, we are staying with my dad in Houston. He lives about 5 miles from the hospital, so we will be making multiple visits to the hospital. Avery is really happy that she gets to stay with her mom and dad again. She made sure last night that she had her hands on both of us when she was sleeping. Garrett is doing so well. He has doubled his feeding today, and tomorrow Lori will get to hold him, because they have taken off the bandages covering his surgery scar. As always thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Hopefully we will be home next Tuesday.

Garrett's 3rd Day

What a wonderful day today was. Garrett looked like a completely different baby. He looked as relieved as his mom and me. It was a great day. We had our favorite nurse for the 3rd day in a row. She helped (made) Lori feed Garrett. Poor baby this is a description of how his first ever feeding went... Lori held his head, and our nurse held his stomach and legs. Imagine the scene from Mission Impossible when Tom Cruise was suspended in the air above the "Lasers". That's kind of how Garrett looked, only he was eating from a bottle. He looks great and he was very active again today. Most importantly his back is healing great and his head still looks the same. Please continue to pray for Garrett's head to develop properly so we don't have to have any more surgeries.

Okay, I promised Emily that I would write some funny stories. I'll start with one about my brother Aaron. Aaron and I are what I would call rule followers, we don't speed on the highway, we are always honest, and we never cheat at anything, except maybe in sports, but that's not cheating if an official never calls a penalty or foul. Anyway, in hospitals there are "Staff Elevators". We were told we could use these elevators because it is the quickest way from Lori's room to Garrett's room. We take Aaron on these "Staff Elevators", and he starts freaking out. He has this panic look on his face and he's like. What if we get caught what's going to happen? How much trouble will we get in? So we are in the "Staff Elevator", and of course it's going to stop. We are coming from the 25th floor and going to the 4th floor. 21 floors, probably going to stop. It stops at like 21 and a Dr. gets in. Aaron looked like he was about to go to jail. He was so scared we were going to get in trouble. Then a man tried to get in with a bed at another floor. He was freaking out so much that on our way back from seeing Garrett we took the long way.

Next funny story. Today I got to go the milk bank by myself. Those of you unfamiliar with a milk bank, let me describe it for you. A milk bank is a proper name for storing milk. You take your milk into the bank and store it until your baby needs it. The nurse can get it or you can. Typically women only go in there, because the other activity in the milk bank is women pumping milk in rooms to store in the bank. Anyway as a man, this made me pretty uncomfortable. So I take the milk down there, and some equipment down to sterilize. I walk in and stop, because I'm extremely uncomfortable going in there and I can imagine that the women in there probably think that I'm like George McFly from Back to the Future, you know a Peeping Tom, only there's not going to be a car to hit me. So I'm standing at the front desk for like 5 minutes and nobody is there great. What am I going to do? I'm looking around in a panic mode, because if I walk back to the room with the milk Lori won't be too happy. Fortunately, I find a business card and I called the number. Good thinking Adam! Phones rang all over the milk bank and I got the phone to my ear. A lady comes out and says Sir can I help you. I of course say something like "Wife milk baby tit bank?" She says Sir do you want to store your wife's milk here again, What yes milk you put here later. So she takes the milk, then shows me where to sterilize the equipment. You have to put it in a microwave in there for 3 minutes. As I'm standing there like 4 women walk out from pumping. No problem for me. I'm sure I just had the horrifying uncomfortable look on my face. As I watched the microwave countdown from 3:00 to O. Pretty long 3 minutes as I left it was total tunnel vision out to the door. Now that's love for you wife and baby!

Okay, as always thank you so much for praying for Garrett, please keep Praying for our Strong Boy. He is looking Great and God is listening.

My Hero

Amazing!!!

Garrett just came out of surgery, and he did amazing. Dr. W was able to completely close every layer of skin. I thougth there was only the epidermis, mesodermis, and dermis. However there are many more levels and tissues that I am unaware of.

Anyway, Dr. W said everything went PERFECT! All of Garrett's nerve routes appear to be intact. Pretty much unheard of! He is definetly a Miracle. All praise to God. Thank you so much for your prayers.

Garrett will be monitored the next couple of days. There is a chance that he will need another procedure to help with the circulation of his spinal fluid. That procedure is called a shunt. Please pray that he will not need this procedure. Please pray that we can take him home with this as the only surgery that he ever needs to fix his back. The Doctors have done an amazing job fixing him, but God has helped, protected, and he is healing our son. Gotta go see him now. As always thank you so much for praying for Garrett.

Garrett just was taken to surgery

Garrett was just taken to surgery at 5:35. There's just something not right with seeing your 23 hours old son being taken to have neurosurgery. We have a phenomonal neurosurgeon and a world class team working on him. It was just really hard to see him go into surgery. Dr. W the neurosurgeon said that Garrett shouldn't lose any function. In fact he may gain some more function. Please, please, please continue to pray for Garrett. God is listening. As always thank you for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers.