I just left Judah for his surgery.  He’s scheduled in the OR from 8:00 to 9:30, so I’m taking advantage of the time to get some breakfast.  I figured it would have been cruel to eat in-front of him this morning since he couldn’t have anything to eat or drink.  I’ll post progress updates as they happen.

After a great night last, and a pleasant visit from the doctors this morning, Judah and I went down to the play room to hang out and have fun. While we were down there playing with the cars that you shake to start and shake some more to make them go, the doctors came back to us and said “how would you like to go home tomorrow?” She went on to explain that they will stop the IV nutrition today to see if he can eat enough on his own to maintain the proper blood levels. They will check tomorrow morning to see where the levels are and hopefully send us home. Hooray! Woo Hoo! Hallelujah!

I explained to Judah that we might get to go home tomorrow, and he said that he wanted to stay here. I told him the his family really wanted to have him home, but he replied “I want to stay where there’s a play room.”

To celebrate, we went by the food pantry here and picked up some ice cream to eat. When we got back to our room, Judah decided he was tired of the bed and that he wanted to sit in my chair to eat his ice cream and watch TV.

So our goal for today, is to make sure Judah eats plenty of food to in order to prove to the doctors that everything inside is doing what it is supposed to do. If all goes well, we can reunite our family after about 12 days apart.

What’s a father to do when his three year-old son who has been laid up in the hospital for over a week asks for ‘Piece Reeses’? Why, buy that boy some Reese’s Pieces of course! I had to stop and get gas today before heading back to Peoria, so I went inside and purchased three little packs of the candy for Judah.

When I got to the hospital, I showed him the packages he was very happy to see them. I have been promising him that I’d be happy to get him some of his very own Reese’s Pieces candy as soon as the doctor said it was O.K. Well, he’s made such a big deal about it, that it seems that all the nurses on the floor know that he wants the candy, and several have ‘ohhh’ed and ‘ahhhh’ed over them since my arrival today.

Judah is eating, and with the exception of his first meal he seems to know when enough is enough. This is, unless the food is Reese’s Pieces or Teddy Grahams, then he doesn’t seem to register that he’s had a tummy full (he gets that from me I think), so we have to ration them out. He doesn’t complain too much, he’s still thrilled to be able to eat I think.

We even made a short trip down to the play room, and he carried one of the little bags with him, at the sacrifice of some of the toys he like to carry around. I’m certain that he’ll be sleeping with a bag of Reese’s Pieces tonight.

Judah has really enjoyed being allowed to eat. When the nurse came in this morning, Judah was listening to a movie, and he didn’t appreciate being disturbed. He was all set to be as contrary as possible. He was pouting and frowning and scowling. Holly leaned over and looked at Judah and asked cheerfully, “Would you like some jello?” Judah had a very difficult choice to make. Should he stand up for his principles and object to every word uttered by the nurse? Or should he give in to his passionate desire to eat something as heavenly as jello? Finally, through dark eyes, he nodded and said that indeed, he would like jello. She offered him a choice of red or orange jello. Again, Judah was fraught with the agony of wanting so badly to be difficult but not wanting to lose his grasp on the jello.

“Orange”, he finally said.

When the orange jello and apple juice was delivered to Judah, he was so happy. His thoughts of defiance were long gone. He gobbled down the whole cup of jello. Unfortunately, his stomach was quite shocked at this intrusion, so then Judah had to suffer through some tummy cramps. Fortunately he did not lose his jello…but instead endured the cramping with some fussing.

A moment ago Judah’s lunch tray was delivered with a wonderful array of goodies. There’s clear broth soup, frozen slushie juice, red jello and cranberry juice. Judah has sampled each of the yummy things, but this little guy has learned the benefit of moderation, so he hasn’t gobbled quite as quickly as he did this morning.

Having one’s own food tray is an exercise in exploration.

“What’s dis?” he asks, holding up a little sugar packet.

“Oh, that’s sugar.”

I opened the packet for him to explore. He looked at it and tasted it, and then poured it into his bowl of soup broth.

Then later Judah had fun with the two straws on his tray, shredding the paper off of them and making a big mess.

Judah is enjoying one other side benefit of eating real food: he can burp!

In other news, Judah also was able to say goodbye to one of the two drains this morning. I’m glad to report he no longer has a drain coming out his chubby little back side. I don’t know if Judah is aware that the drain is gone or not, but I am. It makes lots of things much easier.  (I saved the piece of the drain that was inside Judah to take home as a souvenir for Isaac.  Isaac originally asked if he could have the appendix that is supposed to come out of Judah, but I don’t think they’ll let us have that. Hopefully he’ll be happy with the drain tube.)

So far no one is giving us a tentative release date, but the staff is starting to use words and phrases that include the word home in them.  That sounds good to me.