Westfall Web

Simple, he hooks up his tube and walks around with it!
Actually Greyson was just helping Stacy give him a feed tonight. We actually gave him some milk in the tube and he was doing it all himself……for a short time. I’ll let you figure out what happened. Greyson, open container, on his own……some cleanup was involved.
OK so Greyson doesn’t ever tell you he’s hungry. He will tell you he wants something when you are eating it, or if it is routine. Everday when we get home from his babysitter I feed him through his g-tube and we “eat” an apple together. I do most of the eating but he likes to bite little pieces off. The other day we had a change of routine and Stacy picked Greyson up. When they got home I was already here and had started eating an apple. Greyson immediately stormed towards me yelling “APPLE!!, AAAAPPPPLE!! AApple!! Apple! Apple! Apple!” while reaching up at me with both arms. It was quite the spectacle.
Greyson’s walking continues to improve and we have almost completely retired his walker. We are keeping it for awhile for extra long distances but may not even need that now. We will see how it goes for a little longer before donating it to someone else who needs it. Or to Holly Ridge (the therapy place that worked with Greyson till he turned 3 and loaned us a walker for so long).
Greyson’s grandparents came up for the weekend and he sure enjoyed playing and showing off for them. There were only a couple times where we had to consider putting them all (the grandparents and Greyson) in time out.

So we have decided to downsize and get rid of our SUV in favor of this smart car. Doing our part to save the environment. I wish it would have come with doors, but summer will be here soon enough and we can wear coats in the winter to keep warm. We are very thankful that we don’t have a need for much luggage, as there is not much room to haul things with this baby, but what a fine automobile it is!
OK so of course this is a picture from Kidimu, the children’s museum we went to today with our children’s ministry. A guy can dream though can’t he?!

Is it a bad sign that Greyson’s pretend play deals with putting the medicine in his feeding tube? I guess you practice what you see a lot, and unfortunately he has seen more than his fair share of this!
It’s not bad though. Greyson continues to be a great kid. Just today I heard from his babysitter (actually her daughter) that today Greyson crawled off and said (apparently to the wall as there was no one else there) I love mommy and daddy! Ahhhh that is the best! Well I told Debbie I would put something new on yesterday, which of course means I am doing it a day later. Sorry Deb! Anyway enjoy the video.

Here are couple fun pictures. They are actually a bit old but I’ve never gotten around to posting them so…..here they are! The first one is one of my favorites. It was taken while we were on the ferry to see our friends who live in Seattle. The second was snapped when Greyson was …………well being Greyson on the changing table one day not too long ago.
Greyson continues to be a joy, even with his newfound opinions (which go against ours a lot of the time). Yes it can be frustrating when your child will not behave, but we wouldn’t have it any other way! Truthfully Greyson is very easy going and very well behaved. He has his moments but that is a sign of growing independence, something we praise God for!
Hopefully I’ll post some more pics and or videos soon. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures and celebrate the goodness God gives to us everyday!

Well tonight we tried out a new bedtime routine. We took off the side of the crib and converted it to a “big boy bed”. Greyson can now climb in and out on his own (well in theory). So we had him look at the bed, climb up inside, get situated, say prayers to Jesus, kiss “baby” and then lay down and swing “brother” around by the head. Then you get up and color……..oh wait, that picture is from another time.
I had to include this coloring picture. We were working with Greyson on taking the lids off the pens. If you look at his left eye you can see the result (click the picture for a larger version). No it’s not a real black eye, but he did put a nice ink mark right under his eyeball.
On another front, Greyson had three appointments last Friday. He got his eyes checked, he got his heart checked, and he got his kidneys checked. We are praising God because his eyes were fine (slight astigmatism, but actually less than the last time and only in one eye) his heart, which had been thickened since he was in the hospital the very first time, has finally returned to normal. His kidneys are also doing OK.
God is good and we are so thankful for His presence with us each and every day. I continue to be in awe of the miracle He has given us in this amazing little boy. His personality continues to emerge and you can’t be around him for long without cracking a smile. Today as an example, Greyson was working with his occupational therapist (she comes out to our house to work with him from the school, as does a teacher while we have him out of school). His regular school teacher sent some bulbs for Greyson to plant. Well we helped him get the shovel and helped him scoop up some dirt. All of a sudden Greyson threw the dirt in the air so it rained down on him. You should have seen the smile on his face! He actually got off three more scoop full before we got control of his hand and the shovel. It was very messy but quite funny! I loved it!

As you can see I got a lot of work done this week. Especially on Wednesday when Greyson came in and took control of my office. He got me all fixed up and on track before heading off to the nursery for some R&R. (Rolling and Refluxing) OK maybe not but hey both those words start with R and he does do both at times!
Quick story for the night, primarily so Stacy and I will remember it when I (Bob) am older and have even less memory than now! Last night I decided I should put Greyson’s “no no’s” (the arm restraint from the hospital that is used so kids can’t get their IV’s out) on him so he wouldn’t be sucking his finger all night. I wanted to do this because Greyson has been a little congested and I didn’t want him to suck on his finger all night and add a bunch of extra slobber to the mix.
I walked up to his crib and he was sound asleep, sucking away on his finger. I located the “no no’s” and ripped open the Velcro so I could put it on his arm. Well just as the sound of me ripping open the velcro hit his ears, Greyson pulled his finger out of his mouth and his little arm shot under his body! It looked exactly like someone who knew what they were doing and was trying to make it look like he would never suck on his finger at night, so no need for the restraint! Yet I’m certain all this took place while he was sound asleep. I guess his subconscious not only drives him to suck his finger, but has defenses in place to protect his ability to be free to suck on his finger as well!
I laughed pretty hard…..and then put the restraint on him and went to bed. Sorry son, can’t fool your old man. Especially after he’s been watching spy shows on tv….I’m onto you!

Well you know what they say, no news is good news. That would certainly be the case for us. While we haven’t written much lately, we are enjoying God’s rich blessings everyday. Greyson continues to thrive and is learning new things and doing new things all the time. We are so blessed by him. He is extremely good natured and we take him to meetings such as the NICU family advocacy council that we serve on. Everyone is amazed and at our meeting last week there were several comments on how they couldn’t believe how good he behaves when he is at a boring meeting.
Before Christmas we took Greyson to zoolights at the zoo. He really seemed to enjoy all the lights. Then we headed to Nampa to celebrate with the Westfall side of the family. Greyson had a blast with his aunts, grandmas, and cousins.
One of the funniest stories from Christmas time was how Greyson interacted with the christmas tree. While he was very good and didn’t play with it much, he must have watched us carefully placing all the ornaments on the tree. We know this because just before leaving for Idaho we let him play with a wooden pull duck that we were going to give him for Christmas. After playing with it for awhile he took the rope and tried to carefully place the duck on the tree. After four attempts and watching the duck fall to the ground (it was way too heavy for the tree to hold it up) he picked it up, looked at it and threw it half way up into the tree as hard as he could (which, as someone whose been hit by one of his blocks, I can attest to the fact that he can throw pretty good when he wants to!). It was so funny!
Well we have more pictures and video but at least this gets something up there for those who still check regularly (Hi John!).

Greyson is proudly showing off the pile of food that he “bit” with mommy tonight. Look on the floor between the plate and G-man and you will see where it landed. It was a successful and fun practice session. Right now he only bites with his front teeth and usually spits the food out right away, but he is becoming more comfortable with having chunky foods in his mouth all the time. Tonight we also had a hilarious see-food session to practice holding food on our tongues. One of our resolutions for the New Year is to practice eating “noisy foods” more… so here we go! Happy Crunching Everyone!

In November we had a very big change come to our lives. With the trach removed Greyson didn’t qualify for nursing care any longer and we began the transition of learning to live without the help and care of Tina on a daily basis.
We cannot express the gratitude we have in our hearts for Tina. She began working with us in September of 2008 and has been by our side as we faced great challenges and celebrated great victories. We credit her for much of Greyson’s progress in all areas. Her consistency and persistence was just what we all needed to move forward in our lives. For Bob and I, incredible comfort has come from her friendship and encouragement. Because of her support we were able to slowly regain some normalcy in our lives after such an intense period. The assurance that we had that he was being cared for so well while we were at work and also the assistance she provided us with nursing tasks like changing the trach and g-tube, ordering supplies, maintaining and cleaning equipment, and going with us on drs visits was so appreciated. Tina is the kind of person that looks for ways to help others out even with the small stuff. We certainly feel blessed to have had her care.
Of course Greyson adores her and will do just about anything she wants him to. It is so cute when we sit in church and he sees her across the aisle and up a little ways. He wiggles his way down if he can and takes off crawling to her. His face lights up when he sees her come into the room and he is always going over to a picture of them together that we have taped on the wall, patting it, and saying, “Nina and Gayson”.
We all are still missing Tina’s presence in our house a lot. It has taken me almost three months to finish this blog post and I’m still doing it with tears even today. We are of course so fortunate that Tina is still a regular part of our lives. We see her at church each Sunday and we also work at getting together often to hang out and have fun. In fact we are looking forward to Thursday when she and her family will be over for dinner to celebrate my birthday! Change is inevitable in life, most of the time I choose to embrace it as there really is no other choice; but with this change I am asking God to bring comfort and wisdom to our family knowing that it will take some time to get used to.
I’ve included some picture of Tina and Greyson. Tina is a little camera shy so we don’t really have many from her first year with us. The one where Tina is dressed up as a cat is my favorite because I will remember that moment forever. Greyson looked and looked at her and then we saw the amazement come over his face when he finally recognized her. He thought it was pretty funny seeing Tina in a cat mask.