Happy May and Memorial Day weekend

Dear Family & Friends,

The Spiess family hopes that this blog updates finds everyone having a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend. We are very Thankful for all those who fight for our country and we pray their families realize how much we appreciate what they are doing for us.

Our family has had some exciting news since the last time we updated the blog. The end of this month has been filled with lots of excitement, but first we run down the events that lead up to tonight/today.

Jackson continues to grow and is a happy little guy. We are chugging along just fine and then Jackson decides to choke a little on his spit. He seemed to not recover very quickly so mom decides best call the doctors and see if they think it is just his saliva or if maybe reflux issues are starting again. so...

May 18th, we get to see Dr. Unite again...and thankfully we are sent home without having to go on Prevacide again. However, while at the doctor's Jackson gets weighed and he is now (with all his clothes on) 16lbs and 3 ozs! Go Jackson....

Then in the evening Jackson's physical therapist, Ginger, stops by to see how we are coming along with our neck exercises and to teach us how to do baby massages. Well, wouldn't you know it, Jackson was tilting his head to the right too much and then to the left too much and now back to the right too much. One of these times we are going to be not tilting our head too much :) In the interim we continue with our neck exercises to ensure his neck doesn't get too tight. Then we started massage therapy, Jackson didn't mind this part of therapy at all. He still loves to look at Ginger and study her. It is amusing to see. We also are working on getting him to crawl. He really wants to crawl, but he hasn't figure out how to get his knees up to move forward. We will get him there.

Believe or not...that is pretty much the most action this month and we are very thankful for that...We hope to have more months with fewer doctor's appointments-and now here we are on Memorial Day weekend with some big parenting decisions to make...do we or don't we attend get togethers with Jackson.....

Well, we had been told we need to start exposing Jackson more...but probably not at a large party....so...mom and dad did end up taking Jackson to 3 get togethers this weekend. We pretty much asked people not to touch him and if they did mom used the saniwipes to wipe Jackson off and he did get a Bath after each one.....Jackson really seemed to enjoy it. Infact, he loved it.

Jackson was able to meet up with some Friends at the Round Rock Express game as the admin team had the suite for that night. Mom and dad realized even with Jackson in his stroller with the net over him that we won't be going to the Round Rock express game for awhile. Mom didn't realize people would be smoking...(for some reason she thought the smoking ban worked at the game too). She knows we were outside and that we really weren't close to the smokers but just the thought of any smoke getting near Jackson made her nervous. If you haven't figured this out yet- Dad is a little more laid back then mom. We just quickly walked up to the suites and then mom and dad were much more relaxed. Mom was finally able to see friends and co-workers and chat. It was GREAT. They were able to see Jackson for the first time. Picture of Jackson attached..." Jackson and all his women...."


The other get togethers had kids there but we held Jackson the entire time. He did try to hug and kiss Tegan (a 41/2 month old little girl but the parents help prevent the slobbery kiss from happening (another kodak moment). Picture of Jackson trying to Hug Tegan and they baby talked.

Then we headed to another get together and all went well, but mom really thinks we over did it. We decided that we were not going to be bringing Jackson to these anymore. Dad and Mom may go to them if the grandparents are still in town...but from now on, smaller group outtings will be fine. We are very happy to report after a week of being extremely nervous and taking Jackson's temperature everyday, that Jackson seems to be doing fine. We know that we are very careful with Jackson but we came to the conclusion that walks are great (large or small) and outdoor outtings. This isn't a doctor's opinion just Jackson's parents. We all had a great time though!

Well, I started this blog and the March of Dimes blog right after the weekend the events occured and as you can see I am now just finishing them. We are very excited to announce that Nanna and Pappa Shepard will be here tomorrow and then Grandma and Grandpa Spiess will be here in July. Help is on the way! We are ready for Grandparent loving on Jackson and they are too! We hope to finish up lots of thank yous and get out some overdue mailings that are sitting in the office to many who have helped saved Jackson's life. We may even be able to visit in person!

Two more Quick updates:

Thursday, May 31st, Jackson has his weekly PT appointment with Ginger. OH my does Jackson love Ginger. Well, our neck is doing okay, and we discuss his "flat head" again. We mentioned this earlier as one side is flatter than the other. We have been doing different position at night to try and fix this but it hasn't rounded out yet. We are starting to lose time when the head is able to be molded as easily Ginger mentioned this so we can't wait to further discuss what our options are this week. We want to ensure we are moving fast on these things for Jackson's future.

Today, June 3rd- Jackson is rolling from his back to his stomach and then back to his back! We also against recommendation gave Jackson a little rice cereal. The poor guy wants people food. He watches us eat and grabs for our food. Well, you probably could laugh at what we did. We gave him probably 3 oz of milk with 1 tablespoon of rice cereal. It pretty much was milk but he loved eating like a big boy. We may continue doing this with his milk just so he gets and idea. Jackson also reaches for Mom and Dad - it is so much fun to see who he wants to go to during the day. Right now, most the time Jackson likes mom holding him but loves to watch daddy. However, there are occassions when he reaches for dad to hold him. Mom has to get old after awhile. He also loves the cats. We let him pet them and once he grabbed Onyx's hair and yanked it. We felt horrible for Onyx, but she lived through it.

Everyday as mom rocks Jackson she thanks God for everyone who is praying for him, for the medical teams who worked on him and for Jackson to be able to be with us. You can see his IV sites and I will never forget the day we needed blood and his blood type wasn't available in the Austin area. We ended up getting some from Dallas. We can't believe how far we have come since September 23, 2006. We know we have lots of growing to do, but we never let one day go by without giving thanks.

Thank you!

With love,

Kyle, Erica and Jackson