Journal entry by Naomi Tuura van Ooijen —
These past 11 months have just raced by but here we are—and praising God how well things are going. No news has been good news for us, and we have only positive things to report. What a miracle!! Thank you, LORD.
We are so thankful to have spent most of the last several months at home (Joopie did have to spend two weeks in the hospital for “just a cold” back in June, and that was kind of tough, but he is fully recovered from that and other than that we have been home and loving it!).
Joopie LOOOVED having two of his aunties (Naomi’s sisters) visiting in the early spring and then his Grampi & Grammy (Naomi’s parents) visiting later this spring. That was wonderful to show them around (everyone’s first time in Europe and 3/4 first time overseas). And it was so exciting to have my family see in person how much he has changed and get to hold him for the first time (and without any cords and cables!). Living overseas from family and friends is definitely not always easy, but we have been so grateful for video calling and the ability to send as many pictures and videos back and forth as we want.
Jumpimg back ahead to now-ish:
Development wise, Joopie is pretty much on track for his adjusted age—at 11 months actual age now, his adjusted age would be 8 months.
He is eagerly eating every purees vegetable we give him (😆🤗🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽) and we are going to start fruit tomorrow. I am sure he will love that too! While it took us awhile to get him to open his mouth and let US feed him, he has been able to get a lot more in his tummy than when he would feed himself. 😋
He FINALLY has started rolling from his back to his tummy as of a couple weeks ago—and now does it at will, and happily—so we can now say we have a mobile baby. He doesn’t crawl or scoot yet, but is getting SOOO close. He is tucking those cute little legs under his butt more and more and “swimming” almost every time he is on his tummy. Absolutely adorable, let me tell you.
And I know he was working out to be quite the talker last time I posted (a zillion months ago 😬😳🤭), but he has intensified his vocals and can now “talk” very passionately and excitedly (and he definitely uses his hands (well, arms—well, whole body) when he talks. He is VERY expressive). He still does a lot of babbling and so much giggling now but has as of last week added “dadadadadadadada” and “babababababababa” and some other similar words to his vocabulary. We think we sometimes hear “hiiiiiiii!” but we still aren’t sure. Regardless, these are a few of the reasons I haven’t posted much. I have been spending each moment I can with our sweet babe, just LOVING each new thing he does (and taking hundreds of pictures and videos of him 😋).
He is also working on waving, but when he gets excited, he moves (throws?) both of his arms up and down so we don’t know if he just gets too excited to wave, though a few times we swear we have seen it. It’s so fun to see how active he is.
Size wise he is still pretty small, but still growing well. He is wearing 6-9 month clothes and though he can still wear size 2 diapers, we are out of those now and so he is officially in size 3. ☺️
His smile is as adorable as ever, with two little teeth that popped up last month. He greets us with that big smile after every nap, and gives Daddy an even bigger smile when he walks in the room or starts talking to Joopie. What a treasure!!
Medically, all of his appointments have gone really well this year, and we still have checkups every few months/ every month/few weeks or so depending on which kind of appointment it is. He even passed his Fly-Test (20 minutes in an oxygen controlled “cubicle”, with the oxygen level at 15%), which means he is cleared to fly on an airplane. (We will be taking advantage of that later im September for a little family vacation 🙌🏽🤗😋😁).
His lungs are still his weak spot, and he is a tiny bit wheezy and more congested in the mornings, but nothing the doctor is super concerned about at this point. We will continue to keep our eye on it and do a CT scan at a later time, but nothing to be concerned about while he is acting and feeling good.
So basically, he is doing great from his head to his toes as far as we know and for that, we are SO thankful and grateful to God. He is really the only one we can credit for that. We definitely are still grateful for our amazing nurses (you know who you are) and the amazing medical care we received, not to mention everyone who prayed for us and cares for us in this past year.
We are so thankful for each day we have with our little boy—and sometimes I am still so in love with him that I just tear up or even cry. (Dre is also SOOO in love with him, but doesn’t sit aroumd crying like me 😋). And on more than one occasion, he has made us laugh so hard we cry. He laughs at the funniest things, and it seems like it’s something new everyday. We are so blessed to have such a happy, playful, content baby. (He does cry, I promise—but is overall pretty joyful). While on the one hand, I wish we could share him with you all more fully, I am on the other hand, so glad he is our baby and we get him to ourselves (I am guessing this is a common parental feeling?).
And while I barely got this eleven month update in before Joopie’s big birthday (tomorrow 😬😱😳😆), I did make it—hooray! Just in the nick of time haha. Make sure to check out the pictures of Joopie too—he has changed so much!!
And once again, I don’t know if we can ever say it enough—thank you, I mean—THANK YOU—for all your prayers for us this past year. Of course, we still covet your prayers each and any day y’all are willing to lift us up. While he is healthy now and things are going well, we still recognize how sensitive the balance is and how easily it can be disrupted (as evidenced by our hospital stay in June). But for the meantime, we are so grateful for every healthy minute we have with our smiley little guy.
Ciao for now and much love from us-
Dre, Naomi, and Joopie
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