Blaze's First Birthday!

Blaze had a terrific first birthday! We all met for lunch in Forsyth, where Blaze got a kid's meal. For a special birthday treat he had chicken nuggets! He loved them. Grandma Cathy spent the week with us and was there for Blazey's special day. She was wrapping his gifts at the coffee table, Melissa was sitting at the other end of the table, I was on the couch, when suddenly Blaze walked across the coffee table, waving at me as he toddled by. We were stunned. He had stepped onto one of his wrapped gifts and used it as a stepstool, then easily walked across. Grandma snagged him as he went past her. It was just a sign of things to come, I’m sure. Blaze has been playing with his new toys: a fisher-price little people pirate ship, a toy camera (both from Mom and Dad), 4 light up rubber duckies (from Melissa) and a orange and blue dump truck (from Grandma). He's so good about playing with everything as he pulls it out of the toy box.
That night we gave Blaze shells and cheese and let him feed himself, then we lit the special birthday candle and put it onto a cute train cake. He had his own little cake he ate that night. We let him just dive into it--I finally took it away, afraid he would make himself sick. I’ve heard of other 1 year olds who refused to touch their cake...our child was not one of those. He had so much fun. We got some terrific pictures we will put onto the site soon!

Blaze is walking now. He still crawls when he wants to go really fast and tries to run often. His crawl turns into a walk, crawl thing...I’ve never seen anyone else do it like this...most of the time. He is so fun to watch!

His molars are still making life miserable for him, though. Please pray that those break through soon!

Saturday is our "big" celebration! Please join us if you can! It will be from 1 p.m.-3 p.m. at First Baptist Church in Forsyth.

We love you all!

Celebrating Blaze's Birthday

We are celebrating Blaze's 1st birthday! We have had an incredible 18 months. Throughout Blaze's diagnosis, his birth, the surgeries and homecomings, you have been so faithful to encourage, support and pray for us. Blaze was 9 months old before we had to buy diapers for him and 10 months old before we had to buy wipes! There were visits to St. Louis, meals when we came home, furniture for his room, tons of clothes, generous showers and sweet emails on tough days. More importantly, there were prayers. Tim & I have no doubt that we would not have Blaze with us today, if God had not heard and answered your prayers. Blaze is not merely alive today, he is thriving, growing rapidly and sprouting teeth as he takes wobbly steps on his own. We want to say "thank you". Please join us in celebrating Blaze's life and God's graciousness on July 25th at First Baptist Church in Forsyth, from 1 p.m.-3 p.m. This is our "thank you" to you--no gifts, please.

Wow! We are so blessed! July 8, 2009

I had an interesting call last night. It was a worker from St. Louis Children's Hospital. During our last stay, they asked if we would participate in several studies. We said yes to most of them. Last night was a follow-up on one I consider to be one of the most vital--how our family handled Blaze's condition. I was asked a myriad of questions, most having to do with how our family dealt with having a child with a "serious condition." Did I feel it affected his friendships (No-he seems to want to gnaw on all the kids in the nursery while he is teething and no one even holds THAT against him.) Did I feel his life expectancy was hampered? Was our child's condition the most important thing in our lives? How worried was I over the future as it related to Blaze's condition? THEN I was asked if I had a "partner" that lived in our home with me and was helping to raise Blaze. The "yes" response lead to a new line of questioning-- Did my partner and I agree on how our child's condition should be treated? Did my partner and I fight a lot over our child's condition? Was our family unit suffering because we had a child with a serious health condition? On and on it went.

I had a major realization when I hung off the phone... "I am so blessed!" Blaze is doing well. He is healthy and thriving. He is ahead of most of his milestones. It's just amazing. One of the questions asked if we felt we were on a roller coaster...well, no, not now. Things are so steady. Blaze is such a great kid. I can't imagine him in any other way. Do we have to be a bit more organized? Yes, somewhat. We have medicine times and keeping prescriptions filled, that sort of thing, but I don't consider that a hardship. I am so proud of Blaze, he is sincerely doing well.

The other way we're blessed is in our family unit. Tim & I are a team in this. That does not mean things are always easy, but we work together for Blaze. Decisions concerning Blaze's medical care come easily for us. I believe it is the prayers for wisdom people are praying for us. We want the best for him and we're willing to do whatever we can to do that. One of the questions was how heavily Blaze's condition weighs on us. It really doesn't. I did sign him up for life insurance that he's guaranteed to have through the age of 25, after that he can sign up without having to address health questions. Would I have done that for a kid without a condition? I don’t know. This worked out well for our situation, so we did it. I think that's a normal parental thing to do.

I hung up the phone realizing that so many parents are struggling and how phenomenal an experience we are having. Thank you so much for your prayers. We cling onto His grace and are so grateful for His blessings.


Joy

Blaze's First 4th of July

Blaze had a terrific 4th of July. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay up to see the fireworks. He refused to take a nap the afternoon of the 4th and could not stay awake for the big show. Somehow he slept through all the noise and chaos! What a sleeper!!! Prior to sleeping, he played hard with his cousins Annika and Audrey, who are both 2 years old. Mattias is Blaze's younger cousin (6 months old) who was still too little to really play with him. Blaze was not happy to share Mom or Dad with Mattias. We do have some cute pictures of them together. I was delighted with how sweet the girls were with Blaze. They gave hugs and shared toys. It was a good day.

We had gone to Jefferson City on the evening of the 2nd to stay with Tim's parents. Blaze had a good time with Grandpa and Grandma. He liked their dog, Buddy, too. This was the first time we took Maggie and Blaze on a car trip together, and it went very smoothly. Blazey was a bit grumpy in the car, but once he went to sleep it was much better. It was a lot of fun and we had a pleasant visit.

Tim and I had a fun time taking photos of fireworks. We found out we had a fireworks setting on our camera. Fun stuff! It was so nice to see the Gilzow family again. It had been awhile.