Calcium and Early Katrina

Journal Entry August 18, 2005

Niko's walking a little more day by day, which is great. His muscle tone is really improving. Everybody misjudges his age by a year, guessing that he's one year old. Time for another blood test, which we only have to get quarterly now. I thought his calcium level would be sky high, since he hasn't had his infusion in a year, and he's eating more foods with calcium. Still not dairy, of course, but the occasional pancake. But the labs came back completely normal, and I was shocked. And very, very happy. It seems like his hypercalcemia is slowly going away, that he truly is growing out of it like we had hoped. I still monitor calcium like crazy. Watching the solids he eats (more and more every week, but he definitely has his favorites and sticks to them religiously) and checking out his baby food jars with a vengeance. He snacks on cereal now (10% calcium a serving) when that never would have happened before. It's
wonderful.

Niko has also turned into a walking fool, staggering hither and yon. Last night Luke held Niko's hand and together they toddled down the hall to bed. (Well, maybe the little one did slightly more toddling.) I know that almost every parent is entranced by what their child can do. But I also feel that Luke and I seem to appreciate Niko's accomplishments more than usual, because we had to wait so very long for them. We're still waiting for Niko's first word. A "mama" would bowl me over.

Hurricane Katrina took out New Orleans. It's absolutely devastated. How many entries like this am I going to end up writing?