First, the good news:

Toby saw the eye doctor yesterday. He has been wearing his glasses about 6 weeks and they have helped him a lot. When he has them on, his eyes pretty much stay in their proper orbit though they definitely wander when we take them off. His doctor has decided to add some patching for half an hour each day, just to get his left eye working more.

( Actually, we're not usually the ones taking them off. Toby continues to find removing his glasses to be the most effective way to get someone to come running and the perfect antidote to boredom. He slides one finger up the side of his face under the frames and FLICK- they're forward and off. He likes to make eye contact when he does it to be sure we're getting the message. He also already has new lenses. I thought they were cracking but am assured the problem was tooth marks. )

There have been no major changes in the food department. Toby decided he doesn't like his new pediasure. He drinks regular milk from a cup and whatever nibbles of food his siblings can interest him in. Then we tube feed his allotment of pediasure to keep his caloric intake up where it should be. The biggest challenge is taping the tubing together well enough to deal with his increased activity. Too often at the end of a feeding we find Toby in the milk instead of the milk in Toby. Milk baths are good for your skin, though, right?

He has added more words to his signing vocabulary, the most important being "please". He knows it's some kind of magic and will usually get him what he's wanting so he uses it a lot. Milk, water, more, swing, up: he makes two word phrases with all of them. (Yesterday, he sat in that doctor's office and signed "go, please" over and over. ) His latest word is "hat". His dad and brother both wear one and he thinks they're cool.

Are you still waiting for the bad news? Here it is. Toby was back at the pediatrician's today. What started is a small pimple has developed into a largish area of infection on his belly. It may be a staph infection and the doctor is culturing to see if it is MRSA, a particularly nasty, anti-biotic resistant strain. We should know in a couple days. I put this in the 'bad news" column when it more properly belongs in the "reminders that God is sovereign" column. I am praying that God will continue to protect Toby from further complications and me from my imagination.