Baby Ellie left on a Thursday and 5 year old M arrived early the next day. Brian and I had barely recovered from a nasty stomach virus, and were moving pretty slow that weekend. Last week was our first full week on a normal schedule with M. He has a lot of parental visits as they are well into the reunification phase with his Dad. He spends 8 hours a day, 2 days per week with his father and 2 hours a week with his Mom.

M is settling in nicely. We do miss Ellie, but I feel reasonably OK about the move considering where she went. I know she will be loved and have a good life with her siblings. One nice part about having a  well behaved 5 year old in the house is that I have more time for Titus. I do not have to worry whether or not his needs are getting met. They are and then some. Titus thinks the sun rises and sets on M. He grins from ear to ear whenever he sees him. Titus follows the kid around, combat crawling and squealing with joy. M plays nicely with Titus and talks to him. At the same time I know that Titus has to be good for M. All that adoration and unconditional love. Learning to protect and nurture a bit. It warms your heart to see the interaction.

Tomorrow is Titus' hypospadias repair. The surgery will take about 2 hours. Of course we will be there most of the day between checking in and recovery. Waiting for a call from the hospital to see when we have to be there. He had a pre op appointment last week. His pediatric urologist took the time to show me lots of pictures of what these things look like post op. A horror show. Just gruesome. At least I know what to expect. He will have a catheter for at least a week if not longer.  My mother is taking a few days off to help out with M. Titus will be on narcotic pain medication, anti spasmotics for his bladder (because of the catheter) and antibiotics to prevent infection. There is a fairly high rate of complications such as fistulas with this procedure. All we can do is hope for the best outcome.