Validation is always nice.

So yesterday marked the third week of the Axman wearing his Doc-Band.

HE LOVES IT. Seriously. It's ridiculous how much this kid loves this thing. We will take it off him for brief periods of time and even if it's only one minute, he sees it coming back towards his little noggin and gets a big ol' goofy smile on his face, super excited to have his crown back on his royal head. (Prince George ain't got nuthin on this kid)

He did great the first two days when he would wear the helmet for 3 - 4 hours and then take it off for a while. On day three, it was his first full day of wearing it with no breaks. We took off his helmet about 6:00pm that day to give him his hour break - cleaning the helmet and giving him a good bath. (Neither he nor the helmet smell very good after it being on his head for hours.) I would also use hour breaks as excuses to work on decorating the helmet. Upon taking the helmet off, I was pretty shocked to see how horribly red his forehead was. Literally, the outline of the helmet was outlined on his head in bright red.

The instructions the clinic provides are to keep the helmet off for an hour. After an hour, if the head is still red, keep it off a little longer if necessary. At 8pm his noggin was still bright red, so needless to say he got a free pass from the helmet for the evening.

Next morning we wake up. Ben brings the Nugget into our room for a bottle. His head is STILL RED. Poor little munchkin. Needless to say, I call the clinic. They have an opening and get him in pretty quickly. I really like the woman who is his primary clinician, she's extremely warm and is awesome with him. We get to the clinic and she takes him from me and we march down the hall to the room... she looks at his head.

This picture really doesn't do it justice... he was really red. And he peeled. Fun.

Unfortunately for him, it appears that Axel has inherited his mom's unbearably hot nature. What? The temperature went up one degree? I'm over heating! What the redness was was a really bad case of heat rash. Between the constantly changing temperatures and the humidity, he was a lost cause from the get go. We were instructed to keep his helmet off until he healed up, and then once he was back to normal, take it off during diaper changes or if he looks like he's warming up too much and dry off his head and the helmet with a towel.

So Mister Nugget got a free pass and was Doc-Bandless through Easter. Since putting it back on, he's been able to wear it fairly consistently - there have been a few days where it's been off a while due to redness, but it goes down and we put it back on with no issue. They said that over 3 - 5 days he would finally acclimate, and it appears that we've hit that magic time.

Now, here's the AMAZING thing. Ben took Axel in for his first follow up on Tuesday, April 29th. This is two weeks after the initial receipt of the Doc-Band. And keep in mind he had a few days where he was unable to wear it.

I wasn't at the appointment, so I can't speak to everything, but they create a cast of the Nugget Noggin based off of his initial measurements that they took. They then compare him on an ongoing basis to this cast. His head has already changed! I thought I had noticed, as it seemed a bit different when I was giving him a bath - but I figured it was all in my head; the knowing that it was being treated was going to make me believe I was seeing changes that didn't exist. However, in comparing his head to the cast - the clinic confirmed that yes, he's already making amazing strides. Even daycare has commented that when they take his band off to dry his head, his head looks significantly different. So amazing. And so validating!

Ben and Axel decided that it was a great time to take some selfies while at the clinic.

I swear, I can look at those pictures all day. Such hams. Both of them!!!

I mentioned Easter - we went to Auntie B and Uncle Greg's house for Easter brunch, and the kiddos did an Easter egg hunt. Axman needed us to carry him around, but that boy can grab him some eggs!

He has such a sweet disposition... his little cousin, Otto, bumped his head and was crying... Axel and I went over to check on Otto and I told him he should give Otto his egg. Without any hesitation, Axel took the egg in his hand and offered it to Otto to make him feel better. Otto took it, and of course all was right in the world. I mention Axel's disposition because this isn't the first he's done this - school has mentioned on more than one occasion that when his little friends are sad or crying, he always tries to make it better, typically trying to offer a toy to make them happy.

In other fun news, Axel joined me at work for Google's Take Your Child to Work Day. What fun that was! He wasn't exactly the target age, but he's kind of a big deal, so he joined me for the afternoon. We brought the blanket he likes to play on, a bag of toys, some food and some music. We put the blanket down and he played and played and played. At one point in time, we went to a "photo shoot" for a recipe book that the Cafe team is putting together. There were a number of Googlets that took part in the photo shoot, showing off their poses in the chef's jacket and looking extremely important. Clearly, the nugget wouldn't fit in a chef's jacket, so the team creatively brought out a huge pot and put him on pillows in the pot. They handed him a huge whisk, brought out the camera, and he struck a pose. This kid was with me at Google for four hours without a complaint. He's really a good kid.

As it's getting warmer, we felt that our water baby needed a swimming pool. It's simply too hot not to have some sort of an option for him.

I think we spent upwards of 4 - 5 hours on the deck this weekend in this pool. He LOVES it.

We also had a fun dog park excursion recently at a really cool place called The Doghouse Drinkery and Dog Park. It was a fund raiser for Puppy Mill Awareness where you could have a drink or have some food, and let the dogs run free in the dog park. To make the event even better, Axel's Grammy played! She's such a great musician, and so much fun to listen to. Giving Axel the opportunity to hear her sing was a phenomenal experience. He enjoyed dancing - very much!