Almost 22 months
Nathan took his first real steps tonight! He was standing near my son Benj by a rocking chair and took two steps to me on the bed. So, of course, I shouted for Ben and the rest of kids to come watch. We proceeded to take the next 20 minutes making him walk from person to person. Each of the kids wanted to be a part of this great moment. So he kept walking and falling from one person to the next. We are so excited to see how much he wants to walk. From my experience, once Nathan wants to do something, then we really see progress.
This morning I was discussing how to help him learn to walk with one of his therapists. We are currently trying to figure out why he loses his balance. There are times when he falls over really hard on his head or just decides to lay down from the standing position by falling straight forward or straight backward. He often loses his footing. As you can imagine, this causes all types of bumps and bruises. He seems to have a high tolerance for this type of pain. (We are currently contemplating some type of helmet for him.) So I spent all morning discussing little things we can do to help him learn to walk. Then tonight, he just takes off and walks 2-3 steps at a time. What fun!
Nathan favorite activity is stacking. He will stack DVDs, magazines, his toys rings and blocks. He is so funny as he goes about it. He likes to stand with his feet flat on the ground and balance with his forehead on the ground in a V position. (Test your flexibility and try it.) Then he can use both hands to gather toys and stack them underneath him. It is quite funny to watch him as he moves around the room gathering toys in this position. As I told you before, he crawls all the time now. Lately he has been really gaining speed as he moves in the bear crawl, with straight legs and arms.
He has also been able to do so many thing with toys that he has never done before. Nathan would never let go of any toy that he enjoyed. Just this month, he learned to drop a ball at the top of a ramp to watch it roll down and then get the ball to do it again. He has another toy where he drops blocks down the hole and then finds the blocks on the tray underneath. Nathan seems to enjoy more complex toys now. A couple of his therapists starting to call him their "Little Einstein" because he is refusing to have anything to do with toys that are too easy. Always makes a mother proud.
There are many toys that are hard for Nathan to work because he has poor fine motor skills. He still has difficulty picking up things in a pincher grab using his pointer finger and thumb. He also has difficulty with anything where he needs his hand to be flat. When he runs into trouble getting a toy to work for him, he comes up with a new solution. He was having a tough time getting a lever to make Elmo pop up in a jack-in-the-box type of toy. He just couldn't push hard enough with his fingers. So he picked up a stacking ring and began hitting and pushing on the lever until Elmo popped up. Then he grinned, so very pleased with himself.
Nathan can eat most foods now except for really hard foods like carrots. This makes life so much easier. He still drinks mostly from a bottle. We have been trying to help him learn to drink from sipper cups. He likes to throw them against the wall and watch the juice run down. I don't like this nearly as much as he does. So we taught him how to drink from a straw last week. He actually picked it up in one night. We were using one of the cups with a straw that doesn't drip. It is awesome. I need to find some more of those.
For the last 8 months, his vision therapist has been trying to get Nathan to pick things up and put things in a bowl. He just refused to do it. Since his stacking mania began, he has really improved this talent. In fact, now he is just plain trouble. He loves stacking things in his dump truck. However, the bowl that he likes to put things in the most is the toilet bowl. He likes to play in the water. He goes and gets the kids toys and books to throw them into the toilet. So we taught the kids to make sure that the toilet seat was always closed. This only took him a day or two to figure out. Soon he had that lid resting on his head while he was playing in the water again! Ugh. I swear he can hear the bathroom door open from anywhere in the house. Closing the bathroom doors at all times is a must in my house. Wait until he discovers that the toilet paper unrolls. Good for development but not so good for my sanity.
Today, he finally figured out how to start down the stairs. For the last few months I have been turning him around and getting him onto the top step. Once there, he could go down the stairs with ease. He just couldn't seem to start. Now he is no longer stranded when he crawls upstairs.
Nathan has been practicing standing all the time. Today, I caught him standing near the tub without holding on for about 20 seconds. He is getting really strong.
It is so fun to see him actually on the growth charts. We are on a vacation from doctors. I do need to take him into the pediatrician soon. He was supposed to go in for an sedated echo cardiogram to check on his heart last week. He was really congested from a bad cold, so we ended up cancelling it. We couldn't reschedule until the end of October. We are fine with this postponement since we hate to see him sedated. Breathing becomes so difficulty for him after anesthesia. So we will put that off for a while.
I just had to share all of his great achievements.
Tara
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Glasses
18 months
We just got back from our appointment with Dr. L, our ophthalmologist. I have been looking forward to this appointment for a long time because his eye contact and object tracking have improved so much. Dr. L said that Nathan is just about caught up to his age.
His farsightedness is a little worse, so Nathan is going to need glasses. He has +8 in his left eye and +9 in his right, I think. This should help him as most activities are close up at this age. It will be interesting to see if glasses alter some of Nathan’s behaviors. I am hoping that with glasses he might pick up on some ASL signs that we have been doing, or some communication cards that we are going to start. So far, we don’t have any real way of communicating yet.
Nathan also might not have Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI). It may be that he was just developmentally delayed and now is getting more on track. The doctor will give us more of a diagnosis after our next visit. By that time, we should be able to assess how he is doing with glasses and any behavioral changes that might have occurred.
So next week, the battle of the glasses will begin. Rachel also started wearing glasses around 18 months. She was terribly stubborn about not wearing them and we had quite the battle. Now we battle to get her to take them off when she goes to sleep. We will have to see how Nathan likes being able to see. The good thing is that this time around, I have many hands to help me continually put the glasses back in place.
We just got back from our appointment with Dr. L, our ophthalmologist. I have been looking forward to this appointment for a long time because his eye contact and object tracking have improved so much. Dr. L said that Nathan is just about caught up to his age.
His farsightedness is a little worse, so Nathan is going to need glasses. He has +8 in his left eye and +9 in his right, I think. This should help him as most activities are close up at this age. It will be interesting to see if glasses alter some of Nathan’s behaviors. I am hoping that with glasses he might pick up on some ASL signs that we have been doing, or some communication cards that we are going to start. So far, we don’t have any real way of communicating yet.
Nathan also might not have Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI). It may be that he was just developmentally delayed and now is getting more on track. The doctor will give us more of a diagnosis after our next visit. By that time, we should be able to assess how he is doing with glasses and any behavioral changes that might have occurred.
So next week, the battle of the glasses will begin. Rachel also started wearing glasses around 18 months. She was terribly stubborn about not wearing them and we had quite the battle. Now we battle to get her to take them off when she goes to sleep. We will have to see how Nathan likes being able to see. The good thing is that this time around, I have many hands to help me continually put the glasses back in place.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Crawling and other achievements
March 31, 2009 – 18 months
It has been a little while since I last updated this. Nathan has been doing fantastic and hasn’t been in to see any doctor for about two months. I think that this must be a record. We were supposed to visit the eye doctor but missed the appointment due to our car's faulty ignition switch. It works about 80% of the time and then just doesn’t work. Yes, it is definitely on the very long list of things to do.
Last time, I told you how he has been getting up on his hands and knees. He progressed from rocking back and forth to actually crawling a foot or so by the end of February. Most of this month, he has spent practicing crawling. He would crawl three or four feet when he was crawling to the stairs. He uses the stairs to help himself sit up and he likes to just play on the bottom stair. He also would crawl when he was headed to the couch. Nathan puts his back against the couch and then uses his feet to push himself back and up instead of pulling himself up. I didn’t realize how hard that is to describe until I was just writing it down. This causes problems since he thinks that he has to push backwards whenever he is standing. For the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to get him to stand without something behind him to lean against. Now he can crawl all the way across the room. He tends to bulldoze a little but will look up now and then, especially when you are talking to him. He is scooting on his back less and less each week. I think that he is realizing that crawling can be just as fast as scooting on his back. Hurray!
Yesterday, Nathan was amazing. He was at the bottom of the stairs and started to push himself up to the next stair. He made it to the second stair which he had done once before. The kids and I were in the kitchen watching him. He began to push up to the next stair. Before long, he had climbed up all the stairs. We would then show how to crawl down the stairs, helping him to move his arms and legs to the next step. He thought this was a great game. So we spent the day going up and down the stairs. Thankfully, I have fantastic kids to help or I might have gone a little crazy. Benj was especially great at helping Nathan learn how to go back down. Rachel, AJ, and Emma were great at guarding and making sure that he didn’t fall down the stairs on his way up. We are a bit frantic to teach him how to go back down since we have 5 flights of stairs in our small home. Nathan is now officially dangerous!
He still loves his jumper but won’t stay in it as long because it hinders his mobility. He doesn’t love the walker that Kids Who Count brought because it is difficult for him to stand. I am going to have to see if there is a better one out there. We never bought a walker for the other kids because it seemed like it wasn’t worth the money for the short time they would use it. I guess it is time to investigate them. I don’t expect him to be walking too soon but he is really making great progress.
He wasn’t babbling much for a while but lately started up again. His favorite thing to say is “Mum, Mum, Mum.” It is similar to the sound he has made since he was an infant when he cried. Often when I say it to him, he will start babbling back. This is great news because it is a step towards learning to speak.
My only complaint is that Nathan’s sleeping schedule is all off. He is teething. On the right side, another tooth has come to join the middle two. He is also getting a molar on the bottom right. He gets a little pouty and wants to be cuddled a lot more. He is pretty great about it. Personally, I wouldn’t want to get teeth in for the first time either.
Besides crawling Nathan has a few new things that he loves to do. He LOVES to push the buttons on the TV which frustrates the kids to no end. He also likes to put small toys on his face and roll them up to his nose then back to his mouth. At times, he darts his tongue out to taste his toy. His therapist thinks that he might skip the “put everything in his mouth” stage because he doesn’t like to put anything in his mouth. I am okay with the licking if we can avoid the choking on all the other kids’ toys. It is so hard to get them all to take care of the little toys like the Magnetics that seem to be everywhere at times.
My favorite thing that he does is he gives me kisses and snuggles into my neck. It is the cutest thing and makes everything else in life okay. He is my little darling.
It has been a little while since I last updated this. Nathan has been doing fantastic and hasn’t been in to see any doctor for about two months. I think that this must be a record. We were supposed to visit the eye doctor but missed the appointment due to our car's faulty ignition switch. It works about 80% of the time and then just doesn’t work. Yes, it is definitely on the very long list of things to do.
Last time, I told you how he has been getting up on his hands and knees. He progressed from rocking back and forth to actually crawling a foot or so by the end of February. Most of this month, he has spent practicing crawling. He would crawl three or four feet when he was crawling to the stairs. He uses the stairs to help himself sit up and he likes to just play on the bottom stair. He also would crawl when he was headed to the couch. Nathan puts his back against the couch and then uses his feet to push himself back and up instead of pulling himself up. I didn’t realize how hard that is to describe until I was just writing it down. This causes problems since he thinks that he has to push backwards whenever he is standing. For the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to get him to stand without something behind him to lean against. Now he can crawl all the way across the room. He tends to bulldoze a little but will look up now and then, especially when you are talking to him. He is scooting on his back less and less each week. I think that he is realizing that crawling can be just as fast as scooting on his back. Hurray!
Yesterday, Nathan was amazing. He was at the bottom of the stairs and started to push himself up to the next stair. He made it to the second stair which he had done once before. The kids and I were in the kitchen watching him. He began to push up to the next stair. Before long, he had climbed up all the stairs. We would then show how to crawl down the stairs, helping him to move his arms and legs to the next step. He thought this was a great game. So we spent the day going up and down the stairs. Thankfully, I have fantastic kids to help or I might have gone a little crazy. Benj was especially great at helping Nathan learn how to go back down. Rachel, AJ, and Emma were great at guarding and making sure that he didn’t fall down the stairs on his way up. We are a bit frantic to teach him how to go back down since we have 5 flights of stairs in our small home. Nathan is now officially dangerous!
He still loves his jumper but won’t stay in it as long because it hinders his mobility. He doesn’t love the walker that Kids Who Count brought because it is difficult for him to stand. I am going to have to see if there is a better one out there. We never bought a walker for the other kids because it seemed like it wasn’t worth the money for the short time they would use it. I guess it is time to investigate them. I don’t expect him to be walking too soon but he is really making great progress.
He wasn’t babbling much for a while but lately started up again. His favorite thing to say is “Mum, Mum, Mum.” It is similar to the sound he has made since he was an infant when he cried. Often when I say it to him, he will start babbling back. This is great news because it is a step towards learning to speak.
My only complaint is that Nathan’s sleeping schedule is all off. He is teething. On the right side, another tooth has come to join the middle two. He is also getting a molar on the bottom right. He gets a little pouty and wants to be cuddled a lot more. He is pretty great about it. Personally, I wouldn’t want to get teeth in for the first time either.
Besides crawling Nathan has a few new things that he loves to do. He LOVES to push the buttons on the TV which frustrates the kids to no end. He also likes to put small toys on his face and roll them up to his nose then back to his mouth. At times, he darts his tongue out to taste his toy. His therapist thinks that he might skip the “put everything in his mouth” stage because he doesn’t like to put anything in his mouth. I am okay with the licking if we can avoid the choking on all the other kids’ toys. It is so hard to get them all to take care of the little toys like the Magnetics that seem to be everywhere at times.
My favorite thing that he does is he gives me kisses and snuggles into my neck. It is the cutest thing and makes everything else in life okay. He is my little darling.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Follow-up, Endocrinologist, & January 09
2/1/09 Surgery follow-up, endocrinologist and January accomplisments
Nathan is 16 months old.
Doctors Update: Nathan was taken off oxygen a couple of days after I last posted. He hasn’t needed oxygen since then and his SAT stayed at 93 which is acceptable.
We saw the urologist at the beginning at the month for a follow-up after surgery. Nathan has a fluid sac (hydrocele) that Dr. W is hoping will just go away. We will watch it for the next 6-9 months and then make decision about whether to go in to drain it. Right now, we both agree that we would rather not seem him go under anesthesia any time soon. So we are just waiting.
We met our newest doctor, the endocrinologist, this last week to discuss Nathan’s growth and hypoglycemia. Dr. D wants to just wait and watch how Nathan grows for the next 6 months. We only need to worry if he stops growing for 3-4 months at a time. I am excited to report that he has gained 3 pounds and grown 2 inches in the last month! He is up to 20lbs and 4 oz as of the 28th. (Yes, I am developing incredible arm muscles!) As for his hypoglycemia, Dr. D just wants us to make watch his behaviors when he hasn’t had food and be especially careful when he becomes ill. If he becomes lethargic, we are to take him to the hospital to check his sugars and get them raised again.
So we are in the Wait and Watch mode for the hydrocele, atrial septal defect & enlarge aortic root, hypoglycemia, cortical visual impairment, and everything else that I have currently forgotten. This is a great place to be. As of right now, Nathan doesn’t have a single doctor’s appointment for February which is fabulous.
Progress: We have been very excited about Nathan’s progress this month. First, he has become an extreme bouncer. He is standing in the bouncer for at least a minute and will jump for at least 30 minutes. He even whines if you take him out when he is having fun. His legs are getting much stronger and he jumps like a madman. He can move his bouncer up to two-three feet when he really gets going. His smile is contagious and no one can walk by him in the bouncer without making a face and laughing with him.
Nathan’s babbling has been increasing in frequency and quantity. One night when Ben and I were upstairs, Ben asked who had called, “Dad.” It was Nathan downstairs. Before you get excited, he doesn’t mean to say anything particular yet but he is saying many new sounds. He enjoys babbling to himself and will often babble away at night when he gets tired.
The most exciting improvement is that he is now getting on his hands and knees, and rocking back and forth. This is the first steps before crawling! You have to understand that I have been putting him in this position almost every day for the past 10 months trying to help him to learn to crawl. When he is in this position, he is actually looking at us and smiling.
He is able to sit for longer periods without falling. We are currently trying to teach him how to lean forward to slowly get out of the sitting position. He typically arches backward and has to have pillows or a blanket behind him at all times. He likes to sit and play with his cars, balls and other toys.
We are also working on helping him to learn how to put food in his mouth. He has learned how to chew his food and we can now feed him food that has been through the baby grinder.
Favorite activities: Currently Nathan loves to play in his bean box. It is just a plastic tub filled with beans. We can hide a toy and then he will find it. He is also learning how to roll cars and play with balls. It is fun to roll the ball back and forth with him.
Note: Music to the video was chosen by the kids.
Nathan is 16 months old.
Doctors Update: Nathan was taken off oxygen a couple of days after I last posted. He hasn’t needed oxygen since then and his SAT stayed at 93 which is acceptable.
We saw the urologist at the beginning at the month for a follow-up after surgery. Nathan has a fluid sac (hydrocele) that Dr. W is hoping will just go away. We will watch it for the next 6-9 months and then make decision about whether to go in to drain it. Right now, we both agree that we would rather not seem him go under anesthesia any time soon. So we are just waiting.
We met our newest doctor, the endocrinologist, this last week to discuss Nathan’s growth and hypoglycemia. Dr. D wants to just wait and watch how Nathan grows for the next 6 months. We only need to worry if he stops growing for 3-4 months at a time. I am excited to report that he has gained 3 pounds and grown 2 inches in the last month! He is up to 20lbs and 4 oz as of the 28th. (Yes, I am developing incredible arm muscles!) As for his hypoglycemia, Dr. D just wants us to make watch his behaviors when he hasn’t had food and be especially careful when he becomes ill. If he becomes lethargic, we are to take him to the hospital to check his sugars and get them raised again.
So we are in the Wait and Watch mode for the hydrocele, atrial septal defect & enlarge aortic root, hypoglycemia, cortical visual impairment, and everything else that I have currently forgotten. This is a great place to be. As of right now, Nathan doesn’t have a single doctor’s appointment for February which is fabulous.
Progress: We have been very excited about Nathan’s progress this month. First, he has become an extreme bouncer. He is standing in the bouncer for at least a minute and will jump for at least 30 minutes. He even whines if you take him out when he is having fun. His legs are getting much stronger and he jumps like a madman. He can move his bouncer up to two-three feet when he really gets going. His smile is contagious and no one can walk by him in the bouncer without making a face and laughing with him.
Nathan’s babbling has been increasing in frequency and quantity. One night when Ben and I were upstairs, Ben asked who had called, “Dad.” It was Nathan downstairs. Before you get excited, he doesn’t mean to say anything particular yet but he is saying many new sounds. He enjoys babbling to himself and will often babble away at night when he gets tired.
The most exciting improvement is that he is now getting on his hands and knees, and rocking back and forth. This is the first steps before crawling! You have to understand that I have been putting him in this position almost every day for the past 10 months trying to help him to learn to crawl. When he is in this position, he is actually looking at us and smiling.
He is able to sit for longer periods without falling. We are currently trying to teach him how to lean forward to slowly get out of the sitting position. He typically arches backward and has to have pillows or a blanket behind him at all times. He likes to sit and play with his cars, balls and other toys.
We are also working on helping him to learn how to put food in his mouth. He has learned how to chew his food and we can now feed him food that has been through the baby grinder.
Favorite activities: Currently Nathan loves to play in his bean box. It is just a plastic tub filled with beans. We can hide a toy and then he will find it. He is also learning how to roll cars and play with balls. It is fun to roll the ball back and forth with him.
Note: Music to the video was chosen by the kids.
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