Well, it appears that I won’t be winning any Blogger of the
Year awards any time soon. That's good because there's plenty of room next to the Mother of the Year and Housekeeper of the Year and Employee of the Year awards I won't be getting, either. So it works out.
It’s been forever and a day since I posted an update, but
maybe today is the day… with “today” meaning whatever day I actually complete
this update. We shall see, senor.
Where, oh where, do I start? My Daximus Maximus will be FOUR
in less than two months. FOUR. I am shocked and amazed by this. Where has the
time gone? How has he become a little boy, albeit a totally non-potty-trained
one, right before my very eyes without me even noticing? How?
At last measurement he was just over 36” tall and between 31
and 32 lbs, depending on the scale. He’s solidly on the bottom quarter of the
growth chart now and he’s not looking back. I was actually able to dress him in
a 4T outfit a couple of weeks ago and I cried like a baby. 4T. Wow. I can
remember looking at 18 month clothing and thinking he would never, ever be that
big… And now he can wear 4Ts? What. A. Hoss.
So, as for development, he is currently in two hours of PT a
week, four hours of ST a week, one hour of OT a week, and he has a homebound
teacher who sees him three hours a week. He’s also still in Tae Kwon Do one
hour a week, and let me tell you, he has earned his title of The Unlikely
Ninja.
Physically he’s doing great. He runs and jumps and, if you
make him, can climb stairs just holding onto the rails. He can finally step on
uneven surfaces without falling and go up and down from curbs independently. He
can even do the two stairs into the sunken den without holding onto anything
when he sets his mind to it. There’s still much work to be done, though. Blame
it on the cerebellum or on PVLs, blame it on vision, blame it on the pull of
the moon, or blame it on the ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-alcohol, he still has balance issues and has unequal hip flexion, and,
although he has finally gotten to where he can stand still without constantly
having to step back and forth to keep his balance, he still looks as if the
slightest gust of wind could knock him straight on his tiny hiney.
Occupational therapy-wise he seems to be making steady
progress. He’s not caught up, but he’s not falling further behind, either. His
downfall in OT will be his never-ending ability to find an easier way to do
things than is developmentally appropriate, and why on earth do it your way
when he can do it his way? I have no problem with him doing things his way, but
I feel very strongly he should at least have the ability to do it the way the
other kids do, and then he can choose the way he wants to do it. I find it is a
perpetually exhausting job trying to stay a step ahead of this child, though.
Speech and language-wise Dax is doing great things! For this
to be his biggest deficit area, he is continuously surprising me with the new
things he is showing off. He knows so, so much receptively, although his
strength is most definitely concrete concepts. His articulation still suuuucks,
but everything he says means something once you figure it out. And, yes, I
still suck at figuring it out sometimes. If he said “gonorrhea” once the other
day, he said it 75 times, and I still don’t know what it means… Unless it
actually means gonorrhea, and I hope that’s not the case. I spent hours the
other day trying to translate this phrase he kept saying, only to finally,
FINALLY figure out he was saying “We found love in a hopeless place.” Oh, of
course. Rihanna. How did I not get that? Stupid mama.
He does have the official apraxia label now. This kid has
more labels than the Campbell Soup factory.
And then there are those times he is perfectly clear, like
this morning when he came and climbed in bed with me, said “good morning,”
pulled my shirt up, and then said “boobies.” One small step for speech therapy;
one giant leap for mankind.
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| Dr. Dax, cardiologist at large |
Healthwise Dax is doing very, very well. We have weaned him
completely off of Viagra now, and he’ll have an echo next week to check his
heart function without it. Big, big step for us! If all looks well, they’ll
schedule a cardiac cath in the next month or so to measure his pressures and
see how much, if any, impact his ASD is having at this point. With each echo he’s
had the ASD has gotten smaller and smaller, so it’s looking increasingly promising
that he will not need surgery to correct that… Which makes me one very happy
mama.
Pulmo-wise, we had weaned him down to one puff of his
Flo-Vent twice a day, but a couple of weeks ago he had another 4AM Young Wheezy
cameo so the pulmo had us increase it back to two puffs BID. We also finally
replaced the Xopenex via nebulizer with a rescue inhaler which is a huge relief
for me, since carrying around a firetruck nebulizer for emergency situations is
about as convenient as carrying around a microwave.
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| This is your brain |
Neuro-wise Dax is doing great! We’re down to seeing the neuro only once a year now, which is really quite a shame because his neuro is smokin’. Dax has two short-term seizure meds we can use now, one for prevention during viruses, and one for any seizures lasting over five minutes, and between those two I think we can conquer the world. My mom refers to the preventative one as “The Grandma Pill” because her biggest fear with keeping him overnight is him having a seizure during his witching hours, 3-5AM, and her not knowing what to do… So now she can just give him a pill at bedtime and they can live happily ever after ;) Such a pansy! Ha!
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| This is Dax's brain. (His brain is cooler than your brain.) |
But here’s what I do know. A few years ago ROP was the
leading cause of blindness. Currently,
SOD is the leading cause of blindness. Dax has both. Do you know why he can’t
ever find his socks? Because he has a penis ;)
Hmmm, what’s left…
Ear nose and throat… His tubes have officially come out, and he
hasn’t kept fluid back there chronically since, so maybe we’re done with those :) His vocal cord is still paralyzed, and I still enjoy a very frustrating game of
Mexican standoff with the ENT every six months over what we should do about
that. I will be beating that dead horse again in May.
He had another swallow study last week and, although I was
hoping for maybe the okay to move to nectar thick liquids, it looks like we’re
stuck at honey-thick for now. He’s made great improvements with swallow, but
you couple a delayed swallow with a paralyzed vocal cord and you’ve got a
recipe for aspiration. That being said, he just penetrates now and he’s able to
clear it effectively, so trials with thinner things are still a go, we just can’t
run wild with it.
As far as eating, he’s a typical toddler with a fickle
palate, but that kid will eat until you want to puke for him! We still do 600
supplemental calories a day through the g-tube, as well as supplemental fluids
through the g-tube, but that kid can put away some groceries. And after
countless hours of swallow therapy and oral motor exercises, he finally has a completely
normal chew… That is a very, very big thing!!! I can remember my goal being to
one day be able to give him a small chicken nugget and him be able to eat it
without choking… And now he eats burgers and slices of pizza :) Next stop? Vegetables!
Oh, and finally, a few weeks ago Dax lost a tooth. We don’t
know where, and the Tooth Fairy said digging through poop was not in her job
description. One green tooth down, seven to go!!!
Holy crap, that’s a lot of info. Thankfully Ty is much
easier.
Ty is a 33-lb, 35” tall force to be reckoned with. At two
and a half, I would have hoped he would be talking more by now, and, well, he’s
not, but he has no problems expressing his opinions… Not that he ever has. He
never really babbled, and he’s still got some sensory stuff going on, so I’ve
waffled back and forth on whether I’m worried or not worried or whether I think
it’s autism or sensory processing or ADHD or just that he has a penis or all of
the above. He did finally pass a hearing screening, so we know he can hear, and
he does follow instructions that are important to him, so I know he can follow
one-step instructions…
He also has the ability to watch a movie a couple of times
and act out the ENTIRE movie, scene by scene, character by character, with
great enthusiasm and follow through…
Donkey gets catapulted across a ravine? Ty runs across the living room
and dives behind the couch. Oh yes. Elmo giggles for 4.75 seconds and then
feeds Dorothy? Ty giggles for 4.75 seconds and feeds imaginary fish food to a
toy.
I tell everyone now that Ty is actually my brain-damaged
child because he acts like his dad. Is that wrong? Nah.
(I’m reminded with these two children I have of the Bill
Cosby, Himself video. The “Brain Damaged” and “You see we are dumb, but we are
not so dumb” parts come to mind quite frequently. If you live under a rock or
are under 25 and you’ve never seen that film, find it right now and watch it.
Older than dirt and funnier than crap.)
At any rate, Ty is in Early Intervention and is also in
speech therapy.
(If you’re keeping score at home, that means 1.5 hours of
teacher, 1 hour of speech, and 1 hour of TaeKwon Do for Dax on Monday, 1 hour
of speech for Ty, 1 hour of PT, and 1 hour of speech for Dax on Tuesday, 1 hour
of Early Intervention for Ty, 1.5 hours of teacher, and 1 hour of speech for
Dax on Wednesday, 1 hour of speech and 1 hour of PT for Dax on Thursday, and 1
hour of OT for Dax on Friday. Thank God for Nana and for flexible work hours,
because I’m tired just typing that out.)
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| What. A. Hunk. |
Back to my TyTy, the general consensus is he’s obviously behind
the curve with speech. He says “muk” and “deuce” (milk and juice, of course)
pretty consistently, and he signs “all done” very consistently. We also get the
occasional “bite” for food, and a “mama” and a “dada.” He’ll attempt to repeat
anything you prompt him to say, although his approximation might be a *little*
off… Like when I ask him to say “cookie” he always *clicks* in what we have
affectionately begun to refer to as “Tyhili.” (Swahili, get it?;) That being
said, he of course can say, sing, and identify the entire alphabet and his
numbers up to 12.
Of course.
The rest of the general consensus is that he’s quirky but he’s
one of those kids who develops in other areas before speech. He’s ahead of the
curve with gross and fine motor, he’s quite brilliant with reasoning and
cognitive skills, and he can repeat the inflexion and volume of every utterance
of every character in a friggin Disney movie after two sittings. He’s a strange
little bird, but damn he’s cute.
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| Perfect. |
He’s also the best cuddler there has ever been in the
history of the world. And he will spend five minutes kissing and hugging me
when I pick him up after work. And, really, what could be better than a man who
is a good cuddler and doesn’t ruin it by talking! Ha!
Could that be the end of my update? Wow. I think that leaves
room for more pictures. I’ve neglected showing off how cute they are for far, far
too long!
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| Daddy's hilarious ;) |
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| Dax as a sheep in the Christmas play |
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| Dax was Popeye for Halloween! 'Cause he's strong til the finish ;) |
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| Oh, yes, TyTy was Fat Elvis for Halloween. |
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| Life is good :) |
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| Love. And, yes, Dax is totally stealing 2nd.
BTW, the non-cell phone pics are brought to you today by our friend Dan... How awesome is he???
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