Moving On

We've had a very hectic week.

Bubsy hasn't felt great - he started off the week with some bad GI troubles. His little tummy works very hard, but it just can't process all the food he needs. We have another appointment at University of Chicago on Monday. We had a good talk with out pediatrician this week about the fact that we may just have a boy who has his gastric ups and downs. We're not convinced, but also believe that the only long term solution to this is to get him on more solids (thank you sheri t. for the perspective). It's so hard to know when to push and when to accept that this is just a difficult situation, especially since his earlier bacterial infection would not have been diagnosed if we hadn't kept pushing for more testing.

We had Bobby's early intervention assessment. This is where he is worked out by physical, occupational, feeding/speech, and developmental therapists. Overall, he is developmentally in the 4-6 month range, depending on the skill. He has regressed a bit from where he was 3 weeks ago as all the sickness has weakened him and made him lose some of his hard won progress. But we'll win it all back again.

The feeding/language therapist was excited about his interest in food and in communication. So, post surgery one of our main goals is to work very hard on both of these areas - with feeding obviously taking the lead. I'm very excited about the language piece. He understands that communication is a two way process - he will spend long periods of times trading raspberries and dinosaur calls with us. He regularly stares at our mouths trying to mimic the movement. My greatest hope has always been that we have a boy who will have good communication skills. To me, that seems to be the key to happiness for a boy as social as he is.

We will be moving to having physical therapy 2 times a week until he has recovered from his surgery and gets back into a good groove. No matter the developmental area, the main challenge we have now is getting him to sit up. With that, feeding and cognitive development will be greatly enhanced.

In the not so distant future we'll start on orthotics, which are plastic braces for his feet and ankles that help him distribute weight equally when he stands. From Nanny Beth's experience, these are something he will likely have forever. She also attests to the fact that they aren't the braces like we old people think of braces - they are fastened with velcro and are not a big deal to the kids who wear them.

Surgery is 2 weeks from today. It will be good to get past that hurdle and get back to making progress on these goals. In the meantime, its going to be 50 degrees tomorrow so we hope to get out of the house. Bobby loves being out. I can hardly wait until summer time comes and we can go for long walks and play in the sun shine.