My Little Walker

Before you get all excited. . .Andrew is NOT walking yet. We're getting closer. He's started to stand on his own when he doesn't know he's doing it. He is walking all over using his little walker. He can even stop, lift it up, and turn it to go a new direction.

He is kinda cute, isn't he?

His hearing screening is tomorrow, and then the speech evaluation is Tuesday morning. Hopefully, everything will go well, and we can get the boy talking! (So I can complain in six months that I'm tired of hearing the word NO. :-) )

Andrew Update!

Don't you love these? With him, it usually means something is going on, and this time is no different.

I took Andrew to the pediatrician this week for his 15 month appointment just a week before he turns 17 months, so we're actually getting a lot closer to being on schedule again! When I took him in February for his 12 month visit (at 15 months), she was slightly concerned by the fact that he wasn't walking or talking yet. While he's made some progress toward walking (he'll hold on to just your fingers, and he did stand alone for a minute earlier this week), the fact that he's still not saying any recognizable words has her a little worried. He's still in the window of "normal" for walking, but he's really at the tail end of the normal window for talking. She suggested I call the neurosurgeon to see if this is something that can be traced back to his surgery or not. She was also a little worried that he's not hearing sounds correctly since he really won't mimic anything. His speech is actually quite fascinating. He understands the patterns of speech and how conversations work. He knows how to wait for a response, and then answer back. I also know when he's asking a question, because he'll inflect at the end of his sentence just like we do when we ask a question. The only problem is that he speaks a language that only he understands! When I talked to the surgeon's assistant, she told me that this isn't something that would be caused by his surgery, so she was going to fax an order for speech therapy to Children's Healthcare. (Yet another reason why I'm ecstatic to live where I do.) We have a hearing evaluation set up for Monday the 27th and the speech evaluation the next morning. Thankfully, I don't have to travel into Atlanta for either as they do all of their speech therapy at their clincs. We have one about 15 minutes from us, so that's where we'll go. We are also going into the neurosurgeon at the beginning of June instead of the end of July so he can take a look at Andrew to make sure everything else is OK. Hopefully, he'll be walking by then.

One Year Ago Today

I can't believe that it was a year ago that Andrew had his surgery to correct his sagittalsynostosis. It seems like it was only yesterday that we were even finding out that there was a problem, and before I knew it, we had surgery scheduled. I've had people ask me if it was difficult, and, while it was in some ways, in other ways it wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be. I think he was so little that he didn't know enough to be afraid. I didn't really have to deal with his fear, and, honestly, the months after his diagnosis were such a whirlwind that I didn't really have time to worry. But we made it through, and we've made it from here:

This is the day after surgery when his face was starting to swell up from the fluid.

To this:

This is after Matthew's birthday. We tied a couple of the balloons Matthew got to the table so Andrew could beat them around!

I Have Visited Nirvana.

I went to IKEA last night.
It was a beautiful place.
I could have spent ALOT of money, but I got away from there only $65 poorer.
I can't wait to go back. Tomorrow? (Just kidding.)