A busy life is a normal life....right?

A couple of weeks ago, our pediatrician recommended that we go to a clinic called Austin First Steps.  Its a place where they follow and track your child's development.  They mostly do premie babies, but because Brody is such an AWESOME case, they wanted to follow him as well.  It was a 2 hour apt, and Brody showed them who was boss.  It was so funny to watch him.  One thing that the Dr. did was, pick up a bell and ring it and then she set it down in front of him to see what he would do.  With out hesitation, B grabbed that bell and gave it a nice couple of rings...and looked at the Dr and with his eyes, he silently told her "now what, lady"  and then started banging the bell on the table.  I wish everyone could've been a fly on the wall, because I really am not bragging.  I was just so surprised he was doing all these little tricks and milestones.  So after discussion and play time with the Dr.  his test results came back as NORMAL.  That means, he is doing everything a 9 month old should be doing.  The only thing that was below average, was his speech and gross motor skills.  We knew speech would be, well, because he has a trach and doesn't make noise or eat.  And his gross motor was because after his skull surgery, they put him on "rolling over and tummy time restriction" so he lost most of his arm strength.  Our physical therapist has been working with him, since we got the go-ahead a couple of weeks ago, and he has been slowly regaining his strength.  With all that being said, my heart smiled and a sigh of relief was released.  It takes a huge part out of you knowing that your baby is different, but knowing that he is on track, just fills me with a sort of feeling that is hard to describe.

Another topic of discussion was his feeding and calorie intake.  Bottom line is, this milk factory is slowly but surely drying up, and Im so sad about this. I still pump 5x a day and am trying my hardest to keep it going, but its just not happenin.  They want him to be getting about 260 mls of breast milk 4x a day but I'm only making about 150mls every pump.  So the conclusion was to supplement the missing milk with formula.  While that wasn't my first choice, I am ok with it.  I don't feel the pressure and stress of trying to make enough milk, and I know he is still getting the majority of breast milk.  He has been doing very well with our speech therapist and eating baby food much much better.  All I can ask for is progress and he is doing just that.  He is pushing through and pfighting on.

With all this excitement and progress, we thought it might be time to start introducing him to more kids and more play time.  Besides from the occasional visits from Gabe's niece and nephew, he has had a couple of play dates with his "cousin" Southern and his cousin Gabriel (who are both about a year or so older), while us adults were visiting, but other than that, he has never been around other kids his age.  I thought that maybe taking him to Gymboree play groups would really get him on a whole new level of learning.  I looked into classes and they had a "first class free" pass, so I signed us up and took him yesterday.

My mom drove in from SA to go with us and capture his big moment.  I am not really sure how to explain how he did.  I don't know if he was just extremely tired from therapy and not napping, or if he was just in shock from the different atmosphere.  There were 3 other kids ranging from 7-9 months.  And Brody just had this blank stare on his face like "WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS PLACE".  We sang and clapped, and stomped our feet.  Worked on crawling and moving, and playing soccer.  Bubbles were blown and the parachute was flown.  But still the same ole blank stare came from him.  It wasn't until we were finished putting our shoes back on and walking out the door, when his smile came back and he was clapping his hands.  So I guess he was excited to leave.  Little stinker!  The kind teacher offered another free class next week, to try it out again.  Hopefully with a nap before, he will be a little more excited and involved!  We shall see.

Here are a few videos of what we did.

Using the walking cylinder

We got our own bubble to pop

Trying to get him to crawl up the ramp....not happen' mom

(sorry for the quality of the videos, I am trying to work on them)

Also on our exciting agenda of trying to be "normal", is our first family trip to the beach, in July.  We attempted to go to the beach a couple of weeks ago while visiting my aunt and uncle in Galveston, but matter of the fact is, we were total house bums and just enjoyed being on their deck on the bay.  But this time, Gabe's parents and my parents are taking him to the actual beach at South Padre.  We are going for Gabe's cousins wedding, but making it a long weekend of family time before Gabe's busy work travel season ensues.  While I am FREAKING out about the mixture of sun, sand and a trach, I am trying everything to remain positive.  Im sure it will be better than I am imagining, and while I am excited about family time and putting his feet in the sand for the first time,  other things are going through my head.  So I guess its time to start making our supply packing list, and getting things together.  

One of his beach outfits from Grandma

Wish us luck.  

Much love to you all, and hope everyone is having a busy normal summer!!!

Love, 

-S

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