18 months

I have a confession to make. In January 2009 I posted Nico's MRI results, with all the medical words. And all that jargon didn't make enough sense to most people. It hardly made sense to me. As we have gone to our neurology appointments every 6 months and worked with the occupational therapist and physical therapist over time the words have come to have more meaning to us.

Nico had a stroke because of the blood clots in the placenta. This caused permanent brain damage. He has a small hole in the right side of his brain and a much larger hole in his cerebellum. Even as a preemie in the NICU, stem cells don't repair the holes. They will always be there. What the brain can do, though is rewire its processes to move information around the holes. This might take a little longer for the information to travel around and create a response, but the job will still get done.

Nico's hands and arms don't seem to be affected at all. His speech is on target and he is very responsive socially. His right leg is affected. It is weaker and it is much harder for him to use. He seems to have less positional awareness of what is going on with that foot. This is why every week we have a visit from a physical therapist. We do stretching exercises and strengthening exercises. We climb up and down the stairs, forward and sideways, working on strengthening that little leg.

I am hesitant as I post this. I don't want people treating Nico like he is "special" even though he is. I hate how when someone is different it makes that awkward situation where many people avoid the subject altogether or even the person, because they are uncomfortable and afraid they may say the wrong thing. So if you're reading this and that awkward feeling is creeping up, please ignore it. Everything is the same as it always was. This just answers the questions of why Nico is 18 months and not walking yet and why we have a physical therapist. It explains why his little foot drags along sometimes. It also allows me to try to stop being afraid to say anything.

Little Gymnast

Improved Walking

The physical therapist came by to work with Nico this morning. I was surprised at how much she was able to get him to do. He's made quite a bit of improvment in the last couple of weeks. Nico's pushing it by himself and  beginning to steer. We took most of the weights off of the walker today, so he is having to work harder to control the speed. He is quite proud of himself and we are too! He also stood a little bit on his own. I can see he is getting nearer to walking by himself. Yay!

Nico

I've been wanting to write for a while about Nico's newer skills. Nico has started saying "uh-oh" in the last 2 weeks. So of course the next thing to follow is throwing toys and food on the floor and practicing saying "uh-oh." This gets lots of smiles from the proud family for the great achievement of saying a new word! He is also saying "hello" now instead of just "hi." When he sees a dog or a picture of one, he will say "woof." And he makes a high pitched  "teetee" when he sees the kitties, as he points at them.
We have been practicing some self-feeding with a spoon. He does a pretty good job of grabbing the loaded spoon and putting it in his mouth when he is in the mood. Letting him scoop the food himself is a lot more messy.
Nico likes to hear his mama sing to him. He frequently requests "the itsy bitsy spider" by putting his little wiggly fingers together and making the "sss" noise. He also likes "if you're happy and you know it" and will clap and point to his face at the right parts, with a few extra claps thrown in for good measure.

Block party 2011