Quick Update

Wow, time flies! The good thing about posting so infrequently is that I get to report on several milestones that Brady has achieved in the past few months. At my last post Brady was 20 months old and just learning to sit up on his own. A few months later and check this out...

Yes, this is Brady standing on his own during a physical therapy session. He started crawling on his second birthday and is now pulling himself up on furniture and cruising around as long as he has something to hold on to. We don't typically dress Brady in half of a monkey suit but this picture was taken on Halloween and it was just too hot here in Phoenix to wear the whole costume.

Brady seems to have had a huge burst in development after what seemed like an extremely long time with nothing new happening. Sometimes it is hard to see the progress when you spend so much time with your child each day. I am not a patient person and this is something Brady is helping me learn every single day. I remember when he had just turned one and was still barely holding his head up and trying to roll over. We were waiting for a diagnosis and I had this recurring fantasy that I would go in his room to pick him up from a nap and I would find him standing in his crib holding onto the rails. I even moved the mattress down so he wouldn't fall out of the crib when this big miracle happened. I realized the other day that Brady's miracle did happen, just not on my own time frame. I am still trying to get used to him just "appearing" in different places of the house. I love seeing him assert himself and just crawl over to play with whatever he decides he wants. Lately when the house gets too quiet I almost always find him doing this...

Brady is always sneaking off to his room and pulling every book off the shelf. He truly loves books and while he prefers that Troy and I read to him he will entertain himself like this for at least twenty minutes a few times each day. Brady is still nonverbal and struggles to learn things every day of his life. We noticed, though, that he alway "reads" his books with the right side up. He knows what the words and pictures are supposed to look like! This is good enough for me, for now. I'm still trying to work on this thing called patience.

Long Time No Blog

It has been well over two months since the last time I updated the blog and I am well aware that the excuse of the holidays has more than expired. Here is a quick run down on what we have been doing since my last post.

We spent Christmas in Utah and tried to catch up with as many friends as possible in a short amount of time. I was able to visit my old office and catch lunch with my friend Mary. I was also able to see Mindy, Natalie and Michelle. It’s such a challenge to keep up with each other after everyone moves away and I am so glad that our friends have made the time and effort to keep in touch!

We were back in Phoenix for about a week and then Troy and Brady went back to Utah for Grandma Crawford’s (Troy’s grandma) funeral. Troy was also able to participate in a colon cancer research study at the University of Utah with three of his siblings. It’s funny that the one time they were able to spend time together without the kids involved colonoscopy preparation… yikes! It was a positive experience overall especially because one of them had a polyp removed that turned out to be pre-cancerous. All is well and for Troy, the peace of mind was well worth the discomfort.

I stayed in Phoenix during the boys’ January visit home to work and attend real estate appraisal classes. Needless to say I couldn’t wait for the boys to get home at the end of January. I luckily squeezed in a weekend visit home so the most I went without seeing them was ten days. This is the longest I have been away from Brady and I was, of course, a complete mess. I’m pretty sure Brady missed me too because when I picked him up to hold him at the airport he wouldn’t let me look anywhere but at his face. He would literally grab my cheeks and turn them back towards him so I would be paying direct attention to him at all times. I am so relieved this round of classes is over because they were adding an extra four hours to my existing work days.
As for February… Troy and Brady were busy with therapy and various Dr.’s appointments. I have a weird obsession with counting the total number of appointments they have each month and February totaled 22! Brady is currently seeing physical, occupational, speech, and developmental therapists every week. Other appointments in February included his 18 month checkup (75th percentile and healthy!) and evaluations by hearing and vision specialists. So far Brady has passed these exams with flying colors.

A few weekends ago Brady and I attended a sign language class held by a friend of my sister’s in Fountain Hills. I could post an entire blog on this subject so why on earth do I forget to bring my camera to these things? Brady is still not using consonants so sign language is going to be his only means of communication for the foreseeable future. He has learned two signs so far (waving for “hi” and “bye” and “more”) and just got his “Signing Time” videos in the mail from Grandma so hopefully there will be more signs to follow.