Ready to go!

Stephen is done. He is ready to be done with his convalescing, but his mean old mom and dad are still making him take it easy. He also wants to start eating regular foods again, but no dice. Stephen is staying on the soft foods diet until next Monday or Tuesday, although, we have been slowly introducing some other softer foods (pastas, jelly sandwiches...), and he's been doing ok with those.

We can already tell a difference in how well Stephen is hearing. His comprehension has improved drastically, and he is following instructions a lot better. He has done a little more talking, but not much, and his overall demeanor is just much more pleasant. He had PT yesterday, and his therapist said that she could tell that he was generally a lot happier, and that he was following instructions a lot better (although she did note that he was a LOT more clingy than normal, but that she would have expected that). He also demonstrated his ability to stand without pulling up (he FINALLY started doing that consistently about 3 weeks ago!), and we discussed how to change his habits so that he will do that more, and crawl less. And we had another first - Stephen played with Play-Doh WITHOUT even attempting to put it into his mouth! Our therapist had a student with her, and Stephen was doing pretty much everything the girl asked him to do with regards to the Play-Doh, including rolling a snake, and trying to pinch teeny pieces off of a bigger chunk. Pretty good for 1 week post-op!

We are mostly packed and ready to head out to AZ to see everyone, and we are leaving tomorrow morning. This is our first big road trip with Stephen, but between the portable DVD player and the bin of car toys that I assembled for him, it should be just fine. Plus, he LOVES riding in the car, so that should be good. We haven't quite managed to figure out the logistics of using the potty while we are going, but since he has been accident-free for 2 days, we are going to work it out to help him!

Stephen was very happy to be able to go out and swing again. We kept him off of it for a few days after we got home from the hospital, because we didn't want him to get too worked up and start bleeding or something.

All is well out here, and there will be tons of pictures and stories when we return!