Getting bigger!

Today was Stephen's first day of "school." He is going to be attending Children's Day Out one day a week at our church. They have an actual curriculum, and are working on a lot of self help skills and preparation for preschool. This picture looks like Stephen was so excited that he was going to just march right off to school, but in reality, he was running away from Crazy Mommy and her camera. Shortly after I took this, I asked him if he was ready to go, and he yelled, "OOOOOOOL!!!" (School). I guess he was ready!
The report from Stephen's teachers is that his day was just AWESOME! He didn't cry when I dropped him off (and for the record, neither did I). He played well with the other kids (especially the girls, of course), ate lunch well (no big surprise there), took an hour long nap, and even did an art project! Our child, the one that hates to do Play Doh, crayons, and markers, did an art project involving gluing small pieces of paper to a larger piece of construction paper. It is currently hanging on the wall at school, but when I get it next week, I'll share it with all of you!

This is totally unrelated to school, but Stephen has been experimenting with different ways to play his piano. Jerry Lewis has nothing on this kid!

On the speech front, Stephen is continuing to make strides with catching up with his speech. He is saying new things every day, and is babbling more. And he isn't yelling or screaming in frustration anymore, so I think he is starting to figure out that communicating with words is much more effective. Telling me he is hungry is much easier than hanging on my legs and pushing me in the kitchen.

Wordless Wednesday - He decided to use the fork all by himself finally!

SWEET ride!

Stephen got a wagon this week (thank you, Grandma Janet, and Granddaddy John!).I kept trying to catch him while he was laughing, but got these two silly faces instead.And this is when I stopped and said, "Stephen, SMILE!" What a goof! He wasn't upset, just messing around.
We are looking forward to many trips to the zoo with our new wheels, and can even bring a friend along now, too!

Post-Surgery Changes

I mentioned previously that this was a life-changing procedure for Stephen, and therefore for our entire family. The change can be summed up in one statement: Stephen smiles. Prior to having his tonsils and adenoids removed, Stephen was kind of a frown-y little guy. Now he just walks around with a smile on his face almost all the time. He is more outgoing, and more loving towards people other than his parents. It's really fantastic!



Sleep has improved as well. If he wakes during the night, it seems to be because he's had a nightmare, or in the case of the last night, there is a terrifically loud thunderstorm going on. He still takes a while to go to sleep, both at night and nap time, but I attribute this to him needing to just change his habits a bit. He was so used to fighting sleep because he had trouble breathing before, so I think it is just a new thing he'll have to get used to. All three of us, however, are appreciating better sleep.



Stephen can hear better too, and is talking a bit more. His speech therapist feels that Stephen is aware that he SHOULD be talking, but is self-conscious about it. He will talk quite a bit (and it is all developmentally appropriate phrasing and conversational) when he isn't thinking about the fact that he is talking, usually when Stephen is either having a really good time, or really angry. He is starting to talk a bit more outside of those situations too, but just at home with us. Hopefully he'll come out of his talking shell a bit more when he goes to school next month.

Reading... as you may have noticed from the Tucson post, there were a few pictures where Stephen was reading with someone. That is his new favorite thing - bringing books to people to read to him. He will do it all day long. Our theory is that now he can actually HEAR the stories clearly to see how they go with the pictures in the books, because previously, getting him to sit for even a short book (except of course, for "The Going To Bed Book.") was a chore.

I think that's it. Stephen is really like a happier version of his previous self, and we couldn't be more thrilled. The first week of recovery was really rough, I won't lie. But it was soooo worth it!

A few more pictures from Tucson

Ignore that crazy woman in the front. I don't know what she was looking at... A little out of focus, but you can see that Stephen just loves his grandparents!

With the other grandparents...

Ten days after surgery we piled into the car with a lot of "stuff," and headed off to Tucson. It was a 2 day drive, so Erik and I took turns riding with Stephen so we could read or play, or watch movies. Since Stephen is so big now, taking the Pack and Play for him to sleep in just wasn't possible. I found this bed on the internet, and although it was hard to track one down, it seemed to be the perfect solution! It worked pretty well once he understood that he had to try hard to actually stay IN the bed, and not roll all over the place.

Our first full day in Tucson, we went to Green Valley to visit the relatives down there, and then went back to Mom and Dad's to swim. They were still out of town, but Stephen's other grandparents came over to swim too! This was Stephen's very first time in a pool!!!

When Grandma Janet and Grandaddy got home, Stephen was thrilled to discover they had brought him a replacement for his much-loved, but too small, safari hat! He pulled it right on!

One of our Tucson adventures was a trip to the zoo. Although it is smaller than the OKC zoo, there were several things there that were new to Stephen, including the polar bears, elephants, and the opportunity to feed the giraffes (stay tuned for a different post with a video of that experience!).

We also indulged Daddy and Grandaddy with a lunch here:

Stephen was demonstrating how someone might feel after a little too much to drink!

And we taught Stephen how to play Pat-A-Cake...

which apparently wore him out!

Although timid at first, Stephen really took to swimming after a couple of days!

He even figured out how to paddle his arms and kick his feet a little bit - we didn't actually show him how to do this, but I guess he picked it up by watching all of us swim.

Stephen enjoyed reading while we were on vacation. A LOT!

Stephen and Grandaddy ended up with matching shirts, courtesy of Cousins David and Jayne, and the Del Mar Fair. And they were purchased a year apart, and we didn't even know they matched until we got there! Funny, huh?
More "swimming..."

This was a fantastic vacation. We saw family, and some friends, and it was a nice chance to relax, for all of us. I'll try to get a post-surgery update up later this week. To say that it was a life-changing procedure for Stephen is an understatement!

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!