I'm hopeful again...

Nathan, my sweet little peanut, this blog is dedicated to you today.

You fill my heart with an unbelievable amount of emotions I never thought possible at one time. I love you so very much and last week for the first time you told me in your very own way how much you love me. I arrived at daycare, you ran across the room with a big smile on your face and put your arms out and grabbed me. Nathan, the hug you gave mommy was so good and filled with words from your heart. I felt it loud and clear. You squeezed me, you had never done that before and that made my eyes water.
So today, I want you to know how very proud of you I am and how very far you've come. You are doing amazingly well with your OT sessions and are surprising all of us. Way to go son!

Looking back, I remember September 11 2006.

I prayed so hard for you to get out of this mess. You were so sick here and I was scared of loosing you. The hospital had just moved you into ICU because you were having trouble breathing. You had aspirated (and we never knew it at the time) Your hospital stay was a long but I stayed with you every day during your four month stay...



After a few months into your hospital stay, we were able to bring you home on day passes (bringing you back to the hospital every night) You pulled this yucky feeding tube out so many times. Everytime you pulled it, we had to go back to the hospital to have it reinserted. X-rays had to be done to check the placement because your tube had to go into your small intestine. Your reflux was too severe for the other kind...



Fast forward two years later...


You like to mouth and taste the juice on the nubby part of the juice box, again more tasting Woohoo!


McDonalds french fry- who doesn't love those- you love sucking on them and that's fabulous because it means your tasting!!!

Today mommy got your progress report from Carolyn (your OT) and Sharron ( your speech therapist) and I am so proud of you. Here's some of what they had to say:

Nathan participated in a "heavy work" activity loading weighted bean bags into a toy cart. He demonstrated turn tacking by coming back to the therapist for more. Heavy work is great for "priming" his nervous system for more difficult sensory input (eating)
We gave Nathan a "Five Vibe" a small vibratory device and he put it in his mouth! He played with the sensation on his tongue, teeth , lips and face. He really enjoyed it and was reluctant to part with it!
We then used the elephant vibrator to introduce tastes. His facial expressions told us a lot about how he felt about the the tastes! With the candy/sugar coating on the vibrator, when he put it in his mouth he smiled and left it in his mouth taking it out for us to put more on. With the strong tasting dill powder from a crushed rice cake he grimmaced!
Nathan spontaneously signed "more" using his therapist's hands. Several times, Nathan used our hands to sign "more" with verbal prompts. ( Do you want more?")

This is a great start to the New Year. Way to go Nathan!