Save a cow, eat a cheeto...

Connor's doing fantastic these days! Not only is he walking like a pro, but he's finally found his appetite. It's about damn time! This kid has seriously kicked it into overdrive and has no trouble packing in more than 1000 calories per day (on average). And at the rate he's going, he'll likely jump up to the next growth curve at his 18 month checkup appointment. Finger's crossed...

Don't get me wrong there are still some things we're struggling with, but in general it's gotten much, much better. For example, we're still having a hard time getting Connor to eat solid foods although we're finding out that it's based more on preference than ability. For example, he'll refuse "adult" food but give him some cheetos and he'll start filling his cheeks like a chipmunk who's storing food for the winter. He's more than happy to eat cookies, pickles, strawberries, graham cracker and of course, cheetos however, offer him some hot dogs or cooked carrots and he'll lock it down tighter than Fort Knox. Oh my...

On another note, Connor's learned to read!! We've been working with flash cards to help his speech (or lack thereof) and even though we're still waiting for a major breakthrough in the speech department, he's really catching on. Ok, so before you think that I'm full of crap, here's how I know that my son can in fact - read. When we hold up a flash card that says "Wave", he'll wave...hold up a card that says "arms up" and he'll raise his arms up over his head..."ear" and he'll point to his ear, "clap" and he'll start clapping. Of course I'm completely pumped about this new breakthrough - partly because it helps to prove that Connor's just a normal kid who got off to a slow start...but also (and more importantly) because I can't wait to tell his pediatrician to "stick it" the next time she brings up potential developmental delays.

Bedhead

A picture's worth a 1000 words...

Future plumber? Maybe not...

Connor recently learned how to flush the toliet. Now it's his favorite activity. I'm fully expecting a higher than usual water bill until this new found facination ends.

Lights, Camera, Whipped Cream

Connor had his TV debut today. Great Day SA (a local Good Morning America type show) did a small segment at his school. This video is around 4 minutes long and Connor makes several appearances.

My favorite part is when Connor ties to rip the hosts ear off - poor guy. Until we can figure out how to get the clip off our DVR, you'll have to paste this link in your web browser to view it.

http://www.kens5.com/greatday/video/gdsa-index.html?nvid=384157&shu=1

Alright already...I'm listening!!!

I learned on Friday night that I'm still the undefeated champion of the "I'm stubborn and stupid" competition. The only way I can even begin to describe what happened is to say that I had a "perfect storm" kind of week...when work, home and health collided for a disaster of epic proportions.

Without going into details, I'll just say that I was treated to an unexpected, all expense paid trip to the hospital on Friday night. At my doctors orders, they admitted me for dehydration, exhaustion and a UTI. So after 12 hours on an IV, two rounds of antibiotics and strict orders to SLOW DOWN, I was finally released with one very important lesson under my belt - I need to know when to ask for help and can not try to conquer the world while pregnant.

Luckily baby TBD is ok, Connor never knew that I was missing (thank you Mom and Grandma for taking care of him) and Ross...we'll I owe him one. Even though he got to sleep in his own bed that night (while I was chained to a hospital bed, dragging an IV pole to and from the bathroom with my *ss hanging out of my hospital gown), still he's an amazing husband who was there for me when I needed him.

I thought a lot about Ross, Connor and TBD that night in the hospital. I'm embarrassed and disappointed in myself for trying to take on too much. It was stupid and careless.

I've been dis-owned

Entirely by accident, we discovered how a simple doctor's appointment can piss off an entire family.

Let me explain...We had our sonogram appointment today and since we didn't find out Connor's sex ahead of time, we decided that this time around we would. However, at the last minute Ross and I changed our mind. Let's just say that my mom did NOT take the news well. If I'm lucky she'll start talking to me again in a month or two.

I've really been working hard to heal emotionally from the "health issues" that we faced with Connor. So going into the appointment today I wanted to find out one thing and one thing only. I desperately needed to know that this baby was healthy. Whether it was a boy or girl didn't matter as much as knowing that it had two arms, two legs, etc. Of course, Connor was perfectly healthy on the sonogram too and it's yet to be seen if this baby will have similar feeding issues, but the sonogram really helped to put my mind at ease.

Ross on the other hand really enjoyed the experience of standing in the delivery room while the doctor holds a seconds-old baby and announces that "It's a...". For anyone who hasn't had a surprise like this before, I can only compare it to Christmas times 10x. There really is nothing like it. So with that - we made our decision and told the doctor to stay above the waist. :)

The good news is that the baby IS healthy. It's growing on time and seems to be very active. When the dust finally settles, I can only hope that our family will understand that we made this decision based on what was best for us at the time. As for my mom, she can add this to the list of awful things I've done to her in the past. Love ya MOM!

He's one of a kind

I was reading one of my favorite blogs today (http://dooce.com/) and I was both shocked and impressed with the level of candor that this author used to describe her battle with post partum depression. I can only image that it's a difficult topic, but instead of hiding the truth from her readers, Heather openly shares her struggles.

This got me thinking...What's the point of filtering the truth in order to create the allusion of a perfect life? I find it far more admirable to share the good and bad in an effort to be honest. It's also through the hard times that you learn the most important life lessons. What's so embarrasing about that?

So its with this new level of honesty in mind that I wanted to give an update on Connor. According to his doctor, he's been riding the developmental line for quite a while now. Before I explain, let me first tell you that the current trend in child development is very prescriptive. For example: ALL children should walk between 12-15 months. While I'm not here to debate the merits of this belief system, I will say that it leaves little room for individuality and does not at all consider "extenuating" circumstances like the one we faced with Connor.

If the doctor say's that Connor should be crawling between 9-12 months, then he'll start crawling at 11 months, 3 weeks and 2 days. Time and time again, he pulls it off just in the nick of time. Most recently he started walking only three days before his 15 month deadline (actually he was walking weeks before, but would only try it when he was holding onto someone - sounds more like a confidence issue than an ability issue).

Regardless, the doctor keeps threatening developmental delays. She's constantly saying things like "he's riding that line" and "we may want to consider further testing". It makes me furious because she's not taking into consideration that for the first five months of Connor's life we were completely focused on keeping him alive - leaving no time for development.

During the early months, Connor had to eat every 2-3 hours but at that time it was taking him 1.5 hours to finish a bottle. So it wasn't unusual for him to finish one meal only to get a 45 min break before starting the next meal. I'm not exagerating when I say that ALL he did for several months was eat and sleep. While other kids were playing/developing we were focused on keeping Connor out of the hospital.

The other thing that this very prescriptive view of child development doesn't take into consideration is family history. According to Ross's mom, half a dozen family members (from Ross himself, to uncles, cousins and neices) have all started walking at 15 months or slightly later. There's also a history of speech delays - another problem we're facing right now.

So to conclude this rant, I'm sick of hearing about developmental timelines. I whole-heartedly embrace individuality and I believe in my son and his ability to overcome. I know that Connor has had to fight through some very difficult circumstances and I commend him for his tenacity. He's had a rough start, but just like he's done with his weight gain - he will catch up.

As a side note: Neither Connor's teachers nor the occupational therapist we're seeing for his food texture issues are at all concerned about his development. They see him on a day to day or week to week basis and feel that he's progressing like a normal healthy child.