Birthday Pics of John and an Update

John had a great day on his birthday and we took lots of pictures. I thought that I would share them here.

Also, I wanted to give an update on what we were doing. I have recently gone back to work and am still going to school, so the blog has fallen on the priority list. But I still get on here from time to time to catch up with what is going on with your children as I have missed chatting with you and hearing about how you are dealing with life in the Ds world.

John is continuing to learn new things. We are introducing him to new table foods that he is able to chew without having a mouth full of teeth. Speaking of teeth, he now has two bottom teeth which my wife says are very sharp - I will take her word for it. But after a long fussy month of him working on them, we are all glad that they are in.

Weight wise, John could be doing better as he only weighs 16 lbs. 6 oz. We would like for him to eat more but it is sometimes a struggle to get him to eat. And being without teeth, there is not much that he can eat right now. We are going for the high calorie foods and supplementing breast milk with high calorie formula. We are also offering him foods very often. I think one of the reasons is that Dad has gone back to work and on the days my wife and I are not with him, we are not sure how much he eats. As I have always said about children with Ds, they are easy to ignore for various reasons but mainly they do not usually throw a fit or cause a stink like a typical child would if he/she didn't get a meal on time. So we have resorted to different methods in which to feed him but that is for another entry.

John is a very playful and outgoing boy so he loves to be on the floor and play with his light up toys and bounce in his bouncer (I realize that these aren't popular among some Therapist, but this Therapist thinks they are great if they aren't used too much - more on that later).

He is climbing up on the steps so we are working with him on proper technique of pulling up. As you know, Ds children do not move the same as a non-Ds child so we are working to teach him the correct patterns.

John is taking steps with hand-held assist. We have been working on this for a couple of months but have just seen him initiate the steps himself. We are very excited about this.

That is a brief update on John. He continues to warm our hearts with his smile and amaze us with his motivation to learn new things. Thanks for reading my blog. And now you can read my blog at www.wellsphere.com.