Doctor today

I took both kids to the doctor today. Zoe went for her well-baby check up and Jackson went for a rash that we have not been able to get rid of. Zoe is mighty healthy...50th %ile for weight and 80th for height. We have been giving her vaccinations (since I know you are all curious about that) but only one at a time and very selectively. She has only has 4 so far (2 hep B and 2 HIB), today she had her 2nd dose of HIB. She only cried for a little bit which is better than I thought she would do. Jackson got a prescription for his rash.

I was just eating a popsicle and offered some to Jackson. He seemed to like it a lot and had about 5 tastes of it. I think that is a good excuse to have another one later so I can share again!

My girl

She is getting so big so fast! She is officially able to get into sitting on her own. She is still sliding around on her belly rather than crawling, although she can get up on all fours just fine. I actually think she might skip crawling as it looks like she will pull up to a stand any day now. I was trying to get her shirt on one day and grabbed her hands to pull her up to sitting, and she totally surprised me by standing up right on the changing table with what looked like very little effort.

She has been going through some separation anxiety lately, poor thing. I never had anyone need me this much! It's very sweet and I am trying not to let it drive me insane because I know it won't last forever. Jackson was very easy-going as a baby, so this is a whole new experience.

She is really fun! She can call the dog over to her by slapping her hand on the ground. She is figuring out that cats don't like her quite as much as the dog does and she will go chasing after them. She is so curious about everything around her and she will rarely stop moving when she is awake.

Once in a while I do catch her relaxing and watching one of Jackson's TV shows. There is a show she really likes called "Yo Gabba Gabba". She loves the main character, DJ Lance, and she will smile when he says "hey!"...very funny to see!

Here are a few pics...you can see her 2 new little teeth in the second one.

Happy birthday to Jackson!!!

Jackson's 6th(!!!!) birthday was Sunday, but we celebrated Saturday with a small party. My mom was in town for the event and Dave, Kari, little Baby Ildri, and Kari's mom came too. Jackson got lots of fun presents and lots of attention. He even tried a little taste of cake and ice cream.



Lee helped him open the cards and presents. Look how big he is getting!




We picked out the exact same card for Jackson as Dave and Kari did! Too funny!




He got a robot monkey, some clothes, a CD of Justin Roberts, an iTunes GC, and some books.




The cake




Zoe was loving having all the people over




So was Jackson!


Jackson got a couple of punchballs that he enjoyed very much!




Even 2 at once (but he didn't like that as much)


And we got to see Dave and Kari's beautiful new daughter! Yay!




And here is one of my mom enjoying her granddaughter.

My smart kid!!

I am so proud of Jackson! We were doing flashcards of shapes today. He correctly identified the shape 14 of 14 times! He knows rectangle, triangle, square, star, heart, diamond, circle, and oval! Next time I am going to try to get it on video.

Buddy baseball

I finally got to school to see a buddy baseball game! Unfortunately the day was hot and very sunny so Jackson did not enjoy it as much as he could have. Here are some pictures!

He looks almost like he is sleeping in this pic, but he was just really hot. He just shuts down when he is over heated.

Jackson started out as "pitcher".


He started laughing for an unknown reason. I thought it was cute.

Jackson at the bat! Kind of like golfing for him since his chair is so high and the tee is so low.

Running the bases...his buddy did not notice his hat was completely covering his eyes.

And a little baseball fan!

Some great news!

We won a respite weekend! The organization that provides us respite has a contest every 6 months (I think) and we won this time!

We get to stay in a downtown hotel for a weekend in June. On Friday they have a party for all the respite families. On Saturday during the day, we are on our own to do whatever we like. On Saturday evening, they will provide people to watch the kids while Lee and I get to go out all by ourselves and do whatever we want. We will have Jackson's regular respite person so we know we will have someone who knows him and that we trust and also someone else to take care of Zoe.

Is that cool or what!? :)

Zoe's latest

Zoe's latest thing is waving hi and bye. She is getting quite good at it! It is so darn cute and she just loves all the attention she gets for it! She usually has a great big smile on her face as she waves too.

Appointment update

Today Jackson had an appointment with a neurologist who specializes in dysautonomia. I thought it was a good appointment and I am hopeful that some of Jackson's more bothersome symptoms (GI pain/retching/vomiting and heat intolerance)can be improved with the right medications.

We met with the fellow first. We had actually met her before during Jackson's nerve conduction test a few months back and she remembered him, both because of his distinctive name and when she saw him wearing his headphones.

We went over a lot of history stuff such as the initial brain injury and the symptoms he has. Then she went to consult with the attending neurologist and they both came back in to let us know the plan.

First, Jackson is going to start on a new medication (florinef) that will increase the volume of blood. Hopefully that will help with the heat intolerance, rapid heart rate, blood pressure, and perhaps even the GI stuff.

In the meantime, he is going to have an MRI of the brain to compare to his old ones. He has not had one since he was inpatient after his brain injury. The purpose of this is to see if the symptoms are central (ie: from the brain injury, in which case the MRI would be about the same as the old ones) or from something else (in which case the MRI may show changes). He is also going to have blood work and urine testing.

Once the results of the MRI are in, we can decide how aggressive we want to treat it. There are a number of options we have, but we are only going to try one thing at a time...if something goes wonky we want to know what is causing it.

Lee stayed home with Zoe, who was not in a very cooperative napping mood. Maybe she'll sleep extra good tonight.

Cute pics and a video

I love seeing Jackson's face when a favorite song comes on! He has such a joyous expression!




Here is Zoe sitting up playing with a toy. She really prefers to be on her tummy so I don't get to see her sitting too often.


Here is my big girl holding her own bottle


And discovering Lulu the cat...I think she likes her!

Here is a video of Zoe creeping up to play with Jackson's toys. He seemed pretty amused, although I do think he sometimes gets annoyed by it...that's brothers and sisters for ya, I guess!

Great news!

BCBS finally approved a piece of equipment!!! We got the letter yesterday that J's KidWalk gait trainer was approved! Woohoo!!

Finally!!

Zoe's first tooth is finally making an appearance! I was wondering if she was going to be toothless forever! She is 7.5 months old. Jackson's first teeth came in in his 3rd month.

In case you were wondering

Jackson told me today that his favorite show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I did not know that until just now...cool!

Uh-oh!!!

We are so in trouble! Look how good she crawls around on her belly!! She can be very fast when she wants to be too!

Finally got the EEG results

Yes, after several months and several phone calls I actually spoke to Jackson's neurologist today. He said that he did not have any actual electrical seizures during the 72 hours of the test...yay! Also, all the spots we recorded were nothing that he could see on the EEG. But he did have several periods of background spikes in the left temporal area. He said that is very common in people who have/have had seizures and did not seem worried by it. The meds stay the same for now.

Oh Let's Go...Fly a Kite!

We finally purchased a kite! Yay!!! It is a beauty too...T-Rex, baby! It flies nicely, unfortunately we picked the least windy day in recent history to go and try to fly it. We did get it up for a little bit though.

Daddy is working hard so the kite will stay up!

We tried to rig it up so Jackson could hold on to the string himself but the strap we brought was a little too thick and the lack of wind did not help.

So Daddy helped.

I think we picked a great kite!

We put it on his chest harness so he was able to fly it solo for a little bit.


And here is Zoe with Mom. (excuse my hair, I really need a trim!)