Aaron: 2 to 2.5 years

Snippets from my journal entries covering Aaron's first 6 months as a 2 yr. old.

28 months:
Aaron is learning to walk faster and faster.  He's also pretty good at walking backwards.  Two weeks ago he figured out how to get into a standing position all on his own without pulling up on anything.  He can do it, but still often heads to a piece of furniture and pulls to a stand anyway.

29 months:
Yesterday Aaron was looking at our box of mini-jars of Playdoh. He started naming all the colors he saw to me. White, yellow, green, pink, black, red, etc.. When he got to the brown one though he said, "Chocolate." :-) That's my boy!

Notice how Aaron is standing with his knees bent.

Yesterday evening I helped Aaron take off his clothes so we could get his jammies on and I asked him to please take his shirt and shorts to his laundry basket in his room. He toddled off and then came back to me saying, "I put them in the basket!" Well, he was a little confused apparently because we later discovered his shorts floating in one toilet and his shirt floating in another toilet! :-)
Gave birth to our fourth child, Aiden, two days after this entry was written in late May, 2008.

(My husband gave me bunny ears while I was in labor.  Nice.)

30 months:

Time for another progress report!  I took Aaron to a checkup earlier this week and he now weighs 37 pounds, is at least 37 inches tall (actually taller, but it is hard to get a good height measurement for him) and his head is even more huge. His head continues to increase off the charts on growth percentile. His top fontanel is still a bit open and until it closes (hopefully in the next few months) it can continue to grow at an increased rate.

I'm hoping that once his fontanel does close and the rate of growth slows down that maybe his body will have a chance to catch up. While we don't think it is causing it, we do think that his huge and heavy head is exacerbating his walking with his legs bent at the knees. If he can grow into his head a bit with his body size, it won't be as heavy a burden to carry around (literally).

Anyway, he is walking everywhere now and can climb up and down the stairs by himself and up and down the ladder on the fort part of our swingset out back. All of that is great exercise for his quads but he is still walking with his legs bent. There is a bit of tightness left at the knee, but we think it is mostly a muscle weakness issue in his quads. Time will if he legs will be able to develop the strength to stand fully straight or not. We see his pediatric orthopedist at the end of the month and I suspect he is going to recommend we try serial casting of his legs next.

Next week we see the guy who makes his orthotics for his ankles and legs. Our PT isn't sure which type of orthotic would be best right now. We'll see what they come up with next week. There are pros and cons to each kind.

Our developmental therapist was out last week to do another evaluation and she said he is at or above age level in every area of development except gross motor. He scored out at 22 months of age for gross motor because he cannot run or jump yet. He can kick a ball a little bit. His verbal skills are through the roof.

We haven't officially started potty training yet, but he is probably ready. He can't pull of his shorts by himself though and I wish he could. I'm thinking we will start training maybe in August.

Almost 31 months:

Our PT sent us her eval report in the mail this week. She scored Aaron's gross motor skills at 18 months. :-( It gets worse... yesterday we took Aaron to the guy who makes the braces for his ankle and legs. We were there because Aaron has outgrown his old splints and needs new ones. We were discussing what would be the best option for him this time around. Our PT came to the appointment too. I heard her say to the orthotist that she is starting to doubt that Aaron will ever be able to walk with his legs straight. Of course, we're still in a wait-and-see phase and anything can happen, but based on her experiences (noting that Aaron's situation is a bit unique) she is starting to think it may be permanent. She is quick to say she could be wrong, of course, but still it bummed me out A LOT to hear her say this.

We see the pediatric orthopedist at the end of the month to discuss the next thing to try. I'm guessing he will suggest the serial casting, which we will do if he does suggest it, and then the splints guy would make new splints for Aaron after the casting is over with.

Next week we see our new cardiologist (the old one moved away) for both our youngest boys. Hopefully we will get some good news from that appointment for both boys.  I need some good news.

And some sleep.

(Aaron loved to walk up and down our sidewalk with his walker.  He was good for about a max of 10 minutes at this age before his legs would begin to tremble from fatigue.)