Happy Halloween!

Tonight was Noah's second Halloween but his first experience trick-or-treating.  We dressed up head to toe in our matching turkey costumes and just went down the street to a couple of houses.  It was a lot of fun and Noah had a chance to get some great goodies.  He has just mastered the sign for "more" so he put it to good use showing off to get more candy.  Always such a cheeky little boy!

In addition to being Halloween, today is the last day in October and the end of a very long month.  October 1st marked 6 months from Noah's first MRI and his stroke diagnosis.  Because it had been 6 months we had a ton of appointments this month and I felt like we were at Children's every other day.  I am so grateful for being so close to such an amazing hospital but I never thought I would ever be there as much as we have or I would ever know my way around there so well.  The big appointment of the month was Noah's follow-up MRI.  Although Noah didn't handle it as well as the first (I swear Noah knew something was up the minute we walked through the door) there has been no change since April.  We reviewed the results in the stroke clinic last week and we are very thankful that nothing has changed.  The neurologist who runs the stroke clinic, Dr. Rivikin, said Noah was doing amazing and said we had to continue to be "aggressive" with his therapy.  It was very encouraging to hear and I think it gave both Brad and I the extra motivation we needed to keep up with Noah's home exercises and constraint therapy.  I have to admit it's not easy trying to do his exercises every day, get him to all his therapy and doctors appointments every week, and just be a normal new mom with a one year old.  There are days when I'm totally overwhelmed and I have no idea if I'm coming or going.  I have to stop myself and look at Noah and see how far he's come.  I know we have no other option but to keep moving forward to help him in every way we can.  He is doing amazing-army crawling, starting to baby sign, and even pulling up to a kneeling position.  A doctor we saw this month took a look at Noah and couldn't believe all he had accomplished already given the extent of the damage he had seen on his MRI.  It truly is remarkble how the brain can compensate and adjust in so many ways.  I'm so proud of my little man and can't wait to see what he'll do next! 

Although the month was filled with a lot of appointments it was broken up by some wonderful things including Noah's 1st birthday, my brother Martin's 30th birthday (with a great trip to Miami), a great friend's wedding, and our 11th Canadian Thanksgiving with our friends.  I am so thankful for all these wonderful events and the amazing family and friends we spent them with. It definitely made the month easier for all of us and their love and support keeps us going everyday. Here are a few pictures from the month!

Noah is 1 year old! October 10, 2011

Our baby boy is not really a baby anymore!  He turned 1 on October 1.  Some pictures from the messy event!

He absolutely loved the cupcake - and the piece of cake he had the next day!  Susan and I cannot believe how time has flown as he looks more and more like a little boy everyday, and less and less like a baby.  He certainly has quite a little (or big!) personality developing and has certainly inherited traits from the both of us already.  While not naming names, he sometimes throws a fit when he doesn't get what he wants, he gets very testy when he's hungry and he has amazing determination...he's also laid back, loves to throw the ball around, smiles and waves at everyone and is amazingly happy and content - almost to a fault.

The weekend certainly brought a whole host of emotions for us - mostly happy and excited feelings - which was great - but also a few sad thoughts.  His birthday, after all, was 6 months to the day from when we received his diagnosis and it's hard to think about the things he should perhaps be doing at this age, but is not.  While he continues to make progress, he still doesn't use his right arm much given the choice.  He doesn't pull to standing nor does he seem close to trying to walk.  He also doesn't seem to possess a spoken word that he actually knows its meaning.  These are the things that Susan and I constantly worry about and why sometimes we have bad days.  When people politely and honestly ask how he is doing, we always try to stress the positive and highlight how well he's doing.  But, at the same time, we worry about these things - things that aren't going so well - and we don't bring them up.  It can be hard and, I think, it's largely due to the fact that these things scare us and we don't like to think about them too much ourselves, let alone burden others.

Anyways - he is babbling all of the time these days...different sounds and "words" coming out of his mouth everyday.  He has this really cute little wave he does - just moves his hand, kind of like a politician or the Pope does when riding through a large crowd.  And, the most exciting new development - he has started crawling!  Just within the past couple weeks - he has started this funny army crawl!  This is kind of what we expected he would start out doing - if he crawled at all...and that was certainly an "if".  We are really excited as, if his crawl evolves to a more traditional one, it will do wonders for strengthening his shoulder and arm.  However, even this army crawl will help - take a look at the video we shot last weekend below.  Even just a week later he is doing a much better job of keeping his right arm in front of him...we are proud parents indeed!