The hiatus is over!

Our apologies to everyone for our extended absence!  Needless to say, we have a lot of ground to cover – so let’s skip the formalities and get right down to business!  We need to update everyone on Mike’s feet!  So let’s start there…

As we mentioned (a month or so ago), Mike’s orthopedic doctor gave us the “ok” to start taking the brace off during the brace and wearing it during “naps and night”.  Needless to say, mom and dad were very worried about this – even with the doctor’s blessing.  Before the tenotomy, Mike’s foot would begin to regress a noticeable amount in 12 hours.  The doctor assured us (several times) that with the tenotomy and 2 months of wearing the brace 24 – 7 that his feet would be fine.

And so we tried it.  For just a few minutes at first.  And I think we spent the entire time obsessively staring at his feet as if they might suddenly spring back.  But low and behold – they stayed in their perfect little position!  And we tried it a little more and a little longer.  And sure enough – no regression!  I guess after all those years of medical school combined with all those years of working in pediatric orthopedics – Doctor Crawford truly did know what he was talking about! 

Mike has absolutely LOVED the time out of his brace.  He kicks and plays and plays and kicks.  And the interesting thing we’ve noticed – now that he gets to have time OUT of the brace, he doesn’t mind so much being IN the brace!  Those crazy kids – you never know what they will think of next…

We have also marveled about how much little babies actually understand.  At four months, Mike knows who mommy is and who daddy is.  He know that “going to school” and “going to see Miss Stacey” means that it’s off to daycare.  All of the wondrous beginnings of communication.  We began to wonder about Mike communicating with us – of course he smiles when he is happy, cries when he is hungry, has a different cry when he is sleepy, and yet another cry for when he is generally mad.

But it is still many months before Mike will be able to say “I’m hungry” instead of simply crying.  Or is it?  Mike’s daycare sent out an email to all of the “baby parents” about a class they would be hosting called “Wee Hands”.  It’s a class about teaching babies sign language.  We signed up – and so far it’s been a wonderful experience!  Mike doesn’t have the motor skills yet to sign on his own – but he watches us intently when we sign to him.  Our teacher has an 8 month old who has began signing – and our hope is that in the next 4 months, Mike will do the same!  And there is a girl in our class who just turned one – and she now knows more ASL words than she does spoken words.  It really is amazing to watch her “talk” to her mom and big sister!

As of right now, mom and dad have nearly a 100 word vocabulary.  Of course, we aren’t expecting 100 words from Mike anytime soon.  But our focus is going to be on 10 words that mom and dad want and 10 words that Mike wants.  We haven’t settled on all of the words yet, but here’s what we have so far.  Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, hungry, eat, more, milk, dog, please, thank you, change diaper, toy, and play.  That should get us started!

So that’s the “beginning” of our update.  There are still several things to share.  Don’t worry, I’m keeping a list so I won’t forget to share!