Happy Easter! I hope everyone had a great day. Things have been well here. Rachel had a little sore throat and fever last week, but we seem to have kept it away from the rest of us. Tyler is his normal happy little self.
Tyler did have an eye appointment last week and it went very well. He still turns out an eye especially when he's tired. Between the therapist that comes once a month to work with his eyes and the doctor, it was decided he can see out of both eyes. Tyler is also working very hard to bring both of his eyes into alignment constantly. We can tell that he can focus on an object with either eye and we watch him struggle to keep both eyes aligned. In certain positions he can bring both eyes in and look out normal at an object. We discussed patching to help with vision and training the lazy eye to come in in previous visits with the doctor. This week's visit, the doctor is very pleased with Tyler's progress with eye alignment. It was also discussed that since he can focus with both eyes at any given time, he can see fairly equally out of both eyes a patch will be of little use to him. A patch is designed to help the weaker eye's vision strengthen which will in turn strengthen the eye mussel. Since Tyler doesn't seem to be visually weak in one eye, patching him will do very little to bring in his alignment. The Dr wants to keep watching him and give Tyler more time to either bring that eye in himself or declare that he needs help. We may consider doing an eye surgery to correct the mussel. We are going to wait awhile and give him more time. As long as he continues to try bringing in his eyes, he continues to focus on things with either eye, and can continue to hold alignment longer and longer, we will do nothing but watch.

We also realized that Tyler has been working with Early Intervention for 6 months now. Time does fly. This coming week we will be doing his 6 month review. We as parent and the therapist will sit down and review his progress and goals. We will also adjust his goals and create new ones. It sounds like a state mandated paper generator more than anything. Tyler is doing so well with skills. On somethings he's ahead of his gestational age (he'd be 8 months now if born in August), while others he's slightly behind. We've decided he's mentally an 11 month old baby stuck in a body with the skills of a 6 or 7 month old baby. He still has no interest in being on his tummy, which means he has no interest in crawling. Yet he wants to stand and is trying very hard to figure out how he can pull himself up on furniture and such. Luckily he doesn't have the strength to do anything about it yet. Slowly he is resigning to be more open to the idea of tummy time and rolling to his tummy. In the last 2 weeks, we've got him to stay on his tummy without screaming for about a minute a couple of times. A minute doesn't sound very long, but for this kid it's like an hour. At this point we don't think he's delayed due to brain damage, we think he learned that tummy time is very uncomfortable position to be in, visually hard to see correctly, and hard to play in. Time and gentle persistence will help him. He may not roll over well or push up onto his arms when on his tummy yet, but he can sit unassisted for hours with the ability to twist and reach well beyond what an 7 or 8 month old is suppose to be able to do.

The other struggle Tyler is dealing with is wanting table food and not having any teeth. He LOVES to eat. In the last month, Tyler has given up nursing on his terms and now takes a bottle or drinks with a straw. He also wants to eat what we are eating now. We are able to give him a few things like canned pears and very soft cooked carrots. Things like pasta and bread are hard to give him with no teeth. He is funny trying to eat them though. I expect the next couple of months to be very tiring as Tyler tries his best learning to be mobile and eating new things. He is a very determined little boy who know exactly what he wants and is showing the ability to solve the problems to get what he wants. He is definately his parent's child.