So Much Catch Up On!

Mom and Dad have had quite a busy year.  Here are a few things that have happened along the way.

Mom walked 60 miles in October for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. We greeted her at the finish with Dad, Gammy, and Grandpa.

We got Glasses! 

  

 We were just trying these out. 
No one would save us.

We got some that made us look even more like dad.

 

Back to H-Town

We went back to Houston for another round of Intensive Physical Therapy. 

We got even stronger! (And Bigger! Mom and Dad need some Intensive PT just so they can tote us around these days!)

John-Raven

William

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When our 2 hours of hard work  was done, our true personalities came out.

John-Raven was ready to party while William crashed out before we made it home.

On May 1st, we turned THREE and had our first day of school.

We are Kooken Koalas now.

This summer has started great!  Mom and Dad have taken us to two free outdoor concert in Downtown Arlington at the Levitt Pavillion.  We love the outdoors and we jam with the best of em'!

 Pretty much our entire neighborhood was there with us on the front row. 

More to come.....

Tonsils - Done and Done

Just a quick update: Surgery went fine, and tonsils are out. Through the weekend, the pain meds kept the boys pretty well zonked, but they are recovering well. Now we just have to wait a little while for their horrendous dragon breath to subside.

John-Raven getting ready for surgery.

Tonsil Sale - Everything Must Go!

We're really not selling their tonsils. We're just having them removed because apparently, they're ginormous and need to come out before they acquire identities and apply for citizenship.

And yes, it's for both boys. You didn't think only one of them would need surgery and not the other, did you?

If you're thinking this surgery sounds familiar, that's because we did almost the same thing this time last year, but then it was for adenoids.

Surgery is this Friday, so keep the boys in your thoughts. It shouldn't be a big deal -- we've been here plenty of times before, and for more major operations -- and we're not expecting recovery to be too bad either.

We'll update after Friday. In the meantime, if you want to be blown away by how much the boys have grown in recent months, check this out...

Chillin' with Grandpaw.

I really think William is laughing at
John-Raven's Donald Trump-esque hairdo.

H-Town Adventures - Part 3 (postscript)

While in Houston, we did manage to get out a bit, even if it meant just going to BJ's Pizza.

Never too young to learn a good party trick.

We also made it out to Kemah for the boardwalk. That included a trip to a restaurant that had an aquarium. (Or was it an aquarium with a restaurant. No sure.)

Awake with the fishes. Grandpaw and the boys observe.

Even when we didn't go out, we entertained ourselves in the hotel with games like old-fashioned peekaboo.

Mom and Dad only made one excursion alone while there. But they made it count.

The brewery tour is a must for beer nerds.

H-Town Adventure - Part 2

The therapy went very well. We could tell a difference already by the end of the first week. Both boys were showing signs of being stronger and more active. The workouts seemed to paradoxically tire them out and energize them. When he wasn't working out, John-Raven couldn't seem to be still. That included some nights, too.

John-Raven: "Sleep=No. iPad=Yes!"

The boys worked hard. William sometimes worked SO hard...

...that he didn't even make it back to the hotel before going to sleep.

One day, he even decided not to wait until therapy was over to go to sleep, yet still kept working for a while. That's dedication, people.

Asleep? Yep. Still working? Incredibly, yes.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience. The boys' regular PT, Nancy, is really amazing and makes great strides with the boys in the hour that she gets to work with them each week. But it's hard to overemphasize the value of getting two hours of therapy per weekday for three weeks. The boys definitely made improvements in strength and stability, and we hope to capitalize on that to push them further in their therapy goals.

We would like to say how fantastic the therapists and staff are at Pediatrics Plus Therapy Services in Houston. Trisha and Carla did great work with the boys and had a real gift for reading their reactions and motivating them. We can't thank them enough!

H-Town Adventure - Part 1

So, we never got around to posting this on the blog beforehand, but we just spent three weeks in Houston for an intensive physical therapy program for the boys. October 3 to October 21, we were camped out at the Staybridge Suites, and the boys engaged in an intense 2-3 hour therapy session each weekday. 

John-Raven made a fuss sometimes, but often enjoyed his workouts. 

The purpose of the intensive therapy is to give the boys an opportunity to really push their development. Normally, they get half an hour of PT twice a week. With the intensive, their two hours of PT five days a week means they're getting more workout time in a few weeks than they'll get over the next several months. Think of it as boot camp for developmentally challenged kids.

William is obviously a little tired here...but quite a trooper!

Getting the intensive PT doesn't mean they'll suddenly jump ahead developmentally, but it does push them to get stronger and improve their sitting up, rolling over, propping, etc. William suffered a little hiccup when he got sick after the first week. We took him to a local CareNow and got him some medicine. He missed a day of therapy as a result but got back on track after that.

William works much better with some motivation. In this case, a mummy that dances and sings Thriller.

I must say, the program was fantastic. Very professional, with excellent physical therapists who got a good sense of the boys' individual personalities and what they were capable of.

When they weren't working their little butts off, the boys enjoyed the experience.

The first week, there was only Dad to look after them until Aubrey (nanny extraordinaire) arrived as reinforcements toward the end of the first week. It didn't take long for the boys to get in a groove and adapt to the routine. Dad, however, had a bit of a rougher time of it. See, William tends to have some sort of nightmares that turn him into a squirming, screaming zombie of his usual self. When this happens, he is extremely difficult to wake up. It takes noise, bright lights, and sometimes a cold wet cloth on his face to wake him up. Once he's awake, he's pretty happy. We've noticed a correlation, though. William tends to do his little night trick more when he's hitting a developmental stage or otherwise working really hard to do something new. Our guess is, he's dreaming about struggling to do the thing that he just can't quite do. We've all probably experienced this in a dream, the kind when you're trying to run but feel like you're moving through mud. Naturally, during his therapy, he had a LOT of these. Practically every night. And they were worse than normal, which meant an hour or two of middle-of-the-night issues. Regardless, he still managed to tough it out through his workouts during the day.

More to come. Stay tuned...

Monkey See, Monkey Do