Thrive magazine contacted my wife a few months ago asking if we would be interested in doing an interview with them for their “Mom Next Door” series.
Continue Reading...It’s hard to believe this is our second Christmas as parents…and especially parents of a child with Down syndrome. Crazy!
This 2nd Christmas as new parents is much different than our 1st Christmas for a number of reasons.
Continue Reading...
First birthday parties are a big deal…for parents. I am fairly certain that no one remembers their first birthday, however parents cherish it forever and may go a little overboard. I was a little late to the starting gate on Noah’s theme. I had no idea what to do and finally got inspiration from Facebook. Our friends posted pictures of their rubber ducky themed party, and I thought that was such a great idea as Noah really loves baths. My next thoughts went like this:
Continue Reading...
One of the things I really like about Our Children’s House Baylor (Where Noah receives his developmental therapy) is the creative ways they work with children.
Today they brought in an awesome golden retriever therapy dog for the children to play with. And as you can see, it looks like Noah has a new best friend!
Continue Reading...
Today is Noah’s first birthday! Wow…! It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since our son was born. It’s true what they say, time really does fly…and even more so when your a parent it seems.
Since Noah’s first birthday falls on a weekday, we decided to wait and have his official birthday party on Saturday to make it easier on Noah’s friends and family to come.
Continue Reading...
Being a working mom does have some downfalls, ok several. One of them being that there is a chance that I will miss milestones in person. Thanks to technology however, I get to experience them via video, as do all of my co-workers.
While at work, Rick sent me a video of Noah pulling to stand for the first time. Who knew he had this in him? The last milestone Noah hit was the inch worm crawl, so we weren’t even on the look out for Noah to pull himself up on his own right now.
Just look at that proud little face.
Even if we aren’t expecting them, it doesn’t keep us from getting super excited and celebrating Noah’s accomplishments.
Noah physical therapist has been using treadmill training to help him learn to walk for 3 and a half months now. As you can see in today’s video he’s come a long way since he took his first “steps” on the treadmill in a few months ago. However, he still has a lot of work to do before he’ll actually walk on his own; specifically his core muscles, and balance. But he’ll get there.
By the way you can also see in the video how his personality is developing. For instance there are times when he just sort of let’s his feet go limp and decides that he doesn’t want to walk. So much for all kids with Down syndrome being angels. 
These feet were made for walking….
It’s a ton of fun seeing him figure out what his feet are for and watching him put one foot in front of the other. It seems like it’ll be forever before Noah takes his first steps (off the treadmill), and I can’t wait!
But I also know that our kids grow up fast, so as much as I want him to walk, I also want to enjoy every second of his development, because once a child starts to walk on their own there’s no going back! (Can I get an “amen” parents?) I also want to be sure to never let parenting be a contest. As my wife and I often remind each other, we should focus on celebrating, not comparing.
Why is your child on a treadmill anyway?
For those of you wondering why our 11 month old is on a treadmill let me explain. One of the characteristics of Down syndrome is hypotonia which is basically low muscle tone. This means that children with Down syndrome (like our son) generally develop a little slower than a typical child, and early intervention developmental therapy is often used to help them in their progress. So one of the tools in Noah’s developmental toolbox is pediatric treadmill therapy since it has been proven to help children born with Down syndrome learn to walk. So that’s the long and short of it. Continue Reading…
Our family crams a lot of celebration into the holiday season. From about a week before Thanksgiving to Christmas we have 5 birthdays, oh and 3 of those are just our little family. That’s right, Rick, Noah and myself all have our birthdays at this time. The other two are my niece and nephew. So we are celebrating…a lot, including this weekend.
This weekend was around my nephew and Noah’s birthday, so we were having a party which included a very special guest, their great grandma. The party was the day that we were leaving so we had a breakfast surprise for Noah. He had his own giant blue cake to smash his fists into. Yelp, that’s right, he’s very own smash cake!
Continue Reading...
Our family crams a lot of celebration into the holiday season. From about a week before Thanksgiving to Christmas we have 5 birthdays, oh and 3 of those are just our little family. That’s right, Rick, Noah and myself all have our birthdays at this time. The other two are my niece and nephew. So we are celebrating…a lot, including this weekend.
We had a great time with the family!
This weekend was around my nephew and Noah’s birthday, so we were having a party which included a very special guest, their great grandma. The party was the day that we were leaving so we had a breakfast surprise for Noah. He had his own giant blue cake to smash his fists into. Yelp, that’s right, he’s very own smash cake!
The Smash Cake
The smash cake is something I had never heard of until we started going to first birthday parties, which happens a lot once you have a kid. We went to one back in August where we experienced the smash cake for the first time, and I started pondering what Noah would do at his first birthday.
Noah’s first smash cake was a smash!
The idea is that this is the first time a child is given a cake. They may be tentative with it at first but once they get a taste they dig in with their hands, feet, whole face, who knows. It is intended to be a big old mess with great pictures and lots of laughs.
I think he liked the caked.
The best part about our first experience with smash cake was that the little girl was not really into the cake, so they put some broccoli in front of her as a motivator and she went to town. So we wondered what Noah would do when we placed him in front of mass of sweetness for the first time? Continue Reading…
This is a very special weekend for Noah (and us!) Yesterday was Noah’s first time on an airplane, but what’s even cooler than that is where he was taking the airplane to!
This weekend we flew to Missouri to have an early Christmas with my wife’s grandmother, and my in-lawns (who flew in from Colorado.) Noah’s grandparents were in town for the Buddy Walk a few weeks ago, but the last time he got to hang out with his fun cousins was last summer. With all of us living in different states we don’t get to see each other as often as we’d like, so it was great to be able to spend an entire weekend together.
Noah’s great grandmother, aunt and uncle!
One of the most special things about this weekend was that Noah got to meet his great grandmother for the first time. It was fun watching her face light up when she held him for the first time.
It was love at first site.
I really think this kid knows what a camera is….He always seems to give me that look like, “Yah, I know, I know…” when I pull my camera out.
