Milestones

Noah continues to amaze us more and more every day.

I am back at work now, and it is a struggle to leave him those four days a week, even knowing what wonderful care he has when I'm not there. Even harder is not being there for every new amazing thing he does. Darren called today while I was covering study hall to tell me that Noah rolled over, all by himself, for the first time today. Darren said he was doing tummy time and just got so sick of it that he decided to roll over on to his back. I was absolutely ecstatic, and after sharing the news with my study hall students, I called my mom to let her know. It wasn't until I had had a few minutes to sit there and let it sink in, that the sadness crept in - he will only roll over for the first time once, and I didn't get to see it. It was so spur of the moment that Darren didn't get to video tape it either. Obviously every milestone he reaches is something to celebrate, regardless of whether or not I am there to see it. But I still can't help the little tiny bit of bittersweetness I feel.

On a brighter note, it's definitely a sign of more big things to come. The occupational therapist visits every Monday now, and after her session with Noah this week (just her second visit overall), she told me she was confident he would be rolling over by the end of the month. Who knew it would actually be by the end of the week?! Every day he is doing better and better at grabbing for and holding on to objects. He is already starting to try to get them to his mouth :o) And more importantly, he has totally embraced bottle feeding, beyond any of our expectations. He absolutely loves drinking from the bottle, holding on to our hands while eating, whining if we take the bottle away to burp him. He has yet to need a tube feeding during the day this week! The only tube feedings he is getting now are his continuous feed at night. After talking with the speech therapist yesterday during her visit, we have decided to slowly start increasing the size of his bottles during the day, so that we can start decreasing what he gets at night. Eventually, maybe even by Thanksgiving, he won't need the night (and therefore tube) feedings at all. Now that is something to be really thankful for!

I keep trying to come up with the right words to end this post with - to sum up how excited, encouraged, blessed, thankful, etc. we feel, but I don't think any of those words do it justice. I don't know if there are ANY words out there that can adequately explain how we feel. It's amazing. HE is amazing. Our life is amazing :o)