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Liam’s Seventh Month Home

Seventh Month Week 1
As we were getting you ready for bed, you used the crib rails to pull to sitting all by yourself twice. Today you went from laying on the floor to sitting all by yourself once. And when it was time for your bath, you pulled yourself to sitting in your crib. When I came around the corner and asked you how you got yourself sitting, you smiled and clapped. Every time we enter/leave a room where the lights are on, you will turn them off if I ask you to. You also push your door closed when I ask you at nap time. You are drinking milk from a sippy cup much better now, you don’t choke like you used to.

Seventh Month Week 2
Your physical therapist taught you how to stand against the couch holding on. After a few minutes you were standing next to the couch like a champ. Later as baseball you were standing up holding onto the stroller. You want to stand constantly now. But you aren’t able to pull yourself up without a little help.
You lifted both arms when on your back to be picked up now. This is a great accomplishment for you to not only ask to be picked up, but to be able to raise your left arm up.
You are babbling “ma ma ma ma”, “ba-ba-ba” and “ya ya” (which by the way is still one of your favorite sayings). You clapped your hands at the breakfast table when your brother started clapping his hands. You were all smiles.

Seventh Month Week 3
You are army crawling everywhere now. You like to go to the gate and play with it or crawl into the kitchen. You almost sound like you are trying to say dog when you are near Skye. You say “DahDah” over and over. Will have to watch and see if that is what you are doing. Now if I ask you to “High Five”, you clap instead. You seem like you are starting to sign “night night” when you are tired. Another thing we have to watch to be sure. We are working hard on teaching you the “more” sign. You will reach for something you really want and go “uh uh.” But not signing “more” yet. We will continue to use ice cream to tempt you.
You made more “mmm mmm ma” noises today. You are still trying to drag yourself up on your mom. However, today you started going on hands/knees right before you try to pull up. You went on hands/knees all by yourself in your crib tonight and tried to pull up to stand before bath time. You were almost successful.
You are trying to pull yourself to stand on your brother now. You pulled yourself to sitting in your crib during bath time.
During occupational therapy today, you sat up by yourself several times from the floor without anything to hold on to. You crawled over to the coffee table and pulled yourself to stand all by yourself (twice). You are super speed army crawling now. You pulled yourself to sitting at the kitchen gate and sat there. You were much steadier sitting today. I didn’t see you topple over at all from a sit today. You have no fear and will just turn away from the couch while standing and let go (giving your mom and dad a heart attack). You pulled yourself to stand in your crib.

Seventh Month Week 4
You are now pulling yourself up on the couch, your table toy and the window sill. Your sleep issues are getting worse, and you are not wanting to sleep at all anymore.
You pulled a dog toy on a string after you as you crawled today. You are skipping naps like crazy and you are very restless at night. You are sitting by yourself all the time and pulling up on anything and everything.
You are starting to climb stairs with us shadowing you of course. You think it is great fun…I don’t find this very fun at all.
We have been working at trying to get you to crawl with your belly off the floor (called creeping) using physical therapy. Today you crawled (belly up) about four steps by your dad. You are spending more and more time up in hands/knees position. You have been really fussy the last three days. I am wondering if it is teething or maybe frustration. You want to be able to walk so bad. Yesterday you were hanging onto a table when you turned, let go and tried to walk to me. You made it one step and then fell down. You are letting go a lot when standing and diving towards whoever is next to you. I am hoping this is just you not knowing how to get out of position. You did something like this with independent sitting. Until you learned to side sit and go to hands/knees to get out of sitting you would just throw yourself backwards. You keep whining and dragging yourself up on me to stand. You don’t want to be carried or held still. Go go go…that’s you.

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Liam’s Eighth Month Home

Your eight month post recovery started out strong. You started to hands/knees crawl, keeping your stomach up off the floor (also known as creeping). You learned how to side step around the corners of the coffee table both to the left and the right. It was harder for you to go to the left due to the weakness in your left side. You are able to find a toy hidden under a bucket, but not hidden behind a screen yet. You learned to bend your knees to go from standing to kneeling or sitting. Before you would just lean way back then plop down on your butt. You figured out how to use your walker to go forward. You can control it’s speed, but not turn yet.

You were having a stellar month developmentally, then towards the end of the month I noticed that you were a bit off. You didn’t want to stand quite as much and you were a bit unbalanced (more than usual). You were also fussy. This lasted only two days. You dad didn’t see much a difference in you, but it was enough to worry me. So your dad and I pushed the doctors to do a follow up CT scan and 24 hour EEG just to make sure all was well. Your dad and I drove separate to the hospital for the procedure since you dad had to go on to work afterwards. We had to sedate you for the scan so that you wouldn’t move during the scan. You fought the sedative. They say usually if a child fights sleep, they will fight the sedative. You were not happy at all, you cried and thrashed around in my arms until you fell asleep. Poor guy. I can only assume it is hard and scary for you to feel that loss of control from the sedative after all the sedation you went through when you were injured and in the hospital. We had the scan and then went upstairs to visit your old hospital doctors and nurses. They were happy to see you and pleased with your progress. All seemed to be going well.

Half way home from the hospital we got a call that you had a new brain bleed that we had to immediately return to the ER at the hospital. My heart fell in my chest, for a minute I couldn’t breathe. No…not a bleed, after everything you have gone though. We couldn’t lose you now. I looked back at you. You seemed to be sleeping in your car seat. I called your name, but you didn’t respond. Please, please, please God let my baby be OK. I couldn’t tell if you were sleeping heavily due to the sedative or if the bleed was causing a problem. I couldn’t have your dad check you since he was in a separate car. I am a careful driver who stays within the speed limit, yet that day, we made it back to the hospital in record time. Your dad tried to keep up with you the best he could on our way back to the hospital. Your dad and I were in a panic by the time we got to the ER. Fortunately you had been sleeping from the sedative. You were admitted to the hospital for observation and to run some additional tests. You had an MRI conducted. Your 24 hour EEG showed no seizure activity thankfully. We spent 6 days in the hospital total. We spent 5 in one hospital waiting, waiting, waiting for a transfer to Children’s Hospital. The reason for your bleed was a secondary, spontaneous bleed due to your initial injury. Your neurosurgeon told us that your damage to the right of your brain (the damaged areas of the brain die off and shrink) was causing an uneven pull to the right which was putting stress on the delicate blood vessels which connect to your skull. You will have a sensitivity for a while that we have to monitor with scans every couple of weeks. In addition to spontaneous bleeds any type of bump to the head or acceleration/deceleration could cause more bleeds. That means that as you get older you won’t be able to play on trampolines or bounce houses/carnival rides, etc. It was a scary, exhausting 6 days in the hospital. When you finally got to go home, you were so excited. You crawled up to each of your toys in the living room and played with each one for a minute, smiling before you moved onto the next one.

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Liam’s Nineth Month Home

9th Month Week 1

I took a few days off of work right after you came home from the hospital to transition. Your dad and I were a nervous wreck worrying about you falling or bumping your head. It was a good thing I took a few days off because you ended up coming down with a high fever for a couple of days. Nice bonus bug from the hospital I guess. We re-safety proofed the whole house (which was over the top safety proofed already). Your dad wrapped the coffee table and any other piece of dangerous looking furniture in bubble wrap. A new fashion trend I guess. I think we should put some neon lights inside of it and sell it as a new fashion craze.

We are noticing that when you don’t feel good or when you are really tired it really wears your system down. I have talked to other moms that have children with TBIs. They say the same thing that when their children are sick or really tired, they will stumble more, hold their hand/limbs/arms more rigid and their eyes will wander. Your right eye tends to wander off and up when you don’t feel well. Your eyes aren’t aligned since you injury but the alignment is worse when you aren’t feeling well. Hopefully with patching and time the alignment will improve. It scares us when you seem extra fussy or off, for we are in constant worry about new bleeds.

9th Month Week 2

You started to pull yourself up to stand on vertical walls this week. At physical therapy you stood for a minute independently a few times. You are a master of shaking your head “no” when you don’t want to eat something. When you were playing with a car with your dad you made a “vroom vroom” noise. This was exciting for us because you aren’t really making any animal sounds when you see an animal. We try really hard with books and toys trying to get you to “moo” or “baa” but you just aren’t doing it yet.

You had a repeat MRI at Children’s Hospital. It is the first in the series of repeats to track your bleeding and to make sure no new bleeds show up. They let me hold you until you fell asleep, then I got to go back in the room with you after your procedure. You once again were really cranky, crying and thrashing around while you fell asleep. You sure don’t like that feeling of loss of control. When you woke up I was there with you, which was good because you woke up very upset and crying. The doctor said there were no new bleeds so I could take you home. You slept all the way home. You were really, really unsteady when we got home. You couldn’t hold your neck up very well. When you tried to crawl you teetered and fell down. At about 5:00pm the sedative had mostly worn off and you were back to normal. Scary stuff having you even more unsteady from the sedative with us so stressed about keeping you from bumping your head. You will have to have another repeat MRI and meeting with your neurologist in a month. I talked to the neurologist office expressing my concerns/worries about you being so active, trying to learn to walk/get around and your sensitivity to your head. They said it would get better in time; that once you were walking and more stable we wouldn’t have to shadow you as much. That seems so far off…I don’t know if we will survive.

9th Month Week 3

You are trying to take steps. You will let go of whatever you are hanging onto and launch yourself at your mom and dad. I don’t know how much more of this having our hearts fall in our chest with worry that we can handle. Fortunately it seems that your dad and I have strong hearts. You are still sleeping poorly, waking several times a night and staying up for an hour to 3 hours at a time. Midweek when it was time for your bath, you pointed for the first time with your index finger on your right hand. You were pointing at the light. You like to play “I’m gonna get ya.” A game where you creep and either your Dad or I chase you on hands/knees saying “I’m gonna get ya.” Then we finally get ya we tickle you. You smile really big and take off at a supersonic creep. For the past couple of weeks you have been obsessed with putting things in and out of containers. You like to throw things. You got the triangle shape sorted in all by yourself today.

9th Month Week 4

You are trying to cruise more from furniture piece to furniture piece. Your falling has gotten worse. You are getting so used to us being right next to you to catch you that you let yourself fall sometimes. Hopefully this will correct itself in time when we don’t have to worry so much about bumps to the head. You have no fear for we never let you fall. This week I changed my work hours from 40 to 32 hours to try to have more time for all of your appointments. I wish I didn’t have to work at all, but we need insurance and bills have to be paid.
You started to make an animal noise! You make s “sss sss” noise for snake. You let go of the coffee table and took 5 steps. Exciting but scary…you have absolutely no fear. A couple of days later you think you can walk. You let go of the table constantly now and can take 4 or 5 steps until your momentum overpowers you and you fall. I am constantly diving trying to catch you before you hit the floor. I am surprised that for an old lady I still have such good reaction time. You sometimes also stand for a moment balancing without holding onto anything.

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Liam’s Tenth Month Home

10th Month Week 1
You are getting better at your walking attempts. Sometimes you almost walk in a circle trying to get your balance and bearings. When your teacher, was here, you walked about 5 perfect steps from the coffee table into my arms. Then later you walked from the stair gate about 3 feet to the couch all by yourself. You are going to give us a heart attack if you keep this up. You are signing “night night” with your left hand at nap and bed time. When I got your bath ready tonight, you kept signing at the light, so I kept turning it off then on. I then asked you what you wanted to do and you pointed at the tub. We are working hard trying to sign “bath.” You sign “more” occasionally. Later today when you dropped something you said “uh uh” for “uh oh.” You say “deh deh” and hold your arm towards things you want to check out or if you are sitting on the floor you do this because you want someone to hold your hand and walk with you. You always wave at the baby in the mirror.

10th Month Week 2
Mom had a field trip with big brother Tommy so dad was solo with you today. You guys did good today. Last night you woke at about 4:00am crying. It took a while to get you back asleep. You would cry a little and then shake/gasp a little like maybe you were scared. You did this right before bed when dad was rocking you too. Maybe you are having bad dreams? You started throwing things. You like to throw a ball and crawl after it. Recently you started throwing things from your high chair. Once you threw a toy all the way from the living room into the kitchen.

10th Month Week 3
You had your repeat MRI appointment at Detroit Children’s Hospital. You had to fast as usual for the appointment, no food/drink after midnight the night before. The MRI results were good, no new bleeds, still healing from the bleed found last month. They sedated you differently today. You didn’t fuss as much when you were falling asleep, but you had a little trouble in sedation. You were “tugging” and gurgling when you were breathing during the initial sedation and we almost had to cancel the procedure. Then you were sick afterwards when we got home and very fussy. You vomited until about 8pm when you fell asleep for the night. You were very disoriented and unsteady on your feet and crawling. You only had 2 sips of milk at about 5pm, then nothing until the next morning. The next morning you were still a little off from the sedation. You weren’t very stable and your eyes were having trouble focusing. Your appetite was decreased. We feel so bad having to put you through this, but it is necessary to make sure you are healing OK and not having anymore complications. I am sorry sweet boy. The second day after your MRI you were moving around better and finally your appetite came back. You are signing “night night” and “all done” now. When your dad asked for a hug, you snuggled into him and hugged him. This is the first time you gave a hug when asked.

10th Month Week 4
Your physical therapist wants you to wear high top boots a couple times a day for a few hours with hopes of stabilizing your ankle. You are adjusting to them. They make it harder for you to get around. You got your first real haircut. Your hair looks super short to me. I miss your blonde surfer boy whisps. Guess we will have to let it grow out again.

10th Month Recovery Week5:
You are adjusting to your high top shoes. You were walking like crazy, even kicking things out of your path. You are still unsteady and take some steps backwards but you are getting better. It was a beautiful 80 degree fall day, so I took you outside and showed you how to climb into your Cozy Coupe car. After I showed you once, you tried yourself by lifting your foot in. We were going to do PT on your pony, but it got dark early. Your dad was busy and I didn’t have anyone to lead Weatherby. When I went to feed the horse, you made a noise and handed me the helmet then pointed at Weatherby. So I set you up on him and we did some tilting exercises at a standstill.
Starting yesterday you have been trying to stand without holding onto anything. You straighten your legs from a crawl and push up with your arms making a bridge. You are getting more stable walking. You walked around the snack bar in the kitchen without help today. We still shadow you like crazy in case you fall. When you took your bedtime bath, I held up a fish and said “What does a fishy say?” And you made fish noises with your lips. The last few days you are really showing your temper. If we take something from you or set you down when you don’t want to be, you throw a fit with giant tears. For the past week you have been blowing raspberries on my neck and laughing. You also like to crane your neck around when I am holding you and stick your face in mine. You do this when I am talking to somebody else or looking at something. I think it is your way to get my attention.