Ok, it’s time to sit down and face the music….. I’ve been totally neglecting the blog lately. Not because I don’t have the time to sit down and write, let’s face it, I literally get paid to sit around and do nothing! I just feel like I have NOTHING important to say at the moment.

Alex hassles me probably about every other day to update the blog. I then ask for ideas or topics to write about and her response is always “I dunno”. Gee, thanks for the help! She did bring to my attention that although our life has been pretty boring over the last month, Jaxson has been growing like a weed, hitting new milestones and even had a week ‘vacation’ in chateau MHRH (hospital). So I’ll share our ‘life’ over the last month 🙂

As most of you know October was Down syndrome awareness month. I shared a fact about Down syndrome on my FB page everyday. Some facts were serious and others we just for fun (31 facts is A LOT to come up with!). I chose to do this to educate our friends and family about DS, and to help them understand the ins and outs of Jaxson. Well to my surprise people LOVED this. I can’t tell you how many people have told me that they learned a ton of DS info that they had no idea about. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Around the middle of October Jaxson started breathing faster and became a tad bit swollen around his eyes. We attributed these symptoms to a bit of fluid overload as we were in the process of cutting his diuretics. When he developed a fever with these symptoms we knew that it was something more viral. We are thankful that his pediatrician admitted him to the hospital to ‘keep a close eye’ on him. Thankfully he only had a pretty mild case of bronchitis, and required a very low flow amount of oxygen and a ventolin puffer. 5 days later he was back home and feeling much better! I know kids get sick and thats a fact of life, but I feel so guilty that our baby got sick, given the extreme lengths we go to to prevent this. I’m sure every parent feels like this the first time their baby falls ill. Next week he will get the RSV vaccine, thankful he was approved and will have one more tool to help his body battle respiratory illness!

Now for the fun part…. milestones!!

FOOD

It’s no surprise this little porker had no issues with starting food. We started with rice cereal for a couple weeks and then we moved on to real stuff! So far he’s ate sweet potato and carrots. Tonight he’s going to move onto something green…. broccoli.

INTERACTIVE

We have noticed a HUGE difference this last month with his ability to engage. His toys are very interesting to him. He has always ‘studied’ faces and concentrates hard when you talk to him, he moves his mouth to try and mimic what he sees. However he has taken this interest to a new level as he now LOVES to grab, touch, scratch and suck your face.

GIGGLING 

By far my favourite milestone thus far!! His laugh is SO damn cute!!! We still have to work hard on getting the giggles out of him, but it seems like they are starting to come easier and easier.

BODY AWARENESS

His movements are now purposeful. This has helped him immensely in his mission to get the thumb in his mouth! Now it is no accident when you find him sucking his thumb. Feet grabbing, thumb sucking and toy grabbing are now the normal for him.

Jaxson is at such a fun age right now. It seems like everyday he is doing something new. He is still working hard on rolling, and to much frustration of his mama he still doesn’t quite have the hang of it. He is able to roll tummy to back, but still needs a TINY bit of help getting on to his tummy. He’s perfected the leg kick over and the head/back arch, it’s just that last little umph to get him over the edge. He practices very hard everyday and soon he will have this skill down pat.

Hopefully I didn’t bore you guys too much! We immensely enjoyed the long, beautiful fall we had in southern Alberta and have now hunkered down for winter as it hit with a bang! I’ll leave you guys with some pics of us enjoying our favourite season…..