Cameron Graduates

How can this be you ask? He just finished summer school?

He officially graduated from Early Intervention (the zero to three program)last week. Oak-Leyden one of his providers for therapy had this really sweet graduation ceremony. Cameron spent the bulk of the time running towards the nearest door, but surprisingly once it was time to line up for the "diploma" he actually let me put his "cap" on and he never lets us put a hat on him! He was really excited to walk up and shake the director's hand. All very cute, in our haste we forgot our Camera. But luckily Cameron's buddy Mollie had far more prepared parents and they took a few shots!

And as soon as our guy Graduates, he is ready for the official start of the school year. Monday the 31st is the big day, can't wait to WALK him over to school, no more bus!!

I have to admit it will be strange to relinquish all of his therapy services to the school and not see what's going on, but I am also a bit relieved of the rigorous schedule we keep. He will continue Occupational Therapy privately as he needs some more intense sensory treatment.

Our last post we mentioned he was going in for the Bladder study, he came through like a champ, and despite getting what seemed to be some pretty bad results on the test turns out there's reason for the M.D. designation!

During the test I asked the nurse how his levels looked, she told me the numbers and they were not good and basically back to pre-surgery levels. I walked out of there upset and proceeded to dive into a funk for about 5 days worrying, researching, basically preparing us for another spinal surgery.

We saw the Dr. a week later and while she agreed the levels were high, she was ok with it. Matt and I just looked at each other like we won the lottery. So yes, for the first few hours after this news I was still second guessing all of it, but am now just fine. The Dr. did discuss putting him on some meds to help with controlling the levels, which could down the line damage the bladder wall, but we agreed that if potty training was ever going to be attempted any medicine would make this impossible.

So now instead of medicine, we are in full potty training mode - this qualifies as one of the joys of parenthood that noone ever talks about! UGH! but he is making progress.

He has been promised this super duper 'garage' that he played with on our recent visit to Michigan at Mimi's house. He and Connor loved this thing and it's the size of an end table! Cameron somehow started calling it the "COASTER" so we now have a "CAMERON'S COASTER POTTY BOARD" in our house to track his progress.

Cameron asks about getting this Coaster all the time, what he doesn't know is it's in the very deep dark back of our basement waiting for him. Dad found it on EBAY, it never ceases to amaze me the things this man will find on EBAY. Recently I opened a box with a "special drinking glass for Sam Adams Beer" - really? I digress...

We had a very nice quick trip to Michigan to see my family, it was jam packed with activity. An amazing water park at our local pool, a fat lip for Connor, a boat ride for Connor and Cameron played with the Coaster - oh and likely cleaned out the toy closet at the Country Club!

We are due back to Urology in January, and hopefully will have mastered potty training by then! Any tips or tricks, we are open to suggestions.

In other news our dear little caboose as Nana calls him, (Connor) is all over the place, the child is a monkey I swear. We never experienced any of this climbing business with Cameron and it's quite the eye opener. I'm so tired of constantly chasing Connor around I don't even have time to process whether I'm happy or sad about this development phase - ha!

One of area of development he's not excelling in is Speech, he basically just babbles and not very much, makes a few approximations, but not much. After much discussion he is getting an evaluation from Early Intervention to see if he needs Speech Therapy, I am sure many feel as I do, we just ended EI take a break. I 100% agree and as great a program as EI is, I have no interest in joining the ranks again! We'll see, he may be only slightly delayed and won't qualify for actual services.

It's been a great summer, I am sad to see my little Cameron go off to school without me for 5 days straight every week. But again, I've got Connor who leaves little time for anyone to process any sort of emotion you might think you might have :)!

We love them both and are blessed to have them. Best of all they both really seem to like one another, hearing them laugh at one another is priceless. Connor must have everything that Cameron has and Cameron is the true big brother "Connor you go play with that toy!"

Right now I don't feel we need any "extra prayers" things are good. But I do have two other close friends with little ones that could use a boost, so please add Ben W. and Evie B. to your prayer lists. We appreciate it!
XO