Socks, a movie, and awesome neighbors!!!

I hope everyone had an awesome weekend! We did a little bit of everything this weekend...Braydon had a couple of his friends come over to help change the brakes on my car and I am happy to report that they did a very good job!! I made them lunch for a thank you which they were thankful for. :)

That afternoon we went for a walk with Landon in the stroller. I've been housesitting for a neighbor and I needed to go check her mail. Since our mailboxes are at the front of our neighborhood, we thought it would be a nice walk there and back. Braydon brought his keys to check our mail at the same time...kill two birds with one stone, right? Anyways, we got down to the mailbox and checked the mail. Landon wanted to take the keys out of the large mailboxes that packages come in, so Braydon gave him his keys instead so we could head back. Landon was satisfied with that and he was shaking the keys and playing with them as we made our way back up the street. As we passed one of the sewers that drains the street, we hear the keys fall, followed by another clinking sound. Braydon and I both looked down, looked at each other, and said "did that just happen?". Braydon tried to lift the drain but to no avail. One of the neighbors happened to be walking by with his dog and inquired as to what happened. After he found out about the keys falling down the sewer, he told us that he could help cause he's always chasing after his dogs toys that go down there. First off, why you would care if your dog toy went down the sewer?? Second, the fact that this guy wants to go down into a nasty sewer to retreive his dogs nasty sewer toy is just gross!! Anyways, I'm only realizing that as I'm writing this cause at the moment we were just happy that someone knew how to open the lid. He went to his house, got a screwdriver, and in that amount of time we had a couple of other people around us that were wondering what we were doing. When the sewer-dog-toy-man got back, he snapped the end of his screwdriver off but still ended up getting the lid open. When the lid came off another guy that had just pulled up claimed that he was the smallest out of all the guys (which he wasn't) and went down there to retrieve our keys. We got our keys back and we didn't even have to go down there and get them!! However, we learned a very valuable lesson....never give a two year old your keys...ever!!! With all joking aside, we were thankful for their help and we're so happy that we have such awesome neighbors!!!

That night, one of Braydon's bosses at work was having a movie night in his backyard for his son's birthday, so we went over there and watched Veggie Tales on the side of his house. It was actually a nice set up with movie popcorn and candies. We brought a blanket, laid it out on the grass and tried to entertain Landon with some toys since he wasn't interested in the singing vegetables. :)

We had a lazy day full of chores and hanging out today.

Last week we had fun with Landon at PT. He worked really hard on crawling for us, but was quickly over that. Penny asked him if he wanted to go for a walk and he quickly replied with his little "uh-huh!". So he walked to the elevator, got on, and then walked up a ramp (all by himself with only a few catches from Penny) and onto another elevator to go back down to the therapy rooms to get a sticker for himself!!! We were so happy with how far he walked and Penny was overjoyed with how far he walk by himself. She said she feels like he will walk again, but could possibly have some trouble with running. I told her that was fine with me, we could find him a sport to play that didn't involve running. :) Of course now that Penny has said that, watch Landon prove her wrong! ...Which I'm sure Penny would love!!!!!


I've included some pictures of Landon that I took a couple of days ago. He woke up from his nap and wanted to bring his Mickey Mouse downstairs with him. I was trying to get him to show me Mickey and take his picture...but he didn't really understand why I was asking him that. :) The picture came out kind of cute though. I want everyone to take note of the yellow socks he's wearing. Those socks were from when we were still in Denver at the Swedish Medical Center. One of our nurses gave us an extra pair of them because they have the skid-proof sticky stuff on the bottom. She told us (with a smile) that we could take them for when Landon was walking again....Well, Wanda, if you are reading this, your socks have come in handy! ;)


Well, we have a busy week ahead. My mom is coming to visit on Wednesday to see Landon...Braydon and I are just an extra bonus! :) She'll be here until next Tuesday so I'll include some pictures from her visit the next time. :)

We found out the closing date for our house will be September 29th!!! We're excited, nervous, stressed and overwhelmed all at the same time. I just keep telling myself that this will be the last time we have to deal with moving out of military housing for a long time...if ever again! :) The house has drywall up and the siding has been completed. Braydon and I are going to go there tomorrow and take some pictures so everyone can see. We're super stoked!!!!!!

A little bit of exciting news

Today we had an adventerous day full of things to do. Landon cooperated well while we took him to his PT appointment and then back to the house for a bite to eat, and then back across town to his appointment with Dr. Quinlan (his ear, nose, and throat doctor).

We started with Penny at PT, working on crawling up stairs. Like most other times Landon protested, but finally did the stairs a few times. Once we got to the top he toppled over which sent him into a crying fit. He cried for a good five minutes or so to let us know how mad he was. The whole time Penny and I are trying to get him interested in something else while he just stood there sobbing. Finally, a good long hug helped him get over the spill and we moved on to walking.

Today, instead of using the Kid Walk chair (that's in the video below), we had him try walking by himself. He did really well with his balance, standing by himself for a few minutes at a time. We had him walk down the hallway to where there is an elevator. He has this new facination with watching elevators open and close and watching the people get off and on. He likes to push the button and finds it interesting when he gets off and the scenery looks different than when he got on. Anyways, so we used the elevator as motivation to get him to walk on his own. He did really good, walking 20-30 steps at a time all by himself!!! We were so excited!! We just have to continue to encourage him to walk on his own while still working on getting him to crawl. We also have to still work with him on transitioning from his belly, to sitting, to standing and walking...but not always all at once. :) He is also still doing really well with sitting, which gives us hope about him walking.

When we went to visit with Dr. Quinlan today we had to give him an overview of what Landon was doing now because he hadn't seen him since before the last Denver trip. We had ran into him a few times during therapy session while Landon was walking around the hospital, but never got a chance to fill him in. He had compared notes with Dr. LaCroix (Landon's pediatrician), and got the medical explanation of what happened, but didn't know where he was now. As we spoke to him about what our plan might be, we all decided that we thought giving Landon a break from procedures and letting him grow was probably our best bet. After what happened, me and Braydon want to enjoy Landon and aren't in any rush to get him "better". Right now we think he is beautiful and wonderful the way he is. If he is destined to get better then that would be great, but we want to let him be him for a while. I think he deserves that with all that he has been through in his life.

Also, Dr. Quinlan decided that he wanted to try and see how Landon would do if he put his finger over his trach. Landon did really good at first, breathing just fine and then he started to get fidgity and was trying to take Dr. Quinlan's hand off his trach. Dr. Quinlan was impressed with how he did, but said that it didn't mean that Landon was ready for his trach to be taken out. He would need to monitor him while he slept too which is different than just sitting and breathing to make sure that Landon's blood oxygen level didn't drop. He didn't talk to us about doing any of that right now cause he wants Landon to keep growing and see how the anatomy of his mouth changes in the next few months. He told us he wanted to do a brochoscopy on Landon by October or November which can be paired with getting another MRI done and a hearing test done (since he hasn't had one since the incident). Also, if need be, we can get the dentist to do work on him while he's sedated. But we aren't even sure about the dentist yet cause Landon hasn't seen one yet! ;) haha

So I was pretty excited that Dr. Quinlan had been so optimistic about Landon's trach and his mouth. He had said that he was able to see more of the back of Landon's mouth than he ever had before. It was so nice to go to the doctor and have some good news! The light at the end of our very long tunnel got a little brighter today! :)

The Georgia Visitors

We have had an eventful week. Braydon's parents came to visit and brought a few of his siblings along with them. Rhea and Bridget (Braydon's sisters) had never met Landon before and got to spend some time getting to know him. He was scared of all the commotion over him, but quickly warmed up to them and enjoyed their company. It was nice having helping hands around here to help with Landon or help make dinner (Rhea is a marvelous cook). They came fully prepared to take over and let me and Braydon relax. It was a nice change of pace. Before we knew it the weekend was over and they had to get back to Georgia. Bridget had to go back to school for her senior year of high school and Bonnie had to get back to renovating the store she just bought....yes, she bought a gift shop, which she is naming Bumbleberry, in Clarkesville that she is really excited about. She wants to get everything done so she can reopen. If any of the Georgia people are reading this and you happen to be in Clarkesville, stop by, see her and give her a big hug from me. :) Below is a picture we took together (minus Braydon).


Anyways, Landon has been doing really well the past couple of weeks. He has made progress all around and is starting to sit up by himself where Braydon and I feel comfortable leaving him to go make breakfast or, for heaven's sake, use the bathroom without having to get someone else to watch him. It's been nice to be able to let him sit and play, and it gives us a break. Without cursing ourselves, it's starting to be like it used to be before all of this happened and he was able to play and do the things on his own that he wanted to do. I know it's only sitting up, but it's a step closer to more independence for Landon.

He's also been working on walking unassisted with Penny and takes 5-10 steps on his own before he falls. Penny advised us to go backwards and work on him sitting and crawling, so he might be able to gain more strength in his arms, shoulders, and trunk to help him when he does fall. She made the observation when we were there Thursday, that Landon is getting into the pattern he did before he started crawling. He wanted to stand and walk with you before he learned how to crawl and we had to back him up and work on crawling first. Now we are doing it with a few more challenges than we had before. He's still having trouble with his right hand and arm, but we spend a lot of time making him do things with it to help remind him that it's there. Occasionally he will use it on his own, which is promising. :)


On Wednesday Landon worked with Ashley (his speech therapist) and was being ornery with her not wanting to use the pasy muir. He cried when we put it on him so she just worked on combining signs asking him to say "more please". He did really well with it and caught on by the end of the session. We have, however, taught Landon how to say "up" and "on". It's not clear as a bell, but we know what he's saying and that's all that matters right now. :)

For an update on our house, we are waiting to hear from the builders this week about our exact closing date. We should know by Wednesday! I'm super excited, but also sooooo overwhelmed by the packing that needs to be done. I'm trying to take everything a day at a time and a room at a time...at least that's what I'm telling myself. I think that even that is overwhelming me! :) My mom is coming at the end of the month so hopefully she can light a fire under my butt to get me going...