Earlier this month, we celebrated Finn’s second birthday. While he still has definite challenges, Finn has certainly come a long way since this time last year! This year at his birthday dinner, he was able to really eat and enjoy his birthday cake. (Last year, he had difficulty getting it in his mouth and even chewing and swallowing). We had been working with him for a while on practicing blowing out his candles, since we knew this would be hard for him. He was able to blow out one of the candles on his actual birthday cake and we were happy for him that he got the idea and made an effort to do this. One of the words that he tries to say is “cake.” He loves ice cream too!
At the end of September, Finn had a follow-up MRI at Children’s. He had to go under general anesthesia once again, which is never easy. But we were very relived and happy to learn that everything looked great! And there were no signs of the AVM growing back, nor was there evidence of any new vascular anomalies. Good news all around!
Finn continues to work on his gross motor skills. He is still enjoying climbing and cruising around while holding onto furniture or walls. Our halls are now lined with stickers at his eye-level to encourage him to be mobile while being upright. He loves finding “matching” stickers while cruising down the hall. Finn is getting a little better at walking with assistance while we hold both of his hands. Occasionally he will even take a few steps while we hold just one of his hands. He is clearly more unstable this way, but we continue to be encouraged by his persistence and his desire to walk. Per his therapist’s suggestion, we are trying to get him to use a “reverse” walker to help give him support and learn to walk. Unfortunately we haven’t had much luck with this yet, since Finn just wants to turn it around and not use it how it is designed to be used. We hope to work on this more within in the next month. Finn has also started making a “t” sound, and loves to point out the turtle (“too too”) at his big sister’s school.
Speaking of schools, Finn and I have been attending a wonderful cooperative preschool once a week. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but Finn seems to really be enjoying himself! He is still a little hesitant to participate in some of the group activities, but he loves playing with all of the wonderful toys and I think he is beginning to enjoy being around other children as well. We continue to do speech therapy and occupational therapy at our home regularly. Finn also has swimming class once a week with his daddy. He still loves the water and we know it is also therapeutic for him.
Please continue to keep Finn in your thoughts and prayers. Please pray with us that he will be able to learn to walk sometime within this next year and that he will also be able to speak normally. He has come along way, but he still has several more important milestones to meet.
