Sippy breakthrough

For those of you that don't know, Karsen has been having a struggle with food and drinking ever since his seizures started. Now that he's been seizure free for over 2.5 months, insert huge grin here, he's been able to make some small steps of improvement on the eat and drinking front. He's able to eat cheerios (unfortunately I have to hand feed him everything, one skill that the seizures wiped out was his ability and understanding of being able to grab food and put it in his mouth) pancakes, and graham crackers. Karsen has continually fought me on the sippy cups. We've tried every type. So, we started trying to switch him to a straw, no luck. I was having to suck up fluid in the straw and then put it in his mouth and let is slide out of the straw into his mouth. As you can imagine this takes quite a long time to get him to get any fluids in, and also pretty messy. Yesterday I thought I'd give it a shot again with the sippy and see if he'd take it. BAM! He drank 4oz. of milk out of it! I wanted to jump up and down! I've had to be very inventive with feeding Karsen and I still had to be. I ended up using a sippy that was a "4month" sippy. Silicone tip, slow flow. He didn't need the slow flow so I cut a bigger hole in it. Seemed to work pretty good! He's starting to slowly venture into toddler ville, which makes me a little sad. He's my little. Stop growing up so fast!

We have yet to hear him say a word with purpose. He says "ma ma" and "ba ba", but he has no clue what he's saying and it's usually more of "Ma ma ma ma ma" than just "Ma ma". Many kids with cp have a speach delay. I knew to expect this, and I'm at peace with it. He'll move at his own pace, his own perfect pace. I've really been able to enjoy each milestone that he hits since it takes him longer than normal. Looking back at when our oldest was little I don't think I noticed as much as I notice with Karsen. That really went by too fast. It seems like so many moms want to compare when their child started crawling, walking, talking. I'm really quite sick of it. Maybe it took me to have a special need child to come to this realization, which makes me sad it took that to make me see this. Each child is perfect, each child moves at their own pace. Just because  a child may take 2 years to say their first word does not make them less smart than a child that said their first work at 10 months. Each brain works differently. We must stop comparing. Each child is smart, bright, and perfect in their own way. When our kids are in high school do you really think they are going to have a conversation about how one of them didn't walk until 2 or didn't potty train until 4? Really?! I've been guilty of it. I think we all have. Even doctors, they are the ones that will set in some serious paranoia. It needs to stop. Be proud of your child but don't compare. Yes, our children are amazing, smart, gifted, talented, beautiful, perfect kids. Let them be just that, them. Embrace it. 

Yesterday was Karsen's big brother's, Karter, Birthday. Karsen even got to enjoy a little cupcake and frosting of course. In tradition, every year we go to apple hill Labor day weekend. It kind of turned into our birthday tradition for Karter. Both boys got to go on a pony ride. I left wanting to get  a pony for "therapy" purposes... lol Karsen actually was getting a lot of core control from it. Of course we had to get apple donuts, apple cider, and carmellows.... mmmmmm