What A Difference A Year Makes!

Susanne woke up this morning remembering what a blessing Paxton was in her life. It had been one year ago exactly, that he got to come home from the hospital for the first time. Susanne reflected back on those memories and smiled. They had all come such a long way and she was so proud. Paxton had reminded her daily to push herself beyond what she thought she was capable of. He reminded her to fight even if there was no fight left. He reminded her to celebrate the small things and keep focused on what is truly most important. Paxton was a true inspiration of faith, hope, love, and perseverance.

Susanne had to change Paxton only once overnight. Thankfully, she caught it before he made a mess. He ended up sleeping until 9:00am, which gave Susanne hope that he would be wide awake for therapy this morning. She reemphasized to Paxton the importance of him not making a mess this morning since she had run out of laundry detergent yesterday. She was certain he understood the three simple rules, which included, 1. No peeing anywhere, but in his diaper, 2. No pooping anywhere, but in his diaper, and 3. No vomiting or spitting up of any kind. Things weren't looking too good when Susanne changed six diapers within one hour. He had managed to keep all of his pee within his diaper, as previously requested, until he thought it would be cute to pee on his mommy. He managed to keep all of his poop within his diaper, as previously requested, until it smushed out of the sides onto his outfit, crib sheet, and mattress pad. Susanne decided that she would just have to bring the huge pile of dirty laundry with her to Gigi and Poppy's house for operation clean-up.

Before they could head back to NC, Paxton had a therapy session scheduled that morning. The therapist brought something new for Paxton to play with today. She had a tupperware full of different types of pasta, popcorn kernels, and colorful toys. She first had him in a sitting position and encouraged him to grab at the different textured objects with his hands. He really seemed interested and would rake and grab at the items. After he was allowed to do this for a while, she moved on to placing his feet in the bin. He seemed less thrilled with this task. It was almost like he was trying to avoid that unpleasant touch experience. This activity was supposed to help with the sensory input to his brain and make him less sensitive to the things around him. The goal was to work on sensory integration, which refers to how information provided by all of his senses are used by his brain to comprehend his surroundings. Hopefully with more time, he would become more and more comfortable with it.

Susanne and Paxton's therapist worked on tummy time, propped sitting, and rolling with Paxton. He always did best with tummy time on his exercise ball because it wasn't as strenuous for him. He was pretty exhausted after working so hard. He really did a great job today.

Susanne tried to put him down for a nap while she finished up things she needed to get done around the house before they headed out. Even though she knew he was tired, Paxton was not feeling it. She ended up setting him up on his playgym to hang out while she finished getting everything ready to go. It took her over four hours to get to a point where she felt like she could leave. The process seemed to continue to get more and more involved. She had to empty trashcans, clean bottles, clean dirty dishes, scoop cat litter, fill cat feeder, sweep the floor, fold dry laundry, pack the car, prepare formula, set up continuous feeding for the drive, pack medications, pump, and so on. Paxton was doing great entertaining himself until Susanne heard him from the other room. He decided it was a good idea to continue the trend of rule breaking and end with one unpredicted bout of spit up that landed everywhere, including in the center of his third outfit of the day. Just as Susanne got him squared away, he passed out in the middle of the floor. He got about an hour of sleep before Susanne loaded him in his car seat. It wasn't until around 4:30pm before they were on their way. Susanne prayed to the traffic Gods that they wouldn't run into the rush hour mayhem.