Step By Step

It's been a long time since I last posted anything. It's been a crazy past couple months! We had a great Halloween and Thanksgiving in Naperville and the boys can't wait for Christmas! We saw the neurosurgeon here in GR last week and he was shocked to see how well Dominic is doing. He's only seen him once before, and it was a few weeks after his surgery. So, he thought Dominic looked amazing. Always good news :o)

Halloween: Our little  Ninja and Cat in the Hat! We also rocked the Halloween 5K!

Thanksgiving 2012 in Naperville with the Jurgys

Dominic has continued with OT and is doing great. He's at a point where he will use his right hand without needing to restrain his left hand. He's starting to understand that he has two hands and that he can actually use them both! We have taken a bit of a break from PT. Robin felt that until he's walking on his own, he was pretty much doing everything at home that he was at therapy. Speaking of walking, Dominic seems to progress each week. He's not walking totally independently, but he can take four steps on his own. Then he sort of gets "stuck" and isn't quite sure what to do next. So, he's getting there. Slowly but surely! Here is a video of Dominic when he started walking with his push toy. This was a couple months ago, so he's even more mobile now!


Dominic was also evaluated for speech a few weeks ago and surprisingly fell into the low end of "normal" language for his age. He has started talking a lot more, mostly mimicking and repeating. But he does have a few words he uses consistently - doggy, up, more, bye-bye, hi, daddy, brother, mama, nana (banana), ba ba (bottle), popcorn, all done, and pretty. I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them right now :o) His Early On OT wanted him to do an intensive speech playgroup starting in January, but with our crazy schedule, it just wasn't going to work. So the speech therapist and OT are going to come out every other week so that he'll have a bit more focus on speech therapy.

Other than that, not too much is going on with us. It's crazy to me that Christmas is in one week! I have no idea where the past couple months have gone. We have been enjoying the season - our tree and lights have been up since Thanksgiving and we experienced Breakfast with Santa and the Santa Train for the first time last weekend. I also hosted a small Christmas party with some friends and their kiddos, and we had Mike's company party last Friday. Mitchell has his school Christmas party this Friday and the Dunlap family Christmas is on Saturday. A lot of Christmas cheer going on around here!

Christmas Prep: Santa Parade (notice our independent stander), house lights,
breakfast with Santa, and Santa Train!

This time of year I get a little sentimental because I think back to Dominic's first Christmas, when we almost spent it in the hospital. I am so grateful for his health and happiness. He really is the light of our lives and brings so much joy to our family. I wish you all a very merry, happy and blessed Christmas and prosperous New Year!