Over the last ten days, Daniel has come on leaps and bounds, especially as he's come through his weeks of being ill.
In just a few days from tentatively moving forward he now crawls at great pace - especially if it means knocking over his tower of blocks! He can make one end of the front room to the other in no time at all and now finds crawling at speed highly amusing.
He now sits up by himself by manouvering himself backwards and greeted us in his cot the other morning by being sat up with a big smile! Reaching things on the table has become quite easy so precautions have now been taken. He enjoys having his books read to him and also feeling the pages - he's starting to mimick certain words such as "flower" and "apple".
Daniel will be off to see Dr Blecher in Kensington next Sunday for his second review on his Cranio Helmet. After progressing from 2.9mm to 1.4mm we're hoping he'll have got to the 0.something bracket - then with some luck it will be all done by June.
Danny now also owns "Thomas The Tank Engine" pyjamas too!
Into April We Go.....
Part 2 of last weekend's London double-header was a visit to Kensington to see Dr Blecher for Daniel's second helmet review.
His plagio measurment is now 1.1cm (originally it was 2.9) so still in the moderate bracket which was slightly disappointing. We have to remember though that any improvements are slower as he gets older and we were warned that we may only get an 80% success rate due to our health visitor not giving us the real facts.
His head is much better and so are the features on his face so overall we have to be very pleased. An additional bonus is that the helmet has saved him from all sorts of bumps as he bangs his head on things as he becomes more inquisitive!
First Visit To The Park
Daniel had his first visit to Pittville Park today and certainly enjoyed looking at the birds and ducks.
Wearing his little Villa jacket, he seemed to like the swing best of all. He had a busy day and is now standing up all the time by holding onto the sofa - he's also had a few tentative steps forward as well so it won't be long before he's walking!
The last few weeks have been a blur - he's gone from hardly crawling at all to being all over the place, standing up and now some small steps. He is learning so fast it's frightening - we even cleaned his 3 teeth this morning.
05/05/06
One year ago today at 18.32 little Daniel entered the world and it seems like it was only five minutes ago to us.
He's had a busy day today, up early and bathed and given the day off from wearing the Cranio helmet on his special day. He's seen all the Grand-parents and been driven around in his now "front-facing" car seat which he enjoys. It's been very warm though and he fell asleep for an hour on me earlier and he's having another nap now - hence me having time to do this.
Loads of presents and cards from so many people - thankyou everyone. You'll be pleased to know he found the gold ribbon more interesting to play with than most of his new stuff!
Daniel has been given loads of new clothes, he now owns Villa & England shirts and also has a few others England garments. Plenty of shorts and jeans and two basketball outfits which he'll look great in once the really hot weather arrives.
He was lucky enough to get a bit of money too which we'll put towards some shoes for him - we wanted to get his feet measured but there was a huge queue so we decided to leave it until next week when we can get there early!
I'll add a photo or two once I've uploaded them from the camera - he's become a bit camera shy over the last two or three days which is unusual for him. I've got some nice shots but getting him to smile proved very difficult although once the camera is put away the cheeky grin returns.
Anyway, we can't believe he's one - he's been through plenty in his first year but we've loved every minute of it and he's been so good through all his little problems and illnesses.
Happy birthday son - Mum & Dad think you're flippin' brilliant!
Plagiocephaly - 10 More Weeks Of The Helmet 4/6/06
We headed down to Kensington for the fifth time today, hoping that this might be Daniel's last day in his Cranio helmet.
As it turned out, he will have another ten weeks of helmet-wearing but the news was much better than we had hoped for. The asymmetry of Daniel's head is now down to 0.4cm which was excellent to hear - the original measurement was 2.9cm (severe) and then the second measurement was 1.4cm. The third one was the disappointment as it was only 1.1cm and as it turns out it may have been because we didn't have the helmet quite tight enough.
Anyway, today'S 0.4cm reading means Daniel is now well into the "mild" form of Plagio - obviously we were hoping that would be that but Dr Blecher thinks this final phase will see a complete correction of the problem - after that it really will be goodbye to the helmet but Dr Blecher is convinced that this will be the best for Daniel and will mean as parents we have done everything possible for him after he had such a rough start.
Daniel was a star today after he was so good considering the boiling weather. We had him dressed in his basketball kit so he could be as cool as possible - we had a great 45 minutes in Kensington Park which he enjoyed too. The weather was fantastic and there were loads of people taking advantage of the summer sun. The Ice Cream man was also trying to take advantage by charging £2.50 for an ice cream! We declined to do business there!
The traffic was kind to us today. Going into London was probably the best it's ever been (as normally it's a mare, especially Kensington High St) and even on the way out we kept moving - now we have one more trip in mid-August and our visits to London will be over.
Dr Blecher said straight away how much more improved his head looked - the line on the front of his face by his mouth has gone, his overall neck movement is excellent and his head is rounding off so well. Danny even behaved himself during the measurement - in the past, like most babies, he's cried and screamed rather a lot!
Seeing Dr Blecher and getting that little white helmet was the best thing we ever did.
At 6.12pm on Thursday June 15th, the Wayne Rooney saga finally ended when he entered the field of play for England's second World Cup game against Trinidad & Tobago. Please let that be an end to it all - it's unbearable.
Far more momentous though was that at exactly that point Daniel took his first real steps in the world. He's been using a walker which he really enjoys and taking the odd step before falling down. Last night though as Rooney ran, Daniel walked - he took five or six good steps before getting to his target. After much applause from us he decided to go for it again and again - he was rather impressed with himself!
Two weeks on and his walking has improved massively and he can also climb the stairs under supervision. We have a stairgate up but gave him the chance to see what he could do yesterday and he amazed us! Where's our baby gone?!
Daniel's Treatment Is All But Over...
Sunday September 24th will be Daniel's last day in his Cranio Helmet. He started wearing his "special hat" on December 11th 2005 and has been wearing it for twenty-three hours a day ever since with just the odd days off when he's had sores or been very poorly.
The last session of the treatment has been a bit of an anti-climax as we'd have liked one final measurment of his head. Although we were told another appointment wouldn't be needed we were quite happy to make one final visit to London. Unfortunately Dr Blecher hasn't replied to emails for whatever reason so we're left a little in limbo as regards final statistics.
Anyway, as I've kept saying, it's the best thing we ever did for Daniel, worth all the stares, and his head is so much better as a result. Thankyou so much to the under-trained health-visitor who got us going on the road to all of this for being so blatantly ignorant.
On a more serious note though, thanks to my Mum who got us in touch with someone in a similar situation - that really did get us going in the right direction.
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