Photos!!

I acknowledge that I am a bad blogger. I really prefer to read other blogs but I just started following a new blog and the author acknowledged me being a new follower of hers by saying that Joshua was gorgeous! I told her thank you more than once and decided that it was time to update with some new photos of my gorgeous son!!

Today we went to have photos taken since his going to be 3 next month! How the heck did that happen? So now that he's walking he just did that, walked everywhere, sometimes tried to run away from us and from the photographer especially. We hope she got some good ones, she did a good job he was just uncooperative. Had she had a video camera it would have been fine. :)

Not much news, his birthday party is in less than 2 weeks! We did decide to keep him at his current preschool because we love it so much. So for the rest of the school year that's where he will be. He is doing really well, not much new since my last post but he has been healthy. I realized again how lucky we are that he is so healthy, he has not had an ear infection or really any other kind of infection (that we know of) since his last birthday! Without further ado here are some photos from the last year.

These are totally out of order but I don't know how to fix it so I am not going to mess with it. The two beach photos are from May/June of this year, he loved the ocean this year and even put up with walking on the sand. The playground photos are from January/February of this year. The other photo is from our most recent vacation this month to Gatlinburg and was taken at the aquarium in the play area where we showed him how to pull the handle to see the light and then all he wanted to do was pull the handle.

If you are interested in seeing more I post all my photos to Facebook so look me up there.

New Diagnosis

Last week we spent the week on vacation in the beautiful Smokey Mountains. We stayed a resort in Gatlinburg, TN, in a gorgeous location. We went to the aquarium which Joshua loved, we went to a little zoo and traveled all over the area seeing the sights, it was wonderful and we can't wait to go back next year. Here's a link to our vacation album http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=554850&id=595845092&l=b025dcecdf.

It had been a few weeks since we had seen the geneticist and gotten ourselves tested for myotonic dystrophy and we were still waiting on the results from that and from Joshua's other tests. While we were on vacation the results came in and I had two messages waiting for me from the genetic counselor. I called her back on Friday and left her a message but I found out this morning she was in a conference on Friday so I was left wondering all weekend what the results were, not fun.

This morning I called and left her another message, this time she called me back. Apparently my husband tested negative for myotonic dystrophy or I should say that his numbers were too low for him to test positive. I, on the other hand, tested positive just barely high enough to be considered positive yet I've had no symptoms of the disorder and I pray I never will.

The bigger news was that I was probably right that it was not the myotonic dystrophy causing Joshua's delays. Joshua's other genetic test came back positive for something else, MECP2 Duplication Syndrome. I don't know a lot about it, I have chosen at this time not to research it like crazy and scare myself with all the possibilities (the genetic counselor warned me that most of the information about it is negative). What I do know is that it is a x-linked neurodevelopmental disorder. Joshua only tested positive on one of the two genes that this disorder is linked to and that's good. Something else that's good is that 75% of kids have recurrent infections from birth and Joshua has not, 50% have seizures and Joshua doesn't. She said that his case is not textbook and that is good. She said he will still show us what he can do, it's a variable disorder. I'm not going to let this define him. If you want to look it up take the information with a grain of salt (that's what she told me to do).

Beach Weekend

Someone said that I'm going to turn Joshua into a beach bum, that would be fine with me! I'd love for him to love the beach and the ocean. Nothing says summer to me like the beach. Actually he's only been on the beach a total of 3 times and none of them was longer than 30 minutes.

Friday we spent with my mom and Joshua was so good! We went to see his honorary great grandmother Bernice who is in her 90's. I have to get a picture of him with her, he really likes her and her puppy Mikey a Shih Tzu. We spent the rest of the time just hanging out, we would have gone swimming except that I left my swimsuit at home! I remembered when we got about 30 minutes away from the house that I hadn't taken it off the hanger and put it in the suitcase. It was too late. So on Saturday I had to buy one, full price. Oh well, now I will wear the heck out of it. We went to dinner at a local pizza place near my mom and Joshua was charming the waitresses. Everyone LOVES his sunglasses! All weekend long I kept getting comments about my cool dude.

Saturday we met some friends and their kids, we had lunch at Margaritaville at Broadway at the Beach. If you've never been to one you should go, they are all over the southeast. There's also a Cheeseburger in Paradise in North Myrtle Beach, it's a little more toned down if you don't like a big restaurant. We may check that one out next time. I just wished Joshua liked going out to eat more, I guess I have to catch him at the right time. Friday night he slept through most of dinner but Saturday only part of lunch and at dinner he was so tired because we wore him out that day. One day a couple of weeks ago we went out to dinner and he slept through some if it and when he woke up he was in a great mood. He started laughing and laughed back and forth with me, something he'd never done before!

Saturday afternoon our friends and their kids came over to our resort and went swimming with us at the pool. We all had a great time. I think Joshua has fallen in love, with an older woman. A 4 year old girl with blonde hair. He couldn't stop staring at her and smiling. It was so cute! I wish I'd gotten pictures but some were taken just not with my camera. I didn't get any when we went out on the beach after they left either, unfortunately. From now on the camera is staying in the beach/pool bag.

We took Joshua out to the beach and we all got in the water. We went out past the breakers, the water was pretty calm so we didn't have to go far. Just where the waves start to form but before they get big and crash. I put him on the canvas float we had and he was having a good time until the waves started crashing where we were. He got water in his face and was not happy, he hates that. Hopefully he'll get over it soon since I think he'll be going under water at swimming lessons. So after two waves breaking and him getting splashed in the face we decided to go back. I had the raft out in front of me when a wave broke and took me straight into shore! It was so much fun! We weren't far out but we were far enough out that I rode that wave a good way!

He was so tired that night from the swimming and the ocean that he fell asleep in his clothes and slept 8 hours that way before waking up and needing to be changed. The next day he slept the whole way from the beach to Jamie's mom's and then fell asleep on my lap, something he never does unless he falls asleep nursing. Then he slept all the way home and again fell asleep in without being nursed. Guess we wore him out.

Our Vacation

We got back Saturday after deciding to spend Friday night at the house Jamie's family was staying at. We got to our resort Sunday afternoon and stayed on the 5th floor with a beautiful view of the beach and a street view too. Joshua LOVES the water! Both the pool & the ocean although he didn't get too wet in the ocean. We got him a cute turtle float w/a sunshade and he was so relaxed in the pool he almost fell asleep!

Unfortunately he's still not a fan of eating out. We did put him a high chair and he leaned over to one side since he's still not sitting up on his own but even there he wasn't too thrilled with it and after about a half hour he gets mad. He did like being outside on the pier and there's a restaurant at the one near where we stayed and he was very happy there. There was a great ocean breeze so it was very comfortable.

Oh and I scored big time at the outlets. Carters outlet is the best! They were having a great sale and I saved 20% on top of it so I got some onesies for $2 and outfits for $5! There were other outlets but I did the best there. The only place I could find sleepers beyond 9 months was Children's Place and I got 3 for $20! Next time I can skip all the other stores and just go to those two.