Holiday Pictures

Stu and I brought Brandon to Sears yesterday to get his holiday pictures taken. I usually take him to Kiddie Kandids at Babies R' Us but I wanted to try someplace different this time since I didn't like the holiday backgrounds at Kiddie Kandids as much as I usually do. The photographer at Sears did a good job. The only problem was we couldn't get Brandon to stand in any pictures. He kept wanting to walk when we tried to get a standing picture. He did cooperate for sitting pictures at least. Here are some of the pictures. I will post more later.

In other news, Brandon has only been drinking from a sippy cup since Friday. I never thought the day would come when he stopped drinking from a bottle and instead drank from a sippy cup. In the past he has always chewed on the spout but he suddenly started drinking so I took away the bottles.

Haircut

Brandon had his second haircut yesterday after work. He looks so grown up without all of his curls. He fell asleep in the car on the way to get his haircut so he slept for the first half of it. Once he was awake he liked looking at himself in the mirror while getting his haircut.

Brandon Loves Hershey

Brandon loves Hershey. He is always walking to him and giving him hugs and kisses. I have a video and pictures showing Brandon with Hershey.

Nightmares

I think Brandon has had two nightmares this week. The first was on Sunday night and the second one was last night. Both nights he was sleeping soundly and then woke up all of a sudden hysterically crying. He couldn't calm himself either night and was so worked up that he was coughing. Each of the nights I have had to go into his room after 5 minutes when he is still crying hysterically and screaming. And he is also crawling from one end of his crib during the hysterical crying with lightning speed. Each time I have gone in and picked him up he has melted into my arms. He falls back asleep but when I try to put him back down he starts all over again. Both times it has taken about an hour before I can put him down without him being hysterical.

Brandon continues to walk. He hardly crawls anymore. He will on occasion but most of the time he is walking and getting really good at it. His balance is getting so much better. He can walk across a whole room now and catches himself a lot of the time before he falls. He is all over the house now and into everything even more now that he is standing.

Playing in the Leaves

Brandon played in the leaves for the first time today. He seemed to enjoy it although there were a few times when he looked at the leaves with a strange look.

Brandon has been walking all over the place for the past three days. He lets go and walks from one thing to the next or from one thing to me or Stu. It is so cute.

Pulmonolgist Appointment and Early Intervention Evaluation

Brandon had a busy day yesterday. It started with an appointment with his pulmonologist, Dr. Sembrano. He hadn't been since the end of March but he will be going monthly again until April because he qualified for RSV shots again this season. We are so excited that he qualified because even though the shots don't protect against Brandon getting RSV they do make it so that it is a less severe case of RSV if he does get it. Brandon had to have two shots yesterday because it is based on weight. He was not happy about it. He cried for about 10 minutes after his shots. The RSV shots hurt more than other shots for some reason. I asked Dr. Sembrano about bringing Brandon out during RSV season this year. Our pediatrician said it was okay but I wanted to ask him too since he is the more conservative of the two. He said to treat Brandon like a normal baby. He said it is fine to bring him out anywhere and if we are at a restaurant to try to sit 3 feet from other tables. He said you can't replicate trips to the mall or restaurants and that Brandon needs that kind of stimulation now.

After his appointment with Dr. Sembrano, Brandon had an early intervention evaluation. Brandon's pediatrician had suggested having one done at his 15 month appointment since Brandon is not really saying real words, except for mama, Mom, and the occasional yum. He babbles a lot but with sounds. The early intervention team evaluated him in all areas. He scored at his actual age in social/ emotional development and in between his corrected age and actual age in cognitive development, self- help/ adaptive development, gross motor, and fine motor. I am happy about that because he is already starting to close the gap in some areas. He did score under his corrected age in speech. He is 3 months behind in receptive and 4 months behind in expressive. He was right on the border of qualifying since you need a 25% delay in two areas or a 33% delay in one area so they tweaked it so that he would qualify since he was so close. So Brandon will be receiving speech therapy at least for the next 6 months. We still have to meet with someone about it but most likely he will have it one time a week. I think it is really good that he will receive speech therapy before he falls further behind.

Walking All Day