7-10-09

Wow it has been a long time since I have updated Blake's blog. I have been so busy. I finally graduated from college and have been looking for a teaching position here in Houston. So on to Mr. Blake.

On April 1st Blake had tubes put in his ears. Ever since he has been doing great and has not had any more ear infections. He also had an airway check because his sleep study showed some obstructed sleep apnea. However there was nothing really abnormal that would cause the obstructed apneas. Since he doesn't completely stop breathing during the apneas and only skips breaths, they are not worried about it. He will have another sleep test done when he is around 18 months old. He started showing progress in his crawling after that and around Easter started crawling all over the place!

He turned 1 in April. It just so happened that on his first birthday March of Dimes hosted the March for Babies 2009 here in Houston downtown...crazy it was on his actual birthday. So on the day before which was a Saturday we had his birthday party. All of our family and friends were able to come in from out of town to celebrate with us. Then on the next day which was a Sunday we celebrated by participating in the March of Dimes walk downtown. We had a huge group of people and raised a lot of money for March of Dimes. Thank you to all that donated in Blake's name. And of course since it was his first birthday we had to go all out and bring big old balloons to carry. When we walked across the start line they announced his birthday which of course made me start crying. I was so happy we had made it this far!

So Blake is now 14 months old and has recently started taking steps and walking a little bit more every day. His balance is starting to get better. I never thought I would see the day he started walking. I just want time to stop so he can stay little forever! He has learned to say Dadadada and just a couple days ago started saying Mamama. He also has one tooth in on the bottom and one more on bottom and one on top coming in. And for some reason it isn't the center top teeth, it is his left side incisors which normally don't come in till after the center ones. But since when is anything go normal with Blake? Poor thing is in so much discomfort from them. He has had a really hard time cutting them and getting them to come through. I just hope it doesn't stay this way the entire teething time because I can't stand to see him miserable.

Blake loves the water. We have started taking him swimming at my parent's neighborhood pool. He loves to splash the water. We went and watched the fireworks for fourth of July and I honestly thought he would freak out over the loud pops and booms but he didn't. He loved watching the fireworks. We even got him a glow stick to play with which he also loved shaking around. He is becoming such a big boy. I got a little teary eyed while watching my dad holding Blake and pointing up to the sky. This time last year I was spending the fourth of July at Blake's bedside in the NICU. I could hear the fireworks popping outside in the sky and all I could do was pray that his blood pressure would not increase any higher from all the fireworks noises. He was still fighting high blood pressure at that time since they had just moved him into an open crib only the day before I didn't know how he would handle all the extra surrounding noises. He was so used to his quiet safe isolet. That was a big change for him. He handled it like a champ though. And again this year he handled the fireworks like a champ. My little man is getting to be such a big boy!