It's been a strange week over here in Boringsville, USA. We've been busy, but on the Brady-front not much has changed.

First, I'll share some birthday party pictures. His aunt got him this adorable rocking chair with our beloved Sox and Patriots on it.
Michael made Brady a dog at Build-A-Bear for his birthday. Brady was obsessed with it! I'm all excited showing Brady his new crib aquarium (which he LOVES!) but he could care less at this point - he kept staring at that dog and kept leaning it to it, as if to kiss it. I have about 10 photos of him staring at that dog while we were opening presents!

Brady keeps changing every day - more alert, aware... but he's still not getting the eating food thing down (is he REALLY my son??LOL). There are days he will eat and some he won't... and I'm starting to (duh!) think it is not all about the William's - maybe he doesn't like apricots, for example. I'm so wrapped up in William's symptoms, that I'm forgetting he's also like every other kid in other ways too. UGH! It's very frustrating!

He is swimming now too, always liked the water so he doesn't complain about that... then he comes home and sleeps for awhile - which messes up with one of his PT appointments! So we're trying to work around that for the next few weeks. He will stop swimming on Tuesdays the week of Thanksgiving because that pool is closing - so we are moving to another pool but that will be Friday afternoons.

We also moved his Friday 8 am Speech time to Tuesdays at 9 because he doesn't seem to be fully awake at 8. We're trying to give him breakfast at the appointment so his therapist can watch him eat and he just isn't interested that early. Last week we did it at 9 and it was a little better, but not too much. I'm thinking he isn't a breakfast person. He may have a few ounces of formula around 5, so that might be messing him up to eat. We're shooting for it again today, so keep your fingers crossed!

More excitingly, his OT is coming at 3 pm today (have you noticed my schedule for today so far???) to start the brushing program. I watched a video last week about sensory issues, and this week we'll watch about the brushing and get him started. I'm really excited about this - I hope that (a) I will be diligent in doing it and (b) it does something for him. I started last week trying to desensitize his mouth by doing the two-second pressure to his pallet - it literally takes two seconds - once before each meal, then once inbetween each meal. He wasn't too happy about that! Plus now with all his teeth - I have little tiny teeth marks on my thumb!

He is better about going to sleep - although I wonder if I ALWAYS could have just laid him down and he would have gone to sleep and I wasn't doing it... the things we'll never know!

He did have his first sleepover without Mom this weekend - he slept at my sister Kathleen's house while Tom and I went out to celebrate our 11th anniversary. Kat did like to point out he did not sleep at any of the times I said he would :) but my two six-year-old twin nephews were very helpful in taking care of Brady. At one point they had brought down ALL their stuffed animals and put them in the pack-n-play for him. How sweet! :)

Tom was already pumped to go out Saturday because on Friday he won a raffle at an electric supply house - drumroll, please.... he won a 42" plasma screen TV! I kid you not! (Good thing he won it because I'm sure we never would have bought one! haha) Then on Saturday night we went to the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. We had never been there - it was a BLAST! After our initial investment of $30, we went home with $260... all courtesy of MY good luck, I am proud to say (well, Tom did have $1500 good luck the day before with the TV!) It was a good weekend, and Tom was very happy to watch his beloved Patriots on the TV last night, where they pummeled the Vikings 31-7. Yahoo!

Tomorrow he has his Synergy shot and flu booster... We're trick or treating tonight - Happy Halloween!