When Michael was a little under a year old he fell down the stairs to the basement. I managed to catch him midway, luckily, before he hit the cement floor below. He cried as I held him and called the doctor, then stopped crying and was fine. The nurse on call asked me questions about his reaction, his pupils, how he seemed. She deduced he would be okay and told me what to look out for over the next few hours. As usual, Michael was playing happily quickly thereafter and I never worried during his nap time. Almost 10 years later, and as memories fade from my mind, I will never forget that feeling of watching him fall down the stairs... the way time slowly froze frame by frame as his body bounced down the stairs. The feeling of helplessness and the wave of grief thinking he could die if he hit his head just so or cracked his neck. Almost 10 years later, and I can instantly recall that pit in my stomach.

Today I had it again. I was holding Brady, walking into the school for swimming with OT, when I stepped off the curb and fell. In the nanoseconds of going down, I was mindful of holding this little cherub in my left arm. I instantly tightened my grip and slowly watched the back of his head hit the pavement. It happened in such slow motion, I can't believe I couldn't stop it. He instantly started to cry, which relieved me immensely because this child never seems to cry when he should be hurt, I think. I was still on the ground trying to pick him up and waving to the grounds crew cleaning the leaves. One of the men waves back - and not until a few minutes later realize that I need help. One of the crew comes over and offers to bring me to the first aid station, but I pick Brady up and run inside to where the OT and lifeguard are. Tara, his OT, is looking at me, wondering what is wrong and jumps out of the pool. I am hysterical, although I was the only one - Brady is not crying anymore and is looking around, his face searching for the reason why he is not in the pool yet. Tara takes him and I start to calm down, and realize I am in pain. They send for a nurse, who examines Brady and says he looks fine - he got a couple prickly red spots and was starting to get a bump on the back of his head, but that was it. Of course, she checks my elbow and thinks I may need stitches, but after she. cleans it she states I could probably get away with not getting them. As the day goes on, I realize that my leg is scraped up pretty bad, my right hand has serious road burn on it, and my left elbow is allowing me no strength whatsoever - I am not even able to carry Brady to the car.

I called the pediatrician and told them I was coming right over since I was only a few minutes away. Of course, now Brady is getting cranky because not only did he not get to go swimming (which he loves) but now he is getting tired. Luckily, the doctor thought he was fine, told me what to look out for, and sent us on our way. Brady is fine. I, of course, am a mess. Physically my arm is killing me, and mentally I am exhausted over my petrified moment. Just like with Michael, all I could think of was Brady jumbling his brain. Someone my husband knows is in a coma right now after being punched in a fight and hitting the ground, so of course this is all I could think about.

Strangely enough, I have been concerned for awhile now that I would fall holding Brady. A premonition or have I been preoccupied with the thought that I caused it? Very strange. All I know is that once again, that pit in my stomach is there. That feeling of helplessness and despair, so overpowering that nothing can erase its memory. Yes, the angel sleeps now peacefully, as I go and watch him for a few minutes ....

Ho Ho Ho

Tis the season to be jolly...although jolly isn't quite the word I would use to describe Brady here - he was a little perplexed as to what this thing was on his nose. Five seconds later it was off, so you are quite lucky to be seeing this picture at all.

We are in Christmas season mode over here -we put the tree up over the weekend and are slowly unloading our holiday decorations all over the house. The Christmas shopping is getting done, our cookie-making day is set, and I am thisclose to ordering my Christmas cards. We have been going on warped speed over here - between Cub Scout activities, therapy appointments and whatnot, the calendar is filled to the brim. I am making it a priority to downgrade a bit and have some just chillin' out time.

One of our nights consisted of going to my (gasp) 20-year high school reunion. I had hooked up with some girlfriends I hadn't seen in awhile the week before, so I was lukewarm about attending. Glad I ignored myself - it was a blast! We all kept saying, "Wow! You haven't changed at all!" and of course, dear husband later on pointed out that we really were pretty old :). It was interesting to say the least, and as the night went on, you can see the little cliques begin to form again. I suddenly felt like I was back in that big school again. I still had no patience for some of the obnoxious boys and the fake smiles of the plastic girls. My girlfriends and I went around and talked to everyone, and I was able to hook up again with a few old friends again, so that was great. It's amazing how no matter what time has passed and how different your life becomes... some things just don't change. I looked around the room at these people, most who knew me from when we moved here when I was 11.

This weekend we met up with Coleman and his family. Coleman just turned a year and has WS. He has had numerous health issues over the past year, but he is such a little ham and was all over the place on Sunday. He is crawling and pulling himself up on the furniture, and giving us big smiles at every turn. It was so cute - at one point he did a scrunched-up smiley face and started waving his hands around and one minute later Brady did the same thing sitting right next to him. It is always comforting to see the similarities with these kids; how the parents know what you are going through. We will hopefully gather together often, as they are only half an hour away.

All right - I am posting this because I have been trying to add to it all day and I have not gotten any further. Tomorrow I will tell y'all one HECK of a story....

Howdy!

YAAAAWWWNNNNN... oh!... here I am!

That was a nice week nap of blogging I took! When you do the 100-mile dash of everyday posting for 31 days, sometimes you just need a little snooze alarm. Not that there was anything y'all were missing... it's been pretty quiet over on this front. We did Brady's two-year-old pictures, which came out adorable. I did notice that there was NO difference in his one-year-old and two-year-old pictures -- except his hair was longer. The rest of his face looked exactly the same, chubby cheeks and all.

Last Thursday we got a call from Children's Hospital asking us if we would like to move up our January appointment in Neurology to Friday. This was a first time visit recommended to us by Brady's geneticist. She felt because of his delays he should see someone there to rule out anything other than Williams. Plus, both the geneticist and Dr. Mervis in Kentucky felt he was still exhibiting some baby behavior that he should have outgrown by now, not typical of WS.

So, we trekked in, was seen 20 minutes late by a resident who examined Brady then reported his findings to his "supervisor". The resident was clueless about WS, admittedly so, which immediately made me feel concerned. I do appreciate his willingness to admit he knew nothing about WS, but how can he properly examine this child when he doesn't realize what is "typical" for WS and what isn't? He did spend a lot of time with him, and a lot of time discussing with his boss, then they both came in and clarified a few more things. I felt a bit better at that point.

They determined that his delays seemed typical of WS. One thing that he still has not outgrown from his baby stage is his flapping of the arms when he gets excited. He used to do it a lot more, for a lot of reasons, but it has definitely decreased. The doctor felt that since he is only two, his behavior has not regressed, and he seems to be "growing out" of the stage, they are not concerned. If he was four and doing that, it would be a different story. They did order a blood test to check his thyroid, since it hasn't been checked before, and an MRI to check for anything they are missing. Basically, all good news; not jumping for joy over the docs, but I know it could be worse :)

On another good note, I ran out of Enfamil last week, so I've been giving Brady half Calicilo, half whole milk for his bottle, on top of yogurt and ice cream. We had his calcium level checked and it has not gone up! He is at 10.3, normal is 8.5 to 10.5. Yeah! I am going to keep his bottle like this until we see the nutritionist in the beginning of December, then I will probably stop the Calicilo. It is covered under insurance, so it doesn't really matter. I am really trying to get him moving on the food ~ taking it, chewing it - ANYTHING! Michael gets nervous when he sees Brady gagging when there is food in the middle of his tongue - -we're all yelling, "Just move it, Brady! You can do it!" His little cheerleader section :)