A cracking Christmas

December 27, 2010

A cracking Christmas

We had an absolutely fantastic Christmas, just the 5 of us snuggled in together in our little home all weekend! It started with a Poppy whirlwind bursting into our bedroom early on Christmas morning as i was dozing after nursing the boys a little bit earlier, then suddenly she's jumped into bed with us shouting "Ho Ho membered da bumster!" (Santa remembered the hamster) with such genuine excitement in her voice that i didn't mind being woken up and i was just so happy that she was happy.

Luckily that was the only present out of her stocking that she had opened so we got to see her unwrap the rest, and she was just as pleased with everything else she got, even the little things like crayons or hairbands, and by then William and Finn were awake again so we got some lovely family snuggle time in our bed. Then after breakfast we helped the boys unwrap the presents from their stockings, with Poppy being extra enthusiastic about each item "Look Finn, is a book!" which made the boys happy even if they didn't quite understand what all the fuss was about. We had a break then for the boys because i didn't want to overwhelm them with too many presents at once, but Poppy was already snooping at the gifts under the tree so we passed out some of the presents there to her and me and Sir and we took turns opening our gifts and finding out what we'd got, and again Poppy was just as excited for us at what we had as she was about her own presents, which was so sweet of her. i went to get the dinner started, with my heart swelling with joy as i looked back at the living room to see Poppy happily playing with her 'bumster' (a toy hamster that moves), Finn trying out one of his new kick toys and squealing at the results, and Sir helping William to explore one of his new musical toys. i was so proud of my little family at that moment.

We did more presents just before dinner and more in the afternoon, staggering things to let the boys catch up with what was going on, and Poppy was very patient at waiting for the next rounding of unwrapping, though she did keep asking "is time yet?", but she was perfectly content to play with the toys she had already opened when told it wasn't time for more presents just yet. In the end of course every single present had been opened and exclaimed over by Poppy and taken out of the box and explored (with help for the boys and William in particular as he doesn't really interact with things on his own yet). i'm really pleased with the choices we made for the kids' presents because they got a good variety of things to help them with their development as well as toys they will enjoy playing with, and in Poppy's case things she had asked for.

Poppy's main present was a 'Peppa Pig' trike which she was very pleased with, though it did mean that Sir had to go out and snovel the snow off the garden path so she could try it out after dinner! She got lots of other toys, games, books and clothes as well and was very very pleased with her stash. Finn got a variety of toys to help him practice his new skills such as kicking and develop new ones such as independent sitting and pulling to standing. He worked his way through all of them during the Christmas weekend, and has now tried them all out, though not quite ready for some features on some of them, and a couple of the toys have been put away until he has developed more so that he can use them. But on the whole Finn was very alert and engaged by the whole unwrapping process (though still finding the paper and the boxes just as exciting as their contents!) and squealed with delight when shown some of the features on his new toys. He was one happy little boy :) William also got toys to aid his development, but his were mainly simple cause and effect toys, light toys, musical toys and sensory toys as he needs lots of stimulation in order to help him achieve new skills. He was a little more sleepy than Finn during the unwrapping process, but there was one magical moment that i'll never forget when we opened a 'light spinner' toy for him and switched the lights off to test it out. As soon as we turned it on and the coloured lights started spinning, William become so alert and was absolutely entranced by the toy, gazing at it for the longest i have ever seen him look at anything. Sir tried to get him to track it with his eyes by moving it slowly from side to side and though he wasn't quite able to do that he would search for it when it moved out of his vision and then focus on it again once he found it in its new place. It was great to see him so engaged with a toy, and we are now planning to go ahead with converting the loft into a sensory room for him so that we can do lots more work on his visual skills and other sensory skills to help him develop and make progress. In the meantime i am going to look into buying other small light toys and work with him everyday to try to increase his visual competency. i'm so excited at the potential he has shown in this area and can't wait for his assessment with the specialist VI (visual impairment) teacher which he has scheduled in a couple of weeks' time at the early intervention clinic, because i'm sure she will be able to give us other ideas and stuff to try.

The Christmas dinner was a joint effort between me and Sir and it all came out brilliantly, except we could have done with more gravy! Poppy really enjoyed her meal and ate so much of it and the boys were at the table with us, happy and alert and part of the festivities. Poppy tried so hard to get their cracker hats to stay on, but gave up in the end! i was allowed to eat whatever i wanted during the weekend as my usual eating restrictions were lifted for Christmas, but to be honest i didn't abuse this privilege, though it was nice to be able to wander over and snag a handful of nuts or snack on some sweeties whenever i felt like it. We discovered that Poppy has quite the sweet tooth for Quality Street chocolates, so had to limit her to a certain number per day else she would have gobbled the whole tin! But again she was very good about the temptation of all the stuff on the snack table, and did not eat too much and accepted when we told her she had had enough. Infact i am so impressed with how she handled the whole holiday weekend this year, she has been so grown up about everything and very very sweet in wanting to make sure that the boys had a good time and were properly included in everything too.

And now for the best news of all....... on Christmas Eve William only had one cluster of spasms (seizures) when he first woke up in the morning, instead of having them everytime he woke from a sleep or a nap, as well as at other random times in the day, as he had been having before. Then on Christmas day and Boxing day he had no noticeable clusters at all! And so far this morning he hasn't had any either!! It is very exciting, though i don't want to get my hopes up too much incase it's only temporary and they come back, but it looks like the ACTH injections are working for him. We have an EEG booked for him on 7th January, and i'm really hopeful that the consultant will have good news for us on the IS (Infantile Spasms) front. i have been reading blogs about other children with IS and now realise what a huge effect it has on a baby's development to constantly have their brain interrupted with electrical activity, which leaves very little time for learning and processing information. i know that William has other problems beyond the IS - he has other types of seizures which will need to be got under control as best we can, and he has sensory processing difficulties and brain damage that we already know of, but i really think that if we can get rid of the IS his development will start to show more progress than it has already because his brain will be freer to learn. At the moment William is not very far beyond a newborn stage in his skills, in all areas - physical, sensory, social, cognitive, play, language, etc, etc, and i now believe this is largely due to the IS. So that's our first battle to win and then once we have these spasms defeated we will go on to tackle his other problems one by one.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!