Noah turns 2!

I'm a little behind on things but I really want to get the blog caught back up. Noah turned 2 the end of January. He's such a little cutie wearing this adorable birthday shirt with a football on it. Footballs are by far his most favorite thing in the world to play with. He calls them buh balls. We have one of those rope buckets that has all of the balls in it and its completely full of different balls but several footballs Noah has collected. We took the boys out to eat on his birthday. They loved it! The next weekend we had a little family party for him with cousins and stuff.

His "cheese" face

Blowing out the candle on his cake!

I wanted to make him his birthday cake and improve on last years cake but my health just wasn't up to it. But I did bake this chocolate cake from scratch.

The boys after the party. Noah loved his brother Jackson's lightning mcqueen blanket so he got one of his for his birthday.

He also got some farm animals and a new ball.

Here are some cute pictures of the 2 year old who loves to dress himself.

More about sweet little Noah. He is a very active little boy. Climbing, running, and jumping everywhere. You can tell he has such a natural athletic ability. He can throw balls with aim, kick a soccer ball everywhere. He loves to wrestle and can pull Jackson down,who's double his weight, and roll him over to pin him. He LOVES balls and has long as he has one he's happy no matter what we're doing. He adores his big brother and wants to be doing everything he does. He anxiously waits by the door every day for Jackson to come home from school and screams with joy when he sees the bus. He loves to snuggle, give hugs and kisses.

Noah's oral motor skills are improving. He no longer needs his liquids thickened and he's finally not coughing when he drinks something. He's eating and chewing a lot more. He's even had 2 new foods this week and loved them! We have an appointment next week for his 2 year check up and to check his weight. We'll find out how he's doing weight wise. I don't think he's continuing to loose weight but he's not gaining much either. His talking is also improving and he has lots of words now. Most of them are pretty cute to hear him say them and some of them I'm the only one who can understand. He's even had a few phrases so overall he's doing really good. He's still getting OT and speech every week and he's doing better when they come over.

Snow on spring break

Jackson is on spring break this week from school. The first day we got about 4 inches of snow. What a way to start off his break. Hoping for nicer weather the rest of the week. But I thought I would share some pictures of the boys playing in the snow this past month. We had some great snowfalls and the boys loved playing outside. We didn't get out as much as they would of liked because of my health and Jackson's temp issues. But we had a lot of fun!

Making snow angels

Jackson had his own little shovel and helped us shovel the driveway!

Jackson's new chair

Yesterday we went and picked up Jackson's convaid cruiser. Which is a adaptive stroller/wheelchair. Jackson immediately got in and said he loved it!! It looks so comfy and I know its going to be such a big help. It's been a big process in getting it so its a huge relief to have it now. A little over a year ago we started looking into getting one of these for Jackson. We knew there was a process and would take some time to get. At the time Jackson was 3.5 years old and was having a lot problems walking and fatigue. With the way he was growing we need we didn't have much longer in any regular strollers. We talked to his doctors and they all agreed he would need one. We first got the referral to see the right physical therapist. She wanted to have several visits with him to see what his needs,strengths and weaknesses where. After a few months of seeing her she sent her recommendation to the seating clinic and we got an appointment there. That was a couple months wait. During that appointment we went over everything and the different options there where. Jackson got to pick out the color of his chair and out of the 5 colors he picked blue. Jackson has 2 different insurance companies so we submitted to the primary first and they completely denied it(this is very typical, I've even heard of children that can't walk at all being denied wheelchairs, its sad). After waiting for them to say it was denied we then submitted to secondary. We heard back from them and they approved it but we had to a good amount of out of pocket expense. After the insurance came through and we paid our portion they where able to order the parts and have it made. After a year of requesting his chair they called on monday to say it was in and we could pick it up this week. I was thrilled!

For those wondering why Jackson needs a wheelchair I'll explain a little. Jackson has low muscle tone and its much harder for him to do things requiring his muscles. He also has a lot of fatigue and very quickly wears out. He can walk and some days more then others. On days he's weaker he can't walk farther 20 yards before falling and needing to be carried. He also has other issues like a lot of pain and other various medical problems that having the chair can help. Now at almost 5 there is no way he can fit in a regular stroller at all and wouldn't support him very well in areas where is muscle tone is affected more. Since he has a mitochondrial disease,which is a progressive disease, he will continue to have problems with increasing fatigue and muscle weakness. As he gets older he maybe able to walk more but his tone and fatigue will not improve and most likely get worse. This chair has a lot of growth room in it and hoping it will last him about 5 years. That will be about when he's 8 or 9 that we would have to start looking where he's at then and seeing if he will need a bigger one or not.

This chair will be such a great help to us and him. Since he can't walk very far he gets carried a lot. He's a solid built boy weighing in at 48 lbs. Thats a lot to be carrying around every where. Also when we go anywhere like stores and such he has to be in the cart. Its difficult for him because its very uncomfortable for him and does not support him at all. He's really big to riding in the grocery cart. Plus its hard for me to lift him in and out of it. Then with 2 kids in the cart there's no room for groceries and such. Jackson will be able to do a lot more, go a lot more places, and will be a lot better with less fatigue and pain. He'll also be able to take this to school and hopefully he'll do better and last longer at school. He'll feel a lot better being in something that is supportive of him properly.

I only have one concern now that we have this. Any time we go out Jackson will need to be in his chair. I'll have to other children as well. The new baby I'll most likely carry in a wrap, sling or baby carrier. Then I'll have Noah who's 2, very active, and likes to run around. I'm not sure what to do with him. I fear if he's walking next to us that he'll run off and I'll have a hard time catching him running with a baby and pushing a wheelchair. As he gets older this won't be as much of an issue because he'll understand more. But at 2 I can't expect him to never walk off. Hopefully we'll figure out something.

Jackson's chair from the side with his tray on.

Jackson in his chair with the shade on it