10 DAYS

I just wanted to Thank everyone who have donated so far, we really feel love and support from all of our family and friends, we've collected $825 which is so great! Well there's only 10 more days of fundraising until our walk and we'd love more donations, so go out and bug all you know. We've got pledge forms if you need them, just let us know. So our walk is a week from Saturday at Sugarhouse park (just off I-80 and 1300 East) from 8:30am-1:00pm. They say there is fun stuff for the kids and a lot of them will be on trikes and scooters and bikes. So it will be a morning of family fun (I guess, we've just heard, we've never been). Again, thank you so much for working as hard as you have to help our family and so many more who are effected by hydrocephalus.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Dirt Bikes, School, Colds and Teeth

Eric & Jordan ganged up and won the dirt bike battle. Doesn't he look cool!?! He hasn't ventured out of the garage yet. (shrug) Maybe we should get more insurance?


J also started school this week and he loves his new teacher, two good years in a row, can't beat that. Funny story, on Wednesday when he got home I asked if he had any homework, he said that he only had his spelling words to study for Friday's spelling test. I said to get them out and we'll practice them together. He said that he didn't need to practice because 'he's a great speller and it would only waste his time to study spelling'. I said that he should probably study them...just in case. After a brief argument on how it's important to do his homework, he kept insisting that he knows it all and studying would just be a waste of his precious time. So I thought I'd pull one over on him and I said that we would go over them once and if he didn't make one mistake then he wouldn't ever have to study spelling words again (I had this one in the bag, they were hard spelling words). He smirked and happily agreed to the deal. We went over 26 very tricky words and to my amazement he sailed right through them, no mistakes, not even a hesitation. Those darn tweens, just as promised I put away his spelling for the week. On Friday he came home with smiles from ear to ear test in hand, the big 100% right on top! Good job J!

Well we've been battling a little cold this week. Carter started throwing up and having the yuckies on Wednesday, the next day he woke up with a stuffy nose and fever. We took him in to the doctors and he only had a viral infection. Its really hard because most of these symptoms are signs of a shunt infection, so we were put on major shunt malfunction watch for the last few days. Luckily we woke up today and had a great day. We are definitely getting better. YEAH no hospital stay this time!

So the oddest thing, Carter has 4 teeth now, two bottom and two vampire (eye) teeth, anyone ever heard of that?!? I thought they get those two top teeth next. He also learned how to grind those pearly whites! I've seen Eric heeby-geeby every time Carter gets his mouth's orchestra going, it's pretty nasty but it makes me giggle.

Hi Everyone, well a lot has been going on. We are planning our first TEAM CARTER hydrocephalus association walk to help raise money for research for those of us who are affected with hydrocephalus every day. Our biggest complaint is that no shunt is forever. As you know Carter will need a shunt for the rest of his life. His body will reject some and others will get infected and so on. We have met several children who have had somewhere between 40-80 shunts before they go to Kindergarten. Every time the doc's do surgery on the brain we run a risk of more brain damage. The researchers are working so hard to create smarter shunts that last longer, also shunt alternatives. So we would love you to come out and support Carter on September 20, 2008 at Sugarhouse Park.

Well we broke our first tooth, his bottom front. I tried to get a picture of it but he like to stick his tongue out so we have no picture.

He's cruising around all over. He is still not holding his heavy head up but that hasn't slowed him down. He's rolling and rolling and rolling. He can get across the room this way. He also tries to crawl (with his head still on the ground) he gets his legs just a movin and drags his head moving forward. I guess where there's a will there's a way, right!?!

Blessed

Last Saturday Carter was blessed. Our families came from far and near to support us and it was great. Carter did wonderful, he's such a good boy. He didn't get "sensory overloaded" like we feared with all the new sounds, smells, chaos and people. It was beautiful, Grandpa Shields blessed him and Eric gave an impressive speech in front of everyone. My mom and Tonya did so much work setting it all up, they're so great. Carter missed most of it because he got too sleepy.

_______________________________________________________

Our BFF Jaxxon (Amy & Brian's baby) came over for a very fun play date, they gave knuckles and started wrestling, how cute!

Seeing

Look at our new cute pictures, Tonya and I had all the kids pictures done, they turned out very cute. I thought it would be hard, but it wasn't a big deal at all. Carter smiled super big. Aren't they gorgeous, I just love them.

Well we went to the eye doctor last week and it went okay, we were there for about 4 hours so he could do a bunch of tests on his eyes. Anyways, he looked deep inside and said that everything looks good. All of his parts are there and appear to be ready to work. He does, however, have CVI (cortical vision impairment) where he has a delay in the process center of his brain. So technically he is legally blind 2200, what ever that means. The doc said that he probably wont have to do surgery or glass him anytime soon, if not ever. He thinks that the pressure is to blame and we just need to give him an extra push. He said that our therapy is doing the greatest good because we just need to teach his eyes how to see and how to process that info. So he prescribed vision therapy, which we've been doing since he was 3 months old, and we'll see him in 6 more months for more extensive tests. But he thinks by then he'll be just fine. So that's more good news.

Our vision therapist, Jen (we love her) came to our visit today and said that it's time to reassess Carter and his "goals". She was going over his goals that she set for him at 3 months old and it said that he needed so much work, she even set unrealistic goals for him, knowing he would never reach them, or maybe reach a few of them in several years. She put in the report that she thought he would be severally delayed in his development, motor and vision forever, never reaching normal milestones. Well today we reassessed him and he's totally on track for everything motor and developmental. He blew right through her goals. He is rolling and trying to get all around, he's reaching and tracking, no texture problems, he's doing everything a 6 month old should be doing (except holding his own head). She almost cried, she's so cute. He has achieved so much and seems to be totally neurologically intact. She said she's worked with several hydro babes and he doesn't seem to be following any of that behavior. How great is he, isn't this wonderful!?! Jordan sat through our therapy session today and decided if the professional soccer career doesn't quite pan out then he now wants to be a vision therapist, how cute.

6 months and so big!

• 
  Our Carter-bug is doing so well, he is 6 months old now and weighs 16 pounds. The doctor just cleared us to go out of the house and "resume life" Hallelujah! So we've been to 2 restaurants and lots of family parties and just this weekend we went to Jordan's soccer game. It was exciting, he loves to be out, he's very social.
  
  Just lately he's learned to roll all the way over! Just when we thought we could let our guard down, he's now mobile. He doesn't stay in one place long. We also work super hard every day to build those neck muscles, he's almost got the hang of it. We fired our physical therapist because she's lame and so we've just been winging it, I research what to do online and we just do it. Our "therapy" is lots of neck strengthening exercises a bunch of times a day, apparently its pretty funny, we just giggle the whole time. We don't really know what we are doing, but we have fun so whatever.
  
  All of our research and our support groups and our therapists all prepared us for a terrible eater. Most Hydro babes are on feeding tubes for years and have a real gaggy reflexes, they also have problems with textures, so we were going to start texture therapy just to get ready for solids. Judging by the size of those cheeks and don't forget a few chins, we thought we'd just try some oatmeal, and to our surprise, he loves every bite. We're packing on those pounds and loving every minute.
  
  We are going to the ophthalmologist (eye doctor) next Wednesday to check those eyes. He's been receiving vision therapy for several months now, our vision therapist thinks he's got "CVI, cortical visual impairment" which is an impairment that is in the process center of his brain. Basically when your eyes see something, the information travels through your brain and deep in the back is where your brain processes that information and tells your body what it needs to do or know. He has a slight delay in that process. So she thinks he'll need a little surgery on one eye to nick a nerve and a couple of years of vision therapy (and maybe cute little eye glasses) and he'll be able to see just fine. Vision problems are very common in Hydro Babes and I've learned that his team of pros almost expected it. It was no surprise because most of the fluid in Carter's brain is stored right on his optic nerve. We are learning as we go, we'll see what the doc says next week.