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.
