It's a bear!!

I have been neglecting the blog once again!
Joshuas still walking and up on his feet, unfortunately the cold weather is not agreeing with him and settling down to sleep at night is quite a challenge.
His muscles have tightened especially in his hands at the moment, he's 'two fingering again' and straightening them out is a bit of a fight, hes still walking flat on his feet but has started standing on his tippy toes again an you can definately feel it more in one leg than the other.
His poor little legs are so bruised from thrashing around against his cot at night pretty much from sleep till 3am he is kick kick kicking at the moment and hes up super early even with the heating on. This is having a huge effect on his temperamant as well, hes just so very tired and fed up. Theres been alot of screaming and alot of fights to get him out the house, somedays I wish I could just wrap him up in a huge thick blanket and leave him inside where its warm and he can sleep. Luckily the fightings worth it on nursery days cause we're getting nothing but good feedback there think its all the female attention, but he just loves it and its nice to know if nothing else theres 4 hours a week that hes enjoying alot.

He's making lots more sounds, some of them really strange sounding but hes talking to us in how own little way, he has however managed to say mummy and 'its a bear' his first mini sentence, which he says to ANY animal he sees!
We are seeing the speech therapist alot more regular now, along with lovely Emma 2nd favourite who is helping us get more boxes ticked on his checklist!
Waiting to see if our lovely physio can be of any more help to us with his achey legs and really hoping the ot can advice us on any sleeping aids that some of my lovely cp mummys have advised.
Watch this space I'm sure we'll crack it. For now lots of stretches, mummy massages and warm baths to help him until daddys back in 2 weeks to take over which will cheer joshua up more than anything! :)

If you think my hands are full you should see my heart...

http://josh-moon.blogspot.com/

So I have a walking little boy, yesterday his splints were packed away in the same box with his plaster casts, his gaters, his walker returned to the physio and we have been taken off the list for botox...
better still his physio appointment went so well that providing his muscle tone doesnt change in the next few months we will be discharged from the physio and the cerebral palsy side of his care will just be managed by the consultant on a 6 monthly basis an with walking being the best kind of physio for him its looking positive.
We'll be sad to lose linda from his care, she has seen him since he was a baby and I truely dont think we would ever of got this far without her, shes become part of joshuas family of people and has providedus with the support and gone the extra mile for us from the beginning.
We'll have growth spurts in the future and one of his legs is still tighter than the other showing a slight difference, hes opening his fingers more than he was before theres more work to be done but its for me to keep persisting with now an I will ensure that only improvements come from now on because thats what I'm here for.
My little boy can walk... its still exciting to say, type, speak about and even see, he might be a little slower, a little unsteady and a little on the awkward side, one of his feet might point slightly outwards but hey who doesnt have there quirks... My little boy can walk :)

His last consultant appointment was brilliant, hes still not saying words but the noises are coming. We're still not sure if hes understanding speech or hes understanding whats going on around him by our actions but either way we are talking to him non stop to try and bring a few words out and ease his frustration.
We're back to basics with his learning and working on his cognitive development, lots of easy shape sorta toys still to try and get him working, his development age with regards to learning is still only about a year to 18 months, that along with his self help skills is where he is weakest right now but we are plugging away at it.
Eye contacts improved and socially his improvements have crazily improved. less of the screaming (well at least half the time ;) )
Still no sense of danger, still will go to anybody new, no sense of waryness at all little dangermouse :)

its been a good month this one..

There'll always be step backs but nothing beats those 5 steps forward!

Joshua paul has been a busy boy!
We recieved funding for his nursery to employ another member of stuff for Josh to begin attending, so he did the start of may he had his first day of nursery, he goes on a tuesday and thursday afternoon and is loving it. The changes in him have been amazing, he seems alot happier and stimulated, a huge improvement from the majority of april where leaving the house with him was becomming impossible.
His Jigsaw meetings have been positive, his new portage worker Emma is just fantastic and everyone is so pleased with all the changes in him.
His eye contact is definately slightly better, he is beginning to make different sounds and have heard lots of baby, mum and hiya sounds recently.
But to top this week off he was picked up from nursery on thursday and I was asked to stay behind quickly, obviously expecting something negative some sort of meltdown or tantrum.
I was in fact told that he had been free standing and taking upto 5 steps between nursery workers at a time, I was shocked, very shocked.
We got home an managed a few more and he managed to show Linda his physio at his appointment later that afternoon who was extremely pleased.
He had no confidence to do it without his AFO's or shoes on and was still very much on his toes, but wearing them we managed upto 12 steps and its been really exciting!

What started as a road to walking

We are starting this blog...partly for us to keep it written down, to see how far we're getting or look back on how far we come, partly for the family who arent close by and friends who want to keep upto date with whats going on and partly for all the new friends we are making going through something similar.

The story so far...

... December 2008 Joshua was referred to the child develpment unit for an assesment and was given a physio. He was one years old and unable to do an awful lot, he wasnt mobile, wasnt babbling his development had hit a standstill from early on and we were growing more and more concerned. Josh was premature so we expected certain delays but it was just not getting any better or easier and it felt out of our control he seemed so unhappy and frustrated so we was incredibly glad our concerns had finally been followed through.

Joshuas physio was wonderful, and still is, withing the first couple of months of her visits he began sitting, rolling, crawling, pulling himself up and cruising around the furniture but was unable to put his feet completely to the floor.

Feb 2009 We met Joshuas consultant and he was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (spastic diplegia) this causes the muscles in his legs to be too tight and means he's unable to keep his feet flat. He also has some problems with his hands. He went on to have an MRI scan in the july, which didnt show anything major but we was warned that it may not, was quite traumatic seeing my little boy be put to sleep once again and feeling him lose consciousness and go limp in my arms served a painful reminder of theoretically what caused us to be here, luckily he is much braver than his mother and woke up screaming for toast and juice!

Over the rest of 2009 we saw various people speech therapists, occupational therapists all to help us bring his development along but at his next consultant appointment in september 09 Joshuas consultant was concerned.

His development age was sitting lower still, there was still no communication and not much attempt still his eye contact was lacking and he much prefered playing by himself so a week long assesment was arranged.

leading us upto March 2010.

We began Joshuas assesment he saw a Occupational therapist, Psychologist and a speech therapist and at the end of the week we had a sit down to discuss there findings.

So there we are on the friday walking into a room that looks like a conference room for a work meeting with the 3 specialists, his consultant, a peadiatrician, a portage worker and a secretary who sat and wrote everything down like you see in court! it was quite daunting. They discussed everything with us and put his development age at 9-10 months... our two year old had been overtaken by his baby sister, not that we hadnt noticed this but its all that more real when someone says it to you! An then for the final blow of the morning...which completely threw us...the diagnosis - Autism. We hadnt expected nor prepared ourselves to hear it, not that we didnt know the possibility was there but hes still so young and it all seemed so much for my little man to have to go through. The following days were for thinking and learning ...