Black Monday

Brady is under the weather. He is coughing like he has been smoking for the last 16 months and producing enough snot to fill the Grand Canyon. He also is oozing booger like matter from both of his eyes. It's been pretty rough for the last 4 days. We had to put Brady back on steroids. Fortunately, they give him super human strength to fight the evil bugs. UNfortunately, they make him nutty. He acts like a teenager girl after a bad break up....laughing one minute and crying the next. He's slam'n Ben and Jerry's and listening to Rage Against the Machine.

Gobble Gobble

Last year's Turkey

This year's turkey

Brady stuffed his face instead of stuffing his pants like last year. He was a bit bored at the grown ups table so he resorted to arts and crafts. Supplies were limited to food items so he sculpted the most impressive mashed potato statue of his Dad. He used olives for the eyes and cranberries for hair. He said you've got to improvise when your in a bind. After his masterpiece was complete and his belly was full Brady strapped on his boots and ran a brisk 5K. He's really determined to keep the Holiday pounds at bay.

What a difference 1 year makes. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Baby Signing Time

Jeff's birthday isn't until Saturday, but Brady decided to give him his gift early.....Brady signed "Dad" today. It was pretty cool. Jeff has been diligent about showing Brady the sign for Dad for about 12 months now. Everyday he signs and says "Dad" about 13.2 million times. Usually Brady's response involves a thousand yard stare and a smile, but today Brady took his left hand and signed Dad. Jeff and I erupted in applause. Jeff repeated the exercise to make sure it wasn't a fluke. If any of you know Jeff, he is a man of science and most things must be proven before trusted. Well Brady proved himself. He signed Dad the requested 14 more times, each occurrence receiving thunderous applause. Well done Dad, well done!

Brady and I watch the DVD series called "Baby Signing Time." I highly recommend them for any child. Kids learn to communicate long before words actually come out of their mouths. Signing gives them a voice!

Smoothie King Dethroned

Brady was directing both traffic and food on Saturday morning. In an attempt to dethrone the Smoothie King, I have been letting him "explore" other foods. Brady's OT (occupational therapist) suggested we allow Brady to investigate other foods besides the trusted smoothie. The surveying involves covering everything within a 20ft radius (including Bill). When Brady is sampling other goods we don't worry too much about anything really getting in the hole. We focus on him just trying tastes of things. On Saturday he tried scrambled eggs, apples and squash. Amazingly enough he finished an entire jar of baby food (something he hasn't done for months). So for now Brady still has one smoothie a day and tastes of many different foods. I will be asking Santa for a case of stain stick and Bill will be asking for a new roommate.

Treadmill update: We had a treadmill, BUT we couldn't get it out of the owners house without taking the entire thing apart. We didn't want to risk damaging it. So Brady got out of training yesterday. Today we are back on the hunt!!

Smoothie King

Brady has not been the easiest baby to feed...food. Nursing wise he is a champ and I really don't know how I'm going to ever ween this kid. Don't worry I won't nurse him into the abnormal age range. I already get looks and annoying comments like "WOW your still nursing him, how old is he?"

Anyway, Brady still doesn't have a single tooth. Seriously! So chunks and table food are not really doable. Plus, Brady has a small adversion to anything greater than a breadcrumb. He also HATES baby food. He turns a mouth full of sweet potatoes into a sprinkler system. I was feeding him yogurt with fruits and veggies pureed into it, but all the dairy really upset his stomach and he was ralphing all the time. This created a dilemma. No solids, no baby food, no yogurt...hmmmmm! Then like any Mom I had a thought at 2 n the morn! SMOOTHIES!! Jeff and I have a smoothie every morning and I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. I grabbed the blender and whipped up a batch for Brady and he loved it!! THANK GOD! Once I knew he liked the basic smoothie I have been cook'n up a primal protein wonder. Brady's smoothies are made with coconut milk, Kefir, berries, veggies, protein, iron, vitamin D and fiber. Though Brady isn't eating a traditional meal he is getting all he needs and more from becoming the Smoothie King!

Treadmill continued

With all this talk about a treadmill Brady decided he better hydrate. Please note his environmental ways... no plastic bottle and apparently no water wasting.

Here is the link to the treadmill research I've been reading. Jeff and I are hopefully going to borrow a treadmill or buy one off of Craigslist. I saw a couple for $250. If anyone has a treadmill that's been gathering dust in their basement or acting as a clothes rack, we would be happy to house it for the next 6 months. Let me know!

Brady had is 15 month check up yesterday. Here are the stats:

19lbs 13 oz (2% on the typical chart and 50th percentile on his chart)

31 3/4" long (33% on the typical chart and 90th on his chart)

All is looking pretty good for now. He is still low on iron so he has to take a NASTY iron supplement. The bummer about that is it plugs up his pooper.

Parent PT

Brady has a physical therapist that comes to the house every other week, but we are the primary PT peeps. I was doing a bit of research on the WWW about PT techniques for babies with Down Syndrome and I found a great tip from another Mom. She suggested using yoga blocks to work on proper posture. So I zipped out to Tar-jay and snapped one up. The goal is to have a straight back and closed mouth. The block helps Brady create an active seated position. Stiff as a board!

Brady now perches himself a top the block when he is watching his "Baby Signing Time" videos. My next PT goal... to get a baby treadmill. SERIOUSLY. I read a great study on the benefits of a mini treadmill. It helps increase locomotion, coordination and balance. The babies in the study walked 6 months earlier than the average baby with Down Syndrome. FYI the average age for a baby with Down Syndrome to walk is 24-28 months. A typical child walks between 10-15 months. Anyone know where I can get my paws on one??

DOA by Brady

Brady's list of tricks has become substantial. He can now wave hi and bye, slap a high five, get your nose (or bear claw it) and blow kisses. I tried to capture each one on film and ended up getting Brady's best attempt at playing dead. He makes you wait for it so you will have to watch the entire piece in order to witness "death by high chair." You will also note Brady has decided to add his own soundtrack, let's call it motorboat in high C.

What?

This is Brady trying to squint when the sun is in his eyes. I think it is hilarious. What he really needs are some nice aviator Ray Bans. If I knew he would keep them on and not turn them into rockets I would purchase them.

Brady had a hearing test today and it didn't go so hot. Brady boy has some hearing loss, but the diagnosis is not that cut and dry. He has tiny ear canals and I mean TINY. The microscopic size of the canals makes it difficult to run accurate tests and combined with his squirrely demeanor during the audio portion, we are in a rut. The first test was on his ear drums, a good test result would show nice peaks like the Rocky Mountains. This represents good vibrations by the ear drums. If the graph looks more like the Sahara Desert then fluid is likely present. Since Brady's ear drum test was more along the flat lands they assume he has fluid in his ears, BUT since his canals are so tiny no one can get a good look to verify this. The Doctor would put in tubes, but is canals are even too small for that. Next? the Doctor is going to talk to the Audiologist about a nerve test. This would bypass all the canal business and get to the root of Brady's hearing, BUT he would have to be sedated for the test and flash back to Mr. B's shaky airway, no one is jumping at the bit to put the kid under. Ahhhhh!! Grrrrr! So for now we are waiting 3 more months to see if his canals widen and grown. Like with everything else time is our friend. Everyday Brady gets stronger and bigger. The conclusion?? Brady can hear, but he isn't hearing as well as he could. He is not deaf. The only stinker about this situation is the ultra important connection between hearing and language development. His hearing impairment may delay his speech development. I guess we just step up the sign language lessons!

International Man of Mystery

I see you Canada

Hello Afghanistan!

The recent addition of our New Yorker got me thinking about where all Brady's bloggers are coming from. Google has a great tool called analytics and it tracks blog viewership. It appears that Brady's charm has reached as far as Kazakhstan. Amazing! Jeff and I were floored with our little blogs stats. Brady's Adventures is viewed on 4 continents and 189 cities. We receive about 1,000 hits a month. Now I realize that a 1,000 hits in YouTube status isn't anything major, but for our minor blog, that's some serious viewership! There's even someone in Japan checking in on our little man. It also appears that you all are loyal readers. Since the birth of this site the return rate has not waivered. The nifty bar graph shows Monday-Friday you all read with conviction and Saturday-Sunday you have better things to do. So thank you for reading. It really means a lot to us. It makes us feel like you care about our Brady and we couldn't ask for anything more.

Young love

The future Mrs. Claire Shannon was in town this weekend. The two love birds were all smiles. I think we can confirm this is a match made in heaven, or at least it better be! This may be the closest thing to an arranged marriage in a 1000 years. Claire's parents and I have serious plans for the two of them. Claire and Brady are registered at Pottery Barn (kids) and Bed Bath and Beyond.

"Somebody get me a crash cart!!!!"

"Some help here please"

"Stay'n alive, stay'n alive, ah, h, ah, stay'n alive"

There was a scary moment at the Bluejay's soccer match against 7th ranked UCLA. Just after a goal was scored by the Jays in the second half, Jeff went into cardiac arrest during a intense celebration dance. Fortunately Brady is well versed in CPR, and recognized the signs quickly and jumped into action. He had twenty compressions in before anyone knew of the danger that dear old dad was in.

After Jeff was stabilized, Brady handed over responsibilities to the professional paramedics, who were quoted by channel six news saying that "had Brady not taken action like he did...we would have lost him."

Brady did a couple of interviews, but as expected he humbly said "he's my dad, I did what I had to do." The game ended with a victory for the Jay's and the crowd chanted "Hero" until they put Brady up on the Jumbotron. Just another day in the life of Brady!