45 weeks

This past week we headed out to Boston to see a neurologist with the Boston Children's Hospital who studies children with Polymicrogyria.  We had no idea that we were going to get to meet Dr. Walsh who is the head of that study, we thought we would only be meeting with a doctor on his team.  He is the blond holding Annabelle in the picture.  They confirmed what we did know about Annabelle's condition, going over her MRI with us again.  They also said that she is doing great with development and the fact she is hitting milestones is great even if they are a bit behind.  They also said that all of the therapies we are doing can only help her with development so we are on the right track.  The only thing we do need to be aware of is that 80% of children with PMG do have seizures sometime in their life which could slow development.  Brian brought up a very good point, that means that 1 out of 5 don't have seizures and so we are hoping that Annabelle is that 1 :-). 

After our appointment Monday we did some sightseeing and we stayed in Boston till Thursday for a mini vacation.  We went to Quincy Market, Faneuil Hall, Newbury Street, toured the USS Constitution, spent some time at the Aquarium, went on a duck boat tour, and went to Salem on Brian's Birthday.  Annabelle was an absolute angel the entire trip!  Especially since we were pretty much on the go from 10am - 8:30pm each day.  She did get a little fussy in Salem because we had to keep taking her out of her stroller for tours when she wanted to nap. 

She is now sitting up much better, I still need to watch her because when she falls over she usually doesn't use her arms to catch herself.  She is reaching up for me when I ask her if she wants up and just this morning started "pointing" at things.  She's not using her finger but her fist, but I'll take what I can get.  She's also starting to hold her bottle more although she prefers for me to do it.  It's hard to believe that she's almost 1, it seems like yesterday I heard her cry for the first time in the hospital.

We had our last swim class last week.  Brian came to it to take some pictures and see how well Annabelle was doing.  Most of the other pictures are from Boston.  In case you are wondering about the picture with Annabelle and Brian with the money, he was trying to use money to motivate her to crawl.  Unfortunately it didn't work, apparently money is not a motivator . . . yet.