Trip to New Bern and a Visit to Children's Hospital

Bear with me - this is going to be a long one! We’ve had a very busy couple of weeks, which is why I haven’t updated the blog recently. I’m struggling lately with the work/family/life balance; I’m sure every working parent has these feelings now and then. Between working, Charlie’s never-ending appointments, keeping him occupied, entertained, and challenged (not to mention fed and cleaned), keeping up with the house and yard, and trying to put something on the table at night other than frozen pizza, there is just never enough time. I’m also trying to introduce a little time to myself and get back in shape, but the 5:15 wake up call required to get a workout in before work means I only make it about twice a week. To the parents reading - do you ever feel well-rested?? Never mind, don’t answer that, I have a feeling I won’t like your answer.

Last week we spent the week in New Bern, NC with Pop. We rarely get a whole week with any of our family anymore, so it was nice to have so much time with him, and for Charlie to have a chance to get to know his Pop a little better. Thanks for hosting us, Pop! We got to spend a relaxing week walking around his neighborhood, going into town for delicious homemade ice cream and even “Mumfest” (a big carnival in the streets of downtown New Bern), and swimming in the neighborhood pool. You can see in the photos how much fun Charlie had with his daddy in the pool!


Charlie practicing his dead man's float:


And on the swings at the Rec Center:


We hosted a dinner party one night and got to spend time with two great couples who are good friends of Pop’s and Libbie’s, one of whom brought Charlie his new favorite toy, a phone that lights up, talks and plays music.So fun!

Here are a couple of funny pictures of Charlie at Pop and Libbie's, taking a bath in their BIG tub.

One afternoon, Charlie and I took a mini-trip down to Snead’s Ferry, NC to see my good friend Paula and her adorable kids. Paula and I grew up around the corner from one another and went to nursery school together, so we’ve known each other for years, but don’t often have the opportunity to get together anymore. It was a real treat to get to spend a couple of hours with her and Addison and Carter.

Addison took this one all by herself; it's a little dark, but I think she did an awfully good job getting us in the picture!

We also got to see another friend, Vieve, on Friday. Vieve and my dad grew up together in Ohio, and Vieve and her family also lived in Atlanta for quite a while, so she has been a close friend of ours for years. Now she lives in a beautiful, historic home in New Bern that we had the pleasure of visiting. It is always so nice to reconnect with good friends!

We overlapped with Uncle Mike at the end of the trip, which was fun too. Here are a few pictures of our family time, including one of three generations of Griffins:

Uncle Mike, that's not my mouth!

Much better!

This past week it’s been back to the normal grind, with a couple of appointments thrown into the mix. On Wednesday, we went to Children’s Hospital for another visit with the renowned developmental psychologist, Dr Glass. She thinks Charlie’s made noticeable progress since she saw him last (in March), but still thinks he’s “immature” – his development measures at the 9 to 12 month range instead of 15 (adjusted age) to 18 (actual age) month range. She thinks his motor skills are coming along, so she suggested we pay less attention to those right now and really focus on language and cognitive learning skills.

It was interesting to watch her test his mental maturity. For instance, she had a clear acrylic box top with only 3 sides, and she placed it over a toy. Charlie immediately lifted the top and got the toy. But if she put it over the toy so and held it down, even though the open side was facing him, he couldn’t figure out how to get the toy. Another thing she did was hide a toy under a mug. Immediately, he lifted the mug and grabbed the toy. But when she brought out a second, identical mug, turned both mugs upside down, and put the toy under the second mug, he couldn’t find it. To be clear, this wasn’t any steal-your-money shell game – she was very deliberate about putting the toy under the second mug. But he turned over the first mug again, and when he didn’t find the toy there, didn’t instantly turn to look under the second mug. Hmm.

I’m so grateful for all the doctors we have access to – I would never know that he should be doing those things at his age, or even to test them, without a doctor to tell us so. It’s hard sometimes to hear that he’s behind, even though it’s to be expected and I should be prepared for it, but it’s so great that we have smart doctors helping him and us. That’s what I have to remember when I start to get worried about things – we’re watching him every step of the way and he has the advantage of great doctors and therapists on his side. It’s frustrating not to have a long-term prognosis – I want a crystal ball to tell me this is all temporary. I don’t want to worry over the what-ifs - what if he doesn’t catch up? What if continued delays cause him to be left out or picked on by other kids? But I just have to focus on what we can do and trust that the rest will fall into place. Plus, the kid charms everyone he meets, so I have to believe he won’t have any trouble making friends.

Yesterday, we had physical therapy. The PT has asked that George or I attend every other session (she meets with Pamela on the other ones), so I came home a little early to attend. Those appointments are tough because he HATES them. He starts screaming very soon after the poor therapist arrives, and keeps it up for most of the time she’s there. Nothing she does hurts him, but he’s clearly scared and also stubborn, and he doesn’t like to do the things she wants him to do. In this appointment, she was focusing on getting him to stand/walk on his own. Because he was born so early, he doesn’t have a great awareness of his body. It sounds weird, but sometimes it looks like he doesn’t really get that his feet are his, that they’re helping him to move, etc. You can also see it when he falls – often, he doesn’t just fall to the ground, he falls and kind of flips over, like he just doesn’t have that much control over the bottom half of his body. So part of learning to stand and walk on his own involves gaining awareness of his legs and feet, and the therapist suggested we get him to stand with his back to a wall. He will do it, but if we try to get him to reach out for something while standing against the wall, he trembles – he just doesn’t trust himself to retain his balance, or to catch himself as he falls. So we’ll just keep working on helping him gain better awareness.

The good news is that he’s more and more mobile all the time. He cruises everywhere these days AND climbs the stairs all on his own (a big surprise to me when I rounded the corner earlier this week to see him halfway up the stairs!). He hasn’t figured out how to go back down the stairs yet, but I’m sure part of that is that I’m paranoid about him falling down the stars to the tile floor at the bottom, and keep the top gate closed all the time. We’ll have to keep working on that one too.

He still isn't speaking, but he now claps for more (we've been trying to teach him a little sign language) and his therapist was excited to see he's communicating. She said we can count that more clapping as his first word. I think once he gets around to actually talking, he's going to have an awful lot to tell us!

As always, I’m so proud of our little guy and how far he’s come!