Connor

Connor is the newest addition to our family, and he definately fits right in :) He is my stubborn attention hog, and I love it! He decided to wait until the afternoon of his due date to make his appearance. There was only about 7 hours from my first hint of labor until my little guy showed up. He is so incredibly identical to Aiden it is crazy! The only real obvious difference is Aiden has green eyes and Connor's are blue, and Connor's nose is a little more upturned. I think Aiden turned out pretty darn cute, so I have no problem having another one who looks the same :)

Connor is such a happy baby! He is always smiling, except when I get the camera out... he doesn't like my face hiding behind that thing. He's very much a momma's boy, but his favorite person is his big brother. No matter how upset he may get, as soon as Aiden smiles at him and talks to him, he is all smiles :)

Aiden

Hmm, where do I start with him? Aiden is my whole world. He is my miracle baby in so many ways, and I don't know what I did to deserve such an amazing child! He's my Navy brat, he lived in 3 different states in just over 2 years, and has adjusted so well! He loves his grandma and papa so much, and it is awesome that he now has the chance to see them so often, rather than every few months!

Aiden is in the process of being officially diagnosed with cerebral palsy. He has always favored his left side... we knew he was left handed by the time he was 3 months old, which I am now finding out is the first sign that there was a problem. He still learned how to walk at 10 months old, despite the fact that he has partial paralysis! We started working with an occupational therapist, Paula, on January 5th, and the improvement in his hand is incredible! She comes to our house every other week for one on one time, and he attends a playgroup with a whole group of therapists every Wednesday. One his initial evaluation, his right arm use was at about 10% of what it could be. Our goal is to be at 80% by the time he is 3, and he is well on his way to that goal. It's the little things that excite me right now, today at playgroup, he picked up a glue stick and attempted to use both hands to take the top off! That was unheard of just a few months ago! I am so proud of my little man! He gets his first home visit with a physical therapist on Tuesday to start working on his leg. He uses it pretty well, he walks, runs and climbs, but when he overuses it, his ankle twists in and his foot clubs up. The PT will be working on stretching out his hamstring which is freezing up as he gets older. I just wish one of his many pediatricians had caught all of this at some point in the last 2.5 years, because he would be doing so much better by this point! The next step is to get in to see a neurologist, who will perform an MRI so we can see if there is any permanent brain injury. He had a traumatic birth, but none of his docs ever followed up on that. We should have answers soon, but in the meantime, I am so grateful for the Early On program here!

Aiden working on putting poker chips through a little slot with his OT.



We took our first trip to the John Ball Zoo 2 weeks ago, and Aiden loved it! He is absolutely obsessed with animals, and incredibly compassionate. I don't think he would have minded if we had left him there, especially if it meant he was able to stay with the penguins forever!


Here's Aiden checking out a puma... he loves watching them on Diego, so it was amazing for him to see one in real life!

Here we go!

Let me start by saying that I am pretty new to this whole blogging thing. I started doing it on Myspace, but I am not on there enough to keep up with it! I guess I am just going to start this one like it's my first, so excuse me if anything you read sounds familiar, because in the beginning at least, it's going to sound a lot like my Myspace ones!
I joined thfe Navy almost exactly 6 years ago now, wow does time fly! When I left for bootcamp, I was leaving behind a pretty crazy time in my life. My goal was to start over, with people who didn't know me or my past. I wanted to spend some time single and drama free for awhile. My first duty station ended up being Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Not bad huh? I arrived there on April 29th, 2004, and went to my first barracks kegger that weekend. Yeah, not really off to a good start in the "changing my old ways" department, but at least I was still determined to stay single. Fast forward to 4 weeks later... yup, I met Brandon, and we have been together since :) Hey, I tried! We were married 9/22/05 and were pregnant 3 months later. Aiden made his appearance 8/29/06, and we left Hawaii 5/07 for Virginia... what a sad change! I found out Connor was on his way just a few weeks after my doc told me I had too much damage from Aiden's birth and couldn't get preggers again! We bought a house in East Lansing after Brandon was accepted to MSU in March '08... we knew it was going to need work, but wow, when we finally made it up to Michigan to look at it, it was beyond bad! Brandon moved up in August and stayed with my parents, making the hour commute every day until our house was at least somewhat liveable. I went on leave on October 1st and moved up to Michigan to have Connor, who arrived on 10/28/08. The timing worked out perfectly, I had 42 days of maternity leave with the Navy (thru 12/9/08), and my last day in the Navy was 12/8/08. I am free!!! I currently stay home with the kids and I am taking classes online at night after they are in bed. It's pretty tricky, but eventually I will have a degree!