When we were visiting Ronan’s paedatrician last week he reminded me that i had to fill out an 18 month assessment form. The form wasn’t to be filled out until Ronan reached 18 months (corrected) because otherwise the assessment wouldn’t have been fairly marked.
Whilst going through the questionaire and everytime i ticked “no” to the questions my fear of more delays reared. The questions were along the lines of;
- When putting a crayon in your child’s hand and a piece of paper in front of them do they put the crayon tip on the paper (no - he tries to eat it)
- Does your child try to offer their reflection in a mirror the toy they are holding (no - he smiles at himself then looks at me)
- Does he use words put together BUT (not common words ie: no more, where’s dad, all gone), (they are the sort of things he says so maybe he doesn’t know how to speak!)
- Does your child go and get a toy or object when told to (nope - he can’t even walk let alone go and get a toy for me but he did hand me my towel after a shower)
It will be interesting to see the results. Because of the lack of “yes” responses to the questions i am sure he will have to have speech therapy, brain therapy, child therapy ALL dam therapies because he is slow!! Whilst questionaires are great so professionals can assess where a child is, being a parent of an ex premature baby i am now worried about there being a major problem. One thing with a questionaire is that it asks the questions about things your child should be doing but it doesn’t cover questions of what they actually are doing so whilst you may feel that your child is ahead in some things i now feel that Ronan is far more behind than the average 18 month old so the stress and worry has kicked in again. I wonder if premmie parents ever get a break from worrying?
We still can’t believe it!!
I am still in a state of disbelief but Ronan just walked about 10 steps from the door to me.. 
He has been taking little “risks” by walking from lounge to lounge by taking 1 step without support so this is the first time he has ever taken the leap!! Talk about lets get in as many as we can in one go!!!!
Won’t be long now!! It’s funny because the paed was checking his muscle tone and reflexes today to make sure he didn’t have a slight case of cerebral palsy because he wasn’t walking yet.. We were hoping it was going to be by Christmas and it just might be now!!
At 20 months (17 months corrected) he finally took his first real steps!
Well we went and got the results from Ronan’s sleep study today!! He is on the border of mild to severe sleep problems.. He pauses in breathing quite a lot at night, desats with his oxygen levels at a low level - around 71% (should be over 90%).. His condition isn’t at the stage of life threatening BUT it’s the level lower.. 
He is seeing a specialist when i get the chance to make an appointment as he will be having his tonsils and adnoids out.. Apparently his tonsils are the size of golf balls (specialists words) which means when he is asleep and relaxed the tonsils close in together which in turn makes his air flow cease and he is constantly waking at night to make himself breath again..
It is amazing to think that we didn’t even know he had a problem until the paed just out of interest asked me how his sleeping was going so you just never know, but i guess that is why they are the experts!When the doctor said to me that the results were not good as soon as we walked in the door i had a sigh of relief. I actually said to him that i was relieved to know something was wrong because i thought he had a perfect nights sleep when we were there. If these are the results on a good night i would hate to see what they would be on a bad night!
This is a pic of him on a bad day with his eyes.. I still can’t believe we never picked up that anything was wrong.. We just thought he naturally had bags under his eyes just like under my eyes are always dark looking now matter how much sleep i get..
We went on Monday to have Ronan’s photo taken with Santa. There were about 4 other kids before him and every single one was crying and didn’t want a bar to do with Santa. Just before our turn i whispered in his ear that Santa is a nice person and all you have to do is sit on his lap and have a photo taken so no need to cry.
My whispering must have helped because as soon as i placed him on Santa’s knee he just sat there. No crying, whimpering or any looking like he was being tortured to death! He was such a GOOD boy and even the ladies taking the photos couldn’t believe how well behaved he was for his age.
The reason for the title “Typical Ronan” is because he barely ever smiles at camera’s or just when we take a picture he looks away so of course he is going to follow his trend and not look at the camera. They took quite a few pictures and this was the best out of the lot! Next year my aim is to make sure he looks at the camera all the whilst hoping he doesn’t cry!
We went to the “Picnic In The Park” today for Lifes Little Treasures annual christmas get together. It was a great day but damn hot! We spoke to a few of the mum and dads there and it is amazing some of the stories you hear about their premature babies.
Ronan had a blast as “Mr Hoover” was going around to everyones rugs and sat patiently waiting for food. I nick named him hoover a few months ago because whenever we are at prem playgroup he is always looking around for food! I have to say that is it quite embarrassing seeing him do it because it looks like i never feed him (although his weight doesn’t make him look underfed) yet whenever we go somewhere he always has a feed before we go.
The most embarrassing part about today was that he went up to a little girl who was eating a chip and he took it off her, i couldn’t believe it. She of course screamed, he got into trouble from mum (me) so he started crying and i made sure he gave the chip back before he was able to put it into his mouth. I was not his most favourite person in the world when i told him that it was bad manners to take food from other people.
One exciting development today was this afternoon i grabbed his hands to make him stand up. He stood up so i let go (first time i have done that) and he stood standing on his own with NO support for 8 seconds! I have never seen him balance like that before which was just fantastic. I still believe he is months off from walking but to me that was another milestone reached.
