We had photos taken for the local paper as you would have read just below and they ended up using one of the pictures from that shoot for the news of my “Local Hero” award. I just LOVE the photo they chose and he looks gorgeous, well of course i think so because i am his mum!

Ronan is going for his pre op appointment next Monday for his operation coming up. There is no date booked yet but it is all happening. He will be having his tonsils and adnoids removed and to be honest i can’t wait! He is not sleeping the best of late and you can tell that he really struggles at times to breathe whilst asleep. He will be a totally different child once they have been removed. I won’t be able to recognise him without the big black bags under his eyes which he has had for SO long i cannot remember seeing a photo of him without them. He will have bundles of energy which he already has now so look out mum and dad!

I will let you know how his pre op appointment goes and whether we are told when his operation will be. It is a little nerve wracking but i actually feel a lot better about this operation compared to when he had his hernia operation before he left NICU.

Everything is full steam ahead for us and i cannot wait!

Ronan was walking a long furniture for i think 7 months before he finally let go. Those premmie fighting instincts finally kicked in and he was a free man! He took his first step without support at 18 months corrected. To be honest i had no idea how much longer it would be before he would then one day he tried and has never looked back since. It was the proudest moment of our lives to see the look of excitement on his face.

Whilst he loves walking and the more he walks the more exercise his muscles get he still cannot bend his knee’s to pick something off the floor without holding onto support. His muscle tone is once again letting him down and we are forever trying to built that strength up by helping him to walk up stairs which is a real struggle for him.

Winning the “Local Hero” award with my council i hope to help other parents with premature babies around my area. I have a few idea’s in the pipeline and hopefully they come to fruitation but it will be a long process one that i hope premmie babies and their parents will use should their babies have milestone delays.

Ronan still has a long way to go with his walking but each and everyday he is growing and learning so much. What else can a parent of an ex 27 week premature baby wish for?

I had a phone interview with the editor asking questions like; What was your experience of having a premature baby, what delays do premature babies have, what do they do to help the delays, did having a premature baby change your life etc..

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I was always under the impression that tantrums didn’t start until toddlers turned 2 years old, how wrong was i?

About a month ago Mr Ronan started throwing himself on the floor with his bum in the air crying because i wouldn’t let him go out the front when i went to check the mail. This was the moment that i realised my little man was changed forever.

He has good days and very annoying days. He can throw a tanty out of nowhere for no reason but i do believe that teething might have some reason for the angry man of late. His fingers are always in his mouth, he is drooling A LOT (i have a fear of baby drool!) and he is always biting the lounge or anything that he can get a hold of.

We went to a party today and he kept annoying these poor people in the corner who were trying to push their baby on a swing. He kept getting in their way so i went and picked him up. He arched backwards to the point where i almost dropped him (he is 12kgs and has the strength of an ox), was crying his eyes out and was squirming to get away. I always seethed children that threw tantrums whilst out in public and i always felt SO sorry for the parents, now i am beginning to be one of them.

At home we just walk away from him when he is on the ground and he does not like it one bit but i want him to know that i will not stand for it and within 5 mins he is trying to crawl all over me as if to say “do you still love me”. It is very very cute but i do not give in to him.

The joys! This is only the beginning of the tantrum journey for me and i know it will probably get worse but at the end of the day he is only a toddler and doesn’t know how to handle anger just yet, but we are on the path to teaching him how too.

Thankgod he still sleeps 13 hour nights!

We got him his own pool for Christmas and he never wants to get out.

He could be shivering and have blue lips but wants to stay in there. When we think he has had enough he makes us chase him around the pool to try and grab him. Once we do finally get a hold of him and put the towel around him he throws a tanty!

It seems like we have a real water baby on our hands.

I am about to book Ronan in for swimming lessons as i believe it will help him with his muscle tone. Most early born premature babies have low muscle tone which is why many have to attend physio to help reach their milestones and Ronan is certainly one of those babies/toddlers.

A friend who’s little girl didn’t walk until she was 2 years old started swimming lessons and within 3 months started walking. I do not know if swimming honestly contributed to her walking but many physio’s recommend swimming as a form of strenghting your muscles so i really want to give it a go!

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?

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!

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..

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!

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.