MichaelZullo.com

On one of my favorite blogs today I saw a post to help Serenity. It kinda hit home because Mikey’s dad was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia just 2 days before Mikey was born. Thankfully he hasn’t needed treatment but I just feel the need to help spread the word when I see others with leukemia in need of help. So please help Serenity, a little does go a long way!

from BabyCheapskate Blog….

I learned about blogger Phil Burns’ heartbreaking story from The Blog Herald. Phil’s a father of eight. His toddler daughter was just diagnosed with leukemia. The family has created a website and blog to share their story and to raise money for Serenity’s treatment. You can donate there, or by using the widget below. Hey, why not click “copy” on the widget and put it on your blog?

For the past couple of days Mikey has been back to shaking his head No. When you say no no no he’ll start shaking it. It’s the cutest thing to see. Well last night he started clapping especially when we said yay. Today when I brought him upstairs with me to work to feed him he was clapping up a storm when I said yay. He even showed some of my coworkers his new talent. He may be developmentally delayed in some areas, but he does excel in others!

We had PT today and it went well. Mikey’s tilt is a ton better. However he is slightly tilting to his right now. But its nothing like his tilt to the left. She worked on getting him to sit unassisted and he just doesn’t last long at all with his back straight. He also doesn’t care to be on all 4s either. PT is supposed to end next month but we can extend it up to another 3 months without needing a new prescription from his pediatrician. We will go ahead and make appointments for 1 more month of it which will give us 2 months to get him to sit and be on all 4s and crawl and if we need to extend it even further we will. The last thing I want is to pull him from PT and just end up right back in PT because he’s still developmentally delayed.

We went to PT today and it was a very informative session. Our therapist actually recently went to a seminar/conference, whatever you wanna call it, over the weekend and they talked a lot about torticollis. Apparently left tilt is VERY common in babies. She also said that lots of kids don’t get to PT until 6 months and really by then its too late because usually they end up in surgery and then go to PT afterwards. So we are definitely ahead of the game. She also said that torticollis affects a lot more than just the neck muscles. She pointed out that his cheeks are uneven and explained why they are. She also explained that because of it his trunk muscles are weaker which totally explains why he isn’t sitting unassisted yet. She showed me a lot of new stretches to do and even showed me how I should feed him solids to get him to open up really wide to help his cheek muscles develop better. Just amazing!! His tilt is a lot better though which is great news. We just need to really work on strengthening.

Toe sucking is where its at! Mikey has been playing with his feets a lot lately and he decided it would be fun to see what they tasted like. He then realized that the big toe was a much better fit for him than his thumb.

Picture coming soon!

As promised here is a picture of Mikey’s two new upper teeth. They just broke through the gums a week ago and they are coming down FAST.

Late yesterday afternoon Mommy and I were sitting on the couch. She was getting ready to feed me a bottle and she was eating some plain cheerios as one of her healthy snacks. Well she decided to offer me one to see if I’d even like it or know what to do with it. The very first one she offered she had held so that I could bite down with my chompers and break it into smaller pieces. It was different because it wasn’t the same as the soft food I’m used to. I was surprised when she offered me another one so I made sure to open my mouth wide open so she knew to give it to me instead of to herself. I had about 6 cheerios and I can’t wait to have more. She told me last night that she’s gonna give me some puffs tonight when we get home from daycare. I heard those are REALLY good!

We didn’t have PT last week because Mikey’s therapist was out of town so that is why there wasn’t an update. We went today (been 2 weeks since our last visit). I updated her on the cold he had and that he has 2 new teeth and that caused him to regress a lot this last week. Made it very difficult to work with him at home. She was happy to see that he wasn’t tilting too bad. But the tilt is definitely still there.

She worked on getting him to sit with his back straight and he did it once for only a few seconds and then toppled over. She also tried to get him on all fours and he was just too tired to do it. She told me to try a few different things this next week to get him to strengthen his back muscles. The main thing we need to try to do is have him reach for toys. Mainly while on his belly, but the catch is to not let him roll over when he tries to reach for it. This reach will help strengthen his lower back muscles and it will help lengthen his neck muscles too. She also told us a way to get him on all 4s is to have him over our leg so that he’s on all 4s and of course once he is strong enough you’d take that support away. She also told me to get him to play doing a side sit because in that position he’ll be able to put himself into all 4s to get to crawl so we’ll be working on that too.

I also told her that when he’s sitting he likes to jerk and fall back and that could be pretty dangerous for him. She said at this age falling forward is normal and they’ll know how to catch themselves. But catching themselves while falling backwards won’t come until he’s around 10 months old. So we’ll need to make sure whatever is behind him is soft to catch him if he falls.

Overall it was a good visit.

It was a pretty uneventful Mother’s Day because Mommy, Daddy, and baby were all sick. Hey at least we shared in a family nap on the couch )

Here’s the cute little gift that Michael put together for me at daycare. Ok maybe he had a little help from his teachers.

Finally teeth #’s 3 and 4 broke through. What a mission that was. I have to admit that I already miss Mikey’s gummy smiles because with his two new teeth he looks like a little chubby rabbit. I promise to post a pic soon.