MichaelZullo.com

We are in the middle of packing because we are taking our first REAL family trip involving an airplane tomorrow morning. We are heading to the nation’s capitol for some medical tests for Gary up at the NIH. His tests aren’t until Monday and Tuesday morning but we figured we’d head up a few days early so that we could do some sightseeing since neither of us have ever been to DC. I have NO idea how Mikey is going to do tomorrow on his first plane ride but I can only hope that it will go super smoothly and that instead of crying he’ll be in awe of what’s going on around him. We’ll definitely take lots of pics and will report back once we arrive home next Wednesday.

Can’t believe that a year and a half ago Mikey was born and now he’s such a big boy running around and having a mind of his own! I took him to the pediatrician this morning for his 18 month check-up.

He weighed in at a whopping 29.2lbs and is 33 inches long!

Quite the growing boy. He got 2 shots but took them like a champ!!!

I took Mikey to his specialist appointment this morning since he wanted to see him at 18 months (and that’ll be on Friday). I was afraid that somehow the doc would see Mikey tilting and he’d suggest something as drastic as botox or even surgery because I did catch Mikey tilting while in the stroller in the waiting room. But he had him walk on his own down the hall mainly to look at his shoulders while he walked to make sure he wasn’t lifting one of his shoulders to help his neck stay straight, but his shoulders were fine. What a relief!!!! The doc said he looks GREAT and he asked me how often we go to PT so I told him. He wants us to cut down to once a month for 2 months and then stop all together but continue stretches at home until he’s 2. Of course if he starts tilting again he wants us to come back but I don’t see that happening.

Yay for finally an end in sight!!!

I got so caught up with posting about the new cool gallery that I forgot to post about Mikey’s latest PT appointment. We went on Wednesday afternoon, it has been about 3 weeks since our last visit. Nothing really new or exciting to report. He showed his therapist that he knows how to run so she was happy to see that. She took him outside so he could practice walking over things. She had him walking over tree roots and he did really well with that. She did some stretches for as long as he’d tolerate. We don’t have another appointment with her until May because she’s going on vacation next week. Next week we also see the specialist so she told me to call her after our appointment so that she knows what he wants to do. We are both hoping that he’ll release us from therapy so that she can formally discharge us. I really hope that is the outcome because honestly PT is a waste of our time. Yes he tilts but he goes both way, and as his therapist said on Wednesday, he’s just using his neck the way he’s supposed to.

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated the Gallery on this site but now we have a brand new one which will be a lot easier for me to keep updated. So check it out, link at the top of the page!!!

Just like every other mom out there I always wanted Mikey’s first word to be mama, but it wasn’t, it was dada. Then after seeing the cute kids in his class saying mommy and daddy I secretly wanted him to say mommy before he said daddy. But in the end none of that mattered because when I heard him say daddy for the first time over the weekend my heart still melted like it would have had he said mommy. I heard it first on Saturday and of course Gary wouldn’t count it until HE heard it. Well yesterday he got to hear it himself. It was the cutest thing too how he heard it. Gary was sitting at his desk in our office at home. Mikey and I were standing by the kitchen. Mikey was holding some toy and I told him to go show daddy what he had. He RAN towards the office because he knew daddy was over there. As he’s running he screams out “Daddy!”. And then screaming back at him was daddy saying “Mikey!”. I just stood there with a HUGE smile on my face. That was a moment that I know I’ll never forget and I hope daddy doesn’t either ;o)