and the bravery award goes to....

Mr. Connor Moody!!!!!!!
You have gone through and continue to go through so much with hardly a peep or complaints.
You have therapy several times a week, have to see countless numbers of doctors, wear braces on your hands and legs and have nothing but smiles to offer to people.

(before surgery)

(checking out his GIANT booties)

You had surgery yesterday morning, are in an insane amount of pain but still continue to smile and dance while laying lazily on the couch.

(right after surgery.  lots of pain)

The nurse at the hospital did a horrible job taking out your I.V. from your foot and you hardly screamed even though it was clear you were in agony.

We can hardly change your diaper right now without you wincing but somehow you still manage to look into mommy and daddy's eyes and say dack oon (love you).

For this Connor-you are by far the bravest little boy mommy and daddy will ever know and you deserve this award with love!

To my wonderful husband

Happy Father's Day.  You are an incredible father to our son.  Connor and I are so lucky to have you in our lives.
Enjoy this day with your boy!

We love you!

A big boy now...

Connor has therapy several times a week and on Thursdays we find ourselves there for hours.  It is by far his favorite day of therapy so I am sure he doesn't mind the long sessions.
Today was a big day for Connor.  He was able to climb the stairs holding onto just one hand of the therapist and he practiced walking on a balance beam.  As his therapist came out to tell me all of this good progress she also mentioned to me that she now believes he can be classified in the 15-18 month category physically.
This is amazing news.  Six months ago he was 12-15 months.  He is beginning to progress quickly.
I am a very proud mommy.

Did I just seriously notice this now....

I have the most adorable little boy imaginable...

Time to bring them down....

It is finally time for Connor to have surgery on his little testicles. Connor has seen a urologist a few times now and we all hoped that once Connor started walking, gravity would do its job and they would come down on their own.  No such luck this time.  In fact, the left testicle has gotten higher than the last time the doctor checked.
He will be having both brought down on June 21.  It should be a very simple procedure lasting no more than two hours.  He will be able to go home later the same day.   I am not so nervous about the surgery itself but more so about the anesthesia.  I was a nervous wreck last year during his MRI so I am sure this will be no different.
There are a few good things about getting this down while he is so young...
1.  He wont remember this when he is older.
2.  Connor should recover within several days to a week.
3.  He will be showered with love and I am sure presents.
Eric and I had the time off from work already to celebrate my birthday so instead of doing that this year, we will be using the time off to celebrate Connor having testicles in the right place.

I don't understand....

So far, the toughest hurdle for Connor has been speech.  He KNOWS he is saying something to us yet, we have not clue what it is and cannot understand him.  All of his words sound the same.  I think he has about 6-7 words which are clear and we are able to understand.  He has a phonetics problem where he hears the words we say clearly but for some reason the brain does not send the message to the mouth correctly.  He either says the word back words or might only say half of the word.  Some words he hears completely differently.
We tell him LOVE YOU and is response is "bot boo"(or something of that nature).  The good thing for us is that he has all of the correct syllables and he is saying his own words in the same fashion we would say ours.
It is going to be a long road of learning how to talk.
I have decided to start making charts for Connor.  It is too difficult for him to ask us something.  He knows what he wants but we cant quite understand him yet.  I will be taking pictures of basic things and when he wants or needs something I will go ahead and ask him what it is.  This way I can help him learn "our" language a little better and can understand "his" language at the same time.

This one hits home...

A friend of mine sent me this poem.  It had me in tears.  It is a beautiful poem about raising a child with special needs.

"Welcome to Holland"

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandt's.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.