More photos from Grandy's 90th

More photos from Grandy's 90th, courtesy of Mike and Claire and wee Sophie...fun with bubbles, and hide and seek.....

 

 

 

 

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October road trip to celebrate Grandy's 90th!

Robin and I took a few days off in October for a LONGER long Labour Weekend, to get a quick break in before the busy Christmas time, and get some rest from what has been a busy couple of months for the both of us at work.

First up, we went to Tauranga with Granny and Grandaddy, to celebrate Grandy's 90th Birthday (Grandaddy's Dad). We stayed at a little motel in Bethlehem, where Nate took great joy in entertaining us all! Jen also found another toy shop with a fabulous range, and a few more purchases were made for the at-home collection - we're thinking we could open a private kindy....:-)

On the Sunday, all of the Ryan / Clarks / Tait clan (well at least those who were in the country) gathered at Millsreef for a celebration birthday lunch and a bit of a chin wag. It was great to to see everyone, and to celebrate Grandy's birthday and his impending move to Te Awamutu to live with one of my aunts. We were initially a bit worried about how Nate would cope with 30-40 people in close proximity, but he managed really well, even wandering around and playing on his own after awhile. Unfortunately no photos of that :-(

And the next day, hanging out at Grandy's place....

Our cheeky monkey!

Four generations of Ryan's!

Then we spent the next few days hanging out in Auckland with our wee man....it was really lovely to have the opportunity to take him to the park, take him to Conductive Education, and to get along to his Developmental Playgroup to meet the therapists and a few of the parents. We have even managed to get a few visits into some different kindy options that we are looking at for next year sometime.

Here are some of the pics and videos from this weeks conductive session (plus the first one, which is from an earlier session)...

Musical Nate, like Grandad Roy!

We also treated him to a trip to Kelly Tarltons to see the fish. He especially liked the tunnel walkway with the revolving tunnel around it (lots of squealing over that!), and seemed to enjoy the penguin feeding too. We have come home with our own stuffed Nemo, and a few fish and penguin magnets for the fridge. Great fun and a real treat to get some quality time with our wee man :-)

Fisherman Nate, like Grandad David!

And lastly, some fun times at home.....lots of laughter :-)

 

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The boys hang out for 10days, sans Mummy!

In October, I went to San Francisco and London for ten days for work - which is my first extended time away from Nate. Needless to say I was a little apprehensive about going. Here are some of the shots of us at the park, a few days before I flew out.....

Having fun on the see-saw!

I wasn't so much worried about how everyone would cope with looking after Nate without me - we do have a great team around Nate with Granny and Grandaddy, and Aunty Helen, and our boy is very well cared for. But I was worried about the small possibility of Nate getting sick. Even a simple bug has a much greater risk of putting him in hospital (much more than it would a typical kid), and in fact each time he has caught something, we have ended up in Starship or at least in A&E :-(. At only 19months old and with a rare genetic condition and associated airway challenges, any bug carries extra risk for Nate. I really didn't fancy being in the other side of the world should he be even remotely sick.....but fortunately it wasn't a problem, Nate was 100% fine :-).

And actually so was I - Robin, Granny and Aunty Helen sent me lots of updates on wee Nate, and we skyped a lot - so I never really felt that far away. In fact, Mummy coped remarkably well being away from her boys!! Here are a couple of pics of some of the more exciting highlights of that trip......

Trying Google Glass out

Cycling around Google campus :-)

Catching up for dinner with my bros in London!

Health-wise and developmental-wise, Nate has continued to do well over the last month. Physically he weighed in at 10.96kg at his 18m2w weigh-in, which isn't bad considering he was sick the week prior. His length is 82cm, and his head circumference 49.3cm. He continues to track at about the 50% percentile for height and weight versus typical kids, which is awesome (the exception being his head which continues on the 91st percentile - not sure he will ever grow into that!). I think I have mentioned that T9Ms tend to be smaller of stature, which can impact development of their physical milestones, so keeping him bang on average has many benefits and we're thrilled he's holding on the curve! He's eating well too, a much better appetite :-)

Plus this month, we finally got our first hearing aid - you might see it in some of the shots below (it's a bright blue unit, with a orange cord attaching it to his clothes (just in case he gets tempted to ditch it!), and sits behind his right ear). No issues with him wearing it so far, in fact he actually seems to like it....so it must be helping.

He also has continued to gain confidence with his physical and fine motor skills, but our key area of focus now is very much with speech, especially now that he has the hearing aid. He understands some makaton signs (like yes, bye, no, up, more, nappy, bottle, eat, drink, bed, book, finish, dummy), and actually can make a couple of signs himself, like nappy and bye. However his actual speech remains very limited, although we do get 'round and round', 'more', 'duck', and sometimes 'up'.

We are working with a private speech therapist as regularly as we can manage, to try to help this develop. Lots of repetition and single words are the focus around here! Hopefully we see this pay off....from what we can see around the world, some T9Ms can speak fairly well, while others use makaton sign quite extensively instead, and a few remain non-verbal using only limited sign or pictures to communicate from. Touch wood we see the former with Nate.....

Here are some shots of him enjoying one of his favourite places in the world.....the local park :-)

At the park, rocking the Adidas

At the park with Daddy, when Mummy away

And out at Jumping Beans....

Playing with Mummy's shoe while she's away

At home in his tent

Practising his drawing at home

Resting in the evening, with the Wiggles

Nap time with Monet (for about 5seconds I would think!)

And to finish, a shot of our little man, looking less than happy - while he doesn't speak, he can surely communicate how he is feeling when he's tired! But even when he is grumpy, he's adorable :-)

 

 

 

 

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