May - Mother's Day and Anat Baniel

This is one of my favorite pictures! Its the first time sitting by himself for a haircut.

Bran and I continue to serve on the Parent Advisory Committee for the NICU at Children’s Hospital. This year I am heading up the events committee and coordinated a gift for Nurse’s Appreciation Week, and Mother’s Day/Father’s Day gifts to the parents with babies in the NICU. Since we spent both holidays with Lucas in the hospital, I know it is a difficult time for parents. I remember how touched we were on those days to walk in and receive a gift at the bedside “To Mommy” and “To Daddy”. This time, I got the privilege of working on this from the other side. We decided to give a stamp kit to capture tiny footprints, and I created a special card for them. The nurses stamped the footprints before the mothers came in that day and had it waiting by the bedside.

It was also meaningful to me because it was difficult to get footprints of Lucas in the early days of his life… but these tiny-tiny footprints are one of my most cherished items from his birth. I delivered 50 of them... but that also means 50 babies were fighting for their lives on these days, and 50 sets of parents were hurting… its not right. The sad reality is, since the babies that are at Children’s tend to be the sickest ones, many never make it home. If I was able to give one parent something they can cherish forever with these footprints, I am happy. We did a similar thing for Father's Day with a photo folder, and a place for a picture.

We went to New York for a weekend of therapy with Marcy again and two sessions with Anat Baniel herself!! It was amazing (and expensive)… but seeing her work with Lucas was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I know it sounds hard to imagine, that two sessions with one person can make an impact, but you have to just see her in action to understand. She told us at the end of the second day that she sees so much potential in Lucas, specifically because he is so alert and attentive to “listening” to his body when she is working with him. This is a huge sign that he has the capacity to learn these movements. She told us at the end, “every once in awhile I meet a child that I am burning to get my fingers on…. Lucas is one of these children because I see so much potential.” She reminded us that our critical window of learning is right now, and we have to keep focused on this over the next several months.

"Happy Mother's Day" Footprint Cards

Mother's Day with "G"

Giving "knuckles" to GranDan

In New York with Anat

In Central Park

March for Babies!

Our Little Ambassador!

It was an honor for Lucas to be the March of Dimes Ambassador for Montgomery County this year. I was asked to share his story at the county kickoff meeting to corporate sponsors and family teams, and to speak at the Deloitte and Touche charity day. Its always an emotional story for me to tell, recounting his rocky beginning.

But the best was kicking off the morning walk. It is always an emotional time. There was no escaping the tears, and the passion I feel about the work of the March of Dimes. When I was compiling my thoughts for the speech, I recalled that although Lucas’ birth was the most frightening time of my life, he was born during the most beautiful week of the cherry blossoms, where they explode with color along the Tidal Basin. So every year, his birthday, the walk, and the cherry blossoms--all coincide. This will always be a significant beautiful representation for us every year. That week we went out and bought a picture of a cherry blossoms in bloom and hung it in Lucas’ room.

Another very special part of the walk... Abby told us the night before that she would also like to speak. We encouraged her to do so, of course, were also worried the thousands of people may be intimidating. Bran explained to her there would be a lot of people, and welcomed her to change her mind if she didn’t want to once we got there. But she didn’t waiver… showing so much maturity beyond her age of 9, she took the microphone from me and told everyone how much she loved her little brother, she thanked the March of Dimes for saving him, and for all the other babies. There wasn’t a dry eye on that field. I speak for all of us in how proud we were of her, but especially Bran.

We then got to hold the banner, and lead the walkers down the street. We were so happy to be joined by our families and friends that came out to support us, and for the money we raised!

Team Lucas!

Leading the walkers

An emotional speech at the kickoffAbby's amazing speech

Little Parker...LOVE this picture!

Our friends Parker and Nicolle!

Lucas joined by both his Grandma's

So happy my Mom flew here to be part of this day!

Snacks after the walk

Old friends - with Deanna from the March of Dimes

The Cherry Blossoms

School Update!

I know everyone is waiting to hear how school is going... its been a little over month and so far its been GREAT! Lucas loves going and gets so excited to see the other kids. As soon as we pull up to the school in the morning, he starts naming them... "Oscar, Joselle, Lucy, Edwin..." So cute! Oscar is his little friend, he's 4 and the most "mature" in the class. He takes care of Lucas and is always getting his chair and sitting next to him. Since Lucas is the only immobile child in the class, Oscar is kind of like his little helper.

His teacher has been fantastic, she's so sweet with him and is always giving Lucas kisses and me a hug when I drop him off. Everyone we've met there has been the same way... warm, sweet, and caring. Of course, he's charmed them all with his constant good mood. I realize how different he is when I drop or pick him up and other kids are acting up and crying. That's never Lucas! A couple weeks after he started, the assistant stopped me and said, "I have to tell you, we are enjoying him SO MUCH!"

Every day they send home a summary of his day, what they sang, what they worked on, what OT/PT did with him, etc. It warms my heart to read reports like, "Lucas held an earthworm today and was very interested, he held it up and looked at it"... (the "looked at it" is important for this type of class!) They are constantly sending home crafts and projects that he "helped" with... for the first time ever, I have refrigerator art! :-)

Our nanny even mentioned to me the other day that this school is unlike any that she's seen in all her years of picking up children from school. She said they are so much more loving and attentive to the kids and she can't believe how much they make a fuss over Lucas. Very unusual for a public school, that's for sure!

He's changing a lot already, its like school made him more alive. He's energetic, more giggly, talking like crazy, and is even more social (as if he could get more social). The best part is when he breaks out in a song that he's learned at school. He doesn't quite have all the language to belt it out completely, but he'll try to sing a few words and hit the notes (sounding again like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals). His latest one is "Head, tummy, knees, & toes". I learned it as "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes," so when he just said it out of the blue one day "head.... tummy... knees... toooeees" I didn't catch it at first. Then I dropped him off the next day and sure enough, they were all singing that song.

The highlight of my day is dropping him off and seeing the other children. The only little girl in the class, Lucy, can make any rough morning turn into a good day. I wrote about her back in January when we looked at the school and how she stood out to us then. She is not able to see much at all, so she has to ask, "who's there?" The first time it happened I said "I'm Lucas' mom." She screamed with excitement in this really high pitched voice "Lucas's Mom!! Lucas's Mom!!... Hiiiii!" Then she followed it up with "give me a high five!" And when I did she yelled, "that was a good one!" So adorable! Another day she was sitting next to an empty chair for Lucas to begin story time. When she learned I was putting Lucas there, she clapped and flapped her arms, "Lucas is sitting next to me!!!" And follows it up with, "Hiiiiii Lucas's Mom!" and leaned in to give me a kiss. So we go through this every day, but she seldom has to ask who I am anymore, she can tell from my voice. Sometimes I'll just feel her arms wrap around my leg to give me a hug as I'm passing Lucas off. I just love her.

Here's a picture of him before school a few weeks ago and with his new backpack.

Lucas and his buddy, Oscar, waiting for circle time
Videos of Lucas and his backpack and naming his friends at school.