The Journey of James Weston

Thursday, August 18th, 2022 Mom worked out James pretty hard in the morning so in the afternoon James was napping when PT was supposed to start. He ended up waking once he heard our voices talking. Our physical therapist was very impressed at how well James was doing with standing up and wanting to pull himself up.  Mom also got a call from another therapist who would be joining our Early Steps team. She will be coming by tomorrow just to get a feel for how James is doing. She falls under Early Intervention through Early Steps and would come once a week. The focus would be on communication skills (signing, babbling and working with our speech therapist), social/emotional skills (playing and interacting), fine motor skills (picking up small objects, drawing, holding a spoon). This way our physical therapist who comes twice a week can focus on gross motor skills (crawling walking, independently sitting, standing). James twisted himself up in his circuit. 😲 P.S. You can email James y...

Wednesday, August 17th, 2022 James' nap schedule was off today and he ended up with a really late nap. Mom hates to wake a sleeping baby, but the thing is we needed to do his trach change a little earlier when Dad was available. With Dad's calls being back to back it just so happened that someone had rescheduled and we had an opening for trach care! Unfortunately when we woke him up from his nap that he just went down for James was very angry at us. This was the first time he really through a tantrum. He worked up his emotions to cry and slammed his legs down on the bed. However it was short lived because he has such a pleasant temperament. Mom told him we were going to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" 🕷️ and he smiled because right now this is one of his favorites. Actually you could probably sing any song and he would love it. Well Dad started singing but performed it his way  like Frank Sinatra. Well James just slowly put his head down and stared at the floor. He is getti...

Tuesday, August 16th, 2022 We are moving physical therapy to Tuesday/Thursday instead of Wednesday/Friday. We have been extremely happy with our therapist through Early Steps. Today we worked on more bearing weight through his legs and arms. The great thing is that James is really wanting to stand.  After PT Mom played with James on the floor and for some reason James thought that the phone charging cord needed to go on his head. He was very adamant about that! [Video] James helped Mom in the kitchen with dinner as the sun was setting in the backyard. James had prunes for dinner and gave himself a moustache. He also played the drums on his crib railing. P.S. You can email James your love and support as often as you’d like. Mom and Dad read these email to James as they come in. We all love them! JamesWestonAbramowitz@gmail.com

Monday, August 15th, 2022 James didn't last very long in his new Captain America t-shirt that Mom got him at Target. Between the G-tube leaking and peeing out the diaper there are a lot of outfit changes. 🤦🏻‍♀️🧺 This week we would not have any out of the house appointments; however it would be one of the busiest work weeks for Dad. 🤳 👨🏻‍💻  James has been really improving his eye contact. Within the last few weeks he has been making eye contact when playing, rolling balls back and forth, and reading books. Sometimes he is looking for approval before doing something and other times he is really just trying to to engage in communication. These are huge improvements! With James being in the hospital for so long there are so many things like this that we have to work on a little bit harder than someone else would. In actuality most parents wouldn't even know that a developmental milestones would be focusing on eye contact when rolling a ball back and forth. James self soothin...

Sunday, August 14th, 2022 James had his first long walk. We walked to shopping center about 2 blocks away. Round trip was about a mile and a half. We were concerned that it was getting gloomy and it called for rain within the hour. 🌦️ However the temperature was in the low 80s which would be the coolest it would ever be for a while. Plus in Florida it only rains for a few minutes. We figured worst case scenario Mom would take him into a store and Dad could walk home in the rain and get the car. Our main concern was getting the ventilator wet. We haven't tested it and don't plan to.  We first stopped at the Dollar Store for bread so we could feed the ducks 🦆 at the nearby lake. James threw as far as he could to reach the ducks but him just trying was cute enough. Then we walked over to Marshalls which was at the opposite end. You never know what you're going to find at Marshalls! 😆 We took James through the home goods section, the random snack aisle, and to look at the to...