I really want to share my birthday cake video with you. Last Saturday everyone came to celebrate my birthday at my house. Mommy made me a monkey cake!! It was yummy….and lots of fun to play with!

I have expanded his free roam area to include both the dining room and the living room. He has just started to find the buttons on the TV so we’ll have to find a way to gate that off soon. He also loves empty diaper boxes. They are a perfect height for him to pull up on. Yesterday he climbed on top of one of the boxes and proceeded to get onto the chair next to it…all before I even noticed. He’s a quick little guy.

Josh likes to spend time with the little guy in the evenings and on weekends creating new games. Here are a few of the newest:

Taylor is also making excellent progress with his helmet. We are going to the orthodist today to get his measurments checked again but he was making great progress at his 6 week appt. His PT is also going well. We are now trying to correct the things he taught himself when his neck was still tight. When he rolls over he uses his legs instead of his torso and neck and he tends to sit shifted into his right hip.

In almost no time we’ll be celebrating his birthday! I can’t believe it’s been almost a year already. Time goes way too fast!

We went to Granna & Grampy’s for Easter brunch. Taylor loves the bouncy swing they have.

Taylor also enjoys the music table the he got for Xmas. He’s pretty hard on it…

Rody (the horse) was also an Xmas gift. Taylor is continuously finding new ways to play with him.

The newest milestone that he has reached is that he is now crawling on hands and knees. He’s being doing it a little bit here and there for about a week but today it has become his preferable mode of transportation.

He’s been standing at his music table a lot. Here is a video showcasing his talents:

Taylor’s play mat converts into a tunnel. He has been trying to climb under everything lately and keeps getting stuck and frustrated. So I decided to put this together for him and he love’s it. Especially when there is something fun on the other side!

Taylor is also vocalizing for and more each day. Yesterday he let out a DaDa rant. No sign of MaMa yet but we’ll get there in time. I’m still trying to catch one of his vocal rants on video. He tends to stop when I pull out the camera. Oh well… I may have to be sly about it.

Taylor is also getting more efficient with his crawling. He’s not fully up on hands and knees yet but we saw a short glimpse of him do it yesterday. But today he is on a mission to go places.

And of course Taylor enjoys laughing, especially when his parents are making fools out of themselves.

I’ve also found that this stage of life is much easier to capture on video than in photos. He just moves too much and that makes getting good pictures a challenge!

Taylor seems to be adjusting really well to having the helmet on his head. Here is a video of him getting around.

First off, Taylor is completely fine (and that is not me being in denial). He’s progressing against his developmental milestones very nicely and is a wonderful, happy little guy. I wanted to point that out up front so nobody gets freaked out.

At around his four month checkup, our doctor noticed that Taylor’s head was slightly deformed, in that he had a flat spot on his left rear side and his right rear side had become pronounced. He also noticed that his face had developed some slight asymmetric characteristics, in that his left eye was slightly larger than the right. He immediately recommended that we get X-Rays of Taylor’s head to rule out a serious condition known as craniosynotosis, where the gaps in a baby’s skull close prematurely. He was fairly certain this was not the case, but wanted to rule it our for sure.

Thankfully, the X-Rays proved our doctor’s position correct; Taylor’s skull was fine. This meant that Taylor was diagnosed with a condition known as positional plagiocephaly. Basically, it is a deformity of the skull caused by a baby’s tendency to remain in a particular position, thus putting pressure on a certain part of the skull more than others. Because an infant’s skull is soft and malleable for many months after birth, this pressure causes the skull to be rounded in an unusual way.

We had previously noticed that T tended to sleep with his head turned sharply to his left, with his chin titled upward. But we didn’t make anything of it; it was just one more lovable quirk about our little guy. It turns out that this was due to a second condition called torticollis, which is a stiffening of the muscle and tendon tissue connecting the neck to the shoulder, causing T’s head to be pulled off center. Most likely he was either born with this or it was exacerbated by his vacuum delivery; regardless the doctor explained it as being somewhat like a semi-permanent charlie horse. This caused his tendency to remain in one position, which in turn caused the deformity of his skull.

So fast forward five months later. Taylor has been being seen by a physical therapist once per week and has made tremendous progress. He can now turn his head both ways with ease and is displaying neck strength pretty much on par with where he should be (just look at the most recent pictures on this site). We’ve also been strict about changing the position he sleeps in, from both sides to his back, and even sometimes his belly (mostly at his own choice). But despite all this, his skull has not completely returned to a normal shape. Even though I would bet that most people looking at him would never notice, his left-rear side is still somewhat flattened, with an equally subtle pronouncing of his right side.

So because of this, his PT has recommended we pursue the fitting of a cranial orthotic, or basically a fancy molded helmet that will gently help realign his skull in place. Treatment will last between 3-6 months, with T wearing the helmet for up to 23 hours per day. Insurance some times does not cover this treatment, which would mean we would have the awful choice of either putting a significant dent in our emergency fund (the helmet costs about $3,000) or possibly leaving our little guy with a problem that, while it may turn out to be nothing more than cosmetic, could cause issues down the road. Needless to say if that decision comes to us, we’re choosing for Taylor’s best interest.

So why, you ask, am I writing about this? Because I hope that our experience will help other new parents to remember that while your little one may always seem perfect in your eyes, it’s also important to keep an objective (as possible) eye on their behavior and appearance. It turns out that since the advent of the “Back To Sleep” campaign, which without a doubt has had tremendous positive impact on the rate of SIDS, this condition has increased significantly. If we had noticed Taylor’s knack for sleeping and holding himself in one way earlier, the condition could well have been prevented or at least resolved without the need for expensive medical gadgets.

And by the way, helmet or no helmet, we still think our little guy is pretty damn special.

Some good resources on positional plagiocephaly:

http://www.cappskids.org/

http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/positional_plagiocephaly.html

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/positional_plagiocephaly.cfm

Here are a couple of videos from the past week.

Taylor is working very hard on figuring out the crawling thing. He is now getting up on his hands and knees and rocking…even if it’s only for a few seconds.

Here is Taylor’s first encounter with pots and pans. He really loves anything that makes noise.

Taylor found a binky in his box of toys and figured out what to do on his own.

Taylor and Daddy have also found a great way to play when Josh gets home from work.

Enjoy! He’s growing so fast!

Here he is drumming on a toy box with Mommy

Here he is checking out a frisbee

Here he is trying to find the baby in the mirror

I also go this great toy from the Peters for Christmas. I play with it a lot!

He is so much fun to watch and videotape!