sledding with riaan

Today was Riaan's last day with us before he returns to South Africa. New England is sending him out in frigid style as the temps began dropping today after (relatively) warmer days in the mid to upper 30's.

We wanted to take him sledding as well as to Maine so we headed up to Portland this morning with all our snow gear and sleds. There's some good hills on the Eastern Prom, which overlooks Casco Bay, so it's picturesque as well. The only issue was that the wind was blowing about 25 miles an hour and the temps were dropping into the 20's. Needless to say we didn't stay out too long (45 min or so), but we adults did numerous runs on the hill and Riley got to play on the playground equipment and take a few "toddler hill" runs in his sled. He cried when we left, even though his little fingers were cold. Here's some of the shots we took...my camera got snow on it, so some of the pics have white spots...sorry!

Riaan taking a run on the hill and brandishing his ice weapons:









Riley enjoyed watching the guys go down the hill...he laughed when they fell out of the sled:









He loved the swing..but complained when I made him wait as I readied the camera:









This will be a fun place to play when the temps are above 40!









No visit to Portland is complete without a trip to the Portland Head Light:









Afterwards, we met up with my cousins at Olive Garden. Riley had a ball playing with Erica:









Riley's gonna miss his backseat buddy:









We're sorry to see Riaan leave as we've enjoyed having him here these past 10 days. We hope we'll get to see him again later this year!

Shelby

snow day

We've had several snow storms already, but either we were traveling or sick or too busy getting the driveway cleared. Finally, we had snow on a day where we could take advantage of it, albeit briefly. Sunday, we were driving home from our trip to Connecticut with flakes getting bigger, the further north we drove. By the time we got home (we missed church due to the slow traffic) we had accumulated another 6 inches or so.

Since Riaan is new to snow and Riley had yet to try out his sled, we played for a while in the back yard before helping Jonathan clear the driveway.

Riaan playing in the snow for the first time:









Riaan throwing snow at Riley and then brushing him off:









Riley trying to throw snow and measuring the drift up to his belly button:









We put Riaan to work (for his food!) and Riley liked watching the snowblower:









Can't wait to take my boy sledding very soon!











Shelby

a visit from riaan

The past week we have had the opportunity to host a young man from South Africa by the name of Riaan ("Ree-ahn"), who is here to look at some of our fine schools for a PhD in physics. This is his first time to the US, so we have enjoyed seeing the US through the eyes of a visitor. Among the many firsts that he's experienced is a train ride, a subway ride, Starbucks coffee, Alaskan mooseburgers and SNOW! More on that in our next blog...

Riley has been recovering from the flu so it took him a few days to begin warming up to our guest, but now they're playmates:




























Since it was Jonathan's mom's birthday on Saturday, we drove down to Connecticut and I took Riaan to New York so he could experience The City while he was here. We had a full and fun 10 hrs there, seeing Times Sq, Columbia University, the Museum of Natural History & the Empire State Building.

Eating New England Clam Chowder at Grand Central (he liked it!):














Riaan's first cup on Starbucks, taken on 42nd St. (not too keen on it):














After seeing NYC, Columbia has now moved to the top of the wish list:














Riaan will be with us for the remainder of the week and then we have to let him go home. We've enjoyed getting to know him and we hope to see him again in the fall!

Shelby

why bother organizing??

Shelby bought Riley a toy organizer which came in the mail this week. She put it together last night:















This morning I heard an odd sound (like crinkling magazine pages...) coming from the living / play room and ran out to check. Here's what I saw:















Riley rather obviously enjoyed the organizer. It made a great jungle gym.

Does this mean that our boy doesn't have his Mama's knack for organization? Hmmm....


Jonathan

the mall

I am not a lover of "The Mall". I go when I have to (for apparel, since try to I buy everything else on line) and I stay just as long as necessary. Too many people and too exhausting. I like to wear new clothes, but don't enjoy the hunt for them.

However, after a several years of spending on my boy, it became clear that I needed to update my wardrobe a bit. With Christmas and birthday money, I have been getting reacquainted with our local mall on days when I could leave Riley with Jonathan.

On my last shopping trip to Burlington Mall, I discovered a new play area for the kids near the cafeteria. So tonight Riley and I went to pick up my newly-altered business suit (thanks Mom & Dad!) and afterward, Riley got to play in the kids area:






































































Riley enjoyed playing with the "older"kids:




























We probably stayed an hour...he would have stayed longer. He was running around, squealing, climbing over the toy boat, car & rocket ship having a great time. This will be a familiar place for us to hang this winter, I think.

Much better than an hour of "tee" (TV), don't you think?

Shelby

children's hospital

As most of you know, Riley suffered a stroke in utero that caused him to have seizures in his right arm. The seizures were first observed when he was less than a day old and he was immediately transferred to Children's Hospital in Boston. He spent a total of 12 days in the hospital as the seizures were brought under control with meds. Within 3 months, we were able to wean him off the meds entirely and he hasn't had any seizures since. The advantage of having a brain injury so early in life is that the plasticity of the brain may result in full recovery or at least the ability to compensate for the injury.

We have been bringing Riley to Children's every six months for a follow up assessment to see how his development is progressing. They put a pretty high standard on his development, so if he doesn't make the grade, they refer us to Early Intervention. EI has observed him twice so far and each time said that his development was within the range of normal, so no intervention was deemed necessary.

Last month, I brought Riley in for his semi-annual appointment and the first thing the neurologist noted as he was running was the high tone (hypertonia) on the right side. This means that the muscles are tight and don't stretch as much as they should. Since his stroke was on the left side of his brain, they have been watching his right arm & leg for hypertonia. It's not severe, but there is reduced range of motion on that side of his body. Since Riley uses his right arm and hand much of the time, we had not noticed this at home. She recommended that we contact EI and see if he would benefit from some occupational therepy to increase his muscle tone on that side.

He was then was assessed by a developmental neuropsychologist. He got high marks for socialization & congnitive development. She noted his "mild fixation" on lights that were turned off. This made us laugh, because Riley is obsessed with lights! Upon entry into a room, he scans the lights and calls attention to the ones that are off by pointing and saying "oh-oh". This happens when we're out too, causing people to comment on his good observational skills and that perhaps he'll be an engineer. I'm am hoping that he has some of his mama's organizational skills!

She concluded that his development was mixed. Though his fine motor skills were as expected, he resisted some tasks that indicated a lag. She encouraged us to provide opportunities for him to practice wrist rotation, pincer grasping and develop strength on his right side in particular. To do this we give him items with twist off caps, put coins in his piggy bank and encourage him to play with legos.

His receptive language is fine, but his expressive language is behind. This we knew, but weren't too concerned since he does talk and clearly understands us. Since he uses his 6-8 words on a daily basis and makes attempts to say other words, his prognosis is good. It appears to be a problem with motivation, not abilty. They want us to watch him over the next few months to see if it improves before recommending any speech therapy.

So, we're going to meet with EI again in the next few weeks and see if he will qualify for their services this time. We'll keep everyone posted with the developments.

Shelby

new year's fun

We had plans to ring in the new year with friends, but we got hit by a storm and had to postpone until today. So we enjoyed New Year's lunch at Ken and Lisa's house, along with Dagmar and James. Dagmar is due to give birth to baby Juliana in the next few weeks -- this may be one of their last social events for a little while!

Ken & Lisa's daughter Cecelia is about a year older than Riley and she was a very good host. Cece shared her toys with Riley, pushed him on her bike and fed him chocolate chips. Riley had a great time and both kids did well with no nap.

Playing in Cece's kitchen...James wanted to play too









Cece eating a plastic orange and then sharing her choco chips with Riley









Riley sitting in the doll stroller & riding Cece's bike (note her hot pink helmet that he wanted to wear!)









Ken dancing with the kids and then teaching us a fun board game:









Riley loves an audience -- Cece thought he was funny:


Riley practiced his spinning while Cece showed her ballet moves. He blows at kiss at the very end:


Happy New Year!

Shelby