Yes, it's been a while. I thought I'd take a moment to catch everyone up on the past few months.

Cameron continues to move forward with his eating. He has moved up to cream of wheat and on occasion, grits. He really is learning to enjoy the flavors of different foods and tend to prefer things like pudding and prunes of all things! He had a swallow study in February that shows that he is not aspirating and that we can continue feeds. This also allows him to get feeds at school! I have to admit, the praise goes to Mrs. Annie. She has been so determined that he WILL eat and that he WILL be free of that feeding tube! She has been a tremendous blessing to Cam and our family.

The Therapy Place continues to move forward and we are set for our first offering this summer. We have scheduled a Conductive Education summer camp running from July 13th to August 14th here in Columbia. This will be the first time Conductive Education has been offered in Columbia and we are so proud to bring it here! The historic Trinity Episcopal Cathedral located in downtown Columbia has offered their Center for Mission and Ministry as space for our program. We have scheduled a golf tournament for Monday, April 20, 2009 to help pay for the program.

Chad and Conner are moving right along through the school year. Chad is 10 and is in the fourth grade. He is doing fairly well, but school is NOT his favorite thing. He did play football last fall and decided that was not his thing. Baseball is no longer his thing either so we are having a quiet spring! I'm kind of grateful for that actually. I hope Chad can figure out what his thing is!

Conner is wrapping up his last pre-school year at North Trenholm Baptist Church's Weekday Education. He is doing very well and loves to go. He has some wonderful friends that may actually end up in Kindergarten with him next year. He is very into Star Wars and Legos right now. I can be dangerous walking through our house at times! Baseball is out for him too, but he loves Gymnastics! He is such a daredevil that this is right up his alley!!

Fun with Abby and RJ at HHI!

When I was growing up, I was fortunate to be able to have a close relationship with some of my cousins, despite the long distance. My kids are so blessed to be able to grow up with their cousins close by. Many of you often hear about Abby and RJ (along with Abby and Conner's shenanigans!). Thought you might like to see some pictures so you wouldn't think I was exaggerating about how beautiful they are, even with my brother, Russell as their father!! You know I love you Russ!! Oh, and Chrystal, thanks for your help during the HHI stay! The boys loved spending time with you! ;-)

Chad, Conner and Abby playing in the water after our picture session

She really can be an Angel!

Beautiful boy. He has those Owens' eyes!

Too cute!

RJ relaxin' at the pool!

Aww, best friends Conner and Abby!...

...and then back to normal!

Sweet Potatoes and Refrigerator Magnets

Okay, what do they have to do with each other? Well, they are Cam's newest achievements!

Cam had a swallow study done on Monday. Cam did so well eating at The Grace Center this year, I wanted to be certain that he was doing as well swallowing as I felt he was. Because he has so many problems handling secretions (saliva, etc.), there is always a concern that he could aspirate some of the food into his lungs which would be extremely bad. Well, he didn't eat very well during the test, but they saw enough to agree that I should continue feeding him! We are going to begin working with Speech Therapy at Richland working specifically on oral motor skills as well as feeding. He has always had a strong cough which has enabled him to clear his airway if something went down wrong. He also has never gotten a pneumonia when I have fed him (knocking on wood!!). These things are definitely in his favor as far as feeding goes.

So, we are continuing with the feedings we started working on at The Grace Center and he is doing really well! Today, Cam ate a 1/2 of a container of Stage 1 sweet potatoes! This is so huge for him. He is swallowing it very well and lost very little of it. I think I may have already said this in another post, but he really just tasted stuff last year when we did feedings at The Grace Center. What he is doing now is actually eating! Please say a prayer that this continues and we can get him eating more. I know a lot of you may be wondering if this could mean we might get rid of the g-tube some day, and the answer is that we just don't know. The main thing we want to be sure of is that Cam gets the nourishment that he needs to be healthy. Having the g-tube insures that if he did start eating again, but didn't eat enough, he could still get what he needs. But, I guess you never know.

Erika enourages Cam as he walks up the hallway at The Grace Center












Cody is in the lead followed closely by Jakob who seems to have a little Dale Earnhardt, Sr. in him (just a little bump draft!) and Cam is bringing up the rear!





Another thing we have continued working with is Cam's new set of "wheels" as Clark calls them. Cam's new walker is a hit! He love spending time with it and has begun discovering new parts of the house. The majority of his time is spent in our living room. Well, with the walker, he has begun cruising the kitchen as well! His new thing is checking out the refrigerator magnets. He is also starting to work on pulling the hand towel off of it's perch. The other two boys do that all the time and it drives us crazy. I was hoping that he would pull it off so I could leave it on the floor for Clark to find. Clark would then fuss about it being on the floor and ask who did it. I wanted to be able to tell him, "Cam did!". I think that will happen soon, he is really trying! Another new thing he did today was to run in his walker! He covered the area of our small kitchen in about two good steps! He was so excited he was just laughing, which of course made me laugh. But, probably the best moment was all 5 of us standing in the kitchen right after Clark got home from work. I couldn't help but think how amazing that moment was. Just our family standing together in the kitchen. If Cam has done nothing else, he has really made me appreciate the small miracles God has allowed us to witness though Cameron.

We're done and heading home!

Pictured left to right: Erika, our Conductor; Kristy with Cody; Deana with Jakob, Me and Cam; Stephanie with Hannah Grace



It's hard to believe that we've come to the end of our five weeks here in Hilton Head and The Grace Center. In a way it seems like we've been here forever and in a way it seems as though we just got here. I owe a huge THANK YOU to my Mom for putting up with me and the boys and hanging in there the whole time. I couldn't have done this without you, Mom!!

Cameron has done so well over the past few weeks, as I am sure you have read in the previous posts. This week Cam started off with a record 7 stickers and then kind of slacked off as the week went on. I guess he had the "short timer's" attitude!

For some reason, Cam wouldn't potty for me after Monday, although he did do it twice that day. I guess as with any child, we'll have good days and bad days. We will continue working on it when we go home. We have some of our best conversations while he's sitting there!

Rolling over is getting better for Cam. I can tell him now that he needs to move his arm over or his leg and he will do it! Getting from his stomach to his back continues to be difficult due to his lack of upper body strength. Erika has been trying to show him that he can use his hand to push. Another fun thing to keep working on!




Cam's artwork - "Scenes from the Island"







Play Doh fun!


We continued the week working on opposites and Cam really did well. Even when he cannot verbally answer me, or physically show me, his eyes are still scanning and focusing on the task. Just giving him exposure to these lessons in different ways is so important and I know he is getting something from it. It actually pains me to leave Hilton Head and The Grace Center. Just knowing that Monday morning they will be going on without us is heart breaking! If the last 5 weeks has done anything, it has strengthened my resolve to have this available in Columbia.

We made some great friends at The Grace Center this year and will miss them so much! As always, Hannah will hold a special place in Cam's heart. We so enjoyed meeting Jakob and his Mom. We specially enjoyed hearing Jakob singing along to "Down by the Bay"! We also loved hearing about their Letter Boxing adventures! We also enjoyed meeting Cody, his Mom, Dad and sweet Nanny! Cody has the most infectious smile I have ever seen and I am so glad I have a picture to remember that smile!

We finally took the kids to the beach. I feel bad saying that it took over 4 weeks for me to take them there. We did our beach photo shoot for Christmas cards. We got some good ones and the Christmas card should be great this year!

So, that wraps up our trip for this year, possibly our last one? Stay tuned as Dawn and I continue our work toward opening The Therapy Place!

What are Chad and Conner up to?

Chad, Conner and Daddy!





Swimming, swimming and more swimming!





I have been spending so much time blogging about all of Cam's great stuff, that I have neglected Chad and Conner in the pics. They are still swimming a bunch and finally went to the beach. Conner is getting better at swimming. He's swimming under the water about 5 or 6 feet to the steps! At least I'm starting to feel like he could make it to safety if he fell in, but we are still being extra careful, don't worry! Other than those things, nothing more to report. Well, other than Conner is very ready to go home. Chad wants to be on vacation forever! Now for pics!




Conner getting ready to swim to Chad








1..2..3.. Go!




...and back to the steps!




They really do love each other (at that moment anyway!!)

A Cloudy, Summer Monday!

Well when Cam was asked what day it was this morning, he was very quick to say "Monday"!. The weather was a little difficult, but he looked out the window when they talked about it being cloudy. It's usually sunny and if it weren't for the trees and Spanish moss waving in the breeze, I would be tempted to accuse Erika of putting a picture of a sunny sky and trees in the window! The season was another thing he did well this morning. This took a little while, but he finally got out "mur"! Hey! I'll take it!

It was a really great day for Cam. Seven stickers, two of them for going to the potty!! I cannot tell you how thrilled I am at this! He really does so well on his potty chair. That was on of our best purchases without a doubt.


Academics was very good today too. We started working on big and small. We had a big teddy bear, plastic ring and ball, then we had the small versions of them. We mixed them up and had them pick out the big item and put it to one side and then the small item on the small side. He did really well with eye gaze, but he did make small attempts to move his hand toward the items.

He was so excited about standing up today. It made it difficult for me to hold onto him, but he had fun! He also did very well eating. I gave him carrots and bananas today and he ate everything I put on his plate! He really seemed to enjoy eating too, which is wonderful.

I hope to have more good news tomorrow as we count down our last week at The Grace Center and in HHI!

Week 4 - HHI and The Grace Center 2008

Well, it's the end of week 4 and it was a much better week. Cam started out strong on Monday. This week's lesson was shapes. Cam was pulling shapes from under the scarf by feeling them and he found them pretty well. Erika once again came up with some really creative ways of getting the kid's to learn shapes. We cut them out of Play-doh and felt them, then destroyed them ;) She also placed cut out shapes on a page in front of the kids and then would take away a shape to see of they could tell which one was missing. We talked about each shape beforehand, so Cam actually did very well with this through eye gaze mostly. Erika asked which shape was missing and he would look to the spot. He would also look to the correct spot when we told him to look at the square, circle or triangle. I'm so proud of him! He was not quite as impressed with Friday's lesson. We colored shapes, Erika cut them out and then we pasted them on paper to make a house. Erika just laughed at him and his indifference!

Each day we practice getting socks on and off and shirt on and off. We've been having trouble getting him to do this so Erika decided to have him sit up rather than lay down. This really seemed to work very well and he did better. It seems that laying down and working against gravity is still difficult.





Cam working to get his socks off








It's a lot of hard work!




Pottying continues to go very well! On Wednesday, he pottied twice during the program for the first time! Two potty stickers in one day! He did this two days in a row. On Friday he never went, but stayed dry the whole time! I took him about 4 times while we were there and he never went. Not sure what happened that day.

Eating continues to go well. He loves bananas, sweet potatoes, chocolate pudding and applesauce. He continues to eat about 1/3 to a 1/2 of a container of what he likes. Pears and fruit mixtures do not go over as well. He also tolerates apple and grape juice very well. He will stop eating and refuse food until I give him some juice. When he's done, he will let me know as well by closing his lips to both food and juice, or trying to stand.

Speaking of standing! Cam's new shoes have really made a difference in standing. He is doing well in this area too. He still tries to turn his right ankle over, but his new shoes help to support his ankles so he can't turn it.

We continue to try to get Cam to walk out in the gait trainer. I think by the end of the day, he is just so tired that it doesn't appeal to him quite as well. Erika and I will continue to encourage him to go though. He really likes chasing the other boys up the hall, but they are usually gone way before he gets to the end. The great thing is that he continues to tolerate it without getting too upset. He will whine because he's tired, but he will not go into one of his fits and flat out refuse to move! Once again, this is huge for him!



Cam working hard to reach and get the ball.





Erika tells me just about every day how impressed she is with Cam this year. His tolerance and strength are what impress her the most. She is so proud of him, and so are we (do I say that enough??).

Okay, one more praise and I'll close out this week's blog. Cam's rolling continues to improve. He is really starting to get the idea of what he needs to do to roll over. He still has a ways to go, but he is making progress!

Thanks again for supporting us as we spend this valuable time here trying to help Cam progress. I promise more pics next week of all the different activities. Next week, Lisa and Teresa (Cam's Teacher and OT) are coming to check out Cam's progress. It's our last week, so I hope we can make it count!! I'm ready to get home, but, once again, will desperately miss The Grace Center!!


Here are Cam's new BFF's :) aka: the kids he works so hard with every day!




Go Jake, climb that plinth table!




Even though the picture is a little blurry, I'm sure you can still see why Cam loves Hannah Grace!




Sweet, sweet Cody!