Striking out....

This weekend Brandon hit a few milestones. Some great, some not so great. We made it through our first real episode of diaper rash and I am glad that it is done. It wasn't all over and truly awful, but bad enough!

As well, the last few weeks have been indescribeable. Brandon was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and went through surgery just before Christmas to correct this. If you want more information about this, drop me a line and I can explain better. Suffice to say that Brandon pulled through with flying colours, and is well on the path to recovery. He is a happy, developing 5 month old that is hitting his milestones and smiling all the time - nothing has changed. This experience was so many things and it is still not always easy to talk about because there are only so many times that you can rehash an event before you need to just stop talking about it and move on. In a nutshell, Ken and I discovered untold wells of strength between us, felt nothing but love and support from our family and friends, and received the best care imagineable. Everything was already said and done before we had the chance to fully realize what we were going through and then all of a sudden it was time to start healing and celebrate Christmas because even though this is something you cannot expect to experience, we couldn't have asked for a quicker resolution or better care. Our health care system can and does work!

Up until now, Brandon has been doing what I affectionately call "accidental rolls" from his front to his back. Yesterday, Brandon mastered the art of the roll from laying on his back to his front! The first time neither of us noticed. We figured it out when Ken asked me if I had moved Brandon before going and doing a load of laundry... I hadn't so we rolled him back to his back, and waited to see what would happen. Soon enough, he was on his belly, propping himself up on his arms and checking out the world. Of course, discovering that we are enthusiastic parents, we repeated this journey a few times, just to make sure :]

Being a parent is a true learning experience. You have to learn how to support, how and when to back off and let things happen, and understand that normal really is a subjective experience and that babies (just like us) will do things in their own time (among so many other things). Belonging to the parenthood is humbling and enlightening and has given us both new insights to go along with the bumps along the way.