family

A little over two weeks ago, I described Scott's first time standing, along with my hope that he'd be walking by his second birthday which was just five weeks away at the time. He went ahead and amazed us by taking his first five steps just one week later.

And just like his first time standing, he took his first steps at his physical therapy appointment. Now, we love Becky, his physical therapist, (and Julie, his original therapist now on maternity leave), and she loves Scott. So I'm really happy that she got to see him both stand and walk for the first time. But I couldn't help feeling a little bit left out that I missed both of these events. Particularly since, (from the descriptions I've heard anyway), these were things that Scott just decided to do that were fairly incidental to any therapy going on at the time.

In the two weeks since, we've been trying to give Scott lots of opportunities to walk at home, but he hasn't been extremely enthusiastic about it. He would take a few steps every once in a while, but he'd also be just as likely to just laugh and sit down instead. So I hadn't even succeeded in getting any decent footage to post here.

But then, this afternoon, a friend came over and happened to set her 13-month-old son down to crawl around on the trampoline in the back yard. Scott wasn't going to be left out of this and insisted on joining in.

He immediately realized that this was a nice safe place and he started standing, laughing, and walking as much as possible. And I suddenly realized how foolish I had been. Of course he tried things out at physical therapy before trying them at home---at physical therapy he gets to play on thick, soft pads instead of the relatively hard carpet, tile, and hardwood he has to deal with at home.

So, finally, here is a short clip of Scott walking on the trampoline:

Again, see the video instructions if you need help getting the video to play.

What a difference the trampoline made! As soon as we came inside he kept walking all over the tiled, kitchen floor. He's still fairly wobbly and falling down every 6-10 steps or so, but he clearly gained a lot of confidence from his short time playing on the trampoline. We'll definitely have to get him out on that more often. (But we're off to the coast for the next three days---so we'll have to see how he responds to walking on sand.)

Thanks to everyone that has expressed their concern for Scott in words or in prayer. We really appreciate it.

Since I have 6 brothers, and they're all quite close to me, I have to take care in singling out any one. But since I do talk about so many technical things here, it was only natural that Richard's name would come up fairly early.

[[!img cairo_logo.png size="150x150" class=left"]] Richard has artistic skills where I have none. He designed the original beetle-shaped cairo logo, and even successfully rendered it on a pumpkin. He also knows an awful lot more about web-design than I do, (again, he's got the artistic sense for it, but he's also spent several years doing web-related work professionally where I haven't). So Richard's the guy I go to whenever I've painted myself into some difficult corner with CSS or something similar.

Richard has recently started a technical blog and he and his wife also have a more personal blog as well.

Clicking the above image will probably play the video just fine if you're using Linux. If you're not, then see these video instructions first.

When Scott was 9-months old he wasn't putting any weight on his legs. (He also didn't crawl, but developed his famous bum-scoot that has warn out the seat of many pairs of pants.) Together with his pediatrician we kept an eye on that until he was 15-months old and the situation hadn't gotten any better. At that point, we were referred to a developmental pediatrician who diagnosed Scott with tethered cord syndrome.

We were next referred to a neurosurgeon and we went through the mixed-emotions of having our 18-month old receive surgery in February 2007. Scott did gain a new friend, his blue bear, Philo, at the hospital.

The surgery was quick and smooth, and within days we saw some tremendous progress. Over the last 5 months, (and with the help of physical therapy), we've seen exciting new things every week or two. First came putting weight on his legs, then standing with assistance, crawling over obstacles, crawling upstairs, and even walking while holding our hands.

Today at physical therapy, without any prompting, Scott got up from sitting and stood unassisted for the first time ever. When Stacy came home and shared the exciting news, Scott obliged us by repeating the performance and I was able to catch it on camera.

Now, Scott keeps standing with the cutest, little proud grin you could imagine just to get us to applaud and cheer for him, (his older brothers are very accommodating in this way). He's standing comfortably for at least 15 seconds at a time or so. I've got high hopes he will be walking before his second birthday, (just over 1 month away now). Stay tuned!

Background

Cameron has a good friend named Anika Willis. They first met as toddlers when we lived in student housing at BYU. Matt and Andra moved in shortly after we did, to an apartment with doors that opened just across from ours onto the same porch. More often than not, in the summertime, both doors were open and Cameron and Anika would move back and forth quite freely. We all got to be very close friends.

Since then, we've stayed in good touch with the Willis family. While we were in Virginia, they were in New Jersey which was just close enough that we were able to spend some great Thanksgiving holidays together. Now, we all miss each other terribly since we're in Oregon while they're in North Carolina.

The turtle

A couple of months ago, we received Anika's Traveling Turtle in the mail, (look at the adorable message she wrote to introduce it). The plan was that we would write an entry about an animal and mail it on to someone else to do the same. We even took it with us on our Spring Break trip to the coast with full intentions to add an entry right away. But "the best-laid plans" and all that. Cameron did make a nice entry on the life cycle of a frog, and Hyrum did the same for salmon. But we didn't have time to let the turtle do any more traveling, (at least not through snail mail).

Thanks for the help

This web page was our last chance to help out Anika by letting her turtle do a little bit of virtual traveling. Several people responded by writing up various animals, (bobcat, Tasmanian devil, etc.), and sending those in. We really appreciate that!

Stacy has now sent the turtle back to Anika, and hopefully it arrived there safely. So we don't need any more animal reports. But thanks again for the help.