Oliver at 18 months

 So when I run into you, dear friends, in real life, the number one thing I get asked is, "How is Ollie doing?"  I sometimes avoid the question because it breaks my heart just a bit.  Truthfully, he's wonderful; he's smart and charming and friendly and very, very busy.

But he's also not doing so great when it comes to his seizures.

 His seizures have been getting more frequent and it seems like he has at least one every day lately.  The good news is that as far as we know, he does not have a seizure disorder and when he grows out of breath-holding spells, he should stop having seizures.  I try to look on the bright side knowing that things could be much worse so I should count my blessings.

The hardest part is seeing how much the seizures affect him.  He's usually exhausted afterwards and sleeps for a few hours, but on the days he doesn't fall asleep there's not much we we can do to calm his frantic crying and the rest of the day is pretty much shot because he's not the same kid afterward.  It hurts so much to watch how hard it is on him and know that I've already done everything that I can do and it's just not enough.

Every parents wants the world for their child and I have a lot of heartache thinking of the ways Ollie's life might be limited, at least for now.  I never leave him alone.  He is my constant companion every moment of the day.  We very rarely go on dates when our parents or other grown-up friends are available to babysit because it's a little too much for the average teenager to handle, and I hate to think how he will react when he wakes up from a seizure and I'm not there to comfort him (it's only happened twice and it did not go well and I felt serious mom guilt over it).  It's definitely wearing us out, but I try to keep in mind that this is not permanent.  In the meantime, I find myself worried that he won't be able to go to preschool, and he won't be able to play on sports teams like Creed because he has a seizure every time he gets hurt.  For now I guess I just need to stop worrying about things out of my control and take things a day at a time.

 So let's focus on the brighter side, developmentally, Ollie is doing fantastic.

 We had his check-up today and he's grow a lot, but he's still tiny.  38% in height 2% in weight.  It seems like maybe I should be worried about the 2% in weight, but the doctor wasn't so maybe that's just fine.  Ollie and Creed's birthdays are a month apart so I remember thinking Ollie could just use all of Creed's hand-me-downs, but Ollie is so tiny that he's not even close to wearing Creed's clothes from this age so the seasons are all off.

 He's obsessed with sticking things in holes.  Every time he finds a hole, he scours the surrounding area for anything that can fit into it.  My keys have been missing for three months.

 He's finally started to love being read to.  He will bring you a book and he will not settle for sitting next to you while you read, he must be snuggled on your lap.

 He's learning new words every day.  I tried to make a list of his currently vocabulary, but it's too hard to keep track.  A few of his favorite words are: book, blanket, drink, hot, Creed, and wow.

 He's still climbing anything and everything he can.  He can climb things Creed cannot, another reason he can never be out of my sight.

 He loves toothbrushes.  He steals them and carries them around for hours.  That's Creed's pink Belle toothbrush.  Ollie's not picky about who the toothbrush belongs to.

 He loves to get a laugh and makes the silliest faces to crack the rest of us up.

 He's a fickle eater.  One day he will stuff himself with bananas, then he will not touch them for two weeks.  You never know if he will love or hate his food, but he will always have a great time making a giant mess with it.

 He's still wearing 12-18 months clothes and a lot of them are still ridiculously big on him.

He still loves his soft blanket and can't sleep without it.  We keep a big one in his crib and two small versions for him to carry around (thanks mom!)

 These last few pictures are from over the past six months and he looks so small in some of them.  These are just a few more moments with Ollie that I don't want to forget.

 I'm going to miss it when he stops sleeping with his bum up in the air.

One of his first haircuts.

 He's way more interested in playing with balls than Creed ever has been.  It's hard to keep him away form the ball during Creed's games.

 He's wearing us all out, but I can't even describe how lucky I feel to have him in our family.