Remarkable Robbie: April 2010

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

One evening just at dusk, Robbie was insistent we go outside. So David, Robbie, our devil kitty and Trish all headed out front. Our devil cat has always been very vocal and Robbie loves to talk back to him. And then he decided he wanted to catch him. The kitty was not up for Robbie love, so he took off for the neighbor's tree. Robbie gave chase. At this point Robbie still didn't like to walk on the grass, so he stopped at the end of the driveway, but right after I turned the camera off, he took off across the grass. Apparently he just needed the right motivation.

Both the chasing and his determination was unexpected and hysterical.

--Trish

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Devil Snuggle

We affectionately refer to our youngest kitty as "The Devil" because he's..... well.. Let's call him feisty. He's good with Robbie, mostly opting to run away when Rob wants a snuggle. But sometimes if you catch him in the right mood, he'll acquiesce to being used as a pillow. Robbie is a lucky boy.

--Trish

Monday, April 26, 2010

Mmm.. Cheez-It.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

April 25, 2010

Saturday, April 24, 2010

March for Babies

April 24, 2010 was the day we'd been anticipating for months. Our first March For Babies. Team Remarkable Robbie raised nearly $2,800 total. More than half of that came from a couple of our last minute walkers, Sherry & J. Their son, Gus, was born full term but with a birth defect known as esophageal atresia. He spent 107 days in the same NICU in which Robbie spent 96 days. But the rest of the team did very well, too.

Considering my original goal was $500, I don't think we did half bad. I was moved to tears several times when I saw the continued generosity of our friends, family members, coworkers and even perfect strangers. Thank you so much to all who gave!

The day started early. We hoped to be at the walk site in Forest Park by 8am. The walk was slated to begin at 9. That meant our day began around 6. As Robbie doesn't normally rise until after 8, he was a little discombobulated, but mostly in a good mood.

We arrived at the site. The first indication we were in the right place was all the balloons.

It was still early. There were plenty of people there, setting up booths and preparing to meet the walkers.

My company, AT&T, had a booth. Sadly, there was no one working it, so it was just a sign and an empty table. Wish I knew someone in marketing to complain to.

The March of Dimes did a photo-op of all the preemies in attendance. They were all given blue "I was a preemie.." shirts for the photo op.

Sherry made Robbie a stroller sign showing just how far he's come. "From Small Beginnings..." indeed.

Grandpa is here!

David's not so thrilled about the early hour, either.

The back of our T-shirts.

Grandpa insisted on getting the Ram's cheerleaders autographs. "For Robbie," of course.

Sherry and Gus arrive

And J & Charlie, too.

Robbie's still trying to figure out what is going on.

Some more mom friends and their kids join us as well.

Clare

Mia

Jenn & Becca

Uh-Oh. It's almost race time and Robbie is out cold!

But we're off anyway

Our team is off to a good start.

Gus is a lot livelier than Robbie.

J and Charlie can't be held back any more. They jog ahead.

Oh hey, Robbie's awake again. Maybe this is fun after all.

Nearing the end. Gus needs a stroller break.

Finally the end! Megan walked the whole 3 miles in spite of being 36 weeks pregnant. She's spent!

Grandpa and Robbie hit the snack tents before we head out for the day.

It turned out to be a good day for a walk. It stormed all night and again later in the day, but minus the occasional very light drizzle, we all stayed dry. The news reported 10,000 walkers marched for babies that day. St. Louis is the 9th largest walk in the U.S.

We were very proud to be part of it and are looking forward to doing it again next year. Hope to see some of you there, as well!

--Trish

Friday, April 23, 2010

Tunnel of Fun

Robbie loves playing in his tunnel

It's a great hiding place

--Trish

March for Babies

***Updated 4/26***
***Please see new pictures below this post. I've been uploading photos and dating them on the date they were taken versus the date I got around to uploading them. Until I get caught up, they'll appear below this post***

Just a reminder that today is the last day to contribute to Team Remarkable Robbie. Our March for Babies is Saturday morning. We have a team of 8 and are looking incredibly forward to our first march. As of this writing our team has just over $1700 dollars in donations. We couldn't be more grateful to those who have donated to the organization that helped this tiny fragile preemie

turn into this giddy, robust boy

Every dollar counts!

--Trish

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Enjoying some Crackers

--Trish

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

A video

This is actually a video from 4/17, but since Robbie's slacker mom didn't take any pictures on the 20th, I thought I'd make up for it with a video.
In it, you can see him finally venturing into the grass for the first time (before this day he would begrudgingly take little steps if you forced him) and you can hear him saying "Dee!" (jump) and jabbering a bit. Nothing very exciting, but cute anyway.

--Trish

Monday, April 19, 2010

Robbie Can

I fell down on the job taking a photo for a few days. So I thought we'd do a check in on what Robbie has been up to lately.

He's finally starting to pick up a few new words and we're loving it. My personal favorite is "Thank you." He says it when you hand him anything and most of the time when he hands you something.

Other new words:

Dog (dog-dog)
Diaper (didee)
Car (car-car)

He's getting really good at meowing back at the kitties when they "talk". Sometimes he'll tell me that a kitty says meow if I ask, but he really gets going when they start carrying on.

He is signing "eat" and I'm pretty sure he used it the other day to ask for a cracker. I almost fell over.

One of the absolutely cutest things he's doing a lot of is blowing kisses. When I take him to daycare in the morning, I tell him I have to go to work and he blows me kisses and waves (and sometimes shuts the door on me, but I can't win them all.)

He's still completely in love with the cats. If he can catch them, he tackles and hugs them until they can't take any more love.

He also loves the new baby at daycare. He'll stop what he's doing to get into the floor to lay his head on her and give her a hug. Tell me that doesn't melt your heart.

He is trying to run and jump. His run is still a bit more of a fast (VERY FAST) walk and his jump is really just bending and straightening his legs. But when he jumps he'll say "DEE!" which I guess is supposed to be "jump!" You definitely can't turn your back on him these days. As soon as he sees the garage door open, he takes off for the end of the driveway. Soon he'll be shouting "Freedom!"

He does already say "ah-sigh" (outside) and yesterday when I had to retrieve him from the porch at daycare he screamed at had a tantrum because he had to come back inside.

He recently had an IFSP meeting with his therapy team. We're dropping developmental therapy to once a month and picking up both speech and feeding therapy. Both will be with a SLP (speech-language pathologist) once a week. I'm dreading try to schedule four therapist a week and five one week per month, but I'm hoping it won't be for long. He's made incredible strides particularly in his gross motor skills, so hopefully soon we can drop PT, or at least scale it back.

It seems like it's something new every day and we're loving almost every minute. (There are some minutes where he's purposely testing how far he can push his luck that maybe aren't so fun.) But this age is overall extremely fun and there's only more on the way.

--Trish