Its been crazy busy

First of all I must say we are very sorry in such a long delay in posting.  We have been in the process of moving.  YUK!!  Not only are we moving but we are having to move the person who is living in the house we are moving into.  And if that weren't enough, while moving him this week we are also in the middle of remodeling the same house. Soooooo. As of tonight he is officially moved and we will be officially moving Saturday.   This has been in the works for quite some time and we are both glad it is finally materializing.  There is lots of work to be done ( and we are already exhausted)  So that's why we haven't posted in a while.  Sorry.    As soon as we get moved well take some pics and share.  The house is great and it has 7 acres of land with it so we will have plenty of room to move about. 

Dawson is continuing to do just wonderful.  He is standing in place for long periods of time without holding onto anything.  He is so ready to walk. He just doesn't know he can yet.  I'm going to bet within a week he will be taking his first steps.  Well see how close I am.

He still cutting a lot of teeth at one time and he has moments where you can really tell they are bothering him.  A few fussy spells and then hes back to happy baby again.  

Say a prayer for us this weekend as were moving.  Its been a stress filled week so far and were hoping for a smooth transition into the new house.   

Thank you so much for checking in.  We'll try hard not to wait so long to post again.

Our love to all

Jeff and Allison

Friday October 24th

Thanks for all the kind and wonderful comments on our recent pictures. We agree that Dawson is a pretty awesome kid ( and we think he's kinda cute too!!!) We are so very proud of him and what he has been able to accomplish. All credit and glory to God for such a miracle. We did nothing but admit how truly weak we are and HE did all the rest. Dawson is such a blessing and I pray everyday that somehow, someway God will direct family's who's children suffer from this horrible seizure disorder to this site. We want this to be a place of HOPE for people who have just found out their child suffers from I.S. We want so badly for people to see that there are exceptions to the rule, and that Doctors do not have the last say in how their child will turn out. Statistically, Dawson is supposed to still be having seizures. Statistically Dawson is supposed to be Severely Developmental Delayed. Statistically, Dawson is supposed to,in some form or fashion,be mentally retarded. Instead, his seizures have stopped, he has ZERO developmental delays, and he is thriving and very very smart. If you were to meet him today there is no way you would ever be able to tell that he, just months ago, suffered from this catastrophic form of epilepsy.

Once again, we did nothing but cry out to God for help and I personally promised to follow him in wherever he wanted to lead me in this. Isn't he good!!!!!!

I know God is going to continue to bless our family and take care of Dawson, and Allison and I both hope that in some small way YOU have been blessed or changed by what you have seen him do for us. There are so many of you who have played such key roles in our lives through this. Strategically placed in our lives by God ( in this I have no doubt) and we are so grateful for each and every one of you. Just felt the need to tell you guys THANKS. Its so great to go down this road with our supportive families and friends old and new.

As of today, Dawson continues to do just wonderfully well. We have neared the 160 day mark for seizure freedom and with the exception of him cutting several teeth at once, hes been in a pretty dang good mood. Thank you so much for stopping by and checking on us

We love you

Jeff and Allison

Family Pics

Hope you guys enjoy the pics from our wonderful weekend. Our love to all

Jeff and Allison

Back from Tennessee

We made it back safe and sound from our Tennessee trip this past weekend. We really had a great time and the weather was just perfect. It was so great to see my older brother and his family as we don't get to see them that often. Scott, Michelle, Megan and Drew... Thanks for coming and it was great to see you all again. We were able to get out Friday and Saturday and do some hiking and we hope to have pics from the trip posted tomorrow. You never know how young kids are going to do when put in a new environment but Dawson and Madison did just great. The entire weekend was just perfect and Allison and I really needed the trip away.

We have a new milestone to pass along. Saturday afternoon we were all sitting in the cabin and Dawson was playing around in the floor and he just all of a sudden stood right up. He was in a squatting position and just stood himself up just as pretty as you please without holding on to anything. We all yelled and clapped for him so of course he played to the crowd a little and did it several more times. What a miracle this kid is. He continues to grow and learn and thrive and we couldn't be more thrilled.

Thanks for looking in on our little buddy
We love you

Jeff and Allison

Weekend trip

First things first. Thanks for all of you who weighed in on the Melatonin issue. Your information and input, as always, means so much to us. We are going to try using Melatonin and we will let you all know how he does.

Secondly, we have been planning a family trip for some time now and the weekend is finally here. We are going to Pikeville TN to Fall Creek Falls State Park. We will be accompanied by my parents and we are meeting my brother from Prattville along with his family. We have really been looking forward to this weekend and according to the weather man, the weather is going to be just perfect. Well be sure to take some great pics to share with you all.

Dawson's teeth cutting has seemed to ease up the past couple of days as he has been back to his usual smiling, happy, laughing self.

Pray for us as we travel and please know how much each of you means to us.

Our love to all

Jeff and Allison

To sleep or not to sleep??

Dawson has never been the worlds greatest sleeper. It is so much better than it used to be. Especially considering what he was like during those oh so wonderful ACTH days. But still he has his good days and bad days with sleeping. At night he goes right to sleep without any problems ( this is about 8:00) and has a couple of good solid hours of sleep. But the rest of the night is spent tossing and turning, sleep then awake, more tossing, some flipping, Head of the bed laying cross ways, foot of the bed, more spinning and flipping ( you get the point.) He wakes up a lot, lets out a loud wail, rummages around to a new spot then goes back to sleep. All the while, Allison and I are being kicked, punched, smacked across the face with a flailing arm, and every now and then headbutted. And lets face it, Dawson is not a small baby anymore. When he lays cross ways he takes us A LOT of room. So here we are in this big ole king sized bed. Me on the very very end ( trying not to get kicked) and Allison on the very very other end ( trying not to get punched) and Dawson in the middle.

For those of you who want to say " that boy is too old to be sleeping in your bed. He should be in his own bed." let me first say yes, you are exactly right. I agree totally. So there, you don't have to say it because we already know. The fact is, Like all I.S. kids, they are more prone to having seizures upon waking and going to sleep. So of course we had him in the bed with us so we could closely monitor his seizure activity. Now its just a habit for him to be in there. It would probably take about 7 days to get him out of our bed, and at the end of the day, neither Allison or I are in any kind of mood, nor do we have the energy to attempt it.

All this to say, I think we are going to try Meletonin. We have been urged by some others to try it because it worked so well for their kids. Its a natural supplement that the body produces to help induce and maintain sleep. Its not a drug and can be purchased over the counter at most Herbal stores. We would love some feed back positive/negative from anybody who has tried it for their kids.

Other than that, Dawson is still doing great. Yesterday was an off day for him. He is cutting some molars and I think they were really bothering him yesterday. His mood seemed to improve with some numbing gel and Tylenol.

Also we were told today by Early Intervention that he did not qualify for speech therapy since he is showing no developmental delays. His Neuro said this was not optional and she also said in the very beginning that he qualified for services just because of the diagnosis and its catastrophic tendencies.... We'll have to call her and tell her what they said and maybe she can work something out for us.

Until then, heres to Melatonin and we hope its helps him sleep better.

We love you guys

Jeff and Allison

Saturday Mornin P.J time

Sorry about the crudeness of a web cam video but he just looks so great in his P.J's that we couldn't resist.

We are all doing really well and our house is once again full of kids this weekend. As you can see, Dawson is getting around pretty well now a days. He is also walking while holding on to only one hand as well. Just a matter of time I think and he will be walking on his own. He is able to stand unassisted for a few seconds at a time and that's always the starting point.

We hope that everybody has a great weekend and thanks for allowing us to show off our guy

Jeff and Allison

Wednesday October 8th Update

Our little corner of Alabama still continues to go well. Dawson has had some "intestinal issues" for the past few days and Allison has come down with a terrible head cold. Madison has her own version of the the same thing and other than that everybody is pretty healthy. Things still continue to go very well for our miracle I.S kiddo.

I went to pick him up today and was greeted with a big ole, mouth wide open and smiling, HEEEEEYYYYYYYYY. I ask you, is there anything better??

Dawson had PT with his new therapist today and from what I hear everything went very well. We are still waiting on the call back about speech therapy. Hopefully we will be able to get that started soon. At this point we don't feel like he is in great need of speech therapy, but his Neuro said that not having it wasn't an option. So obviously we are going to add it.

He continues to get into everything and we have decided that cleaning the house is just about pointless. It takes him about 10 minutes scatter toys from one end of the house to the other.

And how grateful we are that he can.........

Our love to all and thanks for checking in to see how were doing

Jeff and Allison

learning quickly

We are amazed at whats been going on with Dawson. Especially just in the past two weeks. There are some major changes taking place on just about a daily basis with his vocabulary and different things he is doing. In just the past 24 hours he has added " bye bye" and " duck" to his ever changing vocabulary list. Also you can ask him where his nose is and he points to it.

For those who don't know about Infantile Spasms, one could say Well whats the big deal with that? But for those who know about I.S and those who live in the I.S world daily.. Well you Know what a big deal it is. Not only is Dawson mobile, which is a huge deal for us, Most importantly, he is showing a great capability to learn which is an even bigger deal for us. To be quite honest, he is proving himself to be quite smart. God continues to reveal himself to us through this most amazing little boy. We couldn't be more proud of our miracle, nor could we be more humbled and thankful to God.

We hope all of you have a great weekend and thanks for checking in and seeing what we have been up to. Our love to all

Jeff and Allison

Wednesday October 1st

Hard to believe another month has come and gone. The beginning of October has brought with it some cooler air and personally for me, there is nothing better than Fall weather.

Dawson is still doing really well. The only issue we are having at this point is maybe some small sleep issues. Generally speaking he sleeps pretty well and is much better than it used be. But he still has a lot of waking during the night. Not so much opening his eyes awake, but just a lot of twisting and turning and flipping and flopping all over the bed. Nothing like that 3:00 A.M. head butt, or the times around 2:00 in the morning when your kidneys feel like a soccer ball from being kicked constantly... Sleeping all the way through the night is still something were working on.

Monday the evaluator with Early Intervention stopped by to do an eval on Dawson. She commented on how well he was doing and he seems to still be learning new stuff on just about a weekly basis now. His vocabulary now is Ma Ma, Da Da, Dog, Hey, and last night we were working on showing him his ears, and he said what sounded like " eeees" several times.

Monday he learned to hold up one finger to show his age, and he has gotten very comfortable at walking around while holding on to something. He is even standing, coming from a squatting position, for a few seconds at a time unassisted.

Socially, you could not ask for any more. He is very interactive and loves to play all sorts of games. The only person that we have seen that he doesn't care for is his physical therapist, and that's only because she makes him work. He is full of smiles and we still to this day feel so blessed to be a witness to a miracle that continues on even today. Thank you God for giving us Dawson!! He is such a blessing to our entire family.

Thanks for checking on him and for your constant prayers and support

We love you

Jeff and Allison