The things Dawson eats

First things first... Dawson's foot did return to normal size and the bruising went away a day or two after the last posting. Apparently he does not do well with fire ant bites.

Now, on to the post..

It's hard to believe how badly Dawson's need is to be orally stimulated. Honestly, I actually thought that as time went on that this would get better. If anything, its worse. He ALWAYS has to have something in his mouth. Just this week, here are some of the things I have found him chewing on :

Kleenex, paper towel, paper plate, cardboard, pencil eraser, dog food, paper clips, Blue Crayola Marker, grass, Madison's arm, Katelins finger, a guitar pick and a he chewed a playing card to pieces.... and that's just THIS WEEK!!

I don't understand the correlation between seizures and this oral stimulation thing. But its real, and as he gets older its becoming a huge challenge. We have yet to fight the " Paci battle" because honestly as long as we see a paci in his mouth i know nothing bad is going in there. He has never swallowed any of these things.. He just chews on them.... ALL DAY

We have bought the latest and greatest " chew toys" for kids and guess what??? hes not interested in those. Its the off the wall stuff he wants to chew on.. Basically all the things listed above along with any toothbrush he can find. I just wish there was a way to stop this behavior!!

We ventured out this afternoon to our local splash pad to beat the heat today. We didn't really know what to expect because Dawson is pretty funny about things that are water related... For example, he will sit in the tub and play all day long if you let him. He doesn't mind being in there with the shower on either but try to put him in his little kiddie pool and watch out.. He hates it. All things considered he did pretty good. He didn't really mind the water too much but he wasn't a big fan of it splashing in his face. As long as one of us were holding him it wasn't too bad and when we saw him sorta starting to get antsy and fussy we jetted out of there pretty quickly before he could make a huge scene.

He is still doing really good on talking. He is consistently putting words together now but we still have ALOT of challenges ahead of us with this issue.. Still lots of frustration on his part with him not being able to communicate with us when he needs to. Unfortunately the only way he knows how to react to frustration is with violence. Needless to say, speech and behavior still remain our two biggest obstacles.

We are in the process of getting Clobazam from a pharmacy in Canada. In the meantime we are weening Banzel. I'm trying not to let myself get too excited about Clobazam. Dawson's neuro was pretty excited about him being on it as its Tailor made for his seizure type ( according to her) but we have been through so many drugs and failed them all so Im not getting excited just yet... let me rephrase...... We remain prayerfully hopeful that God will work through this new drug to stop these nasty seizures.

Thats about it for us this weekend.. Trying to stay indoors as much as possible because its so dang HOT outside!! I can't believe I spent all Winter long wishing for hot Summer days again...

Much love to you all

Jeff