Vote for Noah's friends!

Vote for Noah's friends Abby and Becca! Noah and Abby lived together in the NICU for many months. They were the only two 24 weekers at the time so our families got to know each other well and have been close friends ever since. Becca tried to come at 24 weeks too, but thanks to some great doctoring and lots of bed rest, they were able to hold her off until 39 weeks. Abby is #2190 (in purple with the Eiffel Tower) and Becca is #2109 (in polka dots). Here they are playing video games with Noah on the 4th of July.

Kindergarten

This morning Noah left our house on a school bus. He didn't look back. With him he took his LL Bean backpack, Scooby Doo lunchbox, extra batteries, his cane, his magnifier, and his monocular. He took a "special" bus and his one on one paraprofessional will be with him all day but for the first time ever he's in a full inclusion situation. He still has a lot of needs and his IEP is still more than 60 pages, but I know that he can and will learn. Five years ago at this time we were dealing with mutiple surgeries and the threat of a trach. We weren't sure Noah would live long enough to see kindergarten, and yet here he is. I couldn't be more proud.

Glasses

Noah goes through glasses with about the same regularity that monkeys go through bananas. Between poor eyesight, poor balance, and a delayed protective reflex (he doesn't stick out his hands to catch himself) his glasses don't stand much of a chance. We visit our neighborhood Lenscrafters quite regularly and are quite loyal to them, because we love their free repairs and inexpensive replacements. We got our most recent pair of frames in early June and have been struggling to keep them in mostly the correct shape to fit his face since then. We go in for repairs every two weeks or so and tonight was a big one. Noah somehow managed to bend his glasses in half so that the two eye holes were facing each other. We were pretty sure we'd be forking over the money for a new pair which is unfortunate since in less than a month we go back to optho for a new prescription. They managed to bend them more or less into a normal shape but then the thing we'd been dreading happened - they snapped in half. To our surprise they gave us a new set of frames at no charge. If we weren't already loyal customers we would be after tonight. Hooray for Lenscrafters!

Awww!

If you've ever asked Noah what he's thinking about 9 times out of 10 the answer is "Tinkerbell". He was in awe to get to meet his hero a few weeks ago at Disneyland.