Yes this mama finally got her butt in gear and got some glasses on his head. I say this as I got the perscription for them back in early July when I was down to see the specialist. I just didn't get too motivated as I figured my little man wouldn't keep them on his face for more than 5 seconds if that! Well of course he proved his mom wrong and now I think the poor little guy could have been seeing that much better for the past two months. Ack! Anyhow I guess I can add that too my list of little guilt trips I can give myself. So yes he does keep them on his face until of course he decides he has enough. But sometimes we can go for a good hour or more before he reaches this point. Its obvious that he does benefit from them as he is a bit more interactive and purposeful with his approach to things. 
The thing I find really funny though is sometimes Alistairs ability to use his hands and arms are limited. His arms can be quite stiff and he doesn't utilize his fingers and hands like one should. BUT that being said when its time for the glasses to come off hes able to hook his little finger right under the left arm of his glasses and he just keeps pulling until they pop off! But I've always found that with Alistair if there is something specific that he wants to do with his hands he will.
We've also been taking our physio sessions with Lynn at the rehab pool in the hospital. Its lovely as the pool is like a warm bath tub. Right now there is just another mom and myself who come to the sessions. Alistair and Kale (the other boy) both seem to quite like it. Mind you Alistair has always loved the bath. If you remember thats where we headed when he had that month of what i call colicy spells. Anyhow we just spend 20-30 min helping them to interact in and with the water whether its splashing their feet and hands for them, or floating about on their tummy on a big foam mattress. Whatever we do it seems to be a good fit for Alistair and I have to say I like that we are changing it up a bit. Plus it gives me a chance to meet other moms whose kids have challenges as well.
We've also been taking our physio sessions with Lynn at the rehab pool in the hospital. Its lovely as the pool is like a warm bath tub. Right now there is just another mom and myself who come to the sessions. Alistair and Kale (the other boy) both seem to quite like it. Mind you Alistair has always loved the bath. If you remember thats where we headed when he had that month of what i call colicy spells. Anyhow we just spend 20-30 min helping them to interact in and with the water whether its splashing their feet and hands for them, or floating about on their tummy on a big foam mattress. Whatever we do it seems to be a good fit for Alistair and I have to say I like that we are changing it up a bit. Plus it gives me a chance to meet other moms whose kids have challenges as well.Well these next two weeks are BUSY! Tomorrow Jason, Alistair and I are driving southeast to Yoho National Park where my friends Lise and Troy are getting married at Emerald Lake Lodge. The nice part is its taking place over a whole weekend so its like a little holiday for our family as well! Then we're going to drop in to see my Aunt Rosie and Cousin Eden and her kidlets who are all hanging out in Golden and then we'll make it home. Shortly after that Alistair and I'll pack up again to head North to Fort St John. My friends kindly holding a Meet & Greet up there for us as it makes it so much easier to have people come to you then only get to meet up with 2 or 3. So that will be fun as I haven't seen most of the people up there since I left in May 2009 when I left for Vancouver to be monitored and have Alistair. Yes thats right I never did get back "home" to FSJ after I left so it'll be a nice visit. But we aren't only going up for that we also are going up for my Aunt Val and Uncle Walts 40th anniversary. So another nice get together with family. Then we will finally come home and I will jump right into my first orientation shift at PG Emerg on Oct 5th. Yes its hard to believe but my mat leave is officially over! : ( But hey i was fortunate enough to have an extended mat leave as it didn't begin until Alistair was discharged in Sept and then i had some vacation pay saved up! So bonus for that!
Anyhow the world hear is absolutely gorgeous and golden. Hope you all can enjoy it as much as i am! Cheers Julie
PS I just had to add this picture. I so laughed when my father-in-law Rod MacMillan took off his sandals and walked into the house. Lets just say that in the summer he is one dedicated sandal wearer! LOL
Anyhow the world hear is absolutely gorgeous and golden. Hope you all can enjoy it as much as i am! Cheers Julie
PS I just had to add this picture. I so laughed when my father-in-law Rod MacMillan took off his sandals and walked into the house. Lets just say that in the summer he is one dedicated sandal wearer! LOL 
Three Generations of MacMillans
Grandma MacMillan & Alistair 
The last night they were here we decided to have a good ol' weiner roast. It was a nice mellow way to spend our last evening and I found out the the baby monitor will pick up all the way over at the fire pit. Its got to be a good 500 feet away from the house! We're hoping that we can make our way out East next year prior to Alistair turning two so he can still ride the jet as a freebee!
This is the second year that the PG Deaf Children's Society has had this particular camp for the kids and what a success it was! We had a total of 37 individuals of which 16 were kids, 4 were profoundly deaf adults, and 2 adults with severe hearing loss. 
We had gorgoues sunny weather for most of it. Saturday was jam packed with canoeing, kayaking, rock climbing, archery, ultimate frisbee, a scavenger hunt, sign language games, tons of crafts, and lots of time around the camp fire watching sign language campfire stories by Greg Warren who had us all roaring with laughter! 
One of our meals was out at the campfire. I had never done this before but you roast bannock on a stick. Once its cooked you pull this cylindrical bun off the stick, fill it with condiments, and then shove your weiner in it and voila you have dinner! It was definitely a fun and yummy process. But you did have to be patient cooking that bun.
I had full intentions of bringing Alistair out with me but at the last minute Jason and I decided he was better off staying home with daddy for the first night. Well they ended up coming out the next day and once again we decided he should stay with dad for another night. It was actually a really good thing as it gave me the opportunity to really get to know the deaf and hard of hearing community up here in the north. So kuddos to dad as it was the first time it was just Alistair and Jason home alone together and you know at the end of the weekend Jason said "you know that was the best weekend of my whole summer!" Now thats one incredible dad! As my mom says "he's definitely a keeper!" 
I on the other hand had a bit of a hard time the first night going to sleep with out my little guy. Not that I was worried as I knew he was in good hands but I just didn't feel complete. I lay there thinking I should be in my glory at the moment enjoying the solitude and uninterupted sleep but alas that was not the case. I probably woke up more that first night then I do with Alistair. Anyhow to keep my mind busy I repeated all the words I learned in sign language that day. By the end of the weekend I had learnt over 50 words. There is definitely a lot of incentive to learn when there are people present who solely communicate in this language. I just love learning it! I find it amazing that even though I have a limited amount of signed words, all the people at the camp who primarily sign can still get their point across. You know I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this but its a lot like charades....and I've always loved charades! Anyhow most signs make sense to why you use your hands that particular way to interpret that word. Actually, if you want to check out a few signs go to 
I really can't believe we're at the end of August and here I haven't written at all this month. Sometimes one can say ...no news is good news! Basically thats the truth! Alistair has been doing just fine apart from the above complaints. The only problem is is he also became pretty wingy too. He's getting pretty clever actually. Mom comes in the room and the whining begins. Mom leaves the room and the whining stops and out comes the smiles! The part that has been really bugging me though is the fact that I can't do my regular physio with him as the little gaffer literally hyperextends backwards and cries his little heart out! 
So yes an abrupt stop came to the sitting, the weight baring on his feet, and the kneeling in crawl position. I just find it a real bummer as it was the one thing I could do to help him moving forward and progressing. Its definitely been a 3 steps forward two steps back month. But as usual Lynn at CDC helped take the pressure off my brain. She just helped me realize that I shouldn't beat myself up about this and to focus on what I can work with rather than what I can't. Sounds simple hey! Well it is once someone gives you the ok! Today we got Alistair in a very odd looking appartus that basically straps him into a standing position. He managed 15 minutes for his first go. Not his favorite thing but he was willing to tolerate it somewhat. 
Anyhow, we do keep seeing little bits of progress here and there. Its just that this month its all in the details! For instance, with his hands he's starting to curl his fingers around the side of his high chair and he keeps himself proped up with hands. He also seems to be following stuff with his eyes a lot better now as well. So since our physio side of things have slowed down I'm trying to put an extra effort into enhancing his hearing and vision and I think I'm seeing some positive changes. Sometimes I just wonder how much is wishful thinking and how much is actually occuring. Anyhow his vision is a far cry from what it was in February. However, he still isn't too keen to focus on the face. Mind you right when I tell people this he turns around and looks at them! You may wonder how one works with the vision. Well basically you just stimutate you kidlet with visually stimulating things that aren't too busy. Plus you always want to present them the same way. So not upside down, sideways etc. So we use a lot of colorful things and as soon as he looses interest we move onto something else. I incorporate the hearing stimulation with the vision a lot too. So using items with bells (he LOVES bells!), or squeeky toys, or toys that make noise when he touches them. Thankfully, the CDC and IDP provide a lot of great toys as a lot on the market is basically out there to entertain the parents then help the kids. 
Ooo some other good news is on August 9th Alistair had his last dose of phenobarb (one of his anti-seizure meds) and just the fact that I don't have to crush and mix a med everynight is a bit of a treat. It seemed to take forever to get off the med as one has to slowly decrease the dosage over time. I think it was about eight weeks ago that we started decreasing the phenobarb, so ya its been awhile. Now the goal is to see if he can handle being off the Ranitidine, which is his anti-reflux med. The pedicatrician's plan is that he will hopefully "grow out of it" and it seems to be working as he has been on the same dosage for the past 5 month or so. Would it ever be nice if he was just down to one daily med! 
Well thats the gist of it! I continue to be busy with the PG Deaf Children's Society. We have our Adventure Camp out at Ness Lake here in a few weeks so thats keeping me a bit busy. Plus an instructor that works at CNC is pretty keen on working with our society to develop a new logo and website for us. So I'm pretty pumped about that. As for the soccer, the summer season is winding down. We have a couple more games to play and then hopefully I get on an indoor soccer team! As you can see we've also checked out a bit of back country and if you can believe it these lakes are all within an hour of moms farm! Kuddos to Jason for loving the back country as I had never seen this part of PG!
It was a bit of a long haul for Alistair in getting there as it was about a 12 hr door to door trip with the flight and drive combined but once we got there it was so super nice. Jason's Mom and family have a 160 acer island 1/3 of the way up on the East side of Lake Winnipeg. Its gorgeous. The last town is Pine Falls and then you keep driving for another 1 1/2 hours. Gorgeous! Brian's grandfather who was Metis bought the island in 1906 but first he had to give up his native status to do so. He bought it for $10.
One of Jason's absolute favorite things to do is go pickerel fishing or just fishing in general. So several times we went out to the channel and through in a hook. The funny thing is the very first cast I made was not exactly ideal and I started to real in and VOILA Julie caught a fish! I rarely have the patience to catch the poor things but today was my lucky day as I literally had been fishing 2 minutes! Jason was delighted as we were the only ones into eatting late that evening so we had a good big feed of it. 
The weather was absolutley amazing the whole time we were there. Even when we had a 2 hr interval of dark low heavy thunder clouds roll in it was still amazing. Family across the water called to warn us that golf ball sized hail were coming but we only got a few marbles. However, the clouds were so intense we were actually ducking! We even came up with a game plan if a tornado decided to touch down as the sky was that bizzare...no joke!
When we do make it out to Loon Straits (the area where the island is) we generally try to go around the annual golf tournament. Its not your average golf tournament though as the golf balls are baseballs and the clubs are well.....
This was my team. Uncle Lester, Alistair's Auntie Shyan and myself. Lester ended up being one off of the biggest cheaters (aka winners) and I was one off of the most honest players (aka loser). Its always really good times and no we don't play 18 holes but we do play nine!
and getting back from the beach
Nana entertaining Alistair with her musical talents
Anna and her boys