A whole year!!!!

Wow! Alfie is one year old. And such a wriggler. I shouldn't have tried to start writing now because he's sitting on my lap and trying to alternately grab my necklace and pull it off my neck, bite my nose, and bash about on the keyboard.

So, just quickly - he had a 'brain stem' hearing test last week, under general anaesthetic, and was going to have tubes (grommets) fitted at the same time, but the hearing test showed that his hearing is normal!!! I sort of knew that his hearing was OK, but at birth we were told he had a severe hearing loss in his right ear, and at Christmas we were told that he couldn't hear any sound below 15dc. Obviously we were worried, and even more so because the risk of not developing speech is increased if you have both deafness and Down syndrome, but hey - that's one more thing to cross off our list of 'terrible-things-that-happen-if-you-have-an-extra-chromosone'. It also shows that sometimes you need to trust your instinct as a parent and believe what you see rather than what you are told. Interestingly, the normal hearing tests didn't work on Alfie because they are designed for people who have wider ear canals. I wonder if other babies with Ds have had this false negative test result?
Anyway, what a wonderful birthday present (for us - Alfie obviously could hear anyway so having a general anaesthetic probably wasn't the best way for him to celebrate). The consultant decided to be conservative and not fit the tubes, as he didn't have any fluid on his ears, which I'm also pleased about as I'd read mixed reviews on their efficacy.

Also, Alfie has got a tooth. And he's crawling backwards so fast that if you leave the living room for a minute he gets stuck under the sofa. And he has the most gorgeous, melting, joyful smile. We are very, very, very proud of our lovely one year old boy.