Glasses, iPads, Second Opinions... Oh My!

First of all I have a super exciting thing that happened to me! I won an iPad 2 giveaway from the blog Love That Max! I have never won anything like this in my whole life and I am so darn excited I could just scream!!! Ellen, the writer of Love That Max emailed me last night saying that I had won the giveaway. I immediately started crying because I was in shock. I have been wanting to get an iPad for Noah and I thought maybe for Christmas, if we pooled together all the money from family, that maybe we could get one. There are so many awesome apps to help with speech development, cognitive development, as well as helping with vision and fine motor skills. I know it will take a lot of work with Noah but I am hoping that he will be able to use it independently one day. I am just so thrilled and feeling so blessed that I now have the tools to make this dream into reality. Also, Ellen said that she had read some of my blog which made me feel so honored! She has won many blogger-type awards and is very well known in the special needs blogging community. If you have some time, you should check her out at www.lovethatmax.com.

I have also been in contact with a few people at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Up until now I have thought that Noah's care has been fine at Dell Children's. Lately I feel like we are not getting anywhere and they are just managing Noah and his trach instead of trying to help him progress. There has also been a lot of hooplah with Noah and his ability to wear a speaking valve. Doctor and speech therapist from clinic say we need to hold off until Noah gets scoped. I say differently so I will not stop him from wearing it. I am getting very frustrated and feel like they aren't really listening to me, only hearing what they want to hear. They have never even seen Noah with his valve on so it makes me upset that they would try to make recommendations when they really have no idea. So I think it's time for a second opinion.... Hopefully Texas Children's can get us into their clinic in October. Please send up some prayers that they will have good things to say and that they will hopefully be able to help us toward our goal of getting the trach out someday.

And today, we took Noah to try on glasses! I am so excited because he looks so cute! He actually looks very grown up in his glasses and they should be ready in about a week! Here is the best picture we could get. He was very worn out from trying on glasses so he didn't want to open his eyes.

***P.S.***
If you could leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite kid-friendly, learning app for iPad that would be awesome! They can be for special needs or otherwise. I just want to have a good starting point. A few things to consider would be apps that are easy to activate and/or have lots of bright colors or sounds to catch Noah's attention. Thanks in advance!