Daniel


		Our third child, Daniel was born April 22, 1996 and diagnosed with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome the following day. He has 2 older sisters who we feel are "therapists in disguise" who motivate him better than anybody! Daniel weighed 6-1/2 lbs. at birth and was 20" long. But feeding was very difficult for him and he was classified as failure to thrive.

	Daniel had open-heart surgery at 3-1/2 months of age to correct a VSD, PDA and mild pulmonary stenosis. He only weighed 8 pounds at the time, but the surgery seemed to fix his failure to thrive problem, and he started to gain weight, to the delight of all his doctors (and mom and dad!).


	At 13 months, we scheduled a "doctor party" where Daniel had undescended testicles brought down and hypospadias corrected (urologist), tear duct probed (opthamologist) and tongue clipped (ENT). Luckily, he is a healthy boy, he's only had 2-3 colds and 3 ear infections


	Daniel started in therapy at 6 months of age. He currently attends PT, OT, SLT, aqua therapy (PT in the water) and a typical music class, which he adores. He attended a typical pre-school when he was 2 (although he was placed in the


	1-year-old class) and will start special needs pre-school in Fall 1999.

He started to sit at 9 months of age, crawled at 15 months and has just begun to walk at age 3. Although he is very vocal (what happened to my silent angel?) he is not verbal. We started signing at a young age, and he really took off about the age of 2-1/2. He now signs over 40 signs and also works with a Macaw and Boardmaker symbols (plastered all over the house).

He likes Teletubbies, but they run a distant second to BARNEY, his favorite activity of all time. He also loves to play on the computer, read books and play with his sisters, Claire, 9 years old and Julia, 6-1/2 years old.




	The Shavzins (l-r): Claire (8-1/2 yrs), David, Karen, Daniel (2-1/2 yrs.) and Julia (5-1/2 years). 1998

Everything must happen for a reason. Through and because of Daniel, we have met the most beautiful and truly special people. He has enriched our lives and made our family complete. We are so proud of all our children.

Karen & David Shavzin
Roswell, Georgia
Dshavzin@gw.total-web.net

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