Southern Babies: Appointments, Ears and Climbing

It's been a busy week at our house. We had some kind of appointment everyday but Tuesday.

Monday morning Lindy had an appointment with neurosurgery just to check on her VP shunt. Thankfully she has had NO problems with it. Her head circumference did go up to the next percentile in the growth chart, but she hasn't been measured in 6 months. They are not worried and assume it's normal growth. We will go back in 6 months for another check-up. If everything is fine we will hopefully go to yearly appointments (although that is what they told us 6 months ago.) We made our appointment on the same day and same time as our friends Cheryl and Noah. We did the same 6 months ago too. Noah was in the NICU with us and has a shunt as well. We went out to lunch at the same spot we went 6 months ago and they sat us at the same table as well. We got the same waitress and she actually remembered us. We really enjoyed catching up. Lindy was in rare form, entertaining half the restaurant. She's a funny girl, or as the lady at the next table said, "She's a ham!"

I got Lindy home and in bed for her nap and basically loaded Will up and went back to town to take Will to the pediatrician. After fighting his cold for about 3 weeks we figured it was time to check it out. It was the coughing at night that was the last straw. I figured we would go in and they would say it was just a cold or allergies, but he actually had an ear infection in his right ear. When Will is teething he plays with his ear and during this 3 week cold he had a molar come through. I assumed any ear playing was due to that. He wasn't acting like he felt horrible but I am glad I took him in. He got his first antibiotic since coming home from the NICU and he loves his "bubble gum." After 4-5 days of it, I think he definitely feels better. Right after he got the cold he stopped drinking his milk well. Finally the last couple days he has gone back to his regular, good milk-drinking self.

Wednesday morning someone knocked on the door and to my surprise it was our Governor Morehead vision teacher. I totally missed that appointment in my calendar. Thankfully we were home and had no where to be. I had just finished dressing Lindy and I quickly got Will ready. We had a good meeting. Leslie brought out the coolest puzzles for Lindy. They are wooden one piece puzzles with large knobs on them. They are perfect for her. She let us keep two this week and Lindy is really getting the hang of them.

Thursday we had our hearing therapy with Chris. It was a normal therapy session with her. Actually Lindy showed off a bit for her. Chris was impressed. She showed how she can sign more, milk, and ball. She can do some hand movements to Twinkle, Twinkle, and knows where her ears, belly, feet, and toes are. The other big thing was we held out two of her learn to listen toys and we asked her to choose between them. She has never really been able to do it. She did awesome with it on Thursday. If we had the baby and duck out and I would ask Lindy to give the duck a hug, she would grab the duck and give it a hug. She repeatedly picked the correct object when we asked her to give it a hug or give it a kiss, or make it walk, etc. She doesn't understand if you just ask her where the duck is or tell her to get the car. But she showed us she definitely knows what they are! Chris was impressed that she knows the actual word for each object instead of just the sound it makes.

On Friday Lindy had a hearing test done. She has been worrying us a little bit by not responding to the six sounds we do in the beginning of every hearing therapy appointment. Our audiologist checked her ear drums and they were moving and not congested. She checked the hearing aides and they were all set correctly. Then we put her in the hearing booth with her hearing aides on, something they haven't ever done. She did really well with all sounds except the 's' sound. She didn't respond well to it. They were able to adjust her hearing aides and turn up the volume on just this 's' sound. One interesting thing that happened was that she was apparently afraid of the light up, tail-wagging dog that moves whenever Lindy turns in response to a sound. I've never really even known if she has seen the dog because it is probably 3 feet away. I always bring a small light-up toy as well that I hold up when she turns in response to sounds. This time she cried every time they activated the dog! On one hand I felt bad for her but on the other I was excited that she had seen the dog! We also tried to dim the lights in the room and she didn't like that either. Who knows!

Today we enjoyed a wonderful day outside playing around. We went and got two hanging baskets and some tomato plants. Tonight Lindy and I went to her first Mother-Daughter banquet at church. She sat pretty well in her booster seat while I ate dinner but then she turned into a wild child. There was a magician's show as the entertainment and I spent that last hour wrestling with her during the show. She didn't want to sit still at all. She wore me out. She did win a flower as a door prize though. I think we'll both sleep well tonight!

I got Mr. Will some forks (well really they are more like sporks) this week and he has been feeding himself dinner each night. He is doing really well and seems so much happier to be in control. We've been eating outside on our porch a lot so he loves that as well. He surprised us tonight! I was in the kitchen and Drew was walking out of the living room. He turned around and found Will up on top of the coffee table!! I walked in and busted out laughing. I know it was the wrong thing to do but it was so funny to see! This was the first time he'd figured out he could do that. I resisted taking a picture because I don't really want to reinforce his coffee table climbing skills! The climbing was going to happen sooner or later, but it definitely surprised us to see that!

I will end this marathon post I've written. I'm exhausted just thinking back about last week. Or maybe it was wrangling Lindy all night that has made me exhausted! Either way, here are some pictures and I'm headed to bed!

Lindy and her boyfriend Noah