this little cupcake finally did tonight?
Went pee pee in the potty!!!!!!!!!
For the first time ever! She was getting ready for her bath and as usual, I put her on the potty. She looked through a couple books and before long I heard the potty playing music! Drew and I went crazy! I’m sure she thought we were crazy! I’m positive she just happened to be sitting on the potty when she went pee-pee, but hey, you got to start somewhere!
“Going pee pee on the potty makes a girl tired!”
We had a crazy week! It’s been awhile since we’ve had this many appointments.
Monday started off with Lindy having an appointment with her orthopedist. It was a follow-up visit from six months ago. Dr. Kat was very impressed with Lindy. She is doing everything she hoped she would and she didn’t feel any tightness in her ankles. Our PT is thinking of going to a short brace for her right side and Dr. Kat was fine with that. She said she usually sees little kids that are growing every six months but she was going to just see Lindy in a year! We love when she’s doing so well we get put off for a year! After the orthopedist appointment Lindy had a routine hearing test. Lindy was actually very much like a 2 year old and wouldn’t cooperate very much. I’m not sure if they got any info on her. Her hearing test 3 months ago was stable and we have nothing to make us think it’s changed. We actually left her hearing aides and they are going to send them into Phonak to be checked out. We have had little issues here and there with them. Once the hearing aids come back they are going to put her FM system on. This will give us a chance to get used to the FM system this summer and she’ll be all ready for preschool in the fall.
Tuesday we were up bright and early and back in town for Lindy's regular physical therapy appointment. The PT was going to try the short brace on her but I forgot them. Lindy climbed up a wall and had a great time doing it. She seriously climbed up about a 10 foot wall. Heather said she’d never had someone so young climb the entire wall. Lindy has no fear! After physical therapy we went to a routine ophthalmology appointment. We actually saw one of the residents and she was really nice. The normal eye doctor is our least favorite doctor. Dr. Estes checked her out and said that when tracking an object Lindy was starting to use her right eye. Until now she hasn’t been. She likes to use her better (left) eye and switches to it whenever she wants to. It’s good news that she is using her right eye some to track objects! Lindy would not cooperate at all using the Teller Acuity cards. We got no info from that. Again, she was acting like a 2 year old!
Wednesday morning both kids had speech therapy with Lawson. Chris, our hearing therapist, came to watch and learn. Everyone was pleased with how much Lindy was repeating and saying. She said a ton of two word phrases. I think Lindy has a lot more words than we really know. Will had his therapy session and did great. Two weeks ago she told us to work on action words ending in -ing. We did and he is definitely saying some. This week she said to work on possessives with him. He did say one during session so she was pleased. We are also trying to get him to say longer sentences as well. His speech still amazes me. He’s come so far!
Thursday was supposed to be an appointment free day but alas, we ended up at the pediatrician at 4:15pm. Remember about 2 months ago when Will scared the pants off of us by clutching his side and crying out in pain. Well he started up again on Thursday. Around 11am he started whining and saying ‘side hurt.’ Knowing that it turned out to be nothing last time, we decided to try and wait this one out. He whined off and on until lunch time. He ate fine but then afterwards starting crying some. We went outside for awhile and he was fine but when we came in and I changed his diaper he was crying hard. I was going to rock him but he went to his bed and he said, “Go night-night.” I put him down and he slept fine for 2 hours. He woke up crying pretty hard though and he was laying on me and wouldn’t let me put him down. Finally I’d had enough and called the pediatrician’s office and they got him a late appointment. Even as we were walking out the door Will was crying but by the time we drove 30 minutes, he was fine. We had to wait a good 40 minutes to see the doctor and he was acting completely normal by the time we saw her. She agreed that because he had intestinal surgery, his belly will always be an issue. They couldn’t find anything this time either. So weird! I really hope this doesn’t happen every 2 months. He’s been fine ever since so who knows.
Friday we went into town and ran some errands and went to Wake Forest and walked around campus. The kids had a great time running all around the quads. We ate dinner Friday night at IHOP with a Sunday school class from our church. We love IHOP because kids eat free!
Saturday afternoon we had some friends come from Charlotte. Matt and Drew have known each other since middle school. Matt and Martha dated in high school and Drew was good friends with them. They have two kids, Liam (5) and Clara (less than 2 months younger than L&W).We took them to a local restaurant, the Hillbilly Hideaway, for dinner and came back and put all the kids to bed. It was great catching up. We all went to church and lunch today and they headed back to Charlotte. Will talked about his ‘new friends’ all day yesterday. He called them Clara and Im. Clara might be the only other kid on the planet that is the same size as Lindy and Will. They are all tiny for their age!
I didn’t take many pictures this week since we were so busy. Here are a few of the ones I did take.
Our March of Dimes March for Babies walk was Saturday morning. It turned out to be a beautiful morning for a 3.5 mile walk. We had 17 people walk on our Million Dollar Babies team:: Me, Drew, Lindy, Will, GrandBob, Suzette, Suzette’s granddaughter Deanna, Mimo, Aunt Anna, Uncle Ed, Jamie, Molly, Janice, Katie, Kris, Micah, and Claire. Katie, Micah, and Claire have walked every year with us – even though Claire was in the womb the first year!
I got to the park at 6:30am that morning to help set everything up. I was on the planning committee for the entire walk this year. Drew and the kids got there around 9am. Around 9:30am they started a small program. We were introduced as the Ambassador Family and Drew had to talk. I have given enough speeches as the Ambassador Mom that I let him handle the one at the walk. Then we got to lead off the entire walk. We had to carry a banner for a little bit. It was fun to be special that day!
I decided last Monday to make our team t-shirts. Katie and I met at AC Moore and got all the supplies and I got to ironing this week. I wanted everyone to know we were the ambassador family team this year!
We made our goal and actually surpassed it. As of right now Drew and I got $3770 and our team got $4670. Thank you to everyone who supported us this year. We have very generous friends and family!!!
Here are some pictures of our day.
The pollen around here is ridiculous. We have started eating dinner outside on our porch most nights now that it has warmed up but every night we have to wipe everything down before we can eat there. The kids go down their slides and their pants turn yellow. Enough with it already!
Last Saturday we went to a mission fair in Mayodan and drove around the area while the kids slept. We ended up in Reidsville and happened upon a free kids concert in a little downtown park. The kids had both woken up so we stopped. It was this group called the Learning Station and it was great. It wasn’t so great that, because of Drew, I ended up on stage dancing, but it was still fun. The kids were still very sleepy and a little overwhelmed. They sat in my lap for most of it. It was a perfect spring day and we had a blast.
The week was a fairly busy week. We started out bright and early Monday morning with a meeting with the preschool transition specialist. We met to do some preliminary paperwork for the kids IEP’s. It’s surreal that we are starting this process. For one I can’t believe they are old enough to be transitioning to preschool services (at 3) and then I just never imagined having kids that needed IEP’s. Although I don’t suppose anyone really plans on having kids with IEP’s. Lindy’s portion of the meeting took three times as long as Will’s. She has a lot more going on and a lot more therapist reports to look over. We left feeling pretty good about the meeting though. Lindy will get a comprehensive, play-based evaluation done on May 5th. Will is scheduled for the same thing on May 12th, but we have to decide if we really want Will to get the entire evaluation or just a speech evaluation. And actually he doesn’t even need his speech evaluation because the one he had to get qualified for services is recent enough. So we have some decisions to make about Will. Our go to babysitter Janice was here playing with the kids. I’m so fortunate to have someone I can call last minute who can watch the kids.
Wednesday our cat, Jack, had his yearly checkup and we found out that he might have glaucoma in one eye. The pressure was high when she checked it. We have to go back in four months to have it rechecked. If he does have it then we have to give him eye drops. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Giving a cat eye drops?
Thursday afternoon we had Lindy’s vision teacher here but she brought the vision mobility specialist with her. She came sometime in 2008 when Lindy was commando crawling and wanted to come back when Lindy was comfortably walking around. She seemed pretty impressed with Lindy. She watched her walk all over the house and the yard. She put toys in the middle of the floor to see how Lindy moved around them. We told her our only concern with Lindy and mobility is steps. She knows our house like the back of her hand but she also does completely fine wherever we take her. We have never seen her act any different in a new place. We were told that kids can sometimes be hesitant in new places where they are not comfortable and don’t know the surroundings. Not our Lindy. We chase her around so she doesn’t break things in other peoples’ houses. She felt that Lindy will adapt well to wherever she is. She didn’t think she needed any kind of walking stick to help her out. The only steps we have at our house are a couple outside. We decided that they are really large steps and Lindy is really short so she is going to have trouble with them. She suggested Lindy continue to bump down them instead of trying to walk. We always love when people come to check Lindy out and she surprises them. We love to hear people talk about how well she is doing!
Will has found a new favorite book this week. Chicka Boom Boom Boom as Will calls it (It’s really Chicka Chicka Boom Boom). That is what he wants to read every night before bed. The boy loves him some alphabet! The cutest thing he says is ‘sunglasses.’ Most nights when we put Will on the potty it is right before bath time when he is naked. Last week I decided to put him on it during the day. We were walking down the hall to the potty and he said, ‘Shirt off.’ I had to tell him that he can leave clothes on to go to the bathroom!
Lindy’s excitement for the week is that she fell backwards off the porch. Thankfully she was not hurt. She sure scared her mama though. I think she was trying to sit in a chair that was nearby and just completely missed it. I was blowing bubbles and watched her go over. It’s just 2-3 feet high, but Lindy hitting her head with a shunt just makes me very nervous. She didn’t even cry for a minute. She was walking and playing immediately. I think the azalea bush softened the blow for her. I was proud of Will though. I was yelling for Drew who was inside but he couldn’t hear me. I told Will to open the door and go inside and get daddy. He did exactly as he was told and went inside and told Drew, “sissy hurt.” It was awesome that he followed my directions and then even knew what to tell Drew.
Enjoy some pictures from the week.
At the kids concert in Reidsville.
We have stayed fairly busy this week, even though our therapy appointments were not on our usual days.
Tuesday morning I had another March of Dimes speaking engagement. Our March of Dimes exciting news this week is that we were in a magazine! You might be able to click on the article to make it big enough to read. We were pretty excited to be interviewed and get some good, free publicity for the March of Dimes.
On Wednesday we had speech therapy for both kids. It was the first time Lindy has actually had a session. She was just tested a couple weeks ago. Because Will likes to talk for Lindy I had to put him in our bedroom with the little DVD player and let him watch his new monkey movie. This is a definite treat for Will and I don’t even think he knew Lawson was here! He didn’t make a peep and was a good, quiet boy during Lindy’s session. Lawson was pleasantly surprised with Lindy. At first Lawson was trying to get her to imitate some sounds and Lindy wouldn’t. Later they were playing with Mr. Potato head and Lindy imitating Lawson. She did better just in the midst of playing. I think Lindy surprised Lawson by saying many two word phrases.
After Lindy was done we got Will and he had a great session too. His speech seriously just amazes us. To think that about 3 months ago he had maybe 35 words. Now he talks all the time and says things I had no clue that he knew about. He can name every letter, count to ten, say all his colors and shapes. He has just exploded! Lawson now wants us working on verbs and trying to get him to say ‘I want a snack’ instead of just snack.
Thursday morning Will had a hearing test. Because he is enrolled in speech therapy it is required that he have a hearing test to rule out his hearing being the cause of the speech delay. We had no questions at all about his hearing so we weren’t worried. He passed with flying colors. Drew said he even heard the sound at 5 decibels. The audiologist was actually very impressed by that and said most kids at his age don’t respond to that faint of a sound.
Thursday afternoon Lindy had hearing therapy. We worked with the Very Hungry Caterpillar book and did a few different activities with it.
Today Lindy had physical therapy. She did very well again. We worked on climbing up and down stairs. She tends to go too fast. She needs a lot more practice on them.
We have had beautiful weather and have been outside every afternoon. The pollen has gone crazy this week. Everything is covered in yellow. We have been eating outside most nights this week and we just have to wipe everything down each night. Thankfully it rained last night and washed some of it away. I’m still giving the kids Claritin and it seems to be working.
Anyone have any ideas on how to make Lindy stop playing during meals? She plays with her bowl, plate, spoon, cup, whatever she can find to play with. She picks up her bowl off her plate and will turn it over and dump it. One night she dropped her plate off her tray onto the ground. Feeding her is the one thing that has never gotten easier. We just wish she’d eat! It’d take a quarter of the time if she’d just eat and not play so much. Any suggestions would be great!
Enjoy some pictures of our week. Both kids have learned to say ‘cheese’ for pictures. Not that they both say it at the same time or while both looking at the camera though!
Will decided he likes his rain boots.
