They are Walking and Talking Better!

I hate when I check blogs and they haven't posted. I hope people have checked my blog and gotten upset. That would mean people actually care what I write about!

It was another busy week. Insane busy for Drew. He preached two funerals last week, on top of his normal weekly work. One of the funerals he preached was for a 77 year old lady who lost her battle with tongue cancer. I'll never forget sweet Claudine. It was at her house that Lindy took her very first step ever! She'll forever be included in the memory of Lindy's first steps.

We had a semi-quiet week appointment-wise. Tuesday morning we had physical therapy and Lindy did great. She took 9 steps at one point. Heather, our PT, changed her statement from, "She'll be walking any week now" to "She'll be walking any day now." Lindy walked 7 minutes on the treadmill! The week before she hated it but last week she didn't mind. I had to take Will with me which always makes for a more stressful appointment. Tuesday afternoon we had hearing therapy with Chris. We played with Play-doh again and had a good time.


The biggest news of the week is Lindy's walking. She has done SO well this week. All summer I've had her in crocs. I was under the impression that her braces were providing the support and they said I could put her in whatever was cute and would fit. With cooler weather impending I found her little sneakers that would fit on her braces. We put them on her Tuesday and she did a ton better in PT. That afternoon she walked across the kitchen. She seems so much steadier in them. We'll catch her standing by herself, looking so steady. She walks like a drunken sailor, but the difference is that she has started catching and balancing herself when she starts to wobble. On Friday night she finally figured out how to stand up by herself. Without pulling up on anything! She's been trying for awhile and finally made it. We are so proud of her!!!


On the pacifier front, things are still S L O W L Y getting better. Will is 100% fine going to bed without it, but he has had a definite change in sleeping. He takes shorter naps and has started waking up between 5:30-6am. He used to get up at 7am. Unfortunately his squawking is waking up Lindy. Lindy has gotten a little better going to sleep without her paci. Friday and Saturday nights she didn't even cry at all! Yesterday she cried some. She is not sleeping as long at naps either. I'm not sure how to get them back to sleeping longer and later. Any suggestions? We have started giving them each a stuffed animal in their beds and I think that has helped a little. They have never been attached to anything. They have had the same 2 lovies in their beds since they came home and they could care less about them. Maybe a stuffed animal can help replace the paci. We'll see!


The funniest story of the week was our trip to Walmart after PT last week. I took the kids in their stroller since we just needed a couple things. I happened upon some cute Halloween shirts and was checking them out. I eventually ended up in front of the stroller and looked down to see the funniest sight ever. Lindy had somehow managed to get her shirt up over her head. She was sitting there with a full bare chest and belly showing. I have no clue how long she was riding like that! People had been smiling at us but now I wonder what they were smiling at. The two cute kids in the stroller or the ridiculous sight of Lindy?!


Will had a good week. He has learned a new word almost everyday last week. His vocabulary now includes bump, help, hot, and hat. So fun to hear him say new words. He is using them appropriately too which I find cool. I was putting him in his car seat yesterday after church and he touched the seat and said "Hot." It was definitely warm from being out in the sun. One thing I've noticed him doing this week is playing with his cars and trains. So cute to see him pushing a little car all over the place. His favorite phrase these days is, "What's that?" It's usually said in a high-pitched squeal while pointing at something. And it only gets louder if you don't answer him. He's obsessed with lights and light switches lately too.


We had a week full of fun visits. Tuesday night we went to some church members house for dinner. We got to ride in a golf cart down to their little fish pond which was fun. The kids got to throw bread into the water for the fish and got to pet their dog. Wednesday we had a friend of mine, Carina, come visit us. I enjoyed some adult interaction and she got to play with the kids. Friday I got to go visit my best friend and see her new baby, Rebecca. She's almost 6 weeks old but I finally got to hold that sweetie! She seemed so tiny compared to my kids!


We ended the weekend with another Wake game. The kids did better this game, despite the fact that it was during their nap time. Both fell asleep at the game for a little bit and they were not as restless. And the game was amazing. Wake scored with 2 seconds left to win! Awesome!


I think that sums up our week. Happy Monday.

The serious side of Will. I caught Lindy on her way down. Peek

a

boo

Funny Will picture. I forgot now what he was saying.

The kids have been playing dress-up with the dish towels this week.

What she was wearing when she went into Walmart last week.

I reenacted how I found her in Walmart.

Sweet monkey boy brushing his teeth.

Sweet girl!

Will was at the mercy of the Daddy Chin-Chopper in this picture.

A fun milestone for Lindy is that she has figured how to climb up on toys. She gets herself on and off the car all day now. Funny to see her coming in the kitchen all by herself!

She can also get on the bouncing zebra by herself. She's so talented she can even get up there with a cellphone in her hand. The girl can bounce and chat on a phone, a multi-tasker.

Sweet baby Rebecca.

Me with the Palmer ladies.

A little sibling fun.

The best together picture I could get yesterday.

WALKING!!! She looks like she is taking a walk on her lunch break at the mall in her dress and tennis shoes!

The drama queen can look so pitiful sometimes!

Walking is FUN!

Self portraits. I took probably 6 of Will and me and every one had his eyes closed!!

But I got a decent of one of me and Lindy.

Napping at the Wake game.

That boy was laid out!

Bumps, Bruises, and Ballgames

It's been a hopping week. This could be long!

Last Saturday we finally turned the kids around in their car seats. That's right, they have been backwards until now. About the time I thought about turning them in the spring I started seeing articles about the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending kids ride backwards until they are two, not one. Knowing this and that we were going to be doing a lot of traveling this summer, we left them turned around. But now we are home and they are two so we turned them around. We took the inaugural ride to the car wash and to get milkshakes. They seem to enjoy facing forward. It's strange to turn around and see them looking at us!

As far as appointments go, Lindy had PT on Tuesday morning. She got to walk on the treadmill again. She walked 4 minutes and was not happy at the end! I think it wore her out for the rest of her session. The kids had a big appointment on Wednesday morning - a swallow study to see if either were able to come off thickened liquids. The quick answer is NO but the long answer is that both did improve. Right now we put thickener in all their liquids and we mix it up so it is a nectar consistency. Both kids did great on this consistency. Neither of them aspirated (let liquid go into their airways and past their vocal cords instead of down their esophagus). When we tried them on plain water Will had trace silent aspiration and Lindy had mild to moderate silent aspiration. It is considered silent aspiration because they never cough or give us any signs that they are actually aspirating. This is improvement over their last swallow study 6 months ago though. Last time Will was actually penetrating (letting a little bit go into his airway but not down far enough for it to be considered aspiration) on the nectar consistency and had mild to moderation aspiration on the thin liquids. Lindy had moderate to severe aspiration on thin liquids last time. So although they still need their liquids thickened, they did recommend that we can make them thinner than nectar. We have been adding 1 tbsp of thickener to 4oz of liquid and now we can we add 1 tbsp of thickener to 6oz of liquid. Slowly but surely we are getting there. We are happy with a little bit of forward progress! The last appointment for the week was Lindy having hearing therapy on Friday morning. We got to play with play-doh and a cool play-doh toy. So what if I liked it more than the kids? Lindy is doing great with her play audiometry we've taught her. She holds a shape up to her ear and when she hears us make one of her 6 sounds she puts it in the bucket. She smiles so big when she hears the sound and slams the shape in the bucket!

Now for the excitement of the week. Lou Lou had a ROUGH week! Last Sunday evening we had a family fun night at the local elementary school with our church and the kids got to play on the playground. It was all fun and games until someone (Lindy) got hurt. I was holding Lindy and saw Will about to fall off this ledge (about 3 feet high). I reached to catch him and basically flung Lindy into a metal bar - accidentally. She got the biggest goose egg I've ever seen on her forehead. I was a wreck. She was fine in a few minutes but I felt HORRIBLE. We got ice and it went down pretty quick but it looked SO bad. She was so cute holding the ice on her forehead. Multiple people told us it was a good thing that it popped out so I guess that was good. We watched her close the rest of the night and I kept nudging her all night to make sure she would stir and wake up and she was fine. Her bad week continued on Tuesday when she fell out of her bed at nap time. Yep, she fell out. Again, she was fine in about 2 minutes but it definitely scared Drew and me. Her bed was on the middle setting and one end was elevated for her reflux and she walked up to that end. Not sure about what exactly happened because we just heard a thud and found her on her back on the ground. Needless to say her bed got lowered that evening! She ended that bad day by busting her lip that evening on her car toy. The worry wart in me had visions of all this head trauma somehow knocking something loose in her shunt but so far we've seen no evidence of that. We've watched her close and she acts completely normal. Thankfully no other mishaps have happened the end of the week.

Other news for the week: We took away the pacifier. The kids had been using them only at nap and nighttime. I have been talking about getting rid of it but they basically forced our hands this week. A week or so ago they started playing the 'throwing my paci out of the bed and screaming for you to come pick it up' game. For the first half hour each night we'd go in and pick it up a few times and then they would go to sleep. Finally we got tired of this game and one night we decided not to go in and pick it up. The first night and nap the next day were pretty traumatic for both. That was all it took for Will. The third time he went to sleep without it. He pretty much went to bed normally. Not so much for Lindy. She is still struggling without it. That girl has stamina. I thought she'd be getting a little worn out by now but she's hanging in there for a good 1-1.5 hours every nap and bedtime of playing/crying. Tonight she actually didn't cry much at all, just played for awhile. It's S L O W L Y getting a little better each time she goes to sleep!

And the final news of the week is that we had our first Wake Forest football game today and the kids went. They went to a couple last year but they weren't mobile yet. We were a little anxious to see how it would go. Besides it being pretty hot and sticky, and Wake losing, it was a good day. The kids did as good as they could for being 2 and confined in pretty tight quarters. We were thankful for Grandbob, Suzette, Ed, and Jamie and their willingness to hold them for awhile. We were also thankful to the guy in front of us that was way more interested in playing with Lindy than watching the game! He let her play with his plastic bracelets, glasses, hat. And he hand sanitized his hands without me even asking him to!

So I warned you I had a lot to write about! And get ready for a lot of pictures!

First time facing forward!

Church outfits last week.

The Will we see quite often these days - the temper tantrum Will!

The banged up forehead. This was after we got home. The bump was almost gone. The bruise never got much worse, thankfully. Also thankful for bangs, to cover up her forehead!

It was pretty cool in the mornings this week so we had to bust out some pants for some early morning appointments.

The kiddos reading some old college textbooks one morning.

Stinking cute when he's not pitching a duck fit! Check out his first pair of Converse shoes!

Will loves his chair!

Will after the first traumatic nap without the pacifier!

The kids got a neat toy for their birthday. It has a tepee, tunnel, and tent.

We spent lots of time outside this week enjoying the great cool temperatures!

I found Lindy crying at the backdoor one day after Drew had gone out to his office.

Tailgating before the Wake game!

At the ballgame!

Lindy and her new friend.

Stretching during halftime.

March of Dimes Awards

Today I went by the March of Dimes office to pick up some awards from the March for Babies walk last April. I was so excited to learn what awards we received.

Our entire March for Babies team (which included Bob, Ed, Jamie, Katie, Micah, Claire, Mary Allen, Mark, Conner, Tyler, Lauren, Isabelle, Janice, Louise, Drew, Lindy, Will, and I) got the Top Family Team Award. When you register, you register as a business or as a family team. We raised more money than any other family team! Thank you to our team members!!!!


I also received an award, the Top Walker Award. I raised more money than anyone else in our March for Babies walk! Thank you to everyone who donated to us! We obviously wouldn't have gotten any of these awards without the generous support of our friends and family!