BUBBLES

On Friday morning Kristen asked for bubbles in the bath at bathtime. I hate bubbles in the bath! Well, Lauren shared in my feelings about bubbles.

Early Intervention Evaluation

Even though this month has been busy for us, Lauren has had a whole month off from doctors appointments. Next month she has 3. She did have her 6 month evaluation with Early Intervention. We met with our service coordinator, her occupational therapist and her speech therapist. One of the goals we set in January for speech therapy was that she would be able to identify simple objects, pictures and body parts. She is emerging in this area. She is able to recognize objects and will help in clean up if I ask her to go pick up the ball, shoe, book, etc. She still does get confused and sometimes brings the wrong object. If you ask where her nose, eye or mouth is, she will point to them. She loves books and can recognize babies, balls and ducks in the book. I have some flash cards that I have been working with her on and she loves to look at the pictures on them. We also wanted Lauren to say 10-15 words and to call us by name when wanting to get our attention. She is emerging in this area too. I would guess she says around 10-15 words. She definitely attempts anything you say, of course it comes out very soft and you have to really listen to in order to hear it. However, she is not even attempting to say our names to get our attention. She just grunts, which has been effective because I still give her what she wants. That is an area I have to work on and will be more conscious of it over the next few months. Another goal was that she will focus on a one toy during play and finish the toy out before moving on to another toy. She will also problem solve with toys that she doesn't understand. She is emerging in this area too. She gets very frustrated when she can't get something and will move on very fast. She has a piggy bank that plays songs and counts when you put the plastic pieces in it. She loves this toy, but when I turn the the piggy so that the slot is up and down she gets very frustrated because she cannot figure it out. Even though I get her to ask for help and then show her, it always results in her just throwing the piece across the room. We are working on her finishing a task with help, even though it might be hard and something she doesn't want to do without getting angry and throwing things. The last goal we set for speech was that she will be more independent in eating and will use a spoon to feed herself at each meal. One thing I have figured out about Lauren, is while she does eat on her own, if I feed her the meal she will usually eat most of what is on her plate. This was an ah ha moment for me because from a feeding standpoint I thought, if I feed her the meals maybe we can get the feeding tube taken out. However, on a developmental side, she needs her independence. While I feel she is making progress with eating with a spoon, she is not there yet. She does enjoy trying and gets really happy with all the praise we give her for her success. Even though she hasn't technically "met" all of her speech goals, I do know that they will be accomplished and for that I am grateful. We are talking about a little girl who we thought would never be able to do anything and to set a goal for her to feed herself with a spoon is a major accomplishment!

On to the occupational therapy side. This focuses on cognitive (thinking) skills, comprehension skills and coordination. I am VERY proud to announce that Lauren has met ALL of her goals we have set for her in the area. We wanted Lauren to go into and out of a sitting position during play, consistently get into hands and knees position and take steps to reach her parents or a toy, pull herself into kneeling and pull up to stand to reach her parents each day, stand at a supported surface to free up her hands to play with a toy, cruise the length of the sofa to reach a toy and to push a push toy across the room to explore throughout the day. She has done more that we set for her. I can't tell you how happy I am. God is so good!

I would say this evaluation was one of the best we have had. Our paperwork is being sent to the school system for Lauren to start with the head start program through the school system at age 3, so if she gets accepted she will be going to school next September for 4 full days a week. I at first thought she's not going to get accepted since she is meeting all of her goals, but I have to keep in mind that, while she is doing very good, she is still delayed. I don't really realize it until I see someone else her age and the things they are doing. My goal is for her to be caught up by kindergarten. I am a little concerned because she seems so small (she still only weighs 17 lbs and wears 6-9 month clothes). I do hope she doesn't get lost somewhere or hurt. She is a tough kid and will bump her head, slam her finger in something or just fall and hardly ever cry. On a side note she did move up in Sunday school classes at church. She was in the nursery and now she is in with the 18 months-3 year old. Kristen absolutely loves it and made sure Lauren stayed on task during class. I was a little concerned that Lauren wouldn't follow directions and would be a disruption. Not that I thought she would be loud because she is very soft spoken, but I did think that someone would end up having to chase her since she loves to go..go..go. But, she did very good.

They are also going to bring in an educational therapist to work with Lauren. They will come out every week and will take the place of her speech therapy. They will work with Lauren as a whole and not just focus on certain areas. While we are sad to see her speech therapist go, we are happy for this next step. I have to say I was a little concerned that occupational therapy would get replaced too once they explained to me what an educational therapist did. Debra her OT has been with us for a year and a half and we absolutely love her. Kristen loves her and Lauren loves her too. As soon as she walks in Lauren starts laughing and falling down trying to be funny. I actually enjoy my time talking with her. She is such a nice person and makes therapy fun. She also includes Kristen which makes her feel special. So, instead of Debra coming out weekly, she will come out every other week. We set some new goals for Lauren and my prayer is that in January we will be able to report such great progress again.

Back On Track

So, this month has been a VERY hectic month. I don't even know where to begin. We started off visiting my grandmother, which I posted about that. Then it probably seemed like I fell off the face of the earth...but good news...I didn't. Our month has been filled with busy-ness (don't know if that is a word, if not, then it should be). When we first put our house up for sale we decided to put some things in storage. It worked out good, except that was an added cost every month and it doesn't look like our house is going to sell anytime soon, so 9 months later we are moving it back into our house. I thought it was only some things until we started moving them out. I then realized it was a lot of things. Prior to that I spent a whole week de-cluttering my entire house. It is amazing how much stuff you accumulate. Paul and I started off our marriage with a bed, chest of drawers, table, couch and chair. I remember thinking...I am never going to fill up this house. HA!! For us the bulk was clothes for the kids. Not only did I de-clutter, I also moved the kids into the same room and made Lauren's old room into a play room. I should have done that a long time ago too. I know this is only temporary and one day they will want and need their own room, but for the time being it works and Kristen loves having Lauren sleep in the room with her.

After moving everything out we decided to redo our downstairs bathroom. It hadn't been updated since the house was built in 1988, so it desperately needed it. I had gone with the rubber duck theme so the walls were blue. I can say this...I will NEVER paint another room blue as long as I live. I felt like I was drowning every time I went into that bathroom. I was so glad to get rid of the blue. I think we could of painted it black and I still would have loved it. Our bathroom looks totally different. I absolutely love it (will post pictures of it soon). So, until we sell our house we have a new bathroom to enjoy. We also put up one of those curved shower curtain rods....absolutely LOVE IT! Now that I can step back and take a breath without having 1 million things on my list to do I can start focusing on updating this blog. I have posted a few pictures of the kids, but of course with our busy-ness I haven't taken many pictures. That will change.


Nothing like homemade rice crispy treats. Lauren didn't like them on her hands at all.


Kristen couldn't be left out and had to put some on her face too.




These are the cards and candy Aunt Kelly brought by for the girls after our emergency room visit. She is the BEST aunt ever! Kristen has been sleeping with her card under her pillow. She thought of that all on her own and checks everyday to make sure it is still there.

Emergency Room Visit

This evening we had to take Kristen to the ER. She was playing in the floor, we really don't know what she did, but she started crying holding her arm. We put some ice on it but she was still holding it against her body not really moving it. After about 30 minutes we decided to take her to the ER. Something was definately wrong and we were just praying it wasn't broken. She wouldn't even move her arm to get it into straps of her car seat, that is how bad it was hurting her. We arrived at the hospital and they took some x-rays. After the x-rays she started moving her arm all around and said it was all better and she wanted to go home. She had nursemaid's elbow. This is a partial dislocation of the elbow. The first x-ray showed it dislocated, when they flipped her arm over to do another x-ray it popped back into socket, so the next two x-rays came out good. She is all better and we stopped at WaWa and got her some candy...she deserved it after that. There is a possibility that it could dislocate again in the next few weeks, but they showed us what to do in case that happened. I sure hope it doesn't. I hate to see my little girl in pain.

Videos

I thought I would post a couple videos. Here is one of Kristen dancing to the Wiggles and one of Lauren walking around the house carrying a purse.

Our Trip

We went to visit my grandmother. She celebrated her 92nd birthday on July 4th. It was a good trip. The weather was so much nicer there. I was very proud of myself because I packed even less this time than when we visited in May. We were even able to keep the back seat in the van! Here are some pictures from our trip.


Our family with Granny. Everyone except my brother-in-law who couldn't be there.


Granny Ruby and me with the picture I cross-stitched for her.


Here is the picture of the cake we had made for my Granny. The lady that did Kristen's 3rd birthday cake did it. My grandmother has been a quilter for many many years, so we wanted something that reflected on her life.


Granny Ruby and her cake.


My dad and Granny. This was the best picture of the trip!

1st Time for Everything

Lauren's 1st time in time out. Life is just so hard!