Eary Intervention - 1 Year Evaluation

Lauren had her 1 year evaluation for the occupational and speech therapy she is receiving through the county. It is hard to believe that she has been getting services for a year. As of next month they are going to stop adjusting for prematurity so right now she is considered cognitively delayed. She is progressing, so my goal is for her to be caught up by the time she starts kindergarten. On a gross and fine motor level (walking, crawling, manipulating small objects) she is functioning around 7 months. We already figured that since she isn't cruising much around the house. On a cognitive level (thinking, reasoning and problem solving) she is very scattered and her development is anywhere from 6 to 12 months. On a speech level (which includes eating) her development ranges between 9-12 months. Overall I was very pleased with this evaluation. I think Lauren is doing very well. We are going to start occupational therapy every week instead of every other week. We will continue speech therapy every other week. Both therapies go hand in hand and have proved to be very beneficial to Lauren. We set her 6 month goals and will re-evaluate her then. We praise and thank God daily for all of the progress she has made. He has definately blessed our family!

Catch Up

I can't believe it has been so long since I updated the site. We had a great Christmas. It was exhausting, but great. The girls were so tired by the end of Christmas day. It was a lot of running around crammed into two days, but I love Christmas. It was great having Lauren home this year. She enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper and eating it. They got so much stuff that our next house will definitely have to have a play room. I am already looking forward to Christmas next year.

Kristen is now potty trained! The last time I tried to potty train her it was a disaster, so I was dreading it. I put her in big girl underwear and she just went with it. By the second day she was going by herself, I didn't have to ask her. If I was busy doing something she would yell "Mommy, I'm done." It was amazing the difference. I can't remember the last time she had an accident. She like a human sponge. It is amazing the knowledge she is able to retain. She constantly amazes me. We are able to have conversations now and she is just hilarious. She is at such a fun age. Next month she will celebrate her 3rd birthday. I can't believe how fast time flies. She wants a Little Mermaid party. She helped me send out the invitations and put stickers on them.

Lauren is now eating table food. I thought we would have an issue with that, but she has done fine. This morning she ate some oatmeal and a bottle. For lunch she ate Mandarin oranges, pasta and a bottle. I am so glad she is eating table food. We had been mixing all of her milk to 26 calories. She never really drank it much during the day. I found out over Christmas that she doesn't like the taste of the milk with the increased calories. Now we give her the regular 22 calories during the day and the 26 at her feeding at night. She drinks her bottle much better. We are starting to wean her from the pacifier. She doesn't get it at all during the day, only at nap time and bedtime. I am not looking forward to taking it away completely. She is so attached to it when she sleeps. We are also going to start transitioning to a sippy cup and taking the bottle away. She continues to see the speech therapist and occupational therapist. We have her year evaluation next week. We will see what age her development is at. We are teaching her some sign language. She can sign "more" when she wants more of something. We are now trying to teach her the "all done" and "eat" sign.

Below are some pictures. Enjoy!!!

Christmas is right around the corner...

Not a lot has happened since Lauren was released from the hospital. We have been preparing for Christmas and have had a lot of follow up appointments this month. She went and saw her developmental doctor. He was very pleased with her progress and said he hoped that she would be walking the next time he sees her. We don't go back until April. I thank God for all of the good reports we are getting. It is only because of Him! We also went to see her pulmonolgist and he was pleased with her progress. We don't have any follow up appointments with him. He is referring us to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor because he thinks Lauren either has scar tissue on her vocal cords or a paralyzed vocal cord, both due to being on the vent for so long. We go and see him next week. We had a follow up appointment with her GI doctor for her g-tube today and she did another culture just to make sure the infection is gone. It is still a little red. She should know something by the end of the week. The big news to report for Lauren is that she is now saying the Ahh sound, baba, dada, nana and mama! I was so happy to hear the mama one. She also has her two top teeth. They are slowing working their way in.

I am so excited about Christmas this year. Lauren will be home to share it with us and Kristen is at the fun age. She is excited about making cookies for Santa. When we went to go see him I thought she might not do very well. She understood who Santa was and what he does, but I thought she would only want to see him from a distance. The Santa we saw was very nice and actually talked to her. Last year the Santa sat there like a bump on a log. He asked her what she wanted for Christmas. She said toys. He asked her if she wanted a baby doll and she said yes. I had asked her the week before what she was going to tell Santa she wanted for Christmas and she said apples. I thought that was cute. I told her that Mommy can get her apples at the grocery store and Santa brings fun toys. She looked at me and her eyes got very big. For the past few days she has learned a new phrase. She keeps saying I really love you Mommy or I really love you sissy. She is such a sweet girl. Below are some new pictures. I tried to download a couple videos, but I must have did something wrong. I will try again some other time.

If I don't post before Christmas, we hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday!










I put Lauren in Kristen's house we made her. Lauren was very happy...Kristen not so much.

Quick Update

I thought I would give a quick update while I was home for a few minutes. Lauren is back in the hospital. She got her Mic-Key button for feedings placed on Wednesday. She was a bit uncomfortable afterwards. Wednesday afternoon she seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable, but I wasn't sure if this was normal or not. They had told me to give her Tylenol every 4 hours, which I had been doing. Wednesday night she was up for most of the night. Around 5 am I decided to try and feed her since she was awake and crying again. She felt hot when I got her up, so I fed her and waited a little bit to take her temperature. It was 100.3. She went back to sleep around 7:30 am and surprisingly slept for and hour and a half straight. At 9 am I took her temperature again and it was the same. I called the doctors office and they said to bring her in around 12:30. Dr. Kessle said it was red and swollen around her button and she thought the balloon holding the button in place might have came outside of her stomach and sent us to go for an x-ray. During the x-ray they injected dye through the button and it looked to be placed perfectly. Dr. Kessle said that she needed to be admitted to the hospital and started on antibotics. Yesterday she just felt horrible. You couldn't even touch the button or around it without her being in pain. This morning the redness had gone down and it is looking rather well. You can actually touch the button and she doesn't seem to be in any pain. They sent a culture off and we should get the preliminary report today as to what infection it might be. She did have two periods last night where she got sick, but they aren't too concerned about that. She didn't eat too well this morning. She seems tired, but over all pain free. We are hoping to be released today, but the nurse said that Dr. Kessle might want to do feedings through the button for a night before letting her go. Yesterday she stopped all tube feedings and we were only able to feed her by mouth. She is expected to come and make rounds around 2 pm so we should know something by then. I am thinking we will be spending atleast another night. I will keep everyone posted.

Busy...Busy...Busy

Things have been pretty busy at the Harris household. Paul and I have been working around the house to get our house ready to put it up for sale. Yesterday our realtor came out and took pictures and I am glad to see a for sale sign sitting in our front yard. We are very anxious to get out of our neighborhood and pray that if it is God's will, we will sell our house fast. It will be bitter-sweet. This is the first house Paul and I bought. We brought both girls home to this house and have went through a lot in this house. We will miss being here.

It has been a task to try and keep the house clean with two little ones. This morning when I went into Kristen's room all of her toys were out. I told her we had to clean up. She said, "No, I have a headache. I need to go sit down. You clean up." The things this child comes up with. It is hard to keep a straight face! I can now have a conversation with her and some of them are rather comical. She is so expressive and says the cutest things.

Lauren continues to amaze us everyday. She is eating gerber puffs and cheerios! We continue to thank God daily for all of the progress she has made. She now says Dada, Baba, and nana. When her OT came last week she did get up on hands and knees in the crawling position and stayed there for a little bit. She hasn't done as good for me, but she is doing better. Her weight gain has not been the best. She just doesn't have much of an appetite especially since she gets fed 10 hours at night. She does like her snacks though. She has a few appointments during December. Both Kristen and Lauren got their second H1N1 vaccine. I got mine too.

I took a couple videos of the girls. Lauren babbling and Kristen reading the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" book. I will try to see if I can post them onto the website.

We hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Website Giveaway

I have came across a wonderful website, www.growingyourbaby.com. Their articles are very good and have enjoyed exploring their website. I thought I would let those of you with children know about a great giveaway they are having. They are giving away a Step 2 Lifestyle New Traditions Kitchen. All you have to do is go to their website to enter. Good luck to those of you who decide to enter.

Vote

Just a reminder to those who live in Virginia. Don't forget to vote today. Yes, you can make a difference!