Happy Birthday to my baby boy

Luke Nicholas is now 1 year old. This time last year I was sitting at work having contractions, but in denial that I was in labor because the stupid things weren't timeable or having any sort of pattern. Bitching to my coworkers and midwife about how this kid was *never* coming out. Ah, if only I knew. So Happy Birthday to Peanut Baby, you make my life better just by being here.

Gerber yogurt puffs, oh how I love thee...

O. M. G. If Luke had anything to say about it, you'd think these things should be currency and valued more than gold. Stopped at Hell-Mart last night and swung by the baby department to pick some of these up. They're a guaranteed tantrum-stopper. Luke caught sight of the bag and SQUEALED, then clutched the bag when I handed it to him and tried opening the package in his one-year-old-completely-ineffective way.

Fast-foward to dinnertime, and Luke's yelling at me because he doesn't like the spaghetti I gave him to eat. He wants to be picked up. Actually, he wants to nurse, but Mama's trying to eat her dinner, which she happens to enjoy, so she tosses some yogurt puffs on his tray instead. All of a sudden life is much better! So thank you, Gerber Yogurt Puffs, for letting me eat dinner in peace.

Developmental Delay

So it's official - Luke is developmentally delayed, specifically in the area of gross motor. His delay is profound enough that he qualifies for physical therapy through the school district. The special ed team was out again last night to go over their findings and his test results, and it's pretty dang obvious that he's behind in gross motor. There was one test that had a goal score of 10, and Luke's score was a 1. Yeah... So now, once we give the official go-ahead, they'll pull the team back together and put together some goals, and Luke will start in-home physical therapy twice a month until he's 3, at which point they re-evaluate and either stop the therapy or continue it through a different program. We're guessing the therapy will stop since he doesn't have an underlying condition causing the delay (like cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy). His goals are going to be things like army crawling, all-fours crawling, and walking within the next year (they're sure he'll be doing those things way before the year is up). Then once he hits those, they'll make him some new goals, and on and on and on.

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Adam's new trick - we were down visiting my grandparents over the 4th and he saw that Grandpa's friend Pete was missing part of one of his fingers and asked Pete what happened, and Pete said he can take that finger off and put it in his pocket, and he "showed" Adam by reaching into his pocket and pulling out his hand with all 5 fingers on it (Adam never noticed that it was the other hand he had pulled out). Now Adam is going around showing everyone his trick - he puts his hands in a fist, says "No fingers!", then puts his hands behind his back and pulls them out with fingers extended and says "Back on!".

In other news, we had another meeting with Special Ed last night for Luke. She's pretty sure that going by his evaluation and the questionnaires we've filled out he's going to qualify for services of some type. We'll find out what kinds of services on Monday at our final meeting.

Here's Luke sitting all by himself! Doesn't last very long, but it's a huge improvement from even 2 weeks ago. He's so cute!

And here's just a cute picture:

Progress

Luke started waving bye-bye yesterday (SO cute!) and I caught him army-crawling towards one of his brother's toys this morning.

We also have the meeting with the district special ed coordinator and possibly a physical therapist tonight at 5:30.

Special Ed meeting

The special ed coordinator is coming out Thursday night to talk with us and meet Luke, and she'll bring out a physical therapist if one's available. She'll talk with us about what the assessment entails, what they might find, what our options are, and we decide if we still want to go through with it. More details to follow.

Happy Birthday to my big boy

Adam Allen is 5 years old. Seems like just yesterday he was a teeny-tiny 3-pound baby in a great big incubator. Now he's getting ready for kindergarten. He loves doing tricks and "myfs" (myths - watches too much Mythbusters!) and playing with his baby brother. I love you Adam!

We have toofage!

Luke just cut his first tooth yesterday! Bottom left, can't really see it but if you look closely or run your finger over his gums you can tell it's there!

IRT meeting

Had the meeting with the interagency referral team today. Just basically confirmed what's been going on and what's changed. They agree he definitely has a gross motor delay and possibly a language/communication delay, so the next step is a formal evaluation by PT, OT, and possibly the speech pathologist. They have 45 days from today to complete the evaluations, so I should be hearing from the coordinator within the next couple of weeks.

Developmental delay

So, about a month ago I realized that Luke's a little behind developmentally. I was reading one of those websites about "Your baby should be doing x at y months" and realized Luke really wasn't doing any of it. My suspicions were confirmed at his 9-month visit, but the delays aren't enough that Dr. K was concerned enough to recommend immediate intervention. He offered a developmental pediatrician referral but said he was fine just waiting until his 12-month checkup and seeing where he was then. I decided to contact the Follow-Along Program through the Department of Health, where they send you developmental questionnaires at regular intervals, you fill them out and send them back, and they score them and let you know if they think anything needs further evaluation. So last week I filled out the 10-month questionnaire, and lo and behold I got a call last night that there's enough delay in Luke's gross motor and language that the coordinator wants to present his case to the FAP committee (made up of someone from the school district, Head Start, County Health, and a few other places) and see what kind of intervention is recommended. He can't sit unassisted, can't creep, can't crawl, can't/won't bear weight on his legs, doesn't wave bye-bye, and some other stuff that I don't notice as being behind but obviously are. So, June 1st I'm going to sit in on the committee meeting and see what's recommended for the babe. It could be as little as someone from the school district coming out, checking him out, and giving us some ideas to try, or it could be as much as a formal evaluation through the health department or Mayo. We shall see.

Not Me! Monday

After borrowing the book Twilight from my sister because I was out of things to read, I most certainly did not devour that book and finish the entire series in 8 days (that's 2560 pages, yo).

I also most certainly do not have a mad crush on Edward Cullen. That's so 7th grade.

I did NOT go all weekend without showering. Ew, gross, who does that?

I also didn't let Adam go without a bath for longer than usual because I knew Grandma would do it when we got to her house. I don't foist my parenting responsibilities on other people!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

So in a round-about way I came across this blog a while back, and immediately added it to my blogger list so I could keep up on Baby Stellan. Well, once all the medical drama started settling down, MckMama reinstituted her Not Me! Monday tradition - every Monday she goes through what she didn't do the previous week. Hilarious! And I'm stealing it! Okay, not really stealing it, since she encourages everyone else to do it, but anyway...

*I did not let Adam eat goldfish crackers in bed last night
*I did not put dirty socks on him this morning because he didn't have any clean ones
*I also did not let him play outside alone in the neighbor's sand box yesterday while I read a book
*And I did not just use woot.com to send my mother-in-law flowers for Mother's Day.

I have a follower!

Shout-out to Jay (heeeeeey girl!)

Sickies

Luke survived his first stomach flu. Oh, the vomit. BUT, I found an added bonus to cloth diapers - great at catching puke. Lay a premium-size under his head while he sleeps and it keeps you from having to change your sheets and/or the backup towel you have laying under you ever half an hour. Of course, that means you'll probably go through 3 dozen diapers in 2 days, but hey.

And some cuteness before the sickness - swinging outside at daycare last week:

More cuteness

Bowling fun

7 months - what's up?

Luke is a rolling machine. I put him down under his little activity area, walk out of the room, and when I come back he's halfway off the mat and pointed in a completely different direction. It won't be long before he figures out how to roll to actually get somewhere.

He's also getting close to cutting some teeth, he's always gnawing on something, usually his hands. I tried giving him a bit of cereal a couple of days ago (he still hasn't started on solids yet) but he was more interested in chewing on the spoon than eating the food. Plus I think he was just plain tired and cranky, so we'll try it again in a couple of days and see what happens. Going by Kellymom (http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/solids-when.html) he's still not quite ready for solids, so I'm not pushing it.

He's also finishing up antibiotics for an ear infection - not sure if it's a new one or if the last one just never cleared completely (not finishing the Amoxicillin didn't help, I'm sure - yeah, yeah, I've learned my lesson). They gave him Ceftin this time and he tolerated it much better, no puking and the diaper rash wasn't near as bad. I don't want my kids to be like me, on antibiotics practically 24/7 for almost my entire childhood, so I'm trying to let things run their course before jumping to drugs (last time was a moment of weakness), but the poor thing was PITIFUL before he got meds, whining and crying and clingy. It just broke my heart! Poor baby :( But after a couple days on the antibiotic he was back to his old self. My parents had come to visit the day before I took him in, before he got really bad, and he wouldn't let anyone hold him and was a complete cranky-pants, so I'll have to take him down to see them now that he's better so they can get some cuddle time with him.

Adam is getting super-excited for Kindergarten. Registration is next week. He'll be Class of 2022. I'm not gonna cry, I'm not gonna cry...

He had his followup with ENT last week, and if the fluid in his ears isn't gone by March they want to put in tubes. He said 90% of cases will clear up on their own within 3 months, but the last 10% usually won't clear up no matter how long you wait. He also suggested taking out his tonsils at the same time because they're HUGE. And they really are, they're almost touching. He told me to listen to him while he sleeps because he'd be surprised if he didn't have sleep apnea. And lo and behold, I listened to him in the middle of the night and every once in a while he'd stop breathing. So come April we may be looking at surgery. There goes our tax refund. Ah well, the things we do for our kids.

Luke in his Jumperoo, taken last night (on my phone, sorry about the crappy quality). He loves that thing...

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Reverse cycling

So Luke wants his milk either straight from the tap or not at all. In order to achieve this, he is drinking the bare minimum possible during daycare (sometimes less than 12 ounces in 9 1/2 hours) and nursing all. night. long. Whee! Coffee is my friend.

Sickies

So Luke got his first ear infection. And his first Amoxicillin prescription. Aw, something to write in his baby book! That stuff ain't as great as I remember - he did NOT like it. Hated the taste (this can't be MY kid, that stuff was like candy to me when I was little!) and it made his tummy hurt. Plus it's given him an AWESOME diaper rash. His poor butt is so sore, it hurts just to look at it. So I threw away the antibiotic. Yeah, I know, he's supposed to finish it all, but screw it, it's not worth putting my baby through even more pain just to fix up an ear infection.

I also got a nice Amoxicillin prescription, but I got stupid pills, no yummy pink stuff for me. Thought I had strep, actually was convinced I had strep, but turns out it was bronchitis that was going on it's 4th week. Huh, alrighty then. And I also quit taking it, it makes my stomach hurt something awful. What the heck, I lived off of this stuff when I was a kid, would actually ASK to take it, and now that I'm an adult it gives me stomach cramps?