Midwife appointment on Tuesday, at this point with Luke I was measuring right on (you know, 25 cm at 25 weeks, etc.) but now I'm measuring 1 cm AHEAD! Woo, maybe I'll get that 9-pound baby yet! Or not. I feel bigger than I did with Luke, though...

Mother's Day

Adam brought home from school a questionnaire he had filled out all about me. Check out how many of the questions he got right!

My mom's name is: Lisa
The color of my mom's hair is: Reddish brownish
My mom's eyes are: Blue
I think my mom is aboutt 29 years old
My mom's favorite color is: Blue
My mom's favorite TV show is: Bones
My mom likes to: read stories but she doesn't like to: do stuff for my dad (haha! Kids are observent little things, aren't they?)
My mom likes to eat: Tacos
My mom looks prettiest when: She goes to a wedding
In the summer, my mom likes to: Pick flowers with me
In the winter, my mom likes to: Make snowmen
My mom likes to read books with me
I like being with my om most when: We sleep together with Luke
I enjoy listening to my mom read the story Marley Strikes
If I could give my mom something special it would be: Chocolate (smart kid!)
My favorite thing about my mom is: She reads a book to me

The Money Shot

So I had my "big" ultrasound today. It took a little searching, but yes, we did find out gender. it's another bouncing baby BOY. The tech wasn't really certain, but the OB came in and took one look and said "Oh yeah, that's a boy." Everything else checked out fine, his measurements were pretty darn close to the due date we had already figured out. He was all curled up in a little ball with his hands over his face so we only got a couple of good face shots, but we did get to see his little mouth open and close. The tech said he was drinking :) Got a shot of his tiny foot, too, so cute.

So, in about 4 1/2 months, the testosterone level in this house will rise yet again.

Just testing...

Seeing if this blog network thing works...

First appointment!

Had the first midwife appointment last night. Pretty uneventful, just talked about how things are going and how things have been for the past year and a half. Tried to hear the heartbeat, think we might have heard it for a second but then the baby swam away, but in the process we did hear a nice kick at the Doppler so at least we know something's alive and swimming in there! Next appointment is on March 23.

Developmental ped update

So we had our dev ped referral at Rochester yesterday. Actually, yesterday's appointment was just with the intake social worker. She went through the history, what we were concerned about, what had been done so far, and all that. She agreed that he is indeed behind and is going to set up an appointment with the developmental pediatrician. Except, there's a 6- to 9-month waiting list, so it's not going to be any time soon. There is a nurse practitioner there, but she's leaving in a month, so the social worker is going to see if there's any way she can squeeze us in before then. Otherwise it'll be summertime before we have anything new. She gave us a couple of ideas to help Luke out (like making a picture book of common things in our house and kitchen to see if he can point to what he wants instead of throwing a tantrum because he's *trying* to tell us what he wants but we don't understand him). So I'll get started on that this weekend. I'm kind of excited, it'd be so cool if he understands the book and actually uses it.

Charity Auction

I know I have at least 1 follower, maybe some more anonymous ones, but I want y'all to pop on over to this blog and check out the auction they're putting on. This little boy has epidermolysis bullosa, which (don't quote me, I'm not a doctor) means he's missing some proteins that hold the layers of his skin together. The slightest friction on any part of him causes his skin to rub right off. Ouch, right? What's worse is that it's deadly, and (again, I'm not an expert, I've just been following this cute little guy since I stumbled across his blog almost a year ago) depending on the type of EB you may not make it through your first year. They're holding the auction to raise money for DebRA to find a cure.

New blog title

So I guess I'm going to have to change the blog's title to Baby Blog 2010...

18 Months

Just had Luke's 18-month checkup today. He's in the 41st percentile for head circumference, 5th for height, and weighing in at a whopping 21 pounds puts him in the 2nd percentile for weight. The nickname "Peanut Baby" seems to still be ringing true. Combined with his developmental delays the doc is concerned, not enough to recommend a developmental ped ASAP but put it out on the table and will write the referral if we decide to go that route in the near future. I don't know, we'll have to talk about it.

Starting the blog back up

Yeah, so six months later...

Lukey is doing pretty well in PT. He still can't walk but he took a step last night, he went from hanging on to the coffee table to reaching for his rocking horse and taking a step to get there. He can also kick at a ball if he's holding on to something (he can also say "ball", in addition to "mamamamamama" and "dada") and he loves to play catch. They think as soon as he starts walking he'll be done with therapy.

Adam is doing pretty well in school. He's a superstar in math but needs a little bit of help in reading, so twice a week he stays after school for some extra help. Sounds more like playtime to me, but I can tell it really does help :) They do games and activities and play outside, so it's not like he's getting intensive tutoring at 5 years old or anything. We have conferences in 2 weeks so we'll be able to see how much he has improved since last trimester.

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.