More of the same

Not a whole lot of new stuff going on with little man.  No new words, but he's 'talking' a lot.  Still not cruising but he's a professional puller-upper now :)  Crawling fast as lightning, and happy as ever.  Isaiah is now over 16 months!  Wow.  We did have a weight check earlier this month and he had gained really well.

Coming up...after a long break due to appointment conflicts and early access spring break Isaiah has his physical therapist and teacher coming tomorrow.  Next week he has physical therapy (not sure about his teacher coming as well or not) and another weight check.  Later in the month he has his second set of evaluations at the CDD.  Keep little man in your thoughts April 23rd.  This will be another LONG day for him (last time we were at the hospital 7 hours which was just too much for him! And me!), and we have a lot resting on this appointment.  His neuropsychology pediatrician will decide if she wants him to do the cystic fibrosis testing (personally I think he has about a 0% chance of having CF...but we will see what she says since I don't actually have a MD ;), and if he needs brain scans done.  Last time we were there he was 13.5 months with the head size of a 4-5 month old, so if we still haven't seen good growth he will be doing the scans, which will be hard on all of us.  Finally, this appointment will decide if he needs cognitive testing done.  Doing an IQ test on a baby just sounds horrible and long, so I just don't want him to have to go through more than absolutely necessary.  He will also meet with the CDD team for a review (OT, PT, speech, nutrition, dental, social services).  They tell me follow up evaluations are a bit quicker so hopefully it's just a few hours this time.  Honestly though, if I have to spend a day at the hospital the CDD is the place to be!  Free parking, all you can drink coffee and they even feed us :).  Plus there are plenty of things to keep Isaiah occupied.

Overall, I'm really optimistic about this next round of evals.  He's doing awesome!

Isaiah's Stats

I haven't posted this in awhile...and boy has he changed since then!

Physical:  Isaiah is a crawling pro, and a pulling up champ now.  He's starting to show interest in cruising, but he's still working on the strength and coordination for that.  But for the first time I can say that it wouldn't be surprising to me if he started steps at 18 months!  Our IFSP goal is to get him standing solo by then, and he's not yet doing that, but I think once he does, taking steps will follow quickly.

Speech:  Not a lot of changes here I guess.  His word count is at 3-4.  Technically he has said 4 meaningful words, but one he hasn't said in awhile so I'm not sure it 'counts' anymore.  He was saying 'fish' a lot but since learning how to crawl, he's less interested in sitting and playing with toys, and more interested in moving around, and pulling up to get things he isn't supposed to play with ;)  But he is regularly saying 'dada', 'hi' and my personal favorite...'mama'.

Feeding:  Isaiah just knocked his feeding therapist off her socks yesterday :)  Our 3 hour session only lasted a hour in a half since he ate perfectly.  He hasn't choked in probably over a month, and he no longer gags either.  He has figured out how to chew, and work food to the back of his mouth too.  We go back to his regular pediatrician next week for a weight check, and so long as he has made good gains we will talk about starting whole milk :)  We are still doing the calorie boosters, but at his last weight check he was back up to his pre surgery weight, and I'm certain he has gained more since then.

Cognitive:  The social worker that suggested he may be mentally retarded can shove it.  He's smart.  He's a late bloomer, but he's smart.  He is doing really well with sign language, and seems to understand more and more of what we say, and while he doesn't have the words yet, he communicates appropriately.  I'm pretty positive that when he has his next set of evaluations, he will be back in the normal range for cognitive skills.  I actually think he only scored low at his 12 month evaluations because he was physically not able to do some of the things they expect kids that age to do.

Socially:  At 12 months, he was evaluated at a 4 month level.  He was smiley and happy, made eye contact and all, but he scored low because he wasn't holding 'conversations' (so when we talked to him, he wasn't cooing or babbling back to us) and he wasn't playing social games or interested in what his big brothers were doing.  Now, just 3.5 months later he is doing everything that he should have been doing at 12 months.  So exciting for us!

Other:  We are still working on Isaiah's jealousy issues.  Things haven't changed much with this.  He still gets upset when other people touch me, or get too close, and he has fits when big brothers sit with me.  We are still just ignoring it.  Eli was the same way, so it's nothing I'm too worried about.



And an update on the big bros:

Noah is awesome.  He just tested for his orange belt in Taekwondo and did awesome.  We unfortunately found out he didn't get a spot for preschool this fall.  We were on the wait list, and they had an opening for us at the Iowa City location, but that's just too far to drive for us. We were only going to have him go 1-2 days a week, just to get used to being away from home before starting all day Kindergarten, so we will look into summer day camps for him to do right before Kindergarten.  He's learning everything he would learn in preschool at home, so I'm not worried about that, but he's a sweet soul, and I just worry about him having a hard time going from staying home with mommy all day everyday, to being at school with 20 other kids all day.

Eli is still a spitfire.  He keeps us on our toes and we love it!  Not much new going on with him, he's definitely a little boy, rather than a toddler anymore.  He's talking very well, and it's so fun to watch him and Noah play together.  He's wanting to join Noah in Taekwondo class, and he can as soon as he's ready (aka listening better), so I'm hoping this summer we can get him involved.

That's about it!  We're all just sitting around waiting on spring to arrive ;)  It's hard to go outside in the snow and play when I have all the littles here during the day, so we've been housebound most days and are all getting spring fever!

3 months in

3 months ago we met with Isaiah's service coordinator for his initial evaluation.  At the time his social skills were at a 4 month level, his motor skills were at a 6 month level, and his speech skills were at a 6 month level.  He was barely army crawling (he'd go a few feet and thats it!) not bearing much weight on his legs, he could babble the DA and BA sounds and that was about it!  Today I have no idea what his age levels are at.  I'd guess he's an average 9-10 month old but what I know for certain is he's made more progress than I imagined.  He's crawling, pulling up, babbling like a boss, he has 4 words and socially I'd say he's caught up!  We are at the halfway point through our IFSP timeline for the first set of goals and I'm hopeful we will meet most, if not all of them!