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!

Progressing again!

After a few weeks without a whole lot of new going on, Isaiah has hit another spurt!  In the past week he has...

     -Said "mama" in a meaningful way!  I've been waiting a heck of a long time to hear him call me Mama and it's finally happened :)  That puts our meaningful word list at *Dada, Fish (though he hasn't said this one in a few weeks), Hi, and Mama!
     -Started crawling on hands and knees nearly 100% of the time!  He's been able to do this for maybe a month, but only a few feet at a time before getting back on the belly to crawl.  But now he's a crawling pro.
     -PULLING UP!  So exciting!
     -Crawling up stairs on his own!  Needless to say, we now need to keep the gate at the stairs closed at all times now!

I'm excited about his next round of evaluations to see how much progress has been made!  The goal is month to month progress (so in one month we want him to make one months progress...this would put him at a 12 month level when he is 18 months).  

General boring updates

Not a whole lot of new stuff going on with Isaiah.  I feel like right before 14 months Isaiah made huge progress over a few weeks, and now we're in a lull. Last week his teacher commented on how well his speech is.  He still has very few words (dada, fish, and hi) but he "talks" all the time, and his teacher noted how his babbling is starting to follow conversational patterns which is great!  He is now crawling on hands and knees about 75% of the time, when just last week I'd say he was belling crawling about 75% of the time, so that's also great.  It seems like at the moment he is working on perfecting the skills he acquired in the last month or two rather than working on new skills.  The physical therapist is having us work with him on the stairs (crawling up) in hopes that it will help build the strength he needs to get the hang of pulling up.

Isaiah also went in for a weight check on Friday and gained a whopping 1lb 5oz in just a month.  Obviously the calorie boosting table foods is going well for him!  We were concerned because the feeding, nutrition, and occupational therapists want him eating more formula and pureed food than table food, but Isaiah has his own plans and has been scarfing table foods and not eating much of anything else.  Of course, this is the goal for him, but calorie-wise he gets more from formula and pureed foods than table food, and at the moment calories is what he needs.  But now that he is back up to his 9 month weight, they will just monitor his weight gain closely in the next few months and as long as he is growing we will let him continue on as he wants to with the table food.  He also hasn't choked in a week or two which is awesome and huge process from just a few months ago when he was choking and gagging multiple times at each meal.  YAY!  So unless he has another food strike before then, we will take him back in to his regular pediatrician in a month to have him weighed.

Next week he has his teacher coming, physical therapy and we have another whole team IFSP meeting with the early access team to add more services to his IFSP (we just need to formally add nutritional services and discuss the CDD evaluations and recommendations).

In other news...I have a 3 year old in the house again :)  Eli celebrated his birthday on Saturday and we had a blast at his construction themed party.

I's Stats

Here's what's new this week (14m 1w)


Physical
----not much new this week.  Isaiah is still working on pulling up.  He is making progress but still having trouble figuring the footing out.  He'll get there.  He is also still mostly belly crawling, but getting up on his hands and knees to crawl more and more.  We're getting there!

Speech
---- Our meaningful word count is at 3!  This is Isaiah's favorite toy, and the reason for Isaiah's latest new word "fish" (shhhh).  He has also FINALLY made a few of the mama noises, but it still doesn't seem to mean much.  Isaiah is also doing better with 'conversations'.  He seems to know exactly what he's saying, and isn't shy about saying it :)  His teacher came today and I teared up more than once while she was here from overwhelming pride in all he has accomplished this month!

Cognitive
-----nothing knew here, just more and more of those pretend phone conversations which is awesome.  His teacher was very impressed today!  The fact that she seemed just as proud of him as I was made me feel amazing!  We are very lucky to have a team that all seem to love him and genuinely care about his success.  I can't say I'm all that surprised though...To know Isaiah is to love him.

Feeding
----Just more of the same here too.  No major advancements since last week, but no setbacks either.  We met with the new OT (occupational therapist) this morning and after talking we both decided that now is just not the time to start.  While I am eager to get him every resource he needs as soon as we can, right now we need him to get calories, and the rest will have to wait until we are certain he is getting proper nutrition.  She is going to come back in a month or two and see how he is doing, and if he has started gaining weight again, we might talk about starting some regular OT then, or this might just be something we need to wait on for a bit.  


Other:  Isaiah is a bit of a jealous guy.  He has eyes for his momma and isn't too willing to share her affection ;)  Temper tantrums, screeching, hitting and pushing result when anyone gets too close to his most prized possession, and it's getting a bit out of control so we are going to focus on getting those behaviors taken care of.  I'm hoping this is a quick correction because... well...the kid is freaking adorable and it's just sooo hard to resist that charm.  The general consensus is that we are to ignore him until he stops the negative behaviors, and then engage him since telling him no only results in delightful giggles.  In theory it sounds easy, but the kid knows how to press buttons and pull heartstrings, so I know it will be hard to leave the little dude hanging when he seeks my undivided attention.

I's Stats

Here's what's new this week. (14 months)

Physical.
---Almost pulling up!  WHAAA????  I guess he decided to prove me wrong after my last post.  He can't quite figure out what to do with his feet but I'm certain he will figure it out soon!  Much sooner than I would have guessed even just a few days ago.

Speech
----Isaiah has another new word!  He says "hi" (sounds like a soft ha when he says it) when he holds my phone to his ears...which leads us to...

Cognitive
----Pretend play!  He now holds the phone up to the ear as if he is talking on it.  I know it sounds like a simple thing, but this is a big deal!
----Ball play.  While he has trouble getting a ball to actually roll, Isaiah will 'roll' a ball back and forth to me when we play.  He will also now look at a ball if I ask "where is the ball".


Exciting stuff :)  We're having an easy week this week.  I take Noah and Eli to the dentist, but that's it for appointments.  Next week we have his teacher coming, and we are meeting the new occupational therapist.

Who is this kid?

Isaiah has made so much progress since we started early intervention.  It's just amazing seeing all the progress being made.  Just this week Isaiah has...

Started crawling on hands and knees with increased frequency.
-----He has been crawling off the belly for a couple weeks but it was rare to see, and usually just for a few 'steps'.  While he still crawls on the belly (army crawls) most of the time, we are seeing the hands and knees crawling several times a day, for a few feet at a time.  Amazing!

Said his first word!
-----He has been making the dada noise for a few months, but never in a meaningful way.  Yesterday Isaiah looked at Brandon and said "dada" while reaching out with a toy for Brandon to take.  He did this several times in a row, and then again all evening when Brandon was home from work.  Since Isaiah is at a 7-8 month overall level, we were not expecting him to say meaningful words until he reached a 10-12 month level.  So we are obviously thrilled :)  In addition to his first word, he is just babbling and jabbering so much more, and having more "conversations" with us.

EATING
-----While he suddenly improved with his chewing/swallowing skills right around Christmas he was still not eating much, and exhibiting some of the negative behaviors he has had since we started trying to feed him solids.  Now he is eating table foods really well, and doing better with opening his mouth for a spoon, and eating more pureed foods (same flavors and textures, but a larger quantity at once).  This morning he had 6oz of greek yogurt that was mixed with 1oz of a sweet potato/carrot puree and a tablespoon on whipping cream (for extra calories).  This is a huge difference from even a week ago when breakfast would be 2-3oz, and 4oz on a really good day.  Yesterday he had half of a PB&J sandwich for lunch and about a quarter cup of mac and cheese  for dinner (he also had a few bites of meatloaf and seemed to really like it, but he thought feeding that to Louie was much more fun than eating it).  I have also seen a bit of a decrease in the negative behaviors and more willingness to take bites of non preferred foods.  He still needs some work, but I'm starting to think the 3 week food therapy thing won't be needed if he continues to progress like he has been!

Trying really hard to pull up
-----I highly doubt he will be able to pull up in the coming weeks as he still needs to gain the muscle strength for it, but he is trying so hard!  He gets himself onto his knees and tries so hard to get up.  He has never showed any interest on getting up on his feet to stand before, so even if he doesn't get up to stand soon, just trying and showing interest is progress!  And while I would be shocked if he pulled up soon, he does have a tendency to surprise us ;)

That's all I can think of for now.  We still haven't gotten Isaiah's test results back, but some of the tests they did can take up to 10 days to get so hopefully we know by the end of the week but right now I'm just assuming no news is good news.

CDD evaluations

Yesterday was Isaiah's "big evaluation" as the CDD.  Overall things went fairly well.  We were at the hospital going from appointment to appointment for 7 hours so I could probably write a ten page summery about what happened and what we learned, but I'm going to try and keep this update a little shorter ;)

When we arrived at the UIHC CDD we first met with a nurse who checked Isaiah's vitals and did measurements and weight checks.  Isaiah weighed in at 18lbs 11oz which is down about a pound from his 12 month check up.  He was 27 3/4 inches (peanut!) and his vitals were good.

Next we met the social worker who went over what all we were going to be doing for the day, the  costs, support systems in place for us and gave us all sorts of information on the services Isaiah will get when he gets on title 19 for disability (for being delayed in multiple areas).  We were really pleased to hear some of the resources that will be available to us.  She also went over all of his upcoming appointments and pretty much just made sure that Brandon and I felt okay with things and had enough family/friend support in the area to help out when we need.  We were also introduced to another social worker (who I kid you not looked like Taylor Swift's clone) who was assigned to follow us around for the day to observe and help explain everything to us, help us with questions, and pretty much just help us care for Isaiah during the appointments and breaks.  I was incredibly grateful for her help, and Isaiah really liked her too.

After this meeting we were taken to meet a nutritionalist who went over his daily schedule and calculated is caloric intake, and went over what his caloric intake should be then offered lots of tips and things we needed to do to help him with weight gain.

Next up we had a dental exam for Isaiah.  He was not happy about it!

We then had a bit of a break while we waited for the therapists.  During this time the social worked and I talked about the private therapy (he will be going to Children's Therapy Center in North Liberty) and how to apply for grants to help cover the cost before we can get disability coverage (there is a year long wait for therapy coverage with title 19, but he needs to start before then so we will have to cover the cost).  It sounds complicated, but she will be able to help us with all the grant application stuff when we get started.

We then got to meet the PT, OT and ST (physical, occupational, and speech therapists).  They all did a group evaluation so Isaiah got to get down and play while they all played and watched.  The OT was pretty pleased and put him at a 12 month level.  So not delayed (he's 13.5 months).  He is great with his hands and the only reason for OT would be for feeding, and we already have OT with early access for that, plus a feeding therapist so there is no reason for any more OT.  YAY.  The physical therapist evaluated him at 7-8 months.  One month ago he was evaluated at a 6-7 month level, so in one month he has made one month progress which is awesome!  While it's way to early to make any conclusions from that, it does mean that so far the gap between age and skill level has not increased, so I was really pleased with that.  The speech therapist put him all over the place, averaging at 8 months (also a month improved) but she did say he had some scattered skills that were anywhere from 6-12 months.  He still has no words, but he has made a ton of progress in just the last few months so hearing that he has a few skills in the 10-12 month range was really good to hear.    She also said that she does not believe we are dealing with a cognitive delay.  Some kids are delayed in other skills because their thinking skills are behind, but she doesn't think Isaiah has any intellectual disability.  Also REALLY GOOD NEWS!  Isaiah is scheduled for cognitive testing in May, and the therapists want us to go ahead and keep that appointment for now, just because the wait list for that testing is 6+ months, but she thinks at his follow up testing we will be able to cancel that appointment :)

We then met with a neuropsychology pediatrician.  She did a physical and went over his medical history.  She was concerned with his size (he is the weight and length of an average 7 month old).  She thought that he was small even for having small relatives and would expect him to be similar in size to his brothers.  His head size is also small.  When we go back for the next evaluation she will have brain scans done if she isn't happy with head growth.  Definitely keep him in your prayers that he will grow well in the next 4 months!  She said that his muscle tone was good, but commented about a few things that were 'off' and decided that he should have some blood work done to test for some muscular disorders.  So, when she was done we went to the main hospital to get his blood taken (not fun for any of us!) and we were finally DONE for the day!

The plan.  In addition to his services he is already getting with early access we are going to start private physical therapy.  We are going to wait on additional speech until the next evaluation since she saw a lot of emerging skills.   The speech therapist said that she thinks when we come back for the next evaluation that he will have made a lot of progress with what we are already doing.  If not, we will talk about private therapy for speech as well.  We will go back in April for another evaluation and see how he has progressed!  Please keep my lil guy in your prayers.  We are hoping his blood work all comes back normal, and that his growth will be good so no head scans will need to be done.  So for now...he continues with early access (physical therapy, his teacher working with him, occupational therapy for food issues, our nutritionalist), feeding therapy at the CDD and we will start private physical therapy.


Feeding therapy update:   Isaiah also had another feeding therapy session today.  These sessions are 3 hours with a lot of play in-between working on his eating skills and working through some negative behaviors.  Today was better than the last time (I managed not to cry), but because of his weight loss and some of the behaviors he still has his therapist recommended we do a 3 week intense therapy thing.  When we do this we will be at the CDD for the first half of the day (3 hour sessions) monday-friday for 3 weeks to really work on getting him eating well.  We can only do this if our insurance company can cover it (out of pocket it's $9,000!!!!!).  We got on the wait list for that, but the wait is really really long, so unless there are lots of cancelations we are looking at summer for that.  His therapist said that if our insurance agrees to cover today's session and the next they will likely cover that as well.  We go back for his next session in April (with Skype sessions in between as needed) so if he does really well we can always get off the wait list for the 3 week thing.

So...that's all for this week so far!  We will Skype with his early access nutritionalist tomorrow morning, and he has his teacher coming Friday.  Then we will have a break or the weekend!  Next week will be pretty busy for him as well.  But after that, we will get in a routine of 1-2 therapy sessions per week, and when we start private therapy we will be on a really routine schedule of 2x (one in home, one at the center) per week.

I also have to say how awesome the big brothers are!  They have been pulled out of bed hours before they are used to getting up and dragged out in the cold to be dropped of before Isaiah's appointments.  They haven't complained once :)

my christmas cuties

Smore's Brownies

I made these for our Independence Day BBQ, and they were a hit!  Since I've gotten a few requests for the recipe today, I'm just going to share it here (I can't remember exactly where I saw these...but I'm 99% certain I got the idea from pinterest).  They are ridiculously easy, and taste AMAZING!

Here it is!  You'll need brownies...I make my own brownie mixes, so that's what I used, but you can use any boxed or homemade recipe for basic brownies.  Follow the directions/recipe and bake.

When they come out of the oven, turn on the broiler to 475-500, then cover the baked brownies with mini marshmallows, then crumble graham crackers over top.  Throw them under the broiler until the marshmallows start to brown, then quickly remove.  They will burn easy so keep an eye on them!

As soon as you take them out place the chocolate squares on top so they melt a little.

That's it!

I didn't really measure anything.  My first batch I used a 9x13 pan and use almost 3-4 cups of the mini marshmallows, and 4 regular sized hershey's bars broken into squares, and 5 or 6 crackers (maybe more).  My second batch I made an 8x8 and used about 2cups marshmallows, 2 chocolate bars (although, I did have a few 'helpers' eating them as I was breaking them up!) and 4 crackers.  But you can use more or less of anything if you want :)

Unfortunately for me I won't be devouring any of those in the picture.  Yesterday I just enjoyed the day and didn't worry about my 30 day challenge, so I'm back on track today...I'm sure Brandon and the boys won't object to taking care of them all for me though ;)