So Big :)

Addy has finally outgrown her baby bathtub :) She's six and a half but ya know when you finally grow you finally grow! It cracks me up that she continually says "Addy swimming" while in the tub :) Her poor face is so broken out due to a sinus infection that she keeps rubbing the snot up her face and into her eye, nice right? Gross lol.

We went to St. Louis yesterday with Addy and Little Man. Our DS nurse practioner (who we adore!) was sooo excited to see how amazing Addy looks! Last year she was below the 1% on the Down syndrome growth chart, now she is 5% for weight and 25% for height!!! I'm wondering if that's switched but anyway, she's on the DS chart finally!  We went over her history for the past year and was so bummed to hear how sick she had been but was thankful that we have a great doctor that is very on top of Addy's care. She completely agreed with putting Addy on Homebound this year. It was truly best for her, she just could not stay well. Fortunately her bloodwork showed that her pneumococcal tiders are now within the normal range so that should help with preventing pneumonia. We can hope right? She was also pleased to hear about her academic achievements considering she was home for three months. She reads about fifty sight words, counts to 100 (with help at the tens),knows her colors and five basic shapes (she knows more but on her terms of course) understands rhyming words and is doing well with positional words. Her weakest area is definitely fine motor skills and compliance. Addy is famous for showing she can do something a couple of times and then that's it, she showed you, no need to do it again in her mind lol. She was writing her first name before she got so sick but now it's just the A so that's on our daily practice agenda right now. Our NP asked about her services for first grade and encouraged inclusion. We are happy with Addy's services and feel that it will be a good fit for her. She will be in regular ed 68% of the time. She will be getting 60 minutes of PT (decrease from 90), 60 minutes of OT, 30 minutes of Adaptive PE, 90 minutes of speech/language (decrease from 120) plus resource for reading, math and writing. We asked for her PT and ST be decreased so that time can be spent on academics. She's going to have another fantastic teacher so we are very excited :)

We saw her opthomologist and he changed her script just slightly to help with her astigmatism. He also suggested we try Miraflex frames to see if that will help with her continual removal of her glasses! She wears Specs4Us right now and we've been very pleased with them but she does NOT like wearing her glasses at all :( He assured us that the frames look a little big and bulky but the have no pressure points so the kids wear them better. I don't really care how they look, I just want her to tolerate them!

Little Man also got a Rockstar report. He is truly amazing! He is 12 months old and eats like a champ and prefers to feed himself. He babbles all of the time and will hopefully start signing soon. His gross motor skills are very on target. He crawls, pulls to stand and is thinking about cruising. He crawls everywhere and can get into a sitting position with no problem! He is finally using a pincher to pick up food but prefers to rake. He will only eat with his left hand, he acts as if his right isn't even there. He uses it all of the time to play but eating, no way, he'll cross midline to reach food on his right side lol. Stinker We skipped his ENT appointment because we just saw ENT in Springfield last week. He passed his hearing eval but had flatline tympanograms in both ears so tubes are being placed on the 4th :) Really hope that helps him! These sleepless nights are making for one tired mama! His eye appt. went well, his prescription actually has improved but his eye drift on the left is worse. Soo the plan is to go back in six months and at that time we will determine if he needs glasses or surgery for strabismus. I sooo wish I could show his face, he is such a cute little thing, I swear, absolutely darling!

I took Addy into her ped today since I was pretty sure she had a sinus infection and sure enough it appears to be. So she's on Zithromax, hopefully that will help her feel a little better too :) She starts summer school on Monday, I think she misses the structure :) I will work two days a week in June then I will officially be done. I'm excited about my new job and can't wait to see how our family is blessed from this opportunity. It makes me have some peace knowing that I should have a day or two off during the week that I can make appointments for the kiddos when needed :) We're having a hard time finding private insurance though, both of our jobs don't have medical benefits. That stinks! So I will be doing so more research on that tomorrow. Wish me luck! No medical insurance is not an option!