WOW

New things, Chris is finally saying a word more than once! He may say it for everything but he's saying a word. He doesn't say it often but he is still doing it..... It is "up". He says it to pop bubbles, asking to be picked up or for bath and asking for his Pop-pop. All things he loves to do. I don't have a video of him doing that. But I do have a video of this

http://www.facebook.com/video/?ref=sb#/video/video.php?v=1160319489981

I'm still waiting for mama :)

And, this past week I found out that if I don't finish my masters degree soon that I'll lose the credits and have to start again. I called to find out what to do and how we can afford it. Looks like I need to apply for a student loan, will go to college for next school year and will have my Masters in Reading Education. I will have the ability to teach Literacy, be a Reading Specalists and be Highly Qualified in Literacy and Language Arts.

Last weekend we played outside quite a bit. The boys are getting really excited about our garden. We have 3 types of tomatoes, green peppers, jalapanos, habanaros, snap peas, green beans, onions, parsley, basil, chives, and oregano. I was super excited this past week to walk outside, snap off a leaf of basil and use it to cook with!

Decisions, decisions

Wednesday we went to Philly to see a new neurologist at CHOP for Chris and to see if we could some answers about what is going on with Matthew.

We are going to be getting and MRI on Chris in the near future. The doctor feels that he's had some sort of traumatic something that went on in his brain either prior to or shortly after birth. He said that if nothing comes up different on this MRI then we won't persue it further. He said that the developmental pediatrician is on the right path with the bloodwork and suggestions for what EI should do.

Matthew, we're told has delays in speech and fine motor. They think that the standardardized testing the district did wasn't the one to help find out what is going on with him. He suggested a different type of test. He said that he's developmentally delayed. Overall, it was a productive bunch of appoitments.

We did get lost with some construction and the GPS battery dying on us. We were about an hour late to Chris' appoitment but they were still able to put him in and see him.

We had Matthew's school conference was the other week and we got word that his program is going to change. Insead of the private preschool 5 days a week with special education supports for 2 days a week and speech for 1 hour per week he will be in a public elementary school inclusion setting with speech an hour a week, OT and PT will be added soon. They are suggesting that we put him in a full special education program for 5 days a week and add the same supports of speech, OT and PT. I'm not sure what to do. I think that he could benefit from the extra help BUT best practices say to keep him in inclusion. I asked his teacher to look into doing a combination of services, either 2 days inclusion and 3 days special education, 3 days inclusion/2 days special education or she suggested morning special education in the 3 year old room and afternoon in the 4 year old room.

While we were in Philly yesterday, Jonathan spent the afternoon with George's dad. They went for a walk and Jon was throwing rocks into the canal around here. He had a super time.

Joshua is going to be graduating from elementary school in a few weeks. I am still trying to figure out where my baby went to and when did he become a young man.

Three is the new terrible two

Matthew has turned into a little boy that is not well behaved at the moment and that is an understatment! He is lying, refusing to listen, questioning everything I tell him to do, etc. Yesterday I told him to go to the bathroom as soon as he woke up. He told me he didn't have to screamed when I told him to go. Less than 2 minutes later he walked over to me and said I pooped and peed myself. He peed himself twice yesterday. He's not had an accident since January! I've tried the time-out chair, putting him in a corner, taking away toys, tv, and yes...a swat on the butt! That was a last resort and it seems like nothing is working! I even did the opposite and praised him for every positive....nada! Any suggestions?


This is the typical Matty face lately...

We had Chris' meeting with the Early Intervention team today to go over where he is at functioning wise today. They did give Chris one more DI therapy so that ups DI to 2 one hour sessions per week, one hour of SLP per week and one hour of PT per week as well as SW for the family one hour per week. They had his levels at exactly where the developmental pediatrician had them at. He was functioning around a 6 month level for expressive speech, up to 12 month for receptive speech, motor around 15 months with some skills being 20 months and others being much lower.

I called today to schedule Chris' MRI per the neurologist's request for June and she has no record of asking for it, and CHOP is supposed to be one of the best. Maybe it was just this doctor who acted like we were bothering her. We are switching, yet again. I called up CHOP's main neurology department instead of the Princeton office like we usually go to and looks like we'll have an appoitment with them first and then hopefully schedule the MRI to see how his brain has changed from November until now. I am going to schedule an appoitment with them for Matthew as well after talking to the nurses there about what is going on with him. They said they book for 2 weeks in advance so I'm going to make appoitments on Wednesday for the 20th since Matthew's teacher said she'd go and she's available on Wednesdays.

Jonathan, minus the 2 accidents this weekend went two weeks with no accidentns! We were even able to go on errands with him wearing underwear! He loved digging outside last week and is excited to help me dig holes to put our veggies in our garden. He is such a neat little boy.

The kid looks so much like his big brother it's crazy!