I was flipping through stations looking for something to watch, and went past TNT showing a Law and Order rerun. Detective Green was on the screen. CJ points at the screen and as clear as day says “Look mom, it’s Barack Obama!”
I have no idea where he has even seen Barack Obama. I guess he must watch TV with Matt. lol.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Today was CJ’s fall case conference, where we discuss his progress and talk about the future for him at school. I met with the special ed advocate as well as his teachers and his speech therapist.
In good news, CJ’s made remarkable progress in the past two months with all his goals. So much, in fact, that the teacher and speech therapist are now talking about how he should go on to Kindergarten next year vs going into a 5 day “mainstream” preschool program. He’ll be 5 in June, so he’ll be age-appropriate for Kindergarten (barely) but I could hold him out another year. They weren’t pushy about it at all, but it is a lot different than when I met with them in August and they were very “he needs more time before Kindergarten we think”. So now I am re-pondering that. I had mostly decided to find him a 5-day half-day preschool program, but now I am thinking, maybe we’ll start Kindergarten on schedule after all.
We’ll revist that in May at his spring case conference and decide for sure then.
He’s actually doing really well overall, so well that the speech therapist feels he may test out of needing speech therapy at all next year. He’s progressing well and things are good. However, he still has a lot of trouble attending. He is very easily sidetracked and distracted and he doesn’t pay attention hardly at all.
I have trouble figuring out how much of that is typical 4 year old. I kind of got in an argument about it at his case conference. My goal is not to turn him into super-child. It is just to get him to the point where he falls in the range of typical. I wasn’t really feeling heard about that at all. But that’s how I’ll decide if he’s ready for K - if he falls within the normal range for paying attention, not if he becomes super-listener.
Anyway. I always cry, so I cried when talking about that. Now I have to decide when/if to proceed with a more comprehensive evaluation before K to see if he might qualify for some services then.
I’m already talking about it like he’s going to K next year. Maybe in my head I’ve decided to grasp onto that as proof that we’re doing a good job getting him help where he needs it and the fact he’s progressing rapidly now is proof of that. Who knows.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Alexa had her 2 year checkup yesterday. Mostly she was cranky and put out by it all. Ever her lovely opinionated self, that one. 
She is finally back on the weight chart at 22 lbs 11 oz, which is 8th percentile. I am happy with 8th. That’s fine. I don’t care what percentile she is, as long as she stays on the chart. She is a tiny little girl, and that is okay. Her height and head circumference were both average as always and gaining appropriately.
She doesn’t have a big enough vocabulary or verbalize her opinions enough. The pediatrician suggested we call early intervention here, so I did that afternoon, and they’ll be calling me back with an intake appointment by Wednesday. I don’t want her to be behind, but I am pretty sure she is. But, well, all I can ask is that it is different from CJ somehow. Because having two kids with the same speech delay makes me feel somehow at fault. We read to them! I promise! A lot!
Ah well. It actually was a pretty good appointment overall. She has the beginnings of an ear infection, and since she tends towards horrid ones that she doesn’t bother to even get a fever for as a warning, the pedi put her on antibiotics for the next 10 days. Which she fought and fought for me, but took for her Daddy like an angel. Heh.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Alexa turned 2 today. It’s funny, because she still seems like such a baby to me, but at the same time, she is becoming a little person who can ever-increasingly express her own thoughts and desires.
We got her a bunch of balls (300 to be exact) for her playyard turned ballpit. Both the kids love to climb in there and cover themselves in balls, and the amount we had just wouldn’t cut it as far as covering them both. So we decided a good birthday present was to provide the means to be buried in balls. It seems like it was a good choice. 
Alexa is a dancer. She loves music. We went to a fall harvest festival today where there was a live band playing, and she clapped and yelled and danced and swayed and generally loved the whole music thing. The kids wore their halloween costumes, and although Alexa would not wear the hood of her monkey at all, she did parade around in the rest of her costume. And grabbed her brother’s dragon whiskers at every opportunity.
Two, so far, is a pretty good thing.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
It seems that Alexa is finally shifting her sleeping patterns to an earlier natural bedtime.
The biggest problem was, that my spouse (who is also a natural night owl) goes to bed earlier now because of our own shift in work schedules. So he couldn;t stay up with Alexa at night. Alexa’s preferred way of going to sleep is for Daddy to carry her around and walk around the square that is our downstairs. But without that, she doesn’t want to go to sleep and would just stay up until utter exhaustion hits.
She is not a fan of me walking her around. Mostly she kicks me and tries to get down.
Matt had been walking her around before he went to bed (around midnight) but that hadn’t been working at all. She liked being carried but would just happily giggle and coo for 10-15 minutes until Matt gave up and went to bed. Then she and I started our standoff which lasted into the wee hours of the morning.
But the past few days, she’s actually gone to sleep when Matt carries her around at midnight. Happily. Last night even she said “Nigh Nigh” to me as they walked by my desk.
I know for most of you midnight is an absurd bedtime for an almost-two-year-old but its a start. I know it will improve, because we used to struggle with CJ’s bedtime so much (not as much as with Alexa though) becuase my kids are natural night owls like their Dad. But now CJ goes to bed at about 9pm every night without a problem.
Alexa now gets up at 7am every morning, which is not so great for me but, well, I’ll live with it. Funny how when she went to bed at 3am she tried to sleep for 12 hours straight but now she only sleeps 7 and is up for the day. Kids. Who knows.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
