Small update

Ryan is doing so fantastic now!!!! He has a wonderful, wonderful speech therapist at school. She really seems to know how to target the child's needs rather than just doing a "one size fits all" approach to therapy. He's saying some of the cutest things now. He's also made tremendous strides in being able to imitate speech sounds. Yesterday we were riding down the road and I was asking him to repeat a bunch of different words. He was doing a really great job so I said "Ryan, you are really talking now". He said "yeah". Then I said--Did you know you are really good at talking?---"yeah". Do you like talking? "yeah, do" There are a couple of phrases that he's just recently started using that I just LOVE to hear from him. "yeah, do" or "no, don't" are a couple. He leaves out the "I" each time but you would have to hear the inflection he uses--just sooooooo cute. Also, he recently started saying "OK, mom". So, when I ask him to do something he doesn't want to do his first response will be "no, don't" and then I get firm with him and he'll say "OK mom!!" with a really deep voice as if to say "oh, alright-----if I HAVE to". I've heard him say these things many times over the past several days, but it still makes me smile each and every time. Especially the "ok, mom" because it sounds so natural and typical of a child his age.

Kaeli LOVES to organize and plan. Lately she's been hard at work planning her 8th birthday party. She's going to have a few girls over for a sleepover. She's constantly making lists and revising the list--right down to the length of time each activity is to last. Just after I got online today to do a little blogging I decided to log into Kaeli's yahoo email account. She knows I do this and it's just to keep tabs on what kind of email she's receiving, etc. Well, this morning she had a reminder email from her yahoo calendar. Evidently she entered into her calendar that she was to "organize room" from 3:45-4:45 today. I'm guessing this is more preparation for her upcoming party. That, or she finally got tired of hearing me complain about how messy and disorganized her room is. I'm also very surprised she figured out how to use the calendar feature on her email account. She sure is growing up fast!!

Good news all around!

Ryan did so well at preschool today!! Well, the drop-off was a little rough, but that was the worst part. He was excited all morning until he saw the building. As soon as he saw the building he started crying and saying "no"....."home". Once we were in the classroom I gave him a hug and kissed him goodbye. Mrs. Asbury (who also just happens to be my neighbor) picked him up and carried him away. I watched through the one-way mirror for a couple of minutes. Within a minute he had stopped crying. I think people were worried about how *I* would handle it, but it really didn't bother me at all. Kaeli was the worst with drop-offs so she broke me in very well.

When I picked him up he was all smiles! He said he had fun and answered yes when I asked if he wants to go back tomorrow. This is going to be great for him! He really grew up within a matter of a 2 hours. When we got home I asked him to go put his coat away. He actually persisted through trying to get it on the hook, usually he'll get frustrated and just throw it on the floor. They also got him into a pull-up at school! He absolutely refuses to wear pull-ups at home. They wanted him in a pull-up at school, but I didn't want to push the issue right before his first day. So, I put one in his backpack. Mrs. Asbury said he cried when she put it on him, but then he settled right back down. WHEW! But, the really great part is that he was PROUD to be wearing the pull-up! When we got home he ran over to me and started pulling down his pants to show me. He has the hugest, proudest smile on his face. I gave him a tremendous amount of praise for wearing a pull-up....so hopefully tomorrow he won't protest. Of course, we promptly displayed his "schoolwork" on the fridge. I'm so proud of my big boy!!

AJ had his Dr appt today and I'm so excited to say that he is no longer wheezing! YAY! Yesterday he sounded pretty bad, but this morning he woke up sounding almost completely clear. So, he finally turned a corner this morning. We are now down to only using the inhaled Pulmicort (steroid) twice a day for the next 3 weeks. Much easier to keep up with than the other meds we were doing. Also, the inhaled steroids have much less side effects than the oral steroids. Otherwise, he has a clean bill of health. No vaccines this time. At his 12 mo appt I made the decision to hold off on anymore vaccines until he's a little older. So, when he's 2 we'll slowly start catching up again.

So much to do, so little time!

I've been planning to write a big entry for Christmas, but I may never get to it! I'll try to do a quick recap. First of all, Ryan does not like Santa. I thought he was only afraid of sitting on Santa's lap, but it's much more widespread. Santa always drives by our house every Christmas Eve on the back of a firetruck--don't ask me how he has time for that when he's supposed to be delivering presents. When we heard him coming we ran to the front door. Ryan completely lost it! He was crying so hard and clinging to me for dear life! The next morning I told him daddy had to go make sure Santa was gone before we went down. Ryan didn't like that idea of that at all. So, I had to retract my statement and just tell him daddy needed to turn the lights on. I did ask him if he liked Santa a little more now that he left lots of cool gifts-he said "yeah". Maybe next year he'll be a little more accepting of Santa.

Christmas morning was pretty insane--actually the entire day was pretty insane. I'm not trying to sound like a scrooge, but I was glad when it was over. I was incredibly exhausted by the end of the day. I'm looking forward to the kids being back in school tomorrow. Maybe I'll finally get this house back into some kind of order!

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Today I've spent most of the day tackling my first goal for 2008--simplify and organize! We started with the playroom. Steve and I created a "project list" and I made myself a "declutter list". I'm actually looking forward to moving through our lists.

Ryan starts preschool tomorrow! I'm so excited for him. I have a lot of hope that this preschool will really accelerate his speech progress. He's doing much better already on his own, so I'm hopeful that he'll make big changes with even more help. I also think he's going to enjoy it very much.

In other news, Aaron has a Dr's appt tomorrow. It's his 15 mo well-appt combined with a sick appt. For some reason we cannot seem to get him to stop wheezing. About 8 weeks ago they thought he had walking pneumonia because of the wheezing and some crackling in his lungs. We finally got that cleared up. Then about 4 weeks ago (Dec 4) he got a cold and started the wheezing again. I just started his albuterol as needed and didn't take him to the Dr. I just figured wheezing was normal for him and wasn't worried. When I took him to the Dr on Christmas Eve for the rash, the Dr told me to start using the albuterol consistently every 4 hrs. I also found out that he had a sinus infection and we started an antibiotic. The rash was nothing-probably an allergic reaction. Oh, and he had eczema. I took him back to the Dr on Thurs because the wheezing wasn't improving. At that point I was told to continue the albuterol every 4 hours and add oral steroids twice a day and inhaled steroids twice a day. The Dr said he'd probably sound much better by Sat or Sun. Unfortunately, that's not how it happened. So, now I've been instructed not to give him any breathing treatments tomorrow morning. The Dr wants to hear what he sounds like without the albuterol. Truthfully, it doesn't seem to be bothering Aaron too much. But, the Dr said persistent, long-term wheezing can cause damage to the lungs. It's a frustrating situation. The breathing treatments are terrible to administer and there are side effects to the meds. The steroids have the worst side effects. So, I just hope tomorrow the Dr comes up with a better course of action.

So, as usual.....I have a million different things on my mind. I have a few more things I need to do to prepare for tomorrow, so I'll update more one day soon.