Who’s a slacker? This girl! I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in a month and a half. A few people have asked, where are the round ups? Thanks for asking, it’s so nice to know people care!! Life has been busy lately and by the end of the day when Teagie goes to bed and I used to write, I’m pretty pooped. But my motivation is renewed, I hope to be back at it!
Last time I wrote, I told you how Teagan was starting to really enjoy swim lessons. By the last few classes, she would laugh when we got to the pool, she was so excited. When testing day came, another teacher came over to watch Teagan do her backfloats and zooms under the water (Teagan generally hates the former, loves the latter). After she was done, the two teachers put their heads together and chatted for a moment, and then said “Okay, we’d like to recommend Teagan take Back Float Baby 2 next time.” My exact words were “Are you sure?!” I was so surprised! I knew she had been doing LOADS better than the first few weeks of class, but lots of kids take the classes multiple times, which is what I had been expecting. So proud of her! My little Teagie fish!
Teagie has mastered everything in her everyday objects bag – we are now establishing words in groups of threes according to different parts of the day.
Meal times: cup, fork, spoon.
When changing clothes, pants, shirt, socks.
Playing with her toys: dino, ball, book.
While her receptive communication is making great progress – the list of words we know she understands is close to 20 (and I’m sure it’s more than this, but it’s hard to test everything) – she doesn’t say a lot. Her consonant sounds are back (WOOHOO!) so now we’re embarking on speech therapy!! We have her 6 month check with the school district in October, so we will figure out the mix of speech to her other therapies there, and we are on the waiting list for speech therapy at Children’s.
Physical therapy is going well, except Teagie still can’t get up from the ground unless she pulls herself up on the furniture – so she can’t be in the middle of the floor and stand up without something to push off of. Melanie (PT) said she’s be only two or three months behind in PT if it weren’t for that one piece, so Joel and Teag have been working pretty hard on that. And at Children’s we work on stairs and an up/down obstacle course a LOT, building up those baby quads.
Teagan and April at Children’s therapy.
For occupational, we continue to work on sippy cup…we are relying on the bottle less, which is awesome. We also practice small switches, so turning her toys on and off, and light switches, as well as drawing. I bought some wedge crayons, so that has been fun – possibly more so for me than her ;-).
Behaviorally, Teagan is starting to test us more. She will inch herself toward something she isn’t supposed to get into, for example, the dog water bowl, stop when we say “No,”…wait a few seconds and try again, all the while with this impish grin on her face. It’s so cute I struggle not to laugh while disciplining her – Joel has suggested we dress her up as Gilly from SNL for Halloween. Michelle said she decided to push one of her friends at daycare this week – terrible twos??
We had a lot of fun as summer came to an end. My dad and newly retired mom (woohoo!) came to visit for a long weekend, Teag loves to play with her grandparents. We also spent a weekend at Breezy Point with our great friends Mark and Laura and their kiddos Gavin and Mia.
Teagan loves her friends at daycare, and gets lots of time with our friends’ kids as well. I am fearful of what will happen as she grows older, if/when differences between her and other children become more noticeable. I always want her to have a group of friends and not feel isolated – or I at least want to combat that feeling as much as possible. So Joel and I are going to make sure she has lots to be involved in – sure, to help her make progress, but also just as a normal kiddo.
October is a big month in the Petersen house hold – our 5 year wedding anniversary, the one year anniversary of Teagan’s diagnosis, and her 2nd birthday (the first two both on October 4th, coincidentally). When I think back to the way I felt a year ago, it was horrible…so confused, defeated, and unsure of where to turn – completely lost. The love and support we have received from our parents and friends has been invaluable, as was talking with the professionals. Talking with other parents in similar situations, who know how we felt, was maybe the best for clearing the dark clouds out of my heart and relieving some of that isolated feeling. So, I am working with a woman named Janice, one of the wonderful genetics counselors at Children’s, to establish a Genetics Family Group. We’re just getting things off the ground, and are looking at a variety of events – therapeutic for the parents (both pre-diagnosed and brand new), educational, play-dates for the kiddos, and hopefully some just for fun, social events for the parents as well. We’re just getting moving – but I’m really excited about this!!
OH – almost forgot – we had an eye doctor appointment this past week, and contrary to my fears a few months ago, the doc says her eyes look great! No redo surgery anytime soon – guess I can add that to the list of things I “knew” would go wrong ;-).
Rocking Lion 