Overnight...

...Benjamin's speech has progressed from the fragmented phrases of toddlerhood to full sentences, complete with subjects & objects.

What would recently have been, "wash hands?" has become, "Wash our hands please, Mama." (He often feels the burden of responsibility to speak for Talia as well as himself.) It's quite amazing to hear these mature sentences suddenly issuing forth in Benjamin's sweet voice. Of course, one of his first gramatically correct sentences was, "That's MY blanket!" Sigh. I suppose it's better than "mine!"

Approved!

Through a happy misunderstanding, we found out much earlier than we expected to that Talia has been approved for physical therapy through the early intervention program. (We expected to wait a month for this information.)

The main advantage to this therapy, as opposed to any therapy we might have pursued through our insurance benefits, is that it will occur in our home. Besides the fact that I don't have to pack up and haul the kids off to another weekly appointment, this excites me because it means the therapist will be using *our* toys, equipment, and furniture as she teaches me how to work with Talia. In other words, these will be things I can transfer easily to our daily routine, rather than wondering how to accomplish an exercise without the use of some fancy piece of equipment.

I'm excited that we may soon see some developments that will make Talia's life a lot easier and less frustrating. :)

How NOT to spend your Saturday night

I find it funny that *Benjamin* is our child with all the diagnosed medical problems (allergies, breathing issues, etc.) but it is *Talia* that I have now driven at top speed twice to deliver into the hands of trained medical personnel. Yes, we spent 4 hours last night in the emergency room.

Don't worry, she's ok, evidently it is just a virus.

Yesterday afternoon I woke Talia up from her nap almost an hour after her usual 4:00 wake-up time. She was sleepy-eyed and sweaty. I thought she had merely been sleeping hard. After holding an unusually cuddly, hot baby for about 10 minutes I said to Seth, "does she feel hot to you?" Feeling her forehead he responded, "she definitely feels warm." A few minutes later she was still not seeming herself. I decided to take her temperature.

Those of you who are accustomed to taking temperatures in young children with the standard digital drug store thermometer will know that once in place, the thermometer's display will generally begin to read 93, 95, jumping up in decreasing intervals until it reaches the highest temperature. I believe upon first contact with my burning baby the thermometer read 101.7. And it only increased from there. The end result was that Talia had a fever raging at 103.5!

Fearing some complication with her tubes, I gave her some Tylenol and called the pediatrician on-call. After asking some questions and discovering that, even with the high fever, she was pale and not at all flushed, he advised us to go to the hospital.

After assessing our options we decided that Seth would have to stay home with Benjamin while I took Talia in to the ER. We were soon on our way, a pale, shallow-breathing, lethargic little girl in the backseat and me trying my best to remain calm despite my rushing adrenaline. Once at the hospital we were ushered straight back to a triage room and from there were taken quickly to a private room in the pediatric ER.

Talia was in strong opposition to the many pokes and prods she received over the next hour. :) I know she was just overwhelmed and scared, not to mention feeling badly. The examination (her ears looked fine), blood draw, chest x-rays, and other sundry procedures were overwhelming to us both! During this time they also took her temperature again: 104.5 (with Tylenol!) I was thankful we were in good hands by that point.

Shortly after the flurry of activity was over, Seth was able to join us. He had been able to leave Benjamin with some friends that live near us. He brought dinner for us both (I was about to start fixing dinner at 5:30 when this all began--by the time 7:30 rolled around we were both getting a little hungry!) We also tried to feed Talia some mashed potatoes and veggies I had thrown in her bag before we left the house, but she was not exactly ravenous.

After that we just waited...waited for reports to come back from radiology and the lab, waited for Talia to pee (they needed a sample for another test--this was probably the longest part of the whole process!), and waited for the pediatrician at the ER to talk to our pediatrician. During this time "our Talia" came slowly back to us with brighter eyes, more energy, and even eventual giggles. In the end all the reports came back free & clear. The final diagnosis: a virus. We are to treat the fever and be cautious of contaminating anyone else. Finally, at 10:30, the nurse came in to tell us we were ready to go.

In the end, it was a lot of trouble for something simple, but as things got scarier before they got better, I was glad we went.

DON'T GO AWAY! IT'S STILL US!

I just decided our blog needed a facelift. (It's a work in progress.)

Chapter 1

Dissertation Update:

The first draft of chapter 1 was just emailed to my advisor. I have officially written the first 10 pages of my dissertation. In some ways, these pages were some of the hardest because I had to define what the project was, what the limitations were going to be, and how it compares to what has been done in the past by other scholars. Now that all that is figured out, I can just start plowing through the material, much of which I was able to gather during the week that Kiersten and the kids were in Tennessee so I have a already have a head start.

At the same time, I am trying to finish the reading assignments for my summer class: 4 books, 60 articles, and 1 large website with lots of pdf files. Although it is good information, at this point, it's a necessary evil that is standing between me and a completed dissertation.

Please praise God with us for helping me finish chapter 1, and pray that I'll be able to get through this reading quickly.

--Seth

So sweet :)

Benjamin has just been such sweet little guy lately, I had to share a few stories:

After he finished lunch Benjamin had gotten down from the table where I was still sitting with Talia while she finished her soy butter & honey sandwich. He was running in and out on some important errand or another, narrarating and chatting to himself as he went. On one trip in to the kitchen I caught, "Come right back" in a familiar tone (the same tone in which I tell the kids "I'll be right back" when I have to leave them at the table to change a load of laundry or get something from another room.) Curious, I watched as he ran out to the living room, leaned on a chair for a few seconds, waiting for time to pass, and then came running back in the kitchen. :) It's always interesting to catch a glimpse of their perception of what Mama does. :)
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When it is time for Benjamin's breathing treatment (once in the morning and once before bed) I usually give him a choice between 3 videos to watch. He often anticipates this ritual, shouting, "Three choices!" as he capers off toward the TV. Yesterday morning I retrieved the customary assembly from their shelf and held them out for his review. He put his little finger up to tap his jaw and said thoughtfully, "Let's see...."
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Speaking of movie time, evidently Benjamin has seen me multi-tasking a bit lately. When Seth recently asked him to press the play button on the DVD player, he promptly hiked his little foot up into the air and pressed the button with his big toe.

She's brilliant!

I knew it!

Today we had a physical therapist/evaluator come out to do some developmental testing with Talia. The purpose of the visit was to see if she qualifies for an "early intervention" program to help her with her gross motor skills. (Nope, we're still not walking at 17 months.) The short answer is, no, she doesn't qualify according to the standardized testing, although the evaluator said she would put in a recommendation for the case to be reviewed by hand as she feels Talia's gross motor delay is significantly out of line with her overall development.

The test covered 5 basic areas of development. In 3 1/2 areas she was in the "normal" range, slightly above average (the 1/2 was her fine motor skills which were at about 68th percentile). In verbal skills she tested in at the 99th percentile! But in gross motor skills she tested the direct opposite (1st percentile). :) The reason she did not qualify for this particular program was that the fine motor skills, considered alongside the gross motor as a whole in the scoring, brought the overall deviation into an acceptable range.

The PT did suggest that it is very possible that her "stall" in the gross motor skills is linked to her history of ear infections since balance is directly related to the inner ear. Her early gross motor skills (rolling, sitting unsupported) were on-target, but around 5-6 months we began to see a delay. This is about the time we started dealing with the onslaught of ear infections that ultimately lead to her recent "tubes" surgery. The therapist specifically observed that many other reasons for delay in walking are not present in Talia's case (sensory disorders, fear, physical developmental issues, etc.) It appeared to her that Talia is truly just a "late learner" and not hindered by any external motivating factor. So it makes sense that if her balance was "thrown off" and shaky as she should have been learning some of those more advanced movements (sitting unassisted, crawling, pulling up, side-stepping, walking) she would not learn those things as quickly.

Our next step is to report to the pediatrician and see what he wants us to do. We have the option to wait the month that it will take for our case to be reviewed by this program. We can also look into physical therapy through our insurance benefits. We may choose to just wait a little longer and see if, as she gets a little farther out from the placement of her tubes, she just picks up the skills on her own.

At any rate, it is nice to "officially" know that she is otherwise a normal, healthy, even exceptional little lady. What mama doesn't want to hear that!?

Pix from Nashville

I received a few pictures from my sister-in-law of our time in Nashville last week. I thought I'd share. :)

Talia is decked out in cousin Paris's Tinkerbell sunglasses! (She loved those things! She probably wore them for half an hour!)

Benjamin sporting his Independence Day spirit. He is so proud of his "star on arm!"

Talia also got into the spirit. What a great belly! (What you can't see are her red & blue toenails. You can see my blue, star bedecked pinky, which was part of an elaborate "stars & stripes" manicure/pedicure process involving both mommies and all three girls.)
Talia cuddles up with "Bear," her new favorite bedtime friend.
"Si Si," "Benj," and "Pear Bear" watch Charlie & Lola before bed.

Tales of Benj & YaYa

Benjamin loves to bring his mama flowers. (Go ahead, say it, "awww, how sweet!") He picks mostly dandylions and clover flowers in the yard and brings them to me one at a time. One morning I was sitting on the porch, intent on the reading material in my lap, when !plop! came a dandylion right in my lap. The only problem was, it was absolutely swarming with tiny ants, which were knocked off the "bloom" and onto my shorts at impact. Startled at the sudden infestation of tiny crawling things, I jumped up with a cry and threw the "f'ower" on the ground. When I regained my composure, I thanked a startled Benjamin for the precious gift, which I retrieved from the ground, brushing off the last few stray ants. Not long after another bright yellow token was deposited in my lap. A delighted Benjamin exclaimed, "Mama! F'ower! No bugs."

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Talia is hard at work learning the rules in our house. As with any young toddler, one of the main boundaries we deal with is things that are off-limits for touching. We tell her "no no" or "no touch." Now, in a few cases I have purposefully left off-limits items in prominent, reachable places in order to teach the kids that just because they *can* touch it, doesn't mean they should. I hope this will one day prevent my children from breaking some priceless heirloom in someone's beautiful home. One item I have left "out" is an iron candle-holder that sits on the coffee table, showcasing three tempting red candles. One morning I was watching a friend's little boy for a couple of hours. The kids were playing exceptionally well together in the living room, so I snuck into the adjoining kitchen to wash a few dishes. A few minutes later I heard Talia in the living room repeating, "no no! no no!" Peeling off my dish gloves and turning around to find the source of her reprimands I found our little friend, red candle in hand, and Talia, staring him down with her best girlish scowl, scolding emphatically, "NO NO!"

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A funny "Benjamin-ism"

Benjamin refers to someone as either having "shoes on" or "toes." If we were sitting at the table he might peek under and then report, "Benj shoes on, Ya Ya toes, Mama toes!" (Flip flops normally count as "toes", although sometimes they can be "shoes.") He will also refer to someone's location in reference to toes, particularly if this someone is barefoot or wearing some kind of open-toed shoes. For example, "Mama's toes are in the grass...." or "Mama's toes are on the porch...." That boy cracks me up!