4th Birthday Photo Session

4th Birthday Photo Session

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Promoting Health & Well-Being

Lately, I really feel myself becoming "one" with the whole 'hippie' mentality I've laughed at over the many years I've spent in Oregon.  Today, upon arriving early to the gym for my tri-weekly class I live for, I had Andi use her walker to 'walk' herself into the gym.  Destination walking seems to motivate her.  My plan initially was to have her use her walker to get in and out of the library to pick up a few Signing Time DVD's I have on hold. I should have known that something was amiss when I pulled up to the block and every spot on the block was available.  I pulled in regardless, hopped out to get her walker out of the back, and saw the sign indicating library hours.  Duh, they're closed.  So, we used her walker on the sidewalk to the gym.  It's an opportunity, and one the weather allowed. So, Andi walked into the gym today.  Once through the door, she was greeted with her usual chorus of "Andi!"  Sometimes I wonder if they know my name, but they all know Andi.  Andi got even more attention using her walker.  One man was sitting in a chair by the door.  He was well over 300, maybe even 400 pounds (I have no idea), but he commented on how cool her wheels were and said that he might be using one of those devices soon.  I just kind of nodded and concentrated on Andi, like I tend to do.  But once I got her settled, I was more dumbfounded and fired-up about what that man said.  Here's a man with what I ASSUME is a healthy body, just an unhealthy life.  But anyway, that's not for me to judge.  Hopefully seeing a kid struggle to walk will inspire others to get healthy, be well, and appreciate their health. 

I've been making Andi walk with her walker as much as possible.  She gets a lot of attention and praise, which only eggs her onward.  The more she does it, the stronger she'll get, and hopefully soon it will enable her to stand on her own. 

We had one of the other pediatrician's look at her left (unaided) ear, as when they looked at her ear on Friday - when she got her new hearing aid, they said that ear was "VERY red".  Our usual Dr. is on rotation at the hospital this week, so we saw someone else we've seen a few times when we lived up at the hospital.  This guy is really nice, and did well with Andi.  He said the ear looked okay, but that the ear tube is just sitting there and should probably be pulled out by an ENT.  He gave it one try to get it out, and couldn't.  So, we are going back again on Friday to have an ENT remove it.  So, that's $20. today, $20. Thursday for PT, $20. Friday, plus I paid $30. for our minimum payment on our balance.  YIKES!  That's an expensive week.  Luckily, weeks like these are fewer now, but they still slash a big hole in my wallet.  It could be worse.... I'll just leave it at that!  :) 

So, Miss Andi is charging forward hopefully promoting health and well-being to all she encounters.  She certainly does catch the eyes of many, and is a rather big flirt.  She also has GAINED weight!  She weighed in today at 23 lbs, 5 oz's... so we're FINALLY out of the 22 lb, where we seemed stuck for SO long!   YEA!

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Keeping Up With A Bean

Keeping up with a Bean, as well as this blog, is proving to be rather difficult.  So much going on, and not enough hours in the day! 

First of all, the roof is done!!!  They only found $1100. of dry-rot to be replaced, so...  well, at least it's done, and they're giving us 90 days to finish paying for it!  YEA! 

It seems like we've had a lot of appointments lately!  I'm not sure if that's really true, but it seems like we have.  This week we had the team from Portland Public Schools come evaluate Andi to transition her from the 0-3 year Early Intervention program to the 3-5 year program.  As she's about to start pre-school, we need to line-up services she'll need and update her IFSP.  We have the BIG transition meeting on May 8th, which will have a lot of people come together to make sure that "all T's are crossed and all i's dotted" and Andi will have everything she needs to access, succeed and thrive in pre-school.  It has been said that after the paperwork is wrapped up from that meeting, Andi can start school even before her 3rd birthday!  So, it is looking like she will start pre-school in mid-MAY!  I'm so excited because everyone agrees with me, she will THRIVE in school.  It will help her to see what other kids are doing, and might even encourage her to figure out walking quicker.  I have a good feeling about it!  The weird thing about all this, is after this transition meeting, we will basically be "released" by our 0-3 year old team - which means the people we've worked with since 10/10, will no longer be ours.  So, our OT, Kajsa (kay-sah) whom Andi absolutely adores and can actually pronounce her name really well, will no longer be our weekly visitor.  We seriously started working with Kajsa a month after Andi was released from the hospital from heart surgery, she was maybe five months old.  Kajsa is seven months pregnant, so hopefully we'll get to spend some time with them this summer as "friends" instead of 'therapist'.  But still... that part of this moving onward will likely be hard on us.  These people come into our homes for an hour and see the good, the bad, the struggles, frustration, whining, worry, hardship, stress, fear, happiness, milestones, joy, humor, and share all of it as a part of the family.  The expression of the 90's, "it takes a village to raise a kid"... well, these people are our village, more so than even our own extended family.  These people have helped us shape, mold, stretch, grow, aid, teach and strengthen our Bean.  It's going to be hard to let them go from our lives.  I actually believe we'll keep up with them, but, it won't be as often as we've been seeing them. 

Anyhow, tangent....  whoa!  I guess I have some feelings about moving onward and upward!  HA! 

Tomorrow, we have our twice-monthly hearing impaired playgroup.  This is held at the school where Andi will be going for pre-school!  It's an opportunity for not only the kids to get together and realize 'they're not so different afterall' (anyone else singing a part of the song from 'Signing Time'?!?) but a place where parents can interact with other hearing impaired parents, and the teachers!  There's one Mom there with three boys.  The youngest is hearing impaired.  All her boys are adorable and Andi likes to flirt with the oldest!  She's someone I would hope to arrange play dates with down the road.  I find that my social skills are extremely rusty in these instances though and I'm rather embarrassed by my shyness at times.  I'm horrible about asking about others' kids and how other people are doing... I mainly speak when spoken to - which is rather shy of me.  Maybe just by writing that here, maybe - just maybe, I'll do better tomorrow!   

Anyhow, tomorrow afternoon we go up the hill to the hospital for Andi's 1st very-own hearing aid!!!  Yes, we will finally give-up the lender hearing aid from Columbia Regional.  We probably have to return our Signing Time videos we borrowed from the too.  Oops.  Luckily, we're getting them from the library now too.

And on that note, our exciting news is that Andi has taken the first steps toward potty-training!!!  We've been watching the Potty Time (Signing Time) video for weeks, introduced the potty chair, and even read a Potty book we borrowed from the library.  The stage has been set.  So yesterday, I got her to sit on the potty for two hours.  Two hours she sat there while we had Potty Time playing, toys to entertain, and a very full bladder.  It took two hours but she finally went.  The potty started talking to her (because it electronically registers that we've got a pay-day) and so we sang "celebrate" and made a big deal about it.  She said "bye-bye potty" and we moved on with our day.  Later that day she said "more potty" so we tried again, nothing.  Then when Kajsa was here for our weekly session, Andi decided again to strip off her pants and diaper and "more potty".  She likes to do the yoga pose 'downward dog' a lot from the potty.  That basically shoots her bare butt in the air with her poop chute exposed for all to see.  It's pretty funny if you're not disgusted with butt- chat like Daddy Bean is.  (HAHAHAHAHA!)  In any case, she did that several times yesterday, only to pop off the potty and "PP" on the rug.  She doesn't yet have the body-awareness, but, she'll get there!!!! 

On that note, I think I'll leave you all with the visual of naked baby downward dog pose.  Cuz if you're going to keep up with a Bean, well, that's our latest!