"Have a Good Day!"

"Have a good day!" That's what my sweet little boy told me this morning on our way out the door! Awesome! Have a great weekend everyone!

Pre-Preschool and Laughing Pizza!

At the beginning of February, we started Easton in a preschool program. It's on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m.- noon...and it's in the church on campus where I work. We decided to put him in the program for the structured environment and so he can play and interact with other children his age. We hope the program will also be one of the many steps we are taking to help him develop and improve his language and fine motor skills.

So far, he is doing fabulous! He still has a little anxiety when we drop him off in the mornings, but the teachers tell us that the tears only last for a minute and then he's fine! Each time he is there it gets better and better for him. He is playing well with the other kids. (There are 5 other boys in his class and 2 girls!) He is participating in activities and even sitting still at the table to eat his snack (that's a big step for him!)

I think his favorite part of school is music time. He LOVES to sing and dance! As you can see, from the video below! His favorite group is Laughing Pizza (a family band that sings children-inspired songs). Please excuse the nose-picking parts of this video! AND the fact that it's sideways...I can't figure out how to fix that!

Sleepless Nights

For the past couple of weeks, Johnathan and I have gotten very little sleep...all because of our sweet precious girl. I lay her down for bed at around 8:45 p.m. every night, and then around midnight, the crying begins. And she is waking up, from that point, every 30 minutes to an hour.

We aren't quite sure what the problem is; we have, however, narrowed it down to two possibilities:

1. She is teething and in a lot of pain, which makes her really restless and fussy, or

2. The formula she gets in her bottle before bed is making her stomach upset.

My guess it that it is a little bit of both. She gets "mommy milk" all day long, either from me directly or in a bottle, and then she gets that one formula bottle before bed...because the formula doesn't digest as quickly and used to keep her satisfied to sleep for long periods of time....but not anymore. I switched formulas on her last night to one that has less cow's milk in it, and she did sleep a little bit better...Thank GOoDness!

For her teething issues (she has two bottom teeth coming in) we have tried teething tablets, Baby Orajel, Motrin, and just plain ole' teething rings. The Orajel seems to work the best for her.

We'll figure it out soon enough how to comfort our little diva! As tired as we are, we love every moment of fussiness and/or happiness we have with her.

"The Baby" and Updates

When Reagan was born, we were so concerned about how Easton was going to take having another little person taking some attention away from him. To our suprise, he has handled it really well. He hasn't ever tried to hurt Reagan, thank goodness, but sometimes can get a little rowdy around her and we have to warn him  to calm down around "the baby," as he refers to her.


It's a very rare occasion that I can, at this point, get both my kids in a picture at the same time without having to hold Easton down. But this weekend, he was all about cuddling with his little sister, which I took advantage of by taking a million and one pictures to mark this significant moment in history :  )

Updates
Reagan's four-month check up was today, and it went well. She is now 25 inches long and 14lbs, 13oz. -- a plump and short little girl!

Reagan is definitely, I have a feeling, not going to be a shy little girl like I was. She loves to just babble up a storm and just wants to "goo" and "coo" to tell you all about her day!

Easton had an occupational therapy evaluation on Friday. The report from his daddy is that it went really well. (I didn't get to go because I have less than a day of vacation and sick time, and I knew Johnathan could handle this one on his own.) Easton did everything the therapist asked him to do, including: putting small beans back into a bottle container, swinging on a tire (not sure what that was about, but Easton did ask her at one point if he could get down!), stacking small blocks, drawing circles and lines (he's right on track for his age at how he holds a pencil), and a few more tasks that I can't remember of the top of my head.

The only thing he couldn't do was to thread beads on a piece of yarn. According to her, at his age he should be able to thread 4 beads. To his defense, Johnathan said he tried really hard to do it, AND Easton has never done any activity like that in his life. I don't have small beads laying around for him to "thread" so he can choke on them. Anyway! He has no problems using those little fingers to lock the front door!

In the next week or so, we go for a hearing test to rule out any hearing problems. I hope we "hear" some good news from that! :  )

Pears and a Piano

Our sweet baby girl turns four months old on Sunday; I can't believe it's already been that long. She's gone from a sleeping newborn to a little diva full of personality in such a short time, and we have enjoyed every second of it!

On Wednesday evening, we fed Reagan baby food for the first time. She had pears and LOVED them. I had a video of her smacking her lips, but I can't get it to upload right, so you will just have to enjoy these adorable photos instead! I threw one in there of Easton also because he provided the backgroud music for her baby food banquet!

Echolalia

From doing a little research, I learned that the form of talking that Easton is doing is called Echolalia. This means that Easton is:

"repeating or ”echoing” what another person has said. Children who are echolalic imitate what they have heard someone say in everyday life, lines they’ve listened to from a book, lyrics to a song, or a script from a show or movie. Professionals most often characterize children as “echolalic” when many of the words or phrases a child uses seem to be repetitions from a previous activity rather than new utterances a child comes up with on his own." (http://www.teachmetotalk.com/)

Easton can recite dialougue from Curious George episodes, as well as some from several other children's shows. He can say the lines in sync as the show is playing, and he uses them randomly throughout the day. He often does use them in the right context, however, which is good, but we are going to have to take his strengths in this kind of language to make him use it more productively...more often.

"Mommy, I need help!"
I found a great Web site called TeachMeToTalk.com that I think is going to be a great asset for us to help him develop better language skills. From just skimming through it, I have already learned several techniques that we can use. For example, since he echos what you are saying, we have to, from now on, say things to him the way he should be saying them. So, last night, I was working on gettting him to ask me for help. When he was frustrated about a toy breaking apart and not being able to put it together, he would hand it to me and cry out or grunt, wanting me to fix it for him. Each time he did this, I would say "Mommy, I need help." I did this over and over again throughout a one hour time period or so. About 30 minutes later, after he had moved on to playing with something else, he was trying to climb a chair and turned to me and said "Mommy, I need help!" Awesome! He picked that up and used it in the right way. Progress!

According to his speech therapist, Easton's language usage is on the level of a 1 and a half year old child (mainly, though, because he won't point to objects, which deducts a lot of points), so we have a lot of work to do. But, I will do anything to help my little guy!

Something to look forward to...

A friend of mine recently posted this status on her Facebook page:

I do believe I have the sweetest little boy in the world!!! He woke from his nap, crawled up in my lap and looked up at me with his little grin and said, "I dreamed of you mommy!"

It was a bittersweet moment for me while I was reading this. I was so happy for her that her little boy expressed his love like this to her; however, it made me sad at the same time. Her little boy just recently turned 2 years old, and my little boy is now 3--I have never heard words like this come from his mouth. He's never said "I love you" or anything like that. The closest thing I have gotten to that is him saying "Mommy" and then hugging me... and I cherish those moments I do get with him expressing his love this way.

I know he does love me and shows it other ways; and I am pretty sure he understands how much I love him. Along with all the hugs and kisses I give him each day, I always look into his eyes him tell him that I love him so much...I look so forward to the day that his sweet little lips say those words back to me.

It's cold out...side!

*FYI - In the beginning of this video, Easton is shouting "Snow" (not No).

Why Not?

Yesterday I had my first ever TWO-sided conversation with Easton, who turned 3 years old 4 days ago.

Here’s how it went:

Easton: (handing me the remote control) You want George? (meaning –I want to watch Curious George)

Me: No, we are not going to watch George this morning.

Easton: Why not? (in his cute, yet whiney voice)

Me: Because you don’t learn anything from George.

Easton: Awwww! (and he walks off)

It’s progress! We are working really hard to limit Easton’s television watching because of his language development delay. We have seen a lot of changes in him these last couple of weeks with less tv watching, and I know it’s not us imagining it. He really is talking more…we may not always understand what he’s talking about, but the key is that he is developing those language skills!

The A Word

We knew it was coming, but we just tried to ignore it. At Easton’s three-year checkup on Feb. 10, his doctor expressed to us that he thinks Easton might be autistic. Are you serious? We know Easton has been a little slow to talk and has some quirky habits, but hearing the word autism associated with my son is devastating.

I held myself together during the rest of the checkup, but when I got to the car, I was drowning in my own tears. Why was this happening to our son? Why do we have to go through this? This SUCKS!!!

I poured my heart out to my mom and then my dad as I drove back to work. I hung up on Johnathan, for some reason, when he called, but then I called him back and apologized. He knew I was really upset.

I cried in front of my boss when I got back to work, and then I finally collected my emotions about 2 hours after the A word was mentioned.

The A word? I can say it…Autism. We will get through it. It will be hard, but I know we can do it! We don’t love our little boy any less or any different. We will just love him even more than we already do!

He goes for different evaluations in the next few weeks—speech, occupational, hearing and autism—so we will soon know what we need to do to help our little man be the person he was meant to be.