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Monday, September 21, 2009

update on the boys 8:20 AM

I have been so bad at blogging lately. I guess I need to post an update on the boys, as we have had so much going on lately.

Brandon-we have had a bunch of appointments for him regarding his speech therapy over the past month. First of all, Brandon's developmental specialist, Bridget, who comes to our house once a week, recommended Brandon to start intensive speech therapy with an actual speech therapist. So we have been going to see Miss Renee at Brooks Rehabilitation once a week. We will be going twice a week once the paper work goes thru. It is a half hour session where he sits face to face with Renee and she really works on him sounding out the words and putting the words together. It has been going well so far. He likes to go and he calls Renee, "nae nae". Bridget still comes to our house once a week for an hour and both Brandon and Colin love having her here. She will stop coming once Brandon turns 3, he also won't be able to go see Renee once he turns three. This is when he will have to transition over to the school system. So...then we had a meeting with Clay County Schools and Early Steps. It was where they told us what would happen with the transition over to the school system when he does turn 3. They said that he would need to be re-evaluated closer to his birthday to see if he will qualify to go to school for speech therapy. Well, the next week, they called us and wanted me to bring Brandon into the school and have him tested now. It is the school right up the street from our house. So, I took him to school and left him there for an hour and came back to get him. The woman said he did very well. He talked a lot and repeated pretty much whatever she would say. She said he probably would qualify for one or two half hours per week at the school when he turns 3. My little boy will be going to elementary school! Anyways, he is actually doing really really well with his speech. He has made a huge jump over the past few weeks. He has a few full sentences now and a LOT of two word phrases. He can pretty much repeat any word you say now, which is a huge deal for putting sentences together. His vocabulary is almost limitless now. He is still definitely behind his peers, but he is showing huge improvements, so that's a BIG step!

Brandon also had an eye appointment to see how his glasses are helping him. He has been wearing them for 3 months now (when he wants to, which isn't always...) The ophthalmologist looked into his eyes with and without the glasses on. He said that yes, the glasses are helping his vision, but no, they aren't really helping his lazy eye. He wants Brandon to continue wearing his glasses for another 6 months to see if they make his eyes stronger, enough to spot the one wandering eye when he looks at a distance. If they don't seem to be helping then he wants us to consider eye surgery to tighten the muscles in the outer part of the eye so that his eyes don't wander. We are hoping that the glasses will help enough to make his eyes strong enough to not have to have the surgery, but we will do whatever is necessary for him to be in the best health possible.

On a brighter note, Brandon is starting to look more and more like Juan every day (i think!!) The ladies at the YMCA LOVE brandon. They said he goes in there and giggles and laughs and just has a great time. He is now able to count to ten and he is still learning new things every day. He's also a little artist. He can draw a circle, add eyes, a nose and a happy face, ears, hair, hat, arms and legs.

Colin-he also had an evaluation with Early Steps. He still is not walking (but he's close!!) We took him there because we wanted to see about getting him some physical therapy for his low muscle tone. His muscles are not strong at all. He manages to get around and he can get by easily, but he is just super weak. So Early Steps did a complete developmental evaluation and he scored super high/above average in all areas except gross motor skills (which is why we were there). So it turned out that he does qualify for physical therapy. Unfortunately physical therapists in our county are few and far between, so we are on a waiting list for that. He loves to run around the house pushing anything on wheels. He's fast too. He is standing on his own now, it will only be a matter of a short amount of time before he is walking. He has a vocabulary of probably about 200 words. He will repeat almost anything you say. Yesterday I noticed he pointed out yellow, orange and blue when the kids were coloring. He also can identify a few letters--A, T, O, and a few others. He has picked up on most of Brandon's sign language and is doing it himself. He used to be a little piggy, but lately he has been a really picky eater and throws everything on the floor. I think he may be getting more teeth, so that may be why. He still only has 4 teeth, so we have a ways to go with that. The ladies at the Y love him too. They say that they can't believe how clearly he speaks and how happy he is.

So that's about it on the update. I need to put more new pictures up soon!

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