First of all, many thanks to everyone who offered up their food processor(s) for the cause! I was very lucky that my friend Kathy didn't need her mini-processor, so now Charlotte is enjoying the wonderful world of purees! Thanks, Kathy! Or should I say "Miss Kathy"?Which brings me to what I think is an interesting question .... given the way society is today, what should we expect from our children when they address other adults? And I'm mainly talking about family friends or other caretakers here, not the elderly couple down the block. Obviously, Mr. and Mrs. We Remember When the Titanic Went Down deserve to be called by their last name. I feel like I'm having a little dilemma here. Let's take my food processor friend, Kathy, for example (Kathy has many more wonderful qualities, but I'm trying to simplify here). I feel like having Charlotte call her "Mrs. Carr" is too formal, but "Kathy" seems disrespectful to the age difference between them. But I feel kinda geeky when I say "Say hello to Miss Kathy". I don't know, something about it just kind of wigs me out. And I'm torn between the fact that I understand the world is different now then when I grew up, yet I don't want to lose the concept of respect for elders that I grew up with. I'm curious what you folks out there think. Please feel free to vote over to the right as to how you think kids should address adults. And if your answer isn't there then I welcome comments, too!
The past month has been kind of boring. We've had lots of snow in the midwest, and in fact tonight we're scheduled to have our 35th measurable snow of the season. I love snow, so it hasn't bothered me one bit. We pulled Charlotte around the backyard a couple times in a sled, but since she's still not sitting up so well it looked more like a rescue mission. I think she'll enjoy it much more next year.Last week we had our first Early Intervention annual meeting where all of Charlotte's therapists get together and discuss her progress and what they want to focus on during the next year. She had glowing reports from everyone. In the weeks prior to the mtg, each therapist did an official evaluation to see where her skills are in comparison to other children her age. And, even to my surprise, she tested pretty much on track for her age bracket for everything except gross motor skills (crawling, walking, etc.). Now, did you know that taking a piece of paper and crumbling it up is a skill? Apparently so! Just a little something to add to your resume. No, seriously, she was doing things during the evaluations that I didn't even know she could do. For example, they took a spoon and pretended like they were stirring something in a bowl, then handed her to spoon to see what she would do. I thought she was going to eat it, or stick it in her ear, but she pretended like she was stirring! We have all totally underestimated this girl! So, the gist here is that she's got it going on up in her noggin, but the physical side is holding her back a bit at the moment. Because of that we decided to increase her PT to twice a week to challenge her a bit more and we're scheduled to see a physiatrist in a few weeks. A physiatrist is someone who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation. I knew you were going to ask that. I'll let y'all know what the verdict is after that visit.
To continue my Charlotte update, I'm going back to the food processor for a second. Another thing that's keeping Charlotte behind a bit is her eating. She definitely has some oral sensory issues when it comes to food with texture. Hence the food processor. But she also doesn't seem to be interested in food very much. This has become the issue that keeps me up at night. I can understand that she'll crawl and walk when she's ready, or that eventually the time will come when she'll say "mama" instead of "dada" and realise that at that point I will make sure that all of her dreams come true, but I'm really having a hard time with her not eating and not gaining weight. We do have a wonderful nutritionist and speech-language therapist helping us out with her feeding issues, but I just can't help but focus on the fact that if she's not getting the nutrition she needs then it's going to be hard for everything else to fall in line. But I guess that's what moms do ... we worry. She has been doing better over the past few weeks, and with some oral stimulation and some other methods we have been able to increase her food intake, just not the consistency. Fingers crossed that at the next weigh-in she's gained some weight!
But even stuff like feeding problems don't come without a little comic relief. Check out this chair that her PT brought over for Charlotte to use while feeding! Now, anyone who is involved in rehabilitation will probably have seen something like this, but for simple folk like us, it looks like our little girl is strapped to an electric chair! Luckily, I was able to find something else at Babies R Us that not only keeps her in an upright position, but is more comfortable. I just couldn't take her seriously in that thing!
In late-January I started my new classes for the spring semester - Organic Chemistry and Human Growth and Development. Believe it or not, I am actually enjoying Organic Chemistry. So far it's been kind of fun. I remember in college everyone would groan whenever anyone mentioned that class, but so far I haven't been able to determine why. Maybe that's next chapter. Human Growth and Development has also proven to be very informative, but it's a bit different because this is my first online class. Yes, it's easier but there's still work that has to be done in a certain timeframe. Every week I have to read the text, answer discussion questions and take an online test. The hardest thing to get used to is the fact that when you're "discussing" something online with your peers you have to make sure that what you're saying is valid and that you can back it up. It's not the same as being in a classroom where the chances are no one is listening or no one cares if you speak up. Here, all my responses are written in stone as soon as I hit "SEND" and anyone can call me out on it.
Pretty soon I'm going to have to start looking into what nursing program(s) I want to apply to. I'm just starting to get into taking these classes, so I'm kind of procratinating getting out of my new-found comfort zone and looking at new different schools.
That's it for us. I'm thinking the next post should be a bit more interesting. Hopefully we will have been able to get outside and do some CRAZY stuff. PLUS, the little Peanut has recently started trying to pull herself forward, so hopefully soon I'll have some video of Charlotte crawling around the house driving me nuts! I welcome the insanity! :-)
Miles Left To Run for 2008: 421.5
Days Left In Office For Bush: 327
Go .... Hillary???
