As for Bricen's eating...We have lots to be thankful for. Eating is such a slow progress and we have to praise and be thankful for any progress we see. By "we" I do mean me. Otherwise, I would pull my hair out. :0) He gets excited for dinner time. I have to get on to him to wait for us instead of climbing in his chair without us when dinner is ready. He goes to the fridge and ask for things like chocolate syrup and whatever else he will stand there and decide he needs. He ask for more. He will randomly accept bites from me, from me holding a spoon and from my fingers. His willingness to try new things has increased. With all that being, said for the most part, he suckles or works on chewing on whatever it is and then spits it out. He walks himself to the trashcan to spit it out, spits it out on his plate and or turns your hand over and spits it in your hand. (Don't be jealous.) We have aged out of First Steps and are still working with outpt therapy once a week for an hour to work on teaching him to chew and swallow and try different textures and strengthening those muscles needed to do so.
We've also started speech therapy with the school system. His vocabulary itself seems to be where it should be or close to it but his pronunciation of words is pretty behind. He doesn't say the end of his words. I think it's all tied together with those mouth/tongue muscles etc. I am not thrilled with this therapy but am keeping an open mind for now. On the plus side, it's closer and I don't have to deal with the ridiculous parking at the hospital.
We have three set appointments a week. Two of which are on Wednesdays. This particular day both got cancelled. We decided to spend some time crafting. Bricen loves it and let's be honest, so do I.
Needed to trim that turkey up a bit!
Much better. He was so funny making the feathers. I would tell him and show him how to put his hand down so I could trace it. He couldn't hold his hand still because it tickled him as I started to trace his little fingers! He was cracking up and so was I.
I love the pictures where you can tell he's looking at himself in the camera and loving every bit of what he sees.
So then we made a scarecrow. Nothing like the pinterest scarecrow but that's ok. ;)
And a reindeer too.
Developmental Peds wanted his vision and hearing checked. I thought the hearing was not needed but since it was the oh, idk 100th time someone had suggested it I finally caved and took him. Thankfully, his hearing is great. Next up was the eye dr.
Joe Cool here with his spider man hat and his mom's shades.
A rundown of the eye Dr. visit. First, it was frigid and windy. The lady calls his name, "Bricen" and from the other side of the half wall I hear my dear sweet boy say "I poop". Bless him. So as we are walking back I'm asking if he already did or needs to go. Lady says, Oh I smell him. So, we take care of that (In a bathroom right in the smack dab middle of all the little rooms in the back and right by the waiting area in the back. Who put a bathroom there?) Then we go to walk in the exam room and he freezes in the doorway, looking at he exam stuff. You know the stuff the Dr uses to say "Better one, better two? Better two, better three?" Carry him in. I sit in the exam chair and put him in my lap (which is getting smaller by the minute) and he plays the limp noodle game. She tells me she is going to have to dilate his eyes. Wasn't expecting that. Thankfully they use a numbing drop first. So out we go to the waiting room for a half hr. Go back in and see the actual Dr. This kid acted like an adult, he was such a champ! Wanted to sit in the same chair all by himself, did everything the lady asked for, etc etc. Oh, my boy.
Then the car ride home broke my heart. His eyes were of course still dilated and the sun was shining right on him. How do you make a three yr old understand to keep his sunglasses on? He screamed and cried until he fell asleep. I don't remember the last time he fell asleep in the car. Anyways, his eyes were good.
Somewhat last minute, we got to hang out with Miss Lyla for a few hours last week. It was the last day of Martys vacation and he had asked Bricen if he wanted Daddy to go out and try to shoot a deer or stay home and put up the Christmas Tree. Bricen replied "yay, Christmas Tree". So there you have it. Each day Marty did go hunting, he would come home and Bricen would say "shoot deer daddy?" Haha Poor Marty would say something like no buddy, daddy didn't shoot no deer today.
Anyways, Lyla got to help us start the Christmas Tree. Her and Bricen handed each branch to Marty to sort.
And then enjoyed playing on the box. Look at that pretty face!
Bricen had made another turkey hat in therapy this day so Lyla got to play with it.
I love her hair sticking out here.
She was the cutest thing with the lights. Each time Marty got a strand out she would go sit back in this corner like ok, I'm ready, show em to me!
Of course Bricen had one corner of the tree he chose to put all the ornaments. Of course, I think it looks perfect that way.
We were all tired by the time we got to the train but Bricen was so excited and we had been saying all night, we would do the train after we got the tree up. So we had to do the train.
Mr Big Stuff, here.
Frosty is back, the train is back and all is well.
