School

Let me tell you - I had hoped that Jacob's evaluation to get into school would go a lot like some of his ECI visits.  That is, Jacob getting frustrated that they wanted him to sit in a chair and do different tasks, resulting in him throwing fits and trying to bang his head on the table.  Is that terrible?  But this is the Jacob that we are used to at home, and I knew if they saw this he would get into school no problem.

This was not how the evaluation went though.  Instead he was pretty good about sitting in his little chair and doing the things that they asked him to do.  When he didn't want to do something and started getting up they totally catered to him and helped him find something else to entertain him so that he would keep sitting.  

The scary part (to me) during the evaluation was how impressed they acted with him.  They acted impressed that he looked at the clock on the wall and counted to 10.  They acted impressed that he could identify pictures of animals.  They acted impressed that he could identify the stuffed bear's body parts.

To be honest, it was frustrating to me as his mom.  These are things that a child a year younger than Jacob should be able to do.  That, and these abilities are all recent - that is, within the last couple months.

And so I was nervous that they would say that he didn't need to be in the school program and that they may just offer us a couple speech sessions a week.  Because I live with Jacob and spend a lot of time with him and I know that he needs more than that.

So when I went back for the meeting with the 2 ladies that evaluated him, the teacher for the preschool program and a kindergarten teacher, I didn't know what to expect.  It had been almost an entire month since his evaluation, so we had had a month to worry about it.  They started out by going over the results of the evaluation.  In which they said that they rated his speech and language skills to be about 3rd percentile for kids his age.

3rd percentile.

Wow.

I know that he is really far behind where he should be, but to hear that his language skills are only better than 3% of other kids his age is really bad.  Those are the kids who aren't talking at all.  That is where Jacob was just a couple months ago.

After hearing that I knew that they would have to let Jacob into the PPCD program (not that I remember what PPCD stands for).  And so starting on January 4th, every school day a bus will pick him up at our house and take him to school where he will be in class for 3 hours a day and then a bus will bring him back home.

I know that he needed this and that we needed this.  Seriously, when your kid is 3 and doesn't just tell you he wants to eat, but instead whines and throws a fit until you figure out that is what he wants, you need some time away from him everyday.  

And even though this is what we prayed for, I'm worried for him.  The first couple weeks I anticipate will be very rough on him.  After all, it took a year before we were able to leave him in the nursery at church without him throwing complete fits.  I know that he will be confused and scared.  I hope that he adjusts quickly - at least, a lot more quickly than he adjusts to other things.  

9 month old outtakes

Just thought these were humorous.  After I snapped a couple pictures of the babies, I hoped to get a better one where they were each giving me a big smile, looking right at me, etc.  Instead, this is what happened:

Jeremy says "Hey Joel - what are you doing over there?"

 Joel says "I'm out of here!"

Jeremy says "I guess I'll just tackle you then."

"Hey Mom, here is my Popeye look!"

Trip to Florida

I am determined to blog about things that I want to remember one day, even though they seem like so long ago and not that important.

Justin knew about a year ago that in October of this year he would be attending a conference in Orlando.  When the twins were a few months old, he asked me if I wanted to go with him.  Um, YEAH!!!  But what about our kids?  So Justin called his dad and step-mom and they were willing to come and fill in so we could get away.

We left on Friday, September 30th and came back on Wednesday night, October 5th.  I have to admit, for about a month before we left the thought of this trip was the only thing keeping me sane.  So much of my day was spent trying to keep the kids from crying that I really felt like I would lose it if I didn't get away.

People told me that after a day or two I would really miss my kids.  Confession - I never felt like I missed them.  Everyday we were gone I thought about how glad I was to be away from them and to actually have time to myself.  Seriously - every stay-at-home mom should be able to have a getaway from their kids.  A stay-at-home mom with 3 kids under 3 and the oldest with development and behavior problems NEEDS a getaway.

But, back to our trip.  When we arrived in Orlando we decided to visit the Orlando LDS temple, since it had been over 5 years since we had been there.

We didn't stay long because we were tired, it was late, we needed to check in at our resort, get some dinner, run to the store; but we were glad we went.

On Saturday we had breakfast with Justin's brother and his family before we headed to Universal's Islands of Adventure.  We enjoyed going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and drinking some butterbeer (although it wasn't as good as I had imagined it would taste).

After we were tired of walking around the park, we headed back to our resort to soak in the hot tub (necessary after walking around all day) before meeting up with Justin's brother and his wife for dinner, dessert and talking.

Sunday morning we left the resort and met up with some of our friends from Tallahassee and then Tampa to have breakfast with them and their kids.

After breakfast, we headed to Epcot to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival (however, for us it should have just been called the Food Festival).  Again we met up with Justin's brother and sister-in-law as well as her dad and sister.  We tried some great food and again walked around until our feet ached.  After Epcot, we headed over to the hotel we were staying in for the conference.

Once the conference began, Justin was busy with conference stuff pretty much the whole time, however I had my days free to do whatever.  I slept in until whenever I decided to get up.  I went to the gym a couple times (oh gym, how I have missed you!  Did you know that unless Jacob or I were sick I went to the gym 5 days a week from the time Jacob was 3 months old until the embryo transfer for the twins?).  

On Monday I was able to meet up with a good friend from BYU who recently moved to the Orlando area for a couple hours, then I met up with my sister-in-law for pedicures and chatting.  I made it back to the hotel just in time to meet up with Justin and everyone at the conference and their guests headed to Universal Studios where a portion of the park was blocked off just for us (nice!).

On Tuesday I drove to Tampa and met up with a handful of my co-workers from USF.  We chatted for a while and I stayed a bit longer than I thought I would which put me rushing back so that Justin and I could meet up with his brother and sister-in-law for a visit at our hotel.

On Wednesday we had a chance to meet up with Justin's step-sister and her kids just before we returned our rental car and checked in at the airport.

There were only 2 negatives from our trip - the amount of money we spent (it costs a lot to go to amusement parks - good thing we didn't have to pay for a place to stay or Justin's airfare).  And I got a little cold that had me almost totally hoarse for a day or so.  Justin said the money we spent was a small price to pay for me to get some sanity back!

We are really grateful we got to see so many friends and family members while we were vacationing.  We are also super-super grateful that family was willing to watch our kids, they were really ready for us to come home when we did!

8 months old...9 months old

Joel at 8 months

Jeremy at 8 months

8 months old!!!

Playing "I see you!"

A weird game Jeremy started playing

So excited to have his picture taken

Joel, 9 months old

Jeremy, 9 months old

9 months old!!!

Since we are almost to the 10 month mark, I decided that I just needed to combine these posts and get it done.  Now to remember what I want to keep a record of for these boys.

First off - the stats!  Jeremy has become our "big" boy weighing in at 17 lbs 12 oz (11th %-tile), 28 in tall (48th %-tile) and head circumference of 44 cm (23rd %-tile).  Joel, who used to be our bigger baby, is now our light one weighing 16 lbs 2 oz (6th %-tile), 28 in tall (48th %-tile) and head circumference of 43 cm (5th %-tile).

About 2 weeks before hitting 9 months old Joel got his 2 little bottom teeth.  As of 9 months old, no sign of teeth of Jeremy.

Joel started pulling himself up just days after hitting the 7 month mark - so a full 2 months before Jacob ever did.  At first he would just pull himself up very slowly and we had lots of falling over, but by 8 months old he was becoming a pro.  Once he hit the 9 month mark he started doing a little cruising and acts like he would like to try to to walk to something, but hasn't been brave enough to try to stand on his own.

Jeremy start pulling himself up right around 8 months old and what a little stinker he was about it.  This little guy would pull himself up just as soon as we would put him in his crib but then he couldn't figure out how to get back down.  He would cry and cry.  One of us would go lay him back down and he would immediately get back up again.  He would be super, super tired but his want (which I guess he felt was a need) to stand up and practice his new skill was too great and he simply would not just lay down and sleep.  It lasted for only a couple days when we finally gave up on getting him to sleep in his crib and put him into a pack and play to sleep (since there were no slats, he had nothing to grab to pull himself up).  So glad we bought a second crib when it hasn't been used for so long now.

The babies synced up their schedules and started napping at the same time!!  Yay!!!  We had to put them into separate rooms to get them to take good naps though - they just seemed to want to cry and fuss when they were put in the same room.  But something else amazing happened - they started going to sleep for naps on their own when I would lie them down in their crib or pack and play.  Jacob was so difficult to get to take naps - I ALWAYS had to rock him to sleep with a bottle.  Then I had to be super careful when I lay him down because if he woke up there would be no napping.  I can't tell you how fan-tab-ulous it is to have babies who, when it is nap time and I know they are or should be tired, I can just lay down and leave them.  Sometimes they whine and even get up for a bit, but they almost always just lay back down and go to sleep.

They have both turned into pretty good eaters.  It took a while to get Jeremy to eat fruit and then there were only 2 varieties that he would go for, but now he is a good little eater and I can get him to eat anything that Joel will eat.  They are not such fans of baby foods with meat in them, but they do seem to be ok with the stage 2 food apples and chicken (sounds gross to me).  We tried to move on to a stage 3 food that was chunky and that did not go over well - both babies gagged and threw up a little.  Not sure if it was the flavor or the chunks of food that they were disagreeable with.  They do like Cheerios and some of those Gerber Graduates snacks, but to be honest I am in all new territory and don't know what I am doing.  I couldn't get Jacob to eat any type of food until he was just past 15 months old and had lots of teeth.  So I find myself unsure of what I can feed them, what I shouldn't feed them, etc.

The babies have started playing with things, being super entertained by Colby and they love to see what their big brother is doing - too bad he doesn't like to have anything to do with them.

It is hard to believe that we are getting so close to 1 year old!!

Halloween 2011

Halloween this year was not a whole heck of a lot of fun, but hopefully as our kids get older things will greatly improve.  

I didn't get a single picture taken of the kids on Halloween.  Justin left work about a half hour early so we could take the kids to our neighbors before it went too far past the twins' bedtime.  Sadly, traffic was horrible, so instead of getting home a half hour earlier than normal he got home a half hour later than normal.  I had all the kids in costumes and was trying to keep the peace while we waited for Daddy to make it home.  Pretty much as soon as he made it home we walked back out the door and since we had no one here to take the picture of us holding the babies to keep them from crying, no pictures from that night.  Luckily, I took pictures of the kids before Halloween.

Joel is in the Pooh outfit - Jeremy is in the Tigger outfit.  (How did we decide who would be what?  I decided based on how many letters are in their names).

Jacob was Scooby Doo, thanks to our good friends who lent us a costume for him.

Jacob and I at our ward Trunk or Treat - too bad they didn't even start it until 7pm so he was super tired while we were there.

We did get Halloween pajamas for each of the boys.

I really wanted to find another skeleton outfit for the babies.  I really thought it would be easy to find one really similar, if not completely identical, to the one I had for Jacob 2 years ago.  No such luck.  So the babies had to take turns being a skeleton.

Joel

Jeremy

Our Jacob

I started a very detailed post about Jacob, but I think I will never publish it.  I am chronicling what the past year has been like with him and it is therefore super detailed, I think more detailed than anyone but I need.  But I think I do need it.  However, I have decided to publish a cliff notes version because I think it is also important for others to have some type of idea of the challenges that we have faced with our oldest son.

We started working with ECI right at the beginning of the year, but nothing really happened for 6 months.  When Jacob was 2.5 we took him in with us to the babies' 4 month check-up and floored our doctor with Jacob's lack of speech or even communication in general as well as his strange behavior (for his age at least).  She said that she would contact ECI and "light a fire" but she also recommended we contact a private speech therapist as well as developmental specialist.

Upon taking him to the speech therapist, I was brought to reality on how bad things are with Jacob.  Since he is my oldest child I really had nothing to compare him to.  I knew he should be talking, but it was everything else that I didn't realize was so wrong.  I'm sure that other people have seen with their children that even before they could talk, they were communicating.  Pointing to things they wanted, going to the fridge if they wanted milk, etc.  Jacob didn't do ANY of that.  If he wanted something he whined.  If he didn't get it soon enough, he would bang his head.  It was (many times, still is) a guessing game to know what he wants/needs - is he hungry, thirsty, tired?  Pretty much anyone else's guess is as good as mine.  It was also pointed out to me that he didn't play with toys the way kids his age should, or interact with people the way he should.

I was told that Jacob needed ABA Therapy (which turns out is SUPER expensive and isn't covered by our insurance).  That he needed at least 3-4 speech sessions a week and better yet, he should be enrolled in a special school for kids with speech problems (again - SUPER expensive).  Words like "AUTISM" started being spoken for the first time ever, and other words we had heard before like "SENSORY ISSUES".

Talk about overwhelming.  And upsetting.  And stressful.

Things with ECI really turned around at this point though.  Maybe our pediatrician was able to talk to someone about how they weren't doing anything for Jacob.  I'm not sure.  But we suddenly went from 1 visit a week from a developmental specialist, to 3-4 visits a week.  One from our developmental specialist, another with her and a behavioral specialist, one from a speech therapist and a visit every other week from an occupational therapist.  

And we went from Jacob making no progress to seeing some results.  First and foremost - Jacob started talking!!!  His language skills are still about a year or so behind, but considering only 4 months ago he was 2 years behind, we are making real progress.  The head banging is still a problem, but it is nothing compared to what it was when he had a permanent goose egg and bruise on his forehead.  

We still have a lot to work on with his speech and his overall behavior.  There are things that we wonder - does he not understand us, or does he act like he doesn't understand?  And we really need him to get to the point where he asks for things he wants instead of just throwing a fit.

This Friday I am taking Jacob to the school (public school) so they can evaluate him to see if he qualifies to be in the preschool program for kids with developmental delays.  We REALLY NEED him to be in this program.  He needs to be immersed in a program.  And he needs to be around other kids more (since when he is around other kids he doesn't play with them).  And because Jacob is such a high needs kid, I need him to be in this program.  I need to have some time away from him everyday, so I can appreciate the time that I do have with him.

Family pictures

Our awesome friend Laura took our family pictures about 2 weeks ago.  It was super windy and it rained on us a little bit.  Add in the fact that Jacob doesn't like to be too close to his brothers and he definitely doesn't like them to touch him, taking our family pictures was certainly not easy.  All I can say is that Laura is amazing.  If you ever need a photographer in the Katy area, Gilgen Photography is the place to go.

7 month old babies

Twins at 7 months old

**I am super late posting about the babies being 7 months old.  Justin and I spent the week after they hit the 7 month mark getting ready to go out of town and then when we got back the laptop crashed AND I was super busy getting ready to host my bunco group.  Now I'm going to have a really hard time remembering what happened between 6 and 7 months vs what has happened since. **

Joel with the elephant

Jeremy with the elephant

About a week or so after they were 6 months old, Joel finally figured it out and started crawling!  He started out slow at first, but he can sneak up on you super fast now.  Right after Joel figured out the whole crawling thing, Jeremy realized he didn't want to be left behind and he started army crawling.  It really takes me back to Jacob army crawling around the house when he was a baby.

We have had ups and downs with eating.  First Joel seemed like he was a great eater, Jeremy not so much.  Then Jeremy was the rock-star eater for about a week while Joel mainly cried when I tried to feed them.  Then neither would eat very well.  Trying to feed babies is definitely my least favorite times of the day.  And since the babies don't eat well at all when one person tries to feed them both at the same time, I spend a lot of time trying to feed babies.

Happy babies

Daddy's helping Jeremy tackle Joel

Watching TV with Daddy

All the boys like the same toys

First injury to one of the babies, luckily no stitches needed

All 3 kids were originally playing with this xylophone, but Jacob moved as soon as I got the camera out

Lots to blog about, where is the time?

I'm sad that I haven't been blogging, but with 3 kids under 3 my life is usually crazy.  I do have things to blog about.  I hope to do a write up about the twins being 7 months old, especially since they will be 8 months old on Sunday.  I have been wanting to do an update on Jacob.  Justin and I went on a trip - all things blog worthy.  Now that my laptop is working again, hopefully posts will start magically appearing on the blog in the next week.  Now to get back to filling out these forms that have to be filled out by 9am tomorrow.

6 month stats for twins

I was scheduled to take the babies in for their 6 month check-up the day they turned 6 months old.  But Jeremy had a nasty little stomach bug so I had to call and reschedule.  Poor little guy had so much trouble getting over the bug that I had to do a second reschedule and they didn't get in for their appointments until 2 weeks later than originally planned.

I figured that since they will 7 months old this Friday, I should put their stats up here before I lose the paper they are written on (because I lose a lot of things these days - I only somewhat still have my mind).

Summary is - we have little boys.  I always thought that Jacob was little because he was 6 weeks early.  He wasn't on the growth chart until 2 months old and then he stayed between 5th and 15th percentile up until he was about 18 months old.  I'm not sure where he is now.  I thought that since the twins were bigger when they were born, they would be bigger boys.  Wrong!

I went back to here to check Jacob's 6 month stats and these little guys are just about the size that he was.  I guess we grow them little around here.

Joel weighed in at 15 lbs 1oz (11th %-tile), was 26.75 inches long (53th %-tile) and had a head circumference of 42 cm (10th  %-tile).  Jeremy weighed in at 15 lbs 9 oz (which they told me was also 11th %-tile), was 26.5 inches long (50th %-tile) and had a head circumference of 42.5 cm (24th %-tile).

I had to get these up here because this is currently serving as my kids' baby books.  One day when they are in school, I can get real baby books and transfer all the info but in the meantime this is where it goes!  More about the babies when I do their 7 month update.