Kenzie-Girl: Part 2

Development/growth/health thing #3

In the packet of pre-registration info from the hospital I got during Mackenzie's pregnancy, I vaguely remember checking a 'yes' box to being contacted about the county's Right Track program.  It is a free program from the county that includes monthly home visits from a child development professional to check up on the development of your baby.  After Mackenzie was born, they contacted me asking if I still wanted to participate.  I figured why not, it was free.  The gal, Sara, we had at our house was great, always easy to talk to mom-to-mom and had advice on what things we could work on or exercises/games to do/play.  Shortly before Mackenzie turned 2, which was last summer, Sara noticed that Mackenzie hadn't made much progress with speech.  Mackenzie would no longer be eligible for the program when she turned 2, so Sara referred us to the Infant Development program.  I had no idea what this program was about, but we made the first appointment and went from there.  They did a full evaluation on her development in all areas, not just speech.  The day of the evaluation, I felt Mackenzie did great, that she did most all things they asked her to do, besides talk.  A week later when I had the meeting to discuss the results of the evaluation, I was hit by a ton of bricks.  

Very calmly and nicely, a room full of people I had just met told me my daughter was behind in all areas of development; speech, cognition, gross motor, and fine motor.  I couldn't believe it.  I held it together in the meeting, but completely broke down in the car and bawled all the way home.  I didn't know what to do.  I contemplated quitting my job suddenly to stay home and work with her, or bring her to appointments she would need with specialists to be able to catch up.  I'll admit I was being rash at that point, but I didn't know how to handle what they had just told me.  I felt like a bad mom because we hadn't been very concerned about her development before this.  We figured she was just a late talker, so to hear that she was behind in everything was really hard to hear.  I know I shouldn't have worried so much at that point becuase all the conclusions about Mackenzie's development were taken from a 2 hour eval with strangers.  How would they be able to make judgements about her development from just 2 hours?  And they did mention that, but there was no doubt that she was behind in speech. 

After much more crying and talking with Nick and my mom, we continued life as usual but obviously had a lot more to think about as we entered a new chapter in our lives.  Her evaluation results made Mackenzie eligible for the Infant Development (ID) program and we started with weekly visits by our case manager and various other child development specialists to give us ideas on how to encourage her development.  All the people we have worked with have always been wonderful and I can tell they care very much about Mackenzie.  They have wanted to see her make progress and I've always felt they have our best interest in mind.  They always came with new techniques to try to encourage Mackenzie's speech and were very helpful in putting us in contact with other resources and opportunities we would never have known about otherwise.

The first few months of home visits I think were to primarily to get to know Mackenzie to determine what services would be best for her.  It was decided that she would benefit from speech therapy, so we started seeing a speech/language pathologist twice a week.  With both Nick and I working, it was going to be tough to get to those appointments, but thankfully, we found an SLP who was willing to visit Mackenzie at her daycare so as not to disrupt her daily schedule too much.  We were thrilled that it could work out that way, but I also wished I could be at her visits with her. The SLP and I stayed in contact over email and she would tell me what they worked on and what we should continue at home, and for a while, it was mainly working on baby sign language to get Mackenzie to communicate her needs and wants.  She picked up on it quite quickly and learned lots of words.  I think it was harder for Nick and I to keep up with the signs she knew!

As we approached spring of 2011, we had to think about what was going to happen when Mackenzie turned 3 as she would no longer be eligible for the ID program.  That didn't mean we were helpless, but we had meetings about our options and another big evaluation coming up.  I was really nervous for this eval because while I did think she was making progress, I didn't want to be blindsided again with the results.  In my eyes, she will always be my perfect little girl, so it's hard when other people tell you something is wrong.  She did great on the day of the eval though and was only behind in speech.  They not only used info from that particular day, but also from all the other visits and what they really knew she could do.  Her motor abilities and cognition were right on for her age.  Well, actually they scored her down for motor abilities because she didn't go up stairs without hanging onto the wall or railing.  I thought that was BS because who wants their 2 year old (she was 2 at the time) to go up stairs without holding onto something?!?!  Sorry, I've never worked with her on that, it's because I don't want her to!  I want her to be safe and hold on!  So, I consider her motor abilities to be just fine.  Her cognition was right on though, which is what we've always known.  She is a smart little bugger, but it's hard to see that unless you spend a lot of time with her because she doesn't talk.  She was answering questions correctly that were scored at ages 3 and 4, so we know she understands everything, she just has trouble getting her words out.

With all our options, we decided to continue with the private speech therapy through the summer and with her speech delay, she qualified for the Preschool Special Needs program through the school district which she would start in the fall (this fall).  It was nice over the summer that I could attend all her speech sessions and do the same techniques at home with her.  It was over the summer that we really saw progress with her speech.  While her speech delay was never diagnosed as something specific, her therapist said that with most kids like her, the speech explosion happens from ages 3 to 4, primarly in the latter half of the year.  She felt that we were already seeing that explosion of words and was encouraged by that.

When school started a month ago, we decided to stop the private speech therapy as she would be seeing a speech therapist during her school days.  If we feel we need to start the private speech again, we will, but for now, we will see how this goes.  Mackenzie continues to say new words and attempt to say new words every day, so we are pleased with her progress.  Her main difficulty is putting sounds together.  We can go through the alphabet and she can say all the individual sounds, but putting them together in words is the struggle.  She uses a 'g' sound for the beginning of many words.  For example, 'bye-bye' is 'guy-guy'. I will have her watch my mouth and I'll say "buh, buh, bye-bye", emphasizing the 'b' sound.  She will then say, "buh, buh, guy-guy".  So we just have to keep working on things and when she gets it, she gets it.  It just takes practice.  It's funny though, because some times she really just does not want to practice and she gets all sweet, trying to distract me.  The other day, we were practicing words and I was on the floor so we were face to face.  She put her hands on my cheeks, got the sweetest look on her face and gave me a big kiss.  I thanked her for the kiss, then tried to practice words again.  With the same sweet look, she said, "I gove you" (I love you).  Now I knew what she was trying to do, the little bugger, so I told her I loved her too but we needed to practice.  Her next tactic was to hold my cheeks again and say, "kiss, kiss", then repeatedly kiss me all over my face.  Do you think she's already learned how to be manipulative or what? :)  I can't help but laugh at her.

I've spent a lot of time worrying about Mackenzie's future, scared of what's to come, scared that she will always struggle with speech/communication, worried that people will treat her differently and sad that she may face discrimination.  I think up to this point, I've tried to keep everything somewhat of a secret because part of me was worried what people would think.  I don't want anyone to judge her based on the fact that she's labeled as having a disability.  I want everyone to see the beautiful, smart, charming little girl that I see. I don't want people to feel sorry for her and I don't want her to have limited options in the future because of all this.  I always wonder if I did something during her pregnancy that caused it, but I guess I'll never know.  What I do know is that God chose us to have Mackenzie and ever since the day she was born, I've always felt so blessed to be her Mommy and I've always felt like she was meant for something special.  I can't describe it, but there's always been something I feel when I look at her that I know she was meant for something big.  So I will do my best to help her through everything, giving her all the opportunities that I can, and teaching her to be a strong woman to go after what she wants.  I don't know if she will overcome all this one day or if she will always struggle, but I will be there for her every step of the way.  She will always know that we love her no matter what and that God loves her and He made her just the way it was meant to be.

I know that God is with me along this journey too.  Whenever I'm feeling sad about it all, I see someone in public or I come across a news story about someone who has far greater challenges.  It reminds me that we're completely blessed and things could be a lot worse.  We can handle this!  Mackenzie truly is one of God's masterpieces!

Kenzie-Girl: Part 1

"Kenzie-girl" has been Mackenzie's nickname since she was an infant and while I don't call her that very much anymore, it's still a special little name she'll always have.

This post is all about my Kenzie-girl.  It's bound to be long, so come back later if you don't have time to read it all now.  I've been working on the next two posts for some time, debating whether or not to publish them, but I want everyone to understand her better so I'm going to pour my heart out.  It's also a little like therapy as each of these things have been emotional for me along the way.  Writing everything down is a sort of release and reading it all again makes me realize that we can handle it and everything is happening according to God's plan. 

Development/growth/health thing #1
When Mackenzie was 6 months old, the Dr. commented about her weight gain at her well-baby check-up.  In 2 months, she had dropped from the 50th percentile for weight to the 10th.  She hadn't lost weight, but she wasn't gaining the way most infants do.  However, our Dr. assured me he wasn't concerned because she was still at the 50th percentile for height, so she was still growing just fine.  I wasn't really concerned either, but from that point to 18 months, her percentile kept dropping.  Keep in mind she was still gaining weight, just not as fast as other kids her age.  At first I questioned my milk supply since she was exclusively breast-fed, but even when we started on solids and she ate everything in sight, she remained low on the weight charts.  But still, her height remained between 30-50th percentile.  It never really bothered me until other people, strangers included, would comment on it.  People would ask if I was feeding her enough, if the Dr. knew, etc.  I even had a stranger ask me if it was possible that she had worms!  "Seriously?  Did that just come out of your mouth?"  I had to let things go in one ear and out the other because I would have gone crazy.  She was just my petite little girl.

It seems she has finally caught up though, and has been growing like a weed this past spring/summer.  Last fall, I bought her a bunch of new clothes, some pants were size 24 months, but most items were 2T.  Now almost everything I buy is a 4T!  At her 3 year check up, she was in the 70th percentile for both height and weight!  I'm thrilled that she's growing so well, but I wish she would stop now!  :)
Development/growth/health thing #2
You all know Mackenzie wears glasses.  You can re-read my early blog posts about those  here, here, here, and here.  She is doing great with her glasses and I feel we've finally come to a smooth spot with them.  We have spent more than I want to know on frames and lenses, but it's okay because she needs them.  She wears them no problem, but sometimes she uses them as a play toy, especially if she gets bored in the car.  She can take them off her head and pop the lenses out in one swift move.  She has lost lenses in the car that I have never found. (yes, I've searched the carseat - taken it out and damn near dismantled the whole thing)  So as long as she doesn't play with them in the car...., throw them during a tantrum....., or have them knocked off during a fight with her brother, we are good!  We recently had another check-up on her eyes and she finally sat still long enough for the machine to get a good reading on both eyes!  Our eye Dr. has always done a wonderful job of dealing with a squirmy toddler and he has been confident about her prescription, but it was nice to get the second "opinion" of the machine to know that her glasses are just right for her. We will keep going back for check ups every year to see how things are progressing.  Her prescription should change (get less intense) as her eyes grow so all we can do is keep monitoring.

Pumpkin Patch

Life has seemed a bit to boring to blog about lately, but I'm trying to come up with some interesting topics I could write about. I don't mean boring in a bad way, but it's why I'm not on Twitter, I figure no one really cares what I'm doing every minute of the day. So while I could blog about my daily schedule, I choose not to. I do have some new pictures though, so I will share those.

We went to a local pumpkin patch yesterday and the kids had a great time. We didn't get any pumpkins as we don't want them to get rotten in this beautiful weather, but the kids had fun on the other attractions. There was an area for little kids with a corn box, a mini zip line and lots of wooden structures to climb on/in/around. There was also a whole area that had things built out of straw bales. There was a maze, a castle with tunnels inside, an obstacle course, and towers with slides. The kids loved that part too, but unfortunately, the camera died before we got there.

Kenzie getting a push from Daddy on the zip line. She has quite strong arms and loves to hang/swing on stuff; she loved this thing!

All these structures were so cute, the kids loved them!

Rylan climbed in this sleigh and immediately said, "Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas!" it was great!

I love these things! I have the cutest little family ever!

Playing in the corn! As kids, my siblings and I spent hours and hours playing in the corn bins each year. I remember somedays just lying there to relax, the corn was always nice and cool. When I was burying Rylan and Mackenzie, the sweet smell of the corn brought all those memories back.

Block Party

Our church had it's annual outdoor block party to kick off the Sunday school year. We had a great time as always with the games, food, music and activities.

They got to help the firemen use the fire hose!

Balloon hats!!!

And they got their face/arm painted!

Love the ears!

You can never go wrong with a bounce house...

...or cupcakes!

Our Sweet Little Niece!

The newest member in our extended family is sweet little Ella, our niece and Rylan and Mackenzie's first cousin! She was born to Nick's sister, Katie, and her husband Brian about 6 weeks ago. We just love her to bits! She is such a peanut and such a good baby. She was baptized recently and I co-hosted a baby shower for her this week as well. We are so excited she is here and we can't wait to watch her grow up! Okay, we can wait, she's not allowed to grow as fast as our kids!
And not only do Nick and I get to be her aunt and uncle, but we're also her godparents!

Mackenzie LOVES to hold Ella and she talks about "baby Lella" daily!

I love to hold her too!

This and That

I felt like I hadn't taken many pictures lately, so I took some of lunch time. My little helpers and I made blueberry pancakes and bacon. It was delicious! Mackenzie was my mixer.

Rylan's job was adding blueberries to the pancakes.

Okay, I burnt the bacon a little, but they still ate it. The blueberry-less pancakes were Mackenzie's. She doesn't like blueberries or anything on her pancakes. She eats them totally plain, just like waffles and toast. Strange little taste buds I tell ya!
Rylan and I like orange butter on our pancakes. I had never heard of orange butter until I met Nick's family, now it's my favorite pancake topping. All you do is melt about 2T butter in a bowl, pour in a couple tablespoons orange juice, then add powdered sugar until desired consistency. Yummo!! Nick prefers peanut butter and syrup on his hot cakes.

We've also been eating a ton of sweet corn as it was ready out at the office. It was so good this year, I decided to freeze a whole bunch. I picked about 10 grocery bags full of corn and this is what we have in the freezer now.

Actually, we have all that plus 7 more ziplocs full, because I had done some the week before too. Awesome! It will be so nice to have tasty corn in the freezer all winter.

Here is the current art display at our house. The kids have been proudly bringing home their work and I love to hang it up. Everything on the bottom row is Mackenzie's, everything else is Rylan's except the big purple painting on the top left is Kenzie's as well.

Pass the Tissues

I'm a crier. I cry when I'm upset, I cry when I'm frustrated, I cry when I'm mad, I'm a crier. I cry at weddings, baptisms, hallmark commercials, when hearing a birth story, watching Extreme Home Makeover, chick flicks, you name it. I even fought back tears at a dance recital some of my students were in because I started thinking how proud their moms must be.

However, I've never really gotten emotional about my kids growing up, until recently. I didn't cry on their first birthday, or any other birthday because I'm truly excited for them to experience the next stage in life. And every age seems to get better and better, so I love watching them grow and develop into little people. I did cry when i brought my kids to daycare the very first time, but I didn't cry when Rylan started preschool because I knew he would love it. Kindergarten this year was different though. I totally didn't expect to cry, but I had to fight back the tears as I was saying goodbye to him. It was a realization that he's becoming more independent and he doesn't need me as much anymore, and that hit me like a ton of bricks.

As I brought him to his class that first morning, there was obviously a lot of activity going on in the Kindergarten hallway. When we got to his room, the teacher asked his name, shuffled him in, and sent him over to the red group. She really didn't even acknowledge that I was there and I had to chase Rylan down in the classroom to get a hug. As I was giving him my "morning mom reminders" (make good choices, listen to your teacher and have fun) my eyes unexpectedly started to well up. I wanted to grab him, hold him close and blubber like a baby, but I didn't. I smiled even bigger and told him I loved him and that I knew he would have a great day. It was in the comfort of my car behind my sunglasses that I let the tears flow. My sweet baby boy, (who I'm pretty sure I just gave birth to last year) is off to Kindergarten, starting his academic career. I'm so proud of the little boy he has become, but now that I'm a stay-at-home-mom, I want him home with me. (Yeah, I know, ask me when he's having a tantrum and I'll have changed my mind.) I want to keep him sweet and innocent forever, keep him from getting hurt, and keep him naive to the bad stuff that goes on in this world. I want to keep hearing from him, "Mommy, I'm going to give you a whole bunch of awards because you're mine best mommy in the whole earth!" (he told me this tonight.) I just love that munchkin so much; beyond words. But I know I can't protect him from everything, but I will do my best to prepare him for life and be there to help him through it all.

It was easier to bring Mackenzie to preschool for her first day because she only goes in the mornings, four days a week. So I still get to spend some one on one time with her. And I can't tell you how much I love that time! She is so sweet one on one and I love it because I've never really gotten time like this with her. So I didn't cry on her first day of preschool, but come Kindergarten in a couple years, all bets are off. For now, she can still be my baby, but there's no denying that Rylan is definitely NOT a baby.

It has been a little harder though lately watching them grow up. I think it has everything to do with the fact that I'm not working anymore. I'm able to slow down and enjoy the little things and now I wish it hadn't taken me so long to get to this point. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, and if I hadn't been working before, I probably wouldn't truly appreciate being home. So I have no regrets, and I'm sure glad I now get this opportunity to be the one who brings them to school and picks them up everyday. I'm able to devote 3pm-5pm just to play time with them, and I love that.

I wish I could stop my children from growing so fast (my aging could slow down too) but I can't, so I try to take each day as it comes and enjoy all the moments with my "babies". Even the frustrating ones. :) Like this afternoon when Mackenzie had a fit about not having purple cookies in the house to eat. I had to laugh at her while she was crying, because seriously, she was crying about that? Oh boy, she is drama!

Preschool!!!

Mackenzie is in preschool! I can hardly believe she is old enough, but I'm excited for her because she loves it so much. She has always been the clingy one and nervous about new situations, but she has done great. We also went to her open house the night before school started and that helped to get her acquainted with the classroom while we were there. She had so much fun that night, she didn't to leave. So we had no problems on the first day. She barely had time for a hug! She talks about her teacher "Mamy" (Amy) all the time and just glows in the morning on the way in. She is in the special needs preschool for her speech delay so right now, there are only 3 other kids in the class. There will be more coming as kids turn 3, but there will always be fewer than 10 with 1 teacher and 2 paras all the time. She will also get 1 to 1 speech therapy while at school. We have already seen major improvements with her speech this summer, so we are hoping it will continue to flourish.

Mackenzie's preschool is just mornings, 4 days a week, which is just right. I think I would have a really hard time being away from both kids all day long. I know I did it when I was working, but now that I'm home, I would miss them a lot more. I think Mackenzie really likes having me to herself a little bit every day too. She's never had that before! We've noticed they fight with each other less lately, which is REALLY nice. A little time apart is good I think. :)

Kindergarten!

I know, an update would be nice! We've been busy with school starting and a baby shower that I was planning, but now that it's done, I have been working on a couple new posts!

Rylan started Kindergarten 2 weeks ago now and he is loving it! The night before school started we went to open house and visited all the kindergarten rooms and met all the teachers. Rylan's school is unique in that they don't assign Kindergarteners to teachers until the end of the first week. They have a camping theme the first week and in small groups, the students do activities in each of the classrooms so the teachers can get to know them a little better. After this, they can divide into classes so each one is equally balanced. Those first few days, he was just so excited about all the new toys there were to play with, but his favorite thing was playing on the playground. He is tired out at the end of each day and he has been sleeping great at night.

Now that he is in his classroom, he is getting used to the school routine. He likes his teacher and the kids in his class. He's been very excited that they have started to enter their own lunch codes at lunch time this week. This summer we got a letter in the mail with his assigned lunch code and a picture of the keypad so he could practice. I was surprised that his code was 6 digits, but with some practice, he could recite his code in his sleep! He was so proud to know it and was a little disappointed when they didn't get to enter their codes that first week. I think the teacher just gave the kitchen staff a list of all the lunch codes each day - I can only imagine how long it would take to get all those Kindergarteners through the line! So they practiced in class and have now started doing it on their own.

They have been learning about colors and how to spell the names of each color. Rylan came home one day and this was our conversation.
Rylan: Mommy, I know how to spell 'red'!
Me: Really, let's hear it!
Rylan: (pause while thinking) Well, my teacher needs to tell me first.
:)
So we sounded it out and then he did remember how to spell 'red'.
He also got to be the helper last week one day. He was so excited to tell me about it! He said he got to bring papers to the office- once someone showed him where to go and the next time, he got to go all by himself. He also got to help his teacher find her water bottle lid.

I'm so proud of the sweet little boy Rylan is and what a smart little cookie he is becoming. I hope that he always loves school!