Whew! Another busy day for us! EasternStar had her 3 month International Adoption Clinic appointment and then TinyDancer needed to be picked up from Grandma's. We got home just in time for me to hand the kids over to Stranger and I headed off to work. I came home long enough to pick up TinyDancer and then off to violin we went. We got home around 7:30 and ate dinner and chatted for a few minutes. The best part of my day was chatting with TinyDancer and Stranger over homemade burritos. She is so grown up!
But, this post is about EasternStar.
Our appointment today was with an occupational therapist and we mostly talked about speech development. Or lack thereof. EasternStar has no words. 8 ( She makes two different sounds - "ma" and "da" - but that is it. The charts say that she should have about 6 words by now (19 months). I'm not a fanatic about following what charts say that our children "should" be doing at specific timepoints, but she hasn't shown any improvement since we've been home (which granted is only 3 months) but she is starting to get frustrated by her inability to communicate which has lead to her hitting to get our attention. I have NO patience for hitting. None. Zip. So we received a referral for a speech evaluation. As soon as I had time this afternoon, I called to see if our referral had been received yet and we got an appointment for Wednesday. Yay! Our speech department can be tough to get into so I was really happy to get such a close appointment for the eval. Hopefully we'll be able to get into treatment quickly as well.
Otherwise her development is progressing very well. When she was first evaluated, we had been home for about a month and she was 16 months old. Her social and personal skills have improved from 14 months in October to 17 months right now; fine motor skills have improved from 15 months to 19 months (right on track!); gross motor from 9 months to 14 months. Good thing we are already doing physical therapy! 8 ) And speech, sadly, stayed the same at 10 months.
From a not looking at the charts standpoint - she is a totally different kid! When we met her in May, I knew that I saw mischief in her eyes. I just didn't realize the *extent* of the mischief that was in there! She is literally a walking tornado. She goes around the house, wrecking havoc, moving from one area to the next - dumping out blocks, pulling pots out of the cabinet, pulling towels out of the linen closet. There is so much to explore she can't focus on one area at a time! It is great - exhausting to clean up - but great! It is impressive to see her in action. 8 )
She continues to be incredibly happy and easy going. She loves going on "adventures" as we call them - going out and running errands. She has gotten very social and as we pass people at the store, she bats her eyes at them and smiles. She isn't so social that she will go to anybody - if she isn't within the safety of her stroller or a shopping cart she does stay close to mom or dad. Or TinyDancer. She adores TinyDancer!
Her eating is improving as well. She still has picky moments, but she seems to have grown tired of eating the same things and she is wanting to eat off of our plates. She has tried several vegetables and fruits. So far the blueberries have stayed in, but everything else has come back out. That is progress because when we first came home, anything that could be considered a fruit or vegetable was immediately thrown onto the floor (except for leaves and grass - somehow those made it in and stayed in). At least now she is interested and is trying them before they get thrown! 8 ) Baby steps. She still has no interest in any type of pasta or rice. I think she gets enough carbs from the junk that she will eat, so I'm happy to see the fruits and veggies area improving first.
We do think that she has some reflux and we are treating that with some medication. The meds should kick in in a few days and we'll see if they help. It's hard to see your baby rubbing at her throat and clearly uncomfortable and not be able to fix it. Hopefully help is on the way!
It is awesome to see how much she has changed in just a few months and I know that we'll continue to see advancement across the board in the upcoming months as well.
We are almost done getting our laptop set up to be our main computer and I should be installing the camera software towards the end of the week. I hope to be able to upload pics after the weekend.
P.S. Check out the temp in Tyumen at the top of the blog on the right. It is currently -22F. MINUS 22 Fahrenheit! MINUS! I'm glad we were there in May and September!
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