My Sister Time

We spent New Year's weekend in Towson MD with Jackie's family and my parents. The kids definitely kept things busy, but we managed to arrange a little sister time, one afternoon shopping at Kohl's, REI, and the beer store. The first day there we went to the Robert E Lee park and let the kids run around on the wooded trails. Beautiful park! The next day we took the kids to a playground. (Yes, the goal was to wear them out so they would take naps - of course, we were ready naps, too!)

On New Year's Day, Noah turned 5 yrs old! It is so hard to believe that he is 5 already . . . time has flown by! I remember babysitting Noah when he was just 8 or 9 months old in Jackie's first Baltimore house. It seems like just a few months ago.
Noah's birthday party was glowing! and, yummy cake too!

Here are some of our latest updates . . .

• Cam is an amazing little boy & so loving. Just this afternoon he jumped up on the couch, crawled over to me and gave me a big wet kiss on my nose! He thinks he is the same age as Grey - he runs, jumps, opens doors, watches movies, etc. And, he is talking up a storm! He will repeat anything you say. Just yesterday we were in the grocery store, and I was getting irritated (it's so cumbersome to go to the store with all the boys!) . . . and I said, "Lets Go! Jeeez!" Cam immediately reiterated my frustration by saying, "Gooooo! Eeeeeeeeeez!" I must be careful with how I say things!
• Grey is doing great in preschool - he loves his teachers, Ms. Holly and Ms. Julie, and we've gotten so many super cool pieces of Grey's artwork from school. I will post pictures from preschool soon. Grey is now receiving Speech Therapy once a week at our house. He is vocalizing a lot, but not articulating any actual words. (Although, he can hum a song exactly on tune!) And, based on our speech therapist's recommendation, we got an occupational therapy evaluation. Our occupational therapist believes Grey may have a mild form of dyspraxia, which can manifest in his speech and motor skills. So, we are now seeing Dawn twice per month to work on that. Dyspraxia is a problem with motor planning, which consists of 3 parts - 1) ideation - or the ability to create the idea of a motor movement 2) planning how to actually perform the movement 3) execution of the movement. A problem with any one of these 3 areas results in the inability to perform the task. This also applies to speech movements, which is the proposed theory of why Grey isn't talking yet. All of this, is, of course, in a nutshell. Our problem is how do we help him??? It is very expensive, I can tell you that . . . but as long as the therapies are helping him, it is well worth it!
• Matt takes his final phase of the Urology Boards this week - he leaves on Thursday for Dallas TX. These are his oral boards and will take 2 days. I know he'll be glad to get this behind him, and I have every confidence in him.
• Jackie is moving to San Jose, CA. I am trying to be positive for her, but I am very sad to see my sister move so far away. I pray this is God's will for her and her family's lives.

So, if you could keep us in your prayers, I would be very grateful - 1) for Grey's language and speech development, and for his full recovery from dyspraxia 2) for Matt's peace of mind during his oral boards and 3) for Jackie's safe move to CA, and that she may have an easy transition - finding childcare, schools, houses, etc.

I liked this analogy about how to explain praxis (the root of dyspraxia): Speech is to the social environment as praxis is to the physical environment. In other words, both allow you to engage and interact with your environment. Without them, you stand on the outside.