handsful

Running to her momma…

Got home from our trip to NC last night, so today was spent unpacking and washing an insane amount of dirty clothes.  No, they’re not done yet, so that continues tomorrow :)  I’ll be doing a post about our trip when I’m not this tired, but until then…

Lainey had her speech/language evaluation through the school system today.  She is currently receiving speech services through the state program for children 3 and under.  She ages out of this in July, and will then be seen by the local elementary school therapist (who, thankfully, we hear is really good).  Today’s eval went great, she cooperated with everything.  The therapist was looking at her communication skills, both receptively (how much she understands) and expressively (both speech and sign language).  Receptive skills are above average…she made it up to age 3 1/2 with sporadic correct answers up to age 5.  Woo hoo :)  Expressive skills, like we thought, are a little delayed.  She scored in the 2 – 2 1/2 age range.  Most of this is through signing, but she is consistently vocalizing with each sign and putting together sentences of 4-5 sounds/signs long.  At times, it seems as though her speech progress is going soooo slowly.  But, when we compare where she is now to where she was, she really has made big strides.

TWO hairbows!  We’re still struggling with “Miss Grabby Hands” – as we like to call her – snatching them out of her hair in the blink of an eye. 

It’s been a while since I’ve done a “what Lainey can do now” kind of post.  And, since we now have an official two year old in the house, I figured this would be a good time.  At her 2nd well check-up, here are her stats:

• weight: 27.9 lbs. 65th percentile, American chart; 95th percentile, Chinese chart (about 1lb. less than Abbey at 2yrs.)
• height:  34.5 ” 70th percentile, American chart; 85th percentile, Chinese chart (same height as Marley at 2yrs.)
• head circumference:  19″ 69th percentile, American chart

Signs she uses regularly –

• more, eat, all done, shoes, want, drink, milk, bird, book, mama, daddy, Abbey, Payton (we’re working on Marley and Ethan), Lainey, please, ball, light, go (which, means anything with wheels, like her cozy coupe), balloon, dirty, and fish.  Swim in a new sign that she’s learning. 

Words she’s saying  –

• eye, mama, daddy (rhymes with mama – yaya), no (not the “n”, but just an “o” sound), more (sounds like “mu”), yes (“eh”), and bye (sounds like “my”)

What else is she doing?

• she can point to named objects in a book when we say, for example, where is the dog?
• she can follow commands, like go get your shoes or throw the diaper away
• she says “mama” when she wants me to pick her up.
• she growls (which sounds like she’s clearing her throat!) when she wants her tiger stuffed animal.
• she can say what a dog (she pants), kitty, and monkey says.
• she still loves all kinds of food.
• she loves playing with her stuffed animals…favorites now are tiger, baby tiger, puppy, and lion.
• she still climbs anything and everything…anything resembling a step stool (pack of water bottles, wipes box) becomes one. 
• she loves books, although rarely has the attention span for us to read one to her. 
• She now will take you by the hand, and pull you to where she wants to go/what she wants if she can’t get it across to you in signs or speech. 
• She still sleeps like a dream…in bed around 8:30 and up around 7:30.  Nap is still usually 2 hours. 
• She LOVES the pool and has zero fear.  A good and potentially bad thing, so we plan to teach her to swim soon! 
• she learned how to hold her own nose and blow raspberries…very ladylike, don’t you think?

We brought back a lot of these crackers that she loved in China, and she still loves them.  Let me tell you, they’re icky.  Very salty and strong tasting! 

Now for the bad news.  A week ago Sunday, we looked in Lainey’s mouth and saw a hole in her palate.  We have no idea how it got there, or how long it’s been there.  So, she’ll have to undergo another surgery sometime in the next 6 months – 1 year to close it.  They want to make sure that she is totally healed from the first surgery.  We were very bummed about this to begin with, but we always knew there was a chance that a fistula would develop.  We’ve heard that they are more common in older children, 2 and up also.  So, we’ll deal with this bump in the road and obviously do whatever is needed.  She’s worth the trouble :) 

A couple of random pictures…this was taken the night before they turned 10.  It’s a tradition that I take the kid’s pictures on the night before their birthday. 

A while ago, Gram and Pa-Paul sent a huge box of goodies…here the kids are going through all the loot.  They loved it!