Earlier Mornings

Auggie didn't start truly sleeping through the night until he was 6 months old. Now I feel like I should relish the amount he sleeps: 9 pm to 9 am. Lately, he's even been pushing it to 10 am!  And anyone who knows just a little bit about me, knows how much I love my sleep!

But 10 is really pushing it, so this week we have started waking up between 8 and 8:30 am. Since he's been a little earlier, he's been going down for his naps earlier and even bed time has been a little bit earlier. I'm hoping we can get this schedule to stick so I can also get on a better sleeping schedule.

Auggie had his last speech therapy appointment on Monday under our old insurance. Darlene, the speech therapist, re-evaluated Auggie so she could complete a report and send it on to Auggie's craniofacial team and pediatrician. She recommended continuing speech therapy at least once a week and then another re-evaluation in 6 months. That seems pretty typical during an evaluation. She evaluated Auggie to be at 24 months for Language Comprehension, 25 months for Language Expression and 26 months for Nonverbal Thinking. She noted that there were no significant weaknesses in any of those categories! YAY! Darlene is very happy with the progress of lip closure when talking and the amount of words he is saying.

Tim and I are both hoping our work with him at home and through the speech therapy, it will keep the phrase "Auggie needs surgery soon" out of his annual appointment with his craniofacial team. We have a little more than 2 months until that appointment- 2 more months to improve! I'm also hoping Auggie will let (at least) one of his doctors into his mouth so they can see for sure if he has a submucous cleft palate as they suspected when he was born. The submucous cleft is the reason why we're sending him to therapy and taking so much action with his speech. Maybe they'll tell us in November that it'll just need to be watched and maybe we won't have to do anything until he's older. Maybe?

We've started his auditory appointments back up through ECI. We're very happy to have our regular therapist back, Melinda. We enjoyed our 2 replacements over the summer but it's nice to have her back! Auggie has grown up and learned so much since she's been gone.

We've also been taking advantage of the nice weather we've been having. Hurricane Isaac is providing us an awesome breeze today. It'd be very hot out in the sun without it! We've gone to the park a few times this week and even attempted to feed the ducks at Brother's Pond Park. They weren't too interested but Auggie enjoyed watching the turtles and small fish eat the crackers. I'm sure I would've let him, Auggie would've been right in the water with them!

Being silly during lunch

Got a few cute snapshots of Auggie in the backyard on Monday

Peeking out from the playground Wednesday morning

He's gotten so big! He can get up to the slide (and down) without any help!

Back by Popular Demand ;)

I'm still slacking on keeping Auggie's blog updated.. Sorry to everyone who reads! I'm thinking about going back to writing twice a week so I can get everything in. I'll get back on track, I promise!

Speech has been going very well for Auggie. We're down to one time a week since the therapist doesn't have any openings that work with Auggie's schedule. But Tim and I are working with him every day so it hopefully won't be a problem. Auggie's been picking up words left and right. But when I say "picking up," most of the time his words are mimics.. not exactly straight forward. He's still trying, though! Here are a few videos of him talking....

Auggie learned how to say and sign"orange." It's one of his favorite colors to say now.


Auggie going through one of his favorite books with Mommy


Auggie also learned how to say Grampa's favorite phrase! ;)


Signing is also going well. He's learning his colors- "blue," "yellow," "orange," "green," and "red." And he can point them out, too! Well, most of the time anyway! I taught him how to sign "police car" the other day because there have been quite a few around lately. He's also really using his hands to communicate and we think he's making up his own signs. 

It finally cooled down this week and by "cooled down," I mean, it's finally in the low 90's. It was hard keeping Auggie inside during the day so I finally made a little toy to keep him busy and cool when we went outside. I found this before Pinterest made its debut and couldn't wait to try it out. You take a container, fill it with water and put a few water safe toys in and then freeze it. Once it is frozen, you take it outside and have the kids play with it. I eventually got out a real hammer to see what Auggie would do with it but he wasn't too interested in the hammer. He had more fun throwing the big block of ice around on the driveway!

(Click on photo to enlarge)
First Row: Auggie playing with stickers; Auggie wearing his sunglasses
Second Row: Eating bread at Cotton Patch; Eating Gogurt
Third Row: First time in a car cart; Chilling with Aunt Kayla at Cotton Patch
Fourth Row: Milk before naptime; He loved the big red truck at the NWTF Banquet

We went to the National Wild Turkey Federation Banquet Tuesday night. Tim's a committee member so he was up there working. Auggie and I couldn't stay long because Auggie wanted to be held by Tim the whole time... Either that or getting into the games he was too young to participate in. Auggie also all about the red Toyota Tundra and glittery fishing boat on display. We left after dinner but missed all the live auction excitement. Kayla and Darren were home with their parents, Darrell and Sheila, so we visited with them for a while. Auggie was perfect while we sat at dinner with them at Cotton Patch. He actually ate a little more than half of a roll! I was super happy for him! I'm sure he was being so good because he was the center of attention. He's going to be such a ham when he gets a little older!

Well, I'll have a bit more of what Auggie's been up to next week! Enjoy your last weekend in August!

La Porte, Giddings, Austin...

My, oh, my, how time has flown by! Well, it seems like it has today! Other days, I'm not so sure! My Little Bear is 18 months old today! A year and a half old! 6 months until his SECOND birthday! Scary! Maybe I should start planning it now. Hahah.. just kidding! We have lots of time to enjoy our little 18 month old. :)

I have been so bad about keeping up with my Tuesday-Thursday posting schedule so I am going to start posting once a week. I'm going to switch it up a little and start posting on Wednesdays. We don't have a lot going on on Wednesdays so it's a good day. :)

He was smelling the flowers

 Saturday, I drove to La Porte with Auggie to see family. My Aunt Louise was in town from Toledo and then Jamie, Zoe and Nathan were in town from Krum, so it was a great time to go visit. Tim was working all day so it made it even better.

 

Sunday evening, we went to Giddings to see Sherwin and Jane. Auggie got to play with Jacob for a bit and got to ride with PawPaw on the Gator! He loves riding around with PawPaw. Wednesday we stopped in Giddings on our way home from Austin and Auggie said "PawPaw"! It was so cute hearing him say it when Sherwin would walk away or when they pulled up in the driveway. He's getting more and more vocal every day.

Auggie has some weird sleep positions
Sunday May 6

 Wednesday, Auggie had his speech assessment in Austin with the speech therapist through his Craniofacial team at Dell Children's Hospital. We've had this appointment scheduled since November and we've been looking forward to it. At least I know I have been! Ashley, the speech therapist, was really nice and had toys for Auggie to play with so he could get comfortable in the doctor-like room. He had been very talkative the past few days so we were really hoping he'd continue it. He did! He was so good about imitating our words and following directions. His nap was cut short because the appointment was at 1 but he was very well behaved.

Through a few questions and observing Auggie, Ashley figured his expressive language was at 24 months, receptive language was at 18 months and his speech was at 15 months. The expressive language took into account his 52 signs and approximately 12 verbal words. The receptive language took into account how to follow directions and understand simple commands like "where's your nose?" or "where's the ball?" The speech section pertains to how he makes certain sounds. Ashley was concerned about how he said his D's, B's, P's and SH's. Some of his B's sound like M's (sometimes it sounds like "mye-mye" instead of "bye-bye). His D's aren't as defined as she would like. And then the SH sound comes through his nose. The SH sound is best heard when he tries to say "fish." She tried to hold his nose while he said it and he actually couldn't get the word out while his nose was plugged. She recommended trying to correct it that way now instead of later. I was really surprised he lets us plug his nose! She referred us to a private speech therapist in town to help us with the speech and to get him in a more structured environment. She thought the environment change might help with his tantrums- he had a pretty good one while we were there.

We go back in November for a follow up assessment. We'll also see the other members of the craniofacial team then. Ashley thinks Auggie is behind in those sounds because he may not have been able to hear them correctly with the loaner BAHA he had originally. It could also be caused by a submucous cleft palate (

After the speech appointment, we walked over to Dell Children's Hospital. We let Auggie walk around for a bit and then stopped at this cute motion sensor projector. Tim and I were entertained by this quite a bit when Auggie was in the NICU. It was fun to see him being entertained by it, too.



On our way home, we stopped in Giddings again. Jane and Sherwin's front field is full of beautiful Black-Eyed Susans. Of course, I had to get some pictures in!

Auggie, where's the grass?

Running to Mommy

Sure, March is here.. It'll be gone before we know it!

Woke up this morning to Auggie crying. He would cry just a little bit and then sleep a little bit and then cry a little more. Tim took him to bed and he's been silent ever since. I can't believe how Auggie can sleep so soundly when we're right there next to him. I hope him sleeping with us in the morning hours doesn't escalate to him sleeping through the night with us. We did that for a couple nights and I could barely sleep. I was comfortable with myself- I knew I wasn't going to roll over or anything- but I just couldn't sleep right. If you know Tim, he slept perfect. He rarely ever sleeps bad even on the floor!

The Speech Therapy visit went well on Friday. Auggie showed off a little for Mandy. He sat up well and kept control of his head. He even proved us wrong when we told her he still didn't like tummy time. Tim & I are learning some signs so if Auggie doesn't have his hearing aid, he'll be able to communicate with us. I brushed up on my alphabet and colors. Mandy gave us a DVD of a program called Sign & Times for babies. It was cute. We learned cat, dog, horse, frog, bird... and maybe a couple others. Man, I have a lot to get used to- I've never been a big fan of small kids' shows!

We told Mandy that we had been trying to keep hats on Auggie... but you know how warm it has been lately, we didn't want to over heat him. She recommended maybe buying a girl's headband. You know, nothing girly... just a plain neutral colored head band.. Do you know how hard it is to find one?? I went to Target and then I've been looking on the internet, too. I just want a blue, black, white or even red simple non-girly head band! Let me know if you see one and where... oh and not too expensive.

Jason, Staci & Kiley came over for a short visit on Saturday. They were in town for the day. It was nice seeing them. I can't believe how big Kiley is getting! I mean, I see her pictures Staci puts on their blog but seeing her and holding her... She is such a cute little girl!

Tim went fishing with a some high school friends all day Saturday. I tried not getting mad that he didn't get home til 11 that night.. and by trying not to get mad, I made myself even more mad... and then he got home and all that "mad" disappeared. I mean, I wanted to be mad but I realized it was stupid to be mad about him coming home that late. Melanie called me in the afternoon and told me something along the lines of "You're a good wife, staying at home all day on a Saturday even though you stay at home all week." HA- I hope Tim remembers. ;)

Auggie is starting to roll over from back to tummy now. Apparently (according to Tim), he's been rolling over tummy to back, too. I've only seen it once. Auggie usually does it when he's a in a playful mood. Tummy time has gotten a lot better all of the sudden. I"ll get y'all a video when I can. Auggie already recognized my cameras and my iPhone! :(

This afternoon, Auggie has an appointment with the dietician. His height and weight will be measured and then she'll make sure he's been eating enough. This appointment is the beginning of all our appointments this month! I can't believe Auggie has his ABR test next week! I am SO glad it is finally here!

And before we get to the pictures of Auggie- what everyone is here for anyway.. I just wanted to add a little note. I know a few people have asked me when a good time to call is... Well, anytime is a good time to call. If you call and I don't answer, it means I'm busy but I will call you back! :)

Talking away to his birds 2/28

Uh oh, there's that iPhone!! 2/28

Auggie's hats have all shrunk- or his head has gotten a lot bigger!
Looks like we'll have to look for a headband after all 2/27

Good morning, Mommy 2/26

Talk, Talking away! 2/26

Sleeping in Mommy's arms for a quick nap 2/26

Tummy time 2/28

Auggie loves to eat his blankets 2/28