What's going on...

It's been a busy week here! Stephen continues to love playing on his slide, and can't wait to go outside every day.

I spoke with Stephen's preschool teacher about summer options, and she said that Stephen is too advanced for their summer school (extended school year) program. This fits with what we've thought all along, but it was nice to hear. Of course, the downside to this is that Stephen will be without therapy for 3 months. His teacher is going to see if we might be able to at least have speech therapy for him while on summer vacation, because he's still struggling with that (although he is making progress at home!). His teacher said that Stephen is doing really well in class, and making a lot of progress, and that he is just a "joy" to have in class! He's also started using the bathroom consistently at school, and not having accidents!!!
On Monday, I took Stephen to the zoo so that we could go to the petting zoo for the first time! I wasn't able to get any pictures of Stephen petting any animals, because he was a bit nervous about it, and wanted to hold my hand the whole time, but he enjoyed himself.

Here's a picture of Stephen exploring a cave at the Children's Zoo. He wasn't too impressed.

He did like the snakes and spiders, though!

But the best part was the cookie afterwards...

On Friday last week, Stephen went to see the cardiologist for his regular check-up on his heart murmur. The good news was that his murmur was undetectable via EKG. The doctor wanted to confirm that it was resolved, and ordered an Echo (ultrasound). During that procedure, we discovered that Stephen has something called an Atrial Septal Defect (ASD). That basically means that there is a hole in the wall between the right and left side of his heart, which can eventually cause heart disease. This is not something that is likely to resolve itself, so our options were to wait a couple of years and have it repaired, or have it repaired now. We have opted to have it repaired now, so that it doesn't affect Stephen's ability to play sports next year (if he wants to - he's showing an aptitude for T-Ball, you know!). So, Stephen is scheduled to have a heart catheter procedure on May 25th, where they will thread the catheter up through his groin to his heart, and will put a small plug in the hole. After about 6 months, tissue will have grown over the plug, and everything will be completely healed! He will have to be monitored still for a while, but after the procedure, he won't have any limitations as to his physical activity (he doesn't actually have any limits now, either). If you can believe it, this procedure will only require one night in the hospital, and minimal recovery time, so after only a few days, he'll be back to normal! So, scary, but good news - we're lucky it was discovered before he was an adult, and had a major problem as a result.