My heart

These guys...

These guys have my heart. 

And this guy... he's officially on Summer Break.  He is now a first grader!

We had a little bit of drama surrounding his class placement for next year, since there were not appropriate programs at the school he'd attended since turning 3, but we got it worked out, thanks to a little creative thinking.  Basically, Stephen is going to be participating in 2 separate special education classrooms, as well as a typical classroom.  Hopefully this will allow him to get all of his therapy needs met, while allowing him the opportunity to spend time with typical kiddos for peer modeling.

I should warn you... this next part is a little raw....  The last few days of school were very, very hard on us.  As many of you know, last Monday, May 20th, an EF5 tornado came through Moore, OK, leveling two elementary schools.  LEVELED.  This was about 15 miles from our home.  While this was happening, my own baby was at HIS school, in a tornado shelter.  And by tornado shelter, I mean bathroom.  Most schools in Oklahoma City do not have underground shelters, due to cost and the way the ground is.  Stephen was terrified, and spent much of that night and the next day seeking reassurance from his parents and teachers that everything was ok.  There were a lot of hugs and kisses given out.  I'd love to tell him that he shouldn't be scared, but this is just a fact of life.  Tornadoes ARE scary, and he should take them very seriously. 

I know that this blog doesn't reach a lot of people, BUT, if you want to help the people of Moore, you can donate to the United Way, Red Cross, or Salvation Army.  If you wish to help in a different way, get in touch with me, and I'll give you more resources.  In the meantime, I'm going to hug my baby tightly, and get ready for more severe weather today.

Mother's Day and the Dentist

We had a lovely, and quiet Mother's Day here.  My parents have been visiting, so they took him off to spend a few hours at the amusement park, while I gave myself a manicure and took a nap.  Stephen spent much of his morning, amusing us all with his play.  In this picture, he was watching phonics songs on his iPad, matching his alphabet magnets to the songs, and taking apart lego creations.  Prior to that, he had been playing soccer with his soccer bear, and soccer pillow.  He was having a lot of fun, and making a fabulous mess.

 

On Tuesday, Stephen had a pre-op (more on that in a minute) physical, and he is officially 44" tall, and weighs 47 lbs.  He's actually lost a few lbs since his 6 year check up in January, mostly due to his injury, but he's kept it off by being more active, which isn't a bad thing.  He impressed his pediatrician with how well he was using his talker AND his words to tell me that he was hungry, and also when he wanted the extremely slow internet to "hurry!"

The next morning, we were up ridiculously early, and checking in at outpatient surgery at 6am.  Stephen was scheduled to have a mold made of his mouth so that he can have a space maintainer custom-made to fill the spot where his permanent tooth was extracted after his fall, and since he has such horrible anxiety about the dentist, we opted to put him under a general anesthetic for the procedure.  While he was under, we also had a deep cleaning (the dentist said his teeth got a grade of "C" for cleanliness - I guess it's obvious I've been letting him have more responsibility with his tooth brushing...) and sealants on his molars and a few other teeth.  Stephen has these things called talon cusps on 4 of his permanent teeth, and they can make it harder to keep the teeth clean, so we are going to keep sealants on them to help him avoid cavities in the future. 

Everything went just fine, of course, and Stephen enjoyed his day off of school.  I made him stay downstairs to play, instead of letting him go up the stairs by himself to play in his toy area, and we enjoyed watching some fun movies and playing with legos.

This weekend, we continued to see some speech breakthroughs - Stephen was SINGING with some phonics and alphabet songs, and we actually were able to understand some of what he was saying!!!  It was very exciting. 

Where did April go?

For the last month or so, Stephen has had a renewed interest in playing with his Lego blocks independently.  Mostly, he just wanted us to build things for him to take apart - he worked on perfecting his destructive skills, and was able to take our creations apart VERY quickly.  Tonight, however, he wanted to BUILD!  And he tried and tried and tried... and then he got the blocks put together.  So he took them apart.  And then put them back together.  And he was SO PROUD of himself.  (This picture isn't from tonight - this was yesterday morning before a dentist appointment)  He just had to keep at it, and he solved his problem!

 

 

 

This is Stephen's new toy.  It's called a Dizzy Disc - kind of like a sit and spin, but designed for older, heavier kids, and it is much easier to spin.  Stephen was not able to enjoy his special birthday present over spring break due to his injury, so we decided that rather than making him wait until summer, we would do this for him instead.  This is something that will grow WITH him.  He has been spinning himself using his feet, and occasionally gets brave enough to lift his feet and just spin on the momentum.  And I have to tell the truth - I've had some fun on the "spinner" too.  Stephen thinks it's hysterical to see Mommy spinning, but he always makes me stop so he can have another turn.

 



 I just wanted to show this picture, because it was really cute - we were watching a cartoon where the characters were saying something was smelly, and I saw him doing this.  My silly boy.

 

 

In other news, Erik ran the Oklahoma City Memorial Half-Marathon this past weekend, and did it in an hour and 42 minutes - his personal best!  Our friends caught this picture of him around mile 5.

 

 

We had a consultation with the dentist yesterday to plan for Stephen's space maintainer procedure.  They will be putting him under general anesthesia to make the mold of his mouth, because Stephen has severe dentist anxiety, and while they are doing that, they will also do a deep clean, and put sealants on his 6 year molars.  Then we will go back after a few weeks and they will put in the space maintainer and attach the wires to his back molars with cement, which should last about a year and a half.  It should be a pretty straightforward procedure.  He is fully healed from his accident and we all continue to be thankful that he wasn't hurt any worse than he was.