Feeling better!

Stephen finished his course of antibiotics tonight, and seems to be mostly recovered. Now, of course, his teeth are bugging him a bit, and he hasn't been sleeping well, but we'll muddle through. It's always something!

He was able to return to school this week, and showed his excitement by trying to run across the parking lot before I got the door shut. Think he likes it? It was "Pajama Day," and for snack time, they all got to sit around on blankets eating, and watching.... The Backyardigans! To say Stephen enjoyed that is an understatement. I don't have a photo of him wearing his jammies to school, because he woke up to late for me to get one in the morning, and he was filthy when we got home. So here is a photo of his NEW jammies (size 3T, thank you very much). They are Dinosaurs, of course (that's a dino on his left side, and under his right arm, it says, "Coming through!").

Today (Saturday), is obviously a college football day. ESPN GameDay was in Austin today, so we were watching a bit of it, and of course, Stephen was wearing his beloved Texas shirt.

After he finished lunch today, he kept saying something that sounded like "boo-baaaa!" After he said it a few times, I asked him if he wanted to watch football, and when he nodded yes, I flipped around until I found a game he was happy with (truly, not just any game would do - I think we ended up with Cal v. Minnesota).

As far as speech goes, Stephen has been making tons of progress. He is babbling and being more vocal outside of the home (this is a BIG deal!), and using a TON more words and phrases with us. Today, he told the cat to "move it!" when he and Erik were coming down from the garage. No prompting, but he's certainly heard US say it enough!!!

All in all, a good week for Stephen (and us). Hopefully next week will be EVEN better!!!

School = germs

Yep, Stephen is sick. He will not be going to school tomorrow, unfortunately. He wasn't feeling like himself for most of last week, but never really had any symptoms, and he was able to go to school on Friday again (and STILL LOVED it!!), but by Saturday evening, the congestion started, and by Monday, the coughing was going strong, so I took him in to see his doctor on Tuesday. She said that it was probably just a cold, but since he had been feeling poorly for a while, it could be bordering on a sinus infection (especially with his dragon breath), and gave me a prescription for antibiotics to get filled today if he wasn't feeling better. He's not. During the night, he developed a fever, and today it has been running close to 103 even WITH Motrin and Tylenol. The nurse said that the fever is good, because his body is fighting the infection, but he is just so miserable and pathetic. The ONLY good thing is that he is sleeping more, but that's about it. Hopefully he won't get sick again this semester, because this one is a doozy!!

We were in the middle of working on cards for Grandparent's day this Sunday, so for the grandparents who read this, I'm sorry that your cards will be late. Stephen wasn't done working on them yet!

Art

So apparently Stephen loves doing Arts and Crafts at School. According to Miss Jessica (his preferred teacher of the 2), he LOVED sponge painting. That's how he painted this tree:

I guess they also used some paint brushes...

And markers. Stephen doesn't like to use markers or crayons. We are working on it at home - it's not a big deal, since he likes to do other things, but I'd hate for it to delay him in pre-writing skills.

This is the piece he did on his first day. The teachers put the glue down, and the kids put the paper pieces on it.

They did these today too. He glued the paper pieces on there, and then glued the pom-poms on top.

Stephen is just loving school! We are so glad that we decided to do this for him. We were very anxious at first, as I'm sure many of you can understand, but according to his teachers, he is just like the other kids (well, except for that pesky talking thing, but he'll get there!). Well, not JUST like them... because he's STEPHEN!

Getting bigger!

Today was Stephen's first day of "school." He is going to be attending Children's Day Out one day a week at our church. They have an actual curriculum, and are working on a lot of self help skills and preparation for preschool. This picture looks like Stephen was so excited that he was going to just march right off to school, but in reality, he was running away from Crazy Mommy and her camera. Shortly after I took this, I asked him if he was ready to go, and he yelled, "OOOOOOOL!!!" (School). I guess he was ready!
The report from Stephen's teachers is that his day was just AWESOME! He didn't cry when I dropped him off (and for the record, neither did I). He played well with the other kids (especially the girls, of course), ate lunch well (no big surprise there), took an hour long nap, and even did an art project! Our child, the one that hates to do Play Doh, crayons, and markers, did an art project involving gluing small pieces of paper to a larger piece of construction paper. It is currently hanging on the wall at school, but when I get it next week, I'll share it with all of you!

This is totally unrelated to school, but Stephen has been experimenting with different ways to play his piano. Jerry Lewis has nothing on this kid!

On the speech front, Stephen is continuing to make strides with catching up with his speech. He is saying new things every day, and is babbling more. And he isn't yelling or screaming in frustration anymore, so I think he is starting to figure out that communicating with words is much more effective. Telling me he is hungry is much easier than hanging on my legs and pushing me in the kitchen.

Wordless Wednesday - He decided to use the fork all by himself finally!

SWEET ride!

Stephen got a wagon this week (thank you, Grandma Janet, and Granddaddy John!).I kept trying to catch him while he was laughing, but got these two silly faces instead.And this is when I stopped and said, "Stephen, SMILE!" What a goof! He wasn't upset, just messing around.
We are looking forward to many trips to the zoo with our new wheels, and can even bring a friend along now, too!

Post-Surgery Changes

I mentioned previously that this was a life-changing procedure for Stephen, and therefore for our entire family. The change can be summed up in one statement: Stephen smiles. Prior to having his tonsils and adenoids removed, Stephen was kind of a frown-y little guy. Now he just walks around with a smile on his face almost all the time. He is more outgoing, and more loving towards people other than his parents. It's really fantastic!



Sleep has improved as well. If he wakes during the night, it seems to be because he's had a nightmare, or in the case of the last night, there is a terrifically loud thunderstorm going on. He still takes a while to go to sleep, both at night and nap time, but I attribute this to him needing to just change his habits a bit. He was so used to fighting sleep because he had trouble breathing before, so I think it is just a new thing he'll have to get used to. All three of us, however, are appreciating better sleep.



Stephen can hear better too, and is talking a bit more. His speech therapist feels that Stephen is aware that he SHOULD be talking, but is self-conscious about it. He will talk quite a bit (and it is all developmentally appropriate phrasing and conversational) when he isn't thinking about the fact that he is talking, usually when Stephen is either having a really good time, or really angry. He is starting to talk a bit more outside of those situations too, but just at home with us. Hopefully he'll come out of his talking shell a bit more when he goes to school next month.

Reading... as you may have noticed from the Tucson post, there were a few pictures where Stephen was reading with someone. That is his new favorite thing - bringing books to people to read to him. He will do it all day long. Our theory is that now he can actually HEAR the stories clearly to see how they go with the pictures in the books, because previously, getting him to sit for even a short book (except of course, for "The Going To Bed Book.") was a chore.

I think that's it. Stephen is really like a happier version of his previous self, and we couldn't be more thrilled. The first week of recovery was really rough, I won't lie. But it was soooo worth it!