Speech is getting more and more clear! We are so happy! Our little guy is becoming very independent.....in the past month he has started to insist on being called Joseph instead of Joe, Jojo or any other nickname we might call him. He will correct us and say, "no, it's Joseph" if we call him by something else. He has also FINALLY started to do #2 in the potty. We have had to buy quite a few toys/prizes for incentive, but whatever it takes, right? He wants to do everything by himself, every one with little ones knows how time consuming that stage can be LOL!! He tries to do everything his 8 year old brother does......even silent reading....this cracks us up.

He picked Handy Manny Valentines to hand out to his class.....11 boys and 1 girl. He was very excited to show me which one went to which friend....very important stuff!!! He made me a Valentine on the computer at school and was so proud to give it to me. We have conferences for Joseph on February 25th.

He is still working hard at speech twice a week at the Kaufman Center. He loves going to see Jenny and works very hard while he is there. It is hard to believe he has been in speech for 2 years already!! I will never forget when Dominic was in Kindergarten I was in the classroom and when I left he said "Bye Mom- have fun at therapy!!" You can be sure no one thought he was talking about his brother's speech therapy session. My Mom and I still laugh about that.

Yesterday's snow day meant that I had all 3 boys home with me! The boys built a snow fort and had a snowball fight and Mommy stayed in and stayed warm. We also made a trip to the library and the kids found lots of books and DVDs. I love those days!!

We are still battling with Joseph's runny nose constantly. His ENT prescribed him nasonex but we haven't been able to get near him with it. The kid isn't afraid of much.......but don't go near his nose. While we were in the ENT's office he screamed bloody murder when he only looked in his nose. I don't get it.....doesn't even get that mad about shots......We may do some allergy testing come spring. Dominic has been spending lots of time at the allergist lately.....and it's not even hayfever time yet!!

Dr. Belknap visit/conferences

Today Jojo had his checkup with Dr. Belknap his GI doc. He said he has come such a long way from when they first met over 2 1/2 years ago! He wants him to continue on the Prevacid every other day. That is a big change from the twice daily he used to be on. He wants to continue to monitor him but only about 2 times a year instead of 4 times a year. This sure helps Mom out with all his therapy and appointments he goes to!!! He still sees the neurologist every 3-4 months and the ENT every 4-6 months. He actually has an ENT appt next Monday! Dr. also suggested the possiblity of him seeing an allergist. He has had a chronic runny nose/constant colds. He has missed countless days of school because of his faucet nose. Never a fever, no other symptoms and the rest of us aren't getting sick......so we are thinking he has some sort of terrible allergies. He asked if allergies run in the family.......I laughed and said "oh yeah!" Dominic sees the allergist quite frequently for bad allergies, asthma and eczema! I hope Jojo isn't headed down the road of daily breathing treatments, allery meds, eye drops, and skin creams........

He is still struggling with weight gain but as the Dr. pointed out he is probably just a lean kid! He is only between 5-10th percentile at 29 lbs. He is getting taller though. He is 39 inches up and inch or two from last time. He is just my little peanut! He is still in a size 2T for pants and some 2T and some 3T for shirts.

We had conferences a couple of weeks ago with Jojo's teacher. She said that she is amazed at his progress and already had to revise his goals on his IEP. She shared with us some testing they do on the kids and he scored Advanced and Very Advanced for every section in the receptive skills. She said he is a really really smart kid and that is both good and bad for his speech issues. She said even without knowing him back then she could tell how severely impaired he once was in communication. The good thing is that he is very smart and always knew he had a problem but the bad part is he is now hesitant to speak spontaneously (with the exception of close family and friends) for fear of not being understood.......even though he speaks well enough to be understood. She said the challenge is getting him out of that thought process/mindset but that is hard because he was so challenged for so long. She needs him to understand that yes, people will know what you are saying instead of just playing it safe.

He is still getting speech therapy twice a week during school as well as OT and PT. He also still goes twice a week to the Kaufman Center in West Bloomfield. He still has articulation issues and some word retrieval issues but continues to make GREAT progress!

The kids saw Santa yesterday and Jojo LOVED him. He started frantically waving to him when he saw him and then happily sat on his lap. When we got home he said "Mom I saw the REAL Santa Claus!" They are sooooo excited for Christmas.

Jojo is loving school!!! His teachers say he is a wonderful sweet boy and he loves riding the bus and seeing his friends. I am very pleased with his curriculum and all of the staff that works with the him. He knows all of his letters, numbers and many letter sounds. He can even write his name. He is getting speech 2x a week at school and also PT and OT.

He is still going to Kaufman Center twice a week and doing very well there as always. He loves to go see "his Jenny." He is still working on the articulation of y, w, l, h and combining some other sounds. He is becoming a little more clear when speaking slowly, but it can be difficult to understand him when he is speaking fast or when it is very lengthy.

A few weeks ago, Jojo split his lip open and one of his two front teeth slightly shifted. The dentist said not to worry unless the tooth started to change color and last week we noticed along the gum line was turning gray. Today he had to have x rays and the nerve is dead and will need to be cleaned out and filled in with filling and then he has a 90% chance the tooth will be okay. His dentist is concerned because the tooth is loose. If we don't do it the tooth will probably get an abscess and the tooth may fall out. So tomorrow we will be doing the repairs. Oh poor guy.....the dentist said even with the sedation and gas it won't be pleasant for him! He can't eat or drink anything until after his appt which will be tough for him! It will be a pajama and movie day afterwards since the kids don't have school! His teeth also have a lot of acid erosion which is surprising to see for a 3 year old he said. (from his horrible reflux) He actually sees Dr. Belknap this week for a GI checkup. I'm a little concerned about weight gain again. He is still only up to 29 lbs.

Jojo and Dominic LOVED Halloween this year. I will post pictures soon.

School

Jojo started his 5 day a week preschool last week. There are 11 boys in the class and one girl (poor thing)!! He had absolutely no separation problems, no anxiety and NO TEARS!!! I was the one crying like a baby!!! He knows what a big boy he is and really struts around his classroom. He rides the bus to and from school and he is so little his backpack goes down to the back of his knees when he is wearing it!

His teacher and parapros have commented on how confident, cooperative and sweet he is. We had his open house this week and so I got to learn more about his classroom routines and what he is learning. So far he LOVES school and that makes us very happy. He gets up in the morning very eager for the bus to come and tells me all about his day when he returns. The 2nd day of school he got off of the bus and was pouting and said "I want to go back to school, it was too short." He also told me he raised his hand and used his "man-ders" (manners)

We are still making the trip to West Bloomfield for speech twice a week. We have quite a rush to get him there in between Jojo getting off the bus and being back to pick Dominic up at 3:15. I think at some point we many have to cut down to once a week, which might be okay since he gets speech twice a week at school. He also gets OT and his teacher told me she noticed his weakness in his trunk area so she wants him to get PT eval at school as well.

I just received one of his interim reports from Kaufman Center and he met some of his goals from the last interim. He has now moved from a diagnosis of apraxia to dyspraxia. He is having difficulty with /h/ r/y/w/l/s/ and /s blends/ as a result he becomes increasingly unintelligible with an increased length of utterance. Many times even an unfamiliar person can decipher most of what he is saying, he just needs to start over and go slow. Last month he had a test administered to assess his expressive and receptive skills. His age equivalencies ranged from 3.8-4.8 yr olds so he is above his age which is great! The main goal is to work on clarity and length of utterance. We are so proud of him!!

He is now FINALLY able to sing along to a couple of songs if we go at a little bit slower of a pace which is so exciting. He also is singing his ABC's absolutely perfect!

We're back!!!

Wow. I did not realize how long it had been since I had updated! I guess that is what happens during the busy summer.....you lose track of time! We had our share of good things and not so good things going on the past two months.It seems everyone is getting back to healthy now. Just trying to keep a good attitude and get through.

Jojo has decided that he no longer wants to go to therapy because it is way too much fun with Daddy and Dominic home in the summer. This has made three mornings per week very challenging. He has cried so hard when we get into the therapy rooms that Mommy or Daddy has had to remain in the room a few times. This is very unlike Jojo who since beginning before age 2 was not at all apprehensive about going in alone. I think it is probably just one of those phases kids go through. He never had any separation anxiety before so I guess he is just doing it late:)

His speech has still been improving, both clarity and length of utterances. He still prefers to speak using one/two words unless we ask him to expand. However, many times he uses very long sentences to express very complex thoughts!! The big "apraxia" problem is that he sometimes cannot find a word or cannot get things out quickly because of the motor speech trouble. He still cannot sing a song and gets very upset when he is put "on the spot" to answer questions. He has some issues with word retrieval and sometimes needs a prompt.

He has started to pronounce the "w" in words somewhat regularly which really has improved the clarity of his speech. In therapy he is still working on that sound along with "y" and "h" sounds. His therapist says he also has what is called a lateral lisp (different from a regular lisp). She said he may have extra trouble with some sounds because he has an open bite. (his dentist made us aware of this at his first visit)

He is currently taking a creative movement class once a week. It is a dance class that focuses 2-3 year olds on moving to a beat, counting music and basic body movement. I thought that this was a good option for him. He still has some balance/coordination issues because of his hypotonia, this should be good for him.

I never updated about his 3 year check up. (can't believe he has been 3 for 2 months already!) Everything checked out fine.....but he still needs to try to gain some weight. He is only 28 lbs still. He has been for a while. He is about the 50th percentile for height (just right!) and he is about the 10th for weight. The most important thing is that he is still growing!

His pediatrician said to have his feet looked at again by a podiatrist, his feet are rolling in, the braces he had are too small and no one is monitoring this since he is no longer in physical therapy.

We had that visit this week. The doctor was a little baffled by his issue. The x-rays were normal. He doesn't have flat feet (as I thought) or any bone abnormalities. He probably has invertor weakness (muscle wraps around ankle) because of his low muscle tone. However as he watched him stand, then walk, then run he saw a couple of things. First, when he stands still, his feet appear normal. Once he starts to walk everything falls apart. He also agreed with me {no one else has yet (doctors/therapists)} that his left leg/ankle/foot is definitely worse than the right. He noticed his knees are hyper extended and that he seems to have some rotation of his legs coming from the hip. He is not sure what to do because he thinks if he wears braces that will help his feet/ankles but may not allow his leg muscles to get strong. So he wants him to go see a ped/orthopedic doc at Children's hospital for 2nd opinion. We go next week.

We are having lots of fun this summer and really enjoy all the time we are spending with friends and family!

The last 3 Tuesdays Joseph has been in tears when we get into therapy at Beaumont. He has been acting nervous and shy about being there, which is very unusual. Once he gets going he is fine but has been very slow to warm up there. On the contrary, he closes the door on me when he gets to the Kaufman Center with Jenny. He calls her "my Denny." We are still working on many articulation issues as well as increasing spontaneous speech. He has started being able to make the "w" sound during word drills but when he uses it in combination with another word or sentence he drops it. He does the same thing with the "y" sound. We are trying to get those mastered before we work on too many other ones. Jojo has started to get very upset if after saying something twice we still don't know what it is.

He is getting more and more confident around adults, but he is still hesitant to talk much around other children. I am still working and working on trying to sing songs with him, which he still has never been able to do, though he knows the words. It is just too fast and takes too much motor planning to get there yet. He gets very upset if you even ask him to sing with you because he knows he can't.

Since turning 3, he has been growing very much more independent (as he should!) He wants to do everything himself and tells me he can do it because he is a big boy! It is great that he has such a wonderful older brother as an example! The only trouble with having the older brother is that, of course, he wants to only play what Dominic does....Star wars, Bakugan, etc...