Just an update

It appears Ellie has grown. Her 12 month clothes look a little snug, and yesterday I put her in an 18 month shirt that seemed to fit. To be fair, it was a hand-me-down so there is the possibility it shrunk. I did a rough measurement while she was playing with her kitchen and she appears to have grown an inch. Also, many people have commented how she seems to have lost her baby fat and gained weight in a more generalized fashion. We also seemed to have turned another corner with walking. Yesterday afternoon and last night she walked EVERYWHERE! No crawling at all! This morning we had a bit of crawling but I'm not too worried. It seems she may like this walking thing after all.

PT

As of yesterday we have cut back on PT to twice a month. There's no point in the therapist coming every week since Ellie knows how to walk, she just doesn't have the desire to do it all the time. We'll be going to different places (Wal-Mart, for example) so she doesn't feel comfortable crawling around there and is "forced" to walk. We shall see.

Speech Therapy

Hannah the speech therapist came and evaluated Ellie. Although Ellie has a very limited repertoire, consisting of "mama," "yum," and "yeah," she is not considered delayed. Evidently on the bell curve anything below an 85 is delayed and Ellie is an 88 on her receptive skills and an 84 on her expressive skills. So no delay. Further, Hannah said, most kids don't really start picking up words until age 23 months. Since Ellie just started walking she's on track for speech and we should expect (and yet encourage) her speech. Hannah will come back to evaluate Ellie in 6 months, so at about 25 months. If Ellie isn't speaking at that point, we can talk about putting ST in her rotation.

Ellie's Movie

PT

It appears we are almost done with PT. I can't believe it. Even when I see Ellie walk with my own two eyes. The therapist said we were on the downhill side of things, and that we may be able to cut back on the frequency of PT soon. She even suggested weaning Ellie off the walker.

Today Ellie walked the entire length of our hallway (15-20 feet) without falling or crashing or stumbling, even. She didn't even charge full speed ahead and lunge into me like she usually does. She climbs and walks and plays and every single time I'm just amazed. She pushes chairs around the new hardwood floor. She walks to the window to look outside and wave. She climbs up the incline of the couch cushion on to the couch. We put a cushion in front of us so she walk to us and then put her hands down on the cushion so she can remain and stand upright(ish)if she so desires.

GI appointment

After being postponed several times due to scheduling conflicts, we finally made it to the GI. Our last appointment was in Sept. We were supposed to go back in Dec but he had nothing open until Jan and then in Jan he had to schedule. So here we are.

She still weighs 17 lbs 11 ozs and is 30.5 inches long. The exact same weight and length as her 18 month check up about 2+ weeks ago. I was not thrilled about that but the overall appointment was good. He said she looked healthy, not wasting away and still gaining, albeit more slowly. He is not ready to cut us loose just yet, but we're coming back in 2 months instead of 3 and if she is still gaining at that time, we will probably be cut loose. He said we're not out of the woods yet but we are VERY close!

A day at CHoA

Yesterday we spent a good portion of the day at Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta - Scottish Rite. We began with the speech therapist. Ellie has at least a 6 month delay in speech. She should start speech therapy any day now. We also have to go back to reinforcing sign language and begin instituting pictures for her to point at to further express herself. He also expressed a concern about her hearing so we go back to the ENT on April 2. He did a test and it seemed like her ear ways are open, the fact that she still grunts makes him concerned that she's still not hearing well. At any rate, the social worker at CHoA called our services coordinator for Babies Can't Wait and we're still waiting to hear back.

After speech she saw dental. The dentist was extremely pleased with her teeth. He said they were coming in symmetrically and they appeared to be very clean. He said just to begin to flossing so we shall. He cleaned the few teeth she had and put a protective fluoride paste on her teeth.

After that Ellie and I had a break so we took the CHoA little red wagon we had down to the cafeteria. We also stopped in at the library to pet the therapy dogs Sams (a black lab) and Lucky (golden retriever). The koi pond was closed for renovations. Ellie played on all the couches and pushed all the buttons and climbed on all the tvs. She generally had a good time.

Then we went to her swallow study. She did very well and I absolutely adored the radiologist. He was Welsh, and spoke Welsh to her. Even mentioned he had a (boy) cousin named Llewellyn. At any rate, Ellie can swallow just fine. The issue is that she doesn't chew her food. So whenever speech and the coordinator gets back to us I have to find out if speech will work on the chewing with her (as they sometimes do), or if we need to get an OT. I'm really hoping speech will do it. The fewer specialists the better.

On a behavioral note, Ellie acted wonderfully. She screamed when they tested her ears, and when they cleaned her teeth but no tears, and no whining in between sessions. She was a perfect dream.