A Good Week

Here it is Friday already.  Gracie has had a good week, she has been in a great mood, and it feels like she is learning all sorts of new words and things.  I love getting home after work and seeing that beautiful smile of hers.  It just brightens my whole day.

On Wednesday Gracie had a fun day at daycare.  They had a campfire in the afternoon and roasted marshmallows and made smores.  Gracie attempted a smore, but she doesn't have the chewing power to get through the whole thing, so ended up eating alot of graham crackers instead.  She especially enjoyed sitting on a big chair by the fire with older kids.  She loves to hang with the big kids. 

On Thursday it was back to school for Gracie, although she didn't have much to say about it.  She did bring home a new library book and that is always exciting for her.  She asked me to read it, then escorted Jeff over to the couch and told him to sit, she wanted him to hear it too...actually I just think she wanted us all together.  She really seems to enjoy that time. 

Today (Friday), Gracie woke up at 3:30 a.m. and at 5:00 a.m. (my time to get up) she had still not fallen asleep, but was getting sleepy again.  She ended up falling asleep from 5:15- 6:15 a.m. and then was up for the day.  Gracie had an appointment first thing this morning with a speech pathologist that follows her.  Gracie is making good progress with both her receptive and expressive language skills.  She is still obviously delayed in both, but is doing well.  I was concerned about her articulation of words, but the speech pathologist was not.  She felt her articulation was right on for her developmental level.  Gracie was not super cooperative and really didn't display alot of her verbal skills at the appointment.  The S.P. put a book in front of her with pictures -- all words she knows, but she would not say any of them.  Her attention level was not great, although she did cooperate on a few things.  The S.P. felt that it would not be worthwhile to do individualized speech therapy at this time and that we should continue on in a group setting with peers at school.  She also indicated she could tell we are doing everything right with her, based on the interaction she saw between Gracie and I.  (That was nice to hear - validation is a good thing.)  So I felt good about the appointment. 

After her appointment, Jeff took her up to the peds floor to get her weighed.  She is 54-1/2 lbs.  Once she gains 1/2 lb. we will need to increase seizure meds.  I think it's getting to be time, she's had a few staring spells that have concerned me, although I wouldn't classify them as absence seizures as I could bring her out of them fairly quickly. 

To close today's posting, I worked late last night and when I got home I got a very warm welcome.  Later in the evening.  She was sitting at the computer, heard me come into the room, turned around, put her thumb on her nose with her fingers up toward the ceiling and wiggled them...you know the sign for "na, na, na, boo, boo!  We have never shown her this, so I'm not sure where she got it, but it cracked me up.   Such attitude and she is only 4!

Have a great weekend.

Love,
Lisa, Jeff, and Gracie