It's gotten to the point where I'm embarrased to call the pediatrician's office. But each time I go in, the kids really need it.
The week started off with a visit to the office for Mac. I didn't take her with me Friday and she wound up getting a worse cough over the weekend. So I took her in Monday and found out that she had a bronchial infection. Because she loves her little brother sooo much, she decided to share it with him. It started a little bit yesterday, but today it is full-fledged. The little man sounds like he smokes 5 packs a day. It's really heart breaking to hear. So as soon as the doctor opens today I have to get him an appointment.
Yesterday was a pretty exciting day. Middlesex county services came out to evaluate Oliver, and he qualifies for a program that provides in-home care as often as I like. It will be physical therapy for now, and can include other types of therapy (speech, etc.) if he needs it. I'd like to brag for a second here -- although he was delayed in fine and gross motor skills, his attention and communication skills were at or above age level. Yes, the comparisons start already! I do realize that it is ridiculous to get giddy about a 2 month old being at or above age level, since that doesn't mean much at 2 months old, but it made me soo happy. Such a dork. But anyway, what they found was that he has soft muscle tone in his trunk. We never even thought about that since we are so focused on his legs. They said that this could be contributing to the reflux, because the muscles aren't tight enough to really push/keep down the food. Interesting, right? So now I have some exercises to strengthen his midline, too. This is going to be one strong guy!
Went to CHOP for casting yesterday and waited for almost 4 hours. But I didn't even get upset -- I just expect it now. I took some research for work and read for a couple of the hours, and when Oliver woke up, we played. So it was actually productive. And even better, we met another baby with spina bifida. Whenever I'm in the waiting room, I kind of eye up all of the other patients trying to figure out if anyone has spina bifida. Now when I'm in spina bifida clinic, it's pretty easy, although they share a waiting room with other clinics, so nothing is a given. But in orthopedics, i think it is a pretty safe bet that any babies with casted legs also have spina bifida. I'm also starting to recognize some repeats. I had never seen this particular baby before, but the grandfather was carrying him around and came over and started conversation with me. It turns out his lesion was the same level as Oliver's and his feeling level is the same. The only difference seems to be that he had a shunt put in at three weeks. He was there getting his casts off from the surgery that Oliver is set to have in December. It was cool to talk to someone else in the same position. The mother looked young. She said that this is her first baby. I have to think that spina bifida is even more overwhelming in your first child -- not only do you have to learn how to be a parent, but you also have to deal with all of the extras.
Some exciting baby news:
Oliver slept through the night 2 nights in a row. Yay -- hopefully this is the beginning of a trend.
Something that will surpriste no one:
Sniper jumped into the pack n play and peed in it twice. Really I almost killed her.
