Hooray!

Sabe's en route! :)

Marcus has been asking for him multiple times a day the last 3-4 days. Funny how their frequency in asking for him always increases right before he comes home. It's gonna be awhile before he gets here though. It's a long process apparently, lol!

Marcus is doing so great in school. He loves it and asks to go every day. He's going to be so excited when September hits and he can go to real preschool. He missed the cut off date by 2 days but it's working in his advantage really. I was thinking of holding him back an extra year from his delay anyways. His articulation is getting better and he's been saying spontaneous sentences, but progress has been slow. Any progress is a good thing though. Gotta remember that!

Jamesen is doing really good. His autism test is tomorrow. I don't know if I'll walk away with any information or not. We'll see how it goes. He's doing really great though. He's such a sweetie. He's a tank though. He's getting to the point where he can beat the crap out of Marcus. Marcus will start picking on him and Jamesen definitely knows how to take care of himself! It's quite funny to watch. Marcus gets surprised every single time. You'd think he'd learn to leave Jamesen alone, LOL!

They've started having conversations between each other and it's soooo cute! Nothing amazing, but they will take turns saying stuff to each other. it's usually the same "conversation" over and over, but it's a start and I'll take it! I'm loving all the talking that's going on in my house!

My due date is in a week from tomorrow! I'm hoping that Gemma will wait until my mom comes to watch the boys and be a day late. It would be so convenient and perfect. We'll see.

Anyways, I'll update more when I know more tomorrow. We're going to be having a crazy couple of weeks coming up!

IEP meeting for Marcus

We went to Marcus' IEP meeting on Thursday. Overall, it went as expected. He's extremely behind in speech. This test was the "Verbal" score where he tested in the 12th percent and at a 2 year 10 month level. I was actually expecting it to be pretty low, but that was a little bit of a blow. I can't really say I'm surprised though... He's really got no concept of back and forth conversation and being able to communicate in real sentences.

However, he scored very high in his fine motor skills. One test they gave him consisted of stringing beads, cutting along lines and copying pictures. In that test he scored at an almost 6 year level. This was the "Spacial Cluster" score and he actually scored in the 95th for that one.

He did petty good on everything except communication. I'm actually pretty proud of him! We've started him in the STEPS program at the preschool he was tested at. We go for 2 days a week, 3 hours each day. I'm actually really excited that he only qualified for 6 hours a week! They're working on his communication rather than speech specifically. He's got speech therapy already, so I think this will be a perfect fit!

We went for our first day of school on Friday and he was so excited! I told him on Thursday night that if he wanted to go to school, he had to go to bed, so he rushed to his room, put on his pjs and climbed into bed as fast as he could. The next morning I had to wake him up to get there on time. All I said was "Marcus, do you want to go to school??" and he excitedly said "OK!" and got up to get ready. He was so excited! He had absolutely no problem with leaving me at all!

Jamesen was pretty upset when we left Marcus though, especially when we got back into the car, and even more so when we pulled into the driveway. It took awhile to calm him down at one point he was actually running away from me and screaming :( broke my heart. He calmed down after a bit though and we had an ok 3 hours alone. When it was time to go pick Marcus up, I asked if he wanted to go get him and Jamesen lit up and was so excited! I love seeing that brotherly love!

When we got to the school, they brought Marcus to me and he turned and ran away from me, screaming no. Totally broke my heart. I'm so glad he enjoyed it though! We had a pretty rough day afterwards, but I think it was mostly just due to the changes and things. Friday was pretty rough too. Marcus has been having a hard time, from what I assume is Sabe being gone on top of all the new stuff we have him doing. Sabe's only got another week or so left before he comes back. I hope our world settles in ok with Gemma coming right after that! It's gonna be pretty crazy around here!

Anyways, we've got J's autism test on the 28th. I'll update again then

Tongue Tied no more!!

We had a crazy morning, let me tell you!

We went in really early to an appointment for Marcus. The ENTs were supposed to evaluate his tongue tie and let me know if they would snip it or not. The guy walked in, looked at his tongue and goes, "Now THAT is a tongue tie! Really textbook." After talking back and forth for a few more minutes, he goes, "We can snip it now if you want!"

I really don't do well with things like that. I can barely even be in the room when shots are given to the boys. It goes against all my motherly instincts to hold my child down while someone inflicts pain or causes them to scream. I usually make Sabe do things like this, but he's in Cali right now and wouldn't have been available anyway.

The ENT must have seen the look of panic on my face when he said we could snip it right then and there because he offered to do it at another time. I figured another time would just give me more time to stress over it, so we should just do it now.

Marcus must have known something was up because he refused to let the ENT spray the initial numbing spray on his tongue. I let him do it to me to show Marcus it was ok and man that stuff was nasty! Marcus wasn't very happy. He was even more unhappy when the Dr brought the needle with the heavy duty numbing stuff. I can't even tell you how hard it was for me to have Marcus sit in my lap while I hold his hands down, a nurse hold his head still from behind me and the Dr forcing his mouth open and tongue up so they stick the needle in. He cried so hard. At one point I just felt like I couldn't do this and went to leave the room but he clung to me and wailed and I just knew I couldn't leave my kid while two strangers held him down. I had to be there for him.

We then had to hold him again while they snipped his tongue tie. He fought us so hard. I did more bawling and he kept biting the Dr. He's one strong kid! After what seemed like 5 whole minutes (it was probably more like a single minute...) it was finally done and he just clung to me and cried. I felt like the worst mother ever for putting him through that. I cried all the way to the car and all the way home too.

Despite how awful the procedure went, he's doing really awesome. He's suddenly able to say his Rs and Ls! His articulation is a lot more clear, just hours after the procedure. He's eating and drinking fine too. He's bitten his tongue a few times because he's not use to it being able to move around like it does, but he's doing really great. I feel really guilty that we didn't get it snipped before. Hopefully I'll have more stories of how great Marcus is doing in the next few weeks.


We did have the initial eval of Jamesen for autism a few days ago. There was a significant amount of autistic tendencies that she wanted to test him for it and so we'll be going back on the 28th for the test. He's actually doing really well. I'm not sure what to think on that front anymore. He's acting a lot more like a typical kid most days, though he does still have bad days. He's not having monumental meltdowns as often as he did before. Testing him won't hurt, so I'm going to go through with it and just cross my fingers for the best news, while being prepared for the worst.

In Gemma news, I'm 36 weeks! Won't be long now! I hope she waits until at least her due date though, so my mom can be here to watch my hooligans. She's under lock and key until the 4th of April!

Yeah so we're just hanging out, waiting for March to hurry and pass so daddy will be back home. He went into "the box" today, so we'll have no contact with him for the next 2 weeks. Hopefully it all goes quickly! The boys sure do miss him and ask for him every day. I hate when he has to leave! It's been really hard this time around, on Marcus especially. I think it's mostly that Sabe only just recently came back from that two week course he was at, only to leave again, not to mention he's got to know a huge change is coming. Kids know these things.

I've been carrying a baby doll around for the last 2 days like I did right before I had Jamesen and both boys are being so sweet to it. Really makes me happy since Marcus was violent towards the "little brother" one. They're both older than Marcus was when I had Jamesen though, so hopefully that helps in the transition. Marcus likes to kiss my belly, which is totally adorable, whether he realizes what's really going on or not!

Anyways, that's it for now. Until next time!