Do I have a nickname?

"Mommy, what's my nickname?" 

"Um, I don't think you really have a nickname."

"Well, everyone has a nickname. What is my nickname?" 

"I call you 'girlie' some times, so I guess that could be a nickname."

"No, what is my real nickname?" 

"Why are you thinking about nicknames?"

"Maya says everyone has a nickname."

"Really. Well, I don't have one."

"You don't?! Well, I want my nickname to be 'Bella'"

"Hmmm, I don't really like that idea. I like your name, so that's what I'm going to call you." (Me thinking, DARN IT, I knew this would happen one day)

"Well, my nickname is 'Bella'" 

"Okay." But I'll punch you in the face if you call her Bella, so don't do it. 

We went for a hike today. Something we used to do almost every weekend in the pre-Isaac days. We had tons of fun, and Isabella had a blast until we reached the car. She hiked almost two miles without complaint and then..."That was the worst thing I've ever done." "I never want to go on that hike again." "Next time we need to go on a shorter hike." BLAH BLAH BLAH. 

Walter and I were so confused. We were sure someone stole our child and replaced ours with an evil look-alike. She went to her room and then I used the very classic: If you don't have anything nice to say, you aren't allowed to say anything at all. So I set the timer for ten minutes, during which she wasn't allowed to talk. Those were the best ten minutes. You can look forward to pictures from the hike in the next post.

Before you look at the first picture, I just want to inform you, that Isaac does not sleep in the bouncy seat anymore! Hooray! (Except when Walter is in charge of nap time, and Isaac falls asleep to the History Channel--Apparently he thinks history is pretty boring). Now that he has graduated from the bouncy seat, he sleeps in a very comfortable double bed, and has trained me to sleep with him for the majority of the night. Kids are so good at training parents. 

Benefit of tube feeding: My child can eat while he sleeps. Very odd. And also not something we do very often because I try to teach him at least some awareness of his own hunger. 

Air Show. I must say, I have not seen my husband in the past three years so completely happy as he was at the Air Show. The man loves planes, and if I would let him, he would get a pilot's license. Maybe I should dress up as an F-18 for Halloween.

This is called, "tube feeding on the go". It works. Isaac can tolerate bolus feeds now, so if we're out and need to get in 8oz pretty fast, we can speed up the pump rate. He doesn't like to have a feeding this way because it bothers him to see the tube and have it touching him. In this case he sat in the wagon and pulled his hair. Otherwise, we were pleasantly surprised with how well he handled the Air Show.

He refused to wear ear plugs or headphones. Thankfully he fell asleep right as the Blue Angels took off, so we were able to hold a blanket against his ears.

Isabella says we're too loud for her and on this particular night, she fell asleep with the headphones on. During the day, when Isaac starts crying, she grabs them and puts them on. I should have bought another pair for myself.

Isabella learned how to jump-rope. Today we had a jump rope contest. I won. The only problem with any form of jumping after you've had two kids, is that I had to make a couple trips to the bathroom. Moms, you know what I mean. During most of pregnancy with Isaac, he felt like he was just going to fall out, which he definitely did not do, but nonetheless, he managed to do some damage. Not cool.

Isabella is making some really good progress in school. She is now able to read a few words, which I'm really excited about! Aside from the fact that when I say, "Okay, time do our school work!" I hear in response, "Do you mean real school, or home school?" Fake homeschooling is going really well, and I'm happy we made this decision.

You guessed it. History Channel at work again!

Isaac has made some really amazing progress in the past two weeks. He has added many sounds to his vocabulary and has started saying, 'no' and 'me'. I love it! Last Monday evening he drank his first sip of water from a cup. We couldn't believe it. At the time, he was sitting on my mom's lap and pointing to her glass of water, she asked him if he wanted a drink, he nodded yes, and took a sip! He thought it was hilarious that the water touched his lips and then made it game to blow bubbles in the water instead of take a drink. Sorry, I don't have those pictures uploaded yet.

Speaking of blowing. I read a book about improving speech and oral motor skills for kids who have low muscle tone, and they suggested incorporating musical instruments into therapy sessions. I decided to work on this with him at home and he has become very good at playing a kazoo, and can even blow out candles now. We're working on a harmonica, which is a different sensation for the mouth and lips, but he is close to producing some sound. Once I started incorporating these things into our "at home" therapy, I noticed that he was moving around his mouth more, closing his lips more often throughout the day, AND, drum roll please...can close his lips around a spoon AND around a straw! Hooray! This is huge progress for him!

We have a bunch of appointments lined up: Endocrinology, Sleep Study, Sleep Doctor, ENT, Neurologist....And on top of all of that, he has at least two therapy appointments each week. This was supposed to be our first week of three back to back therapy appointments in one day (OT, PT, SLT), but the fire alarm went off when speech was supposed to start, so he got out of that one.

My fingers are tired of typing, and Walter just asked if I am writing a book. So, I'll leave it at that.

Goodnight.