So my baby boy is now a 3 year old! Not much new to report, but just wanted to share a couple of pictures and express my thankfulness for our little blessing. I love you sweet baby!

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween was so sweet this year and not just from all the candy :) Last year I had a really difficult time when we went Trick or Treating at a friend's house and her 20 month old ran to the door yelling "Happy Halloween!" and Nathan (who was two weeks shy of 2 years old) couldn't even say 'mama'. What a different kid we have this year! I know it's been a while since I posted, so I'll try to remember as much as I can from the past few months.

First, Nathan graduated from First Steps. We thought he would be in the program until he aged out at 3, but after his final evaluation we were told he was no longer eligible for services. What a great feeling that was! He is still in the program at Indiana State where he receives therapy twice a week and we have been incredibly fortunate to have another wonderful student therapist. So anyway, during his last eval (in August/September) he scored at 2 years 11 months in expressive language and 4 years 11 months in receptive language! He was also tested for the developmental preschool a few weeks ago and we just received word that he is not eligible for services. I am beyond excited, but it is still difficult to believe when last year we were just praying he would be ready for mainstream kindergarten when he turned 5. What a blessing! We are still working on slowing down his speech and he still has errors and omissions, but nothing we can't fix.

On another front, we are surviving our second month of the "why" game. Every other word out of his mouth is "Why? Why, mommy? Why?" I told myself when he wasn't talking yet that if he would ever learn to speak, I would answer every question he ever had. But let me tell you, it is hard! It definitely keeps me in check though, and I don't take anything he says for granted. Even when he says the same thing 30 times in a row :)

Oh, and he has now decided that he's ready to be called Nate. The other day he says "Mom (I'm mom most of the time now too), I am big boy Nate and I will sleep in my bed by myself tonight." which of course lasted all of 30 seconds before he yelled at me to get in bed with him :) But I wasn't quite ready for the Nate thing yet. I knew it would come at some point, but I thought that time would be around 10, not 3. So for now I am still calling him Nathan and trying to hang on to my baby as long as I can.

And speaking of babies (or not so much), Logan has such a huge vocabulary, I can't keep track of his words. He can pretty much repeat anything you say and occasionally can string two words together. It's so amazing to see his speech develop and is such a relief.

So that's all I have for today. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween!

Future President

With the heat that we've had lately, I've been trying to find fun indoor places to take the kids. We've done the mall playland, Children's Museum, libraries and Toys R Us. Someone suggested Books-a-million since they have a Thomas table so I decided to check it out. Little did I know that they have quite the selection of Thomas stuff for sale as well.

If you know Nathan at all, you know that he absolutely loves trains. He has a train table, of course and what seems like every Thomas train known to mankind. Nathan is such a great kid- no sign of the terrible two's, never asks for much and is great with sharing his toys. But when it comes to trains all bets are off! He has a list as long as his arm of all the trains he would like to have and why he wants each one. So when we get to the book store, his train-dar goes off and he immediately heads to the Thomas stuff. Wouldn't you know they have trains there that aren't sold at Toys R Us (we already have most of those). So he finds "Hank" who has a cow catcher (? not sure where this one came from) on the front and starts in on all the reasons he needs to add Hank to his collection. He's not whining, not begging, but telling me matter-of-factly why he needs this train. Meanwhile the lady standing next to us is cracking up and when I looked over at her she told me that he will most definitely be elected President someday. It cracked me up and I thought about how far he has come in the last seven months. And then I bought Hank.

Nathan's Favorites

One thing Nathan has had trouble with in the past is answering questions. He is to the point that he can say pretty much anything that's on his mind, however if you ask him something it's difficult for him to process and come up with an answer. So I've really been drilling him with questions lately and he has made a lot of progress. Last night as we were laying in bed, I decided make a list of all of his favorite things. He answered all of my questions very quickly and I was both proud and humored by his answers :)

Favorite food: meat and muffins
Favorite color: pink (yes, this has long been his favorite color)
Favorite number: 6
Favorite letter: B
Favorite animal: monkey
Favorite shape: hexagon (seriously?)
Favorite train: Gordon
Favorite song: ABC song (followed by a full version of the song)
Favorite person: mamaw and papaw
Favorite friend to play with: Colin
Favorite tv friend: Uniqua (Backyardigans)
Favorite book: Henry and the Elephant

So there you have it. All of Nathan's favorite things. :)

Longest Sentence Ever!

Yes, I know. Two posts in a week, what's up with that?? Anyway, we had such a wonderful Fourth of July weekend and I just wanted to share some highlights!

First, I took the boys to the Frontier Day parade downtown. Nathan had a blast and I was even able to let him out of the stroller to pick up candy (although he couldn't have any with his diet). We then walked to the Farmer's Market and back to the Children's Museum. We've been doing that every Saturday this summer and I've noticed such a difference already in his playing/sharing skills. That night, we did fireworks at our house. With Nathan's sensory issues, we weren't sure how he would do, so we bought REALLY small fountain-type fireworks. He loved it! He was so excited and kept squealing and screaming "Hallelujah!" (I think my mom taught him that one, lol!) Logan cried every time we set one off, so he and Bill went inside to watch from the living room window. Apparently Nathan decided that was the cool place to be because he looked up at them and said, "Watch fireworks inside" and proceded to go inside and close the garage door on me, my mom and dad and all of our chairs and fireworks! So we scrambled to get everything out of the way and had quite a laugh over that one.

Not much later, Bill had put Logan to sleep and we broke out the glow-in-the-dark necklaces. I was trying to clean things up and Nathan came to me laughing and said, "Nathan put necklace on Logan's head and wake Logan up!" I was so excited by how many words he had strung together, even if I was less than excited about him waking up his brother :)

Sunday evening I took Nathan to the park and decided to give the downtown fireworks a shot. I was nervous they would be too much for him, but we watched from City Hall and he loved it! He did get bored, which was fine as we left before they were over and beat the traffic.

So we had a great holiday weekend and hope you did as well. Lastly, I just wanted to say again how thankful we are for the progress Nathan has made. It was such a short time ago that we didn't know if we would ever hear him speak and I hope to never take anything he says for granted. After hanging out with a friend this weekend who has a non-verbal child it just reminds me to continually thank the Lord for our sweet baby's voice.

We're still here!

Yep, I'm seriously terrible at this blog thing (as my Uncle Ken so nicely pointed out :)). However tonight I happen to be down a kid as Nathan is staying with mamaw and papaw so I actually have a bit of time to update.

I've also added a couple of random pictures just for fun!

Nathan is continuing to make such tremendous progress. He is now speaking in 4,5 and 6 word phrases and is actually using a few sentences. We are really working on proper pronouns and function words (and, the, etc.) and he is beginning to use them properly. His vocabulary is unbelievable and according to his therapists is at or above age level. He's also beginning to speak more clearly, although I'm not sure how much an outsider would really understand. Oh, and a huge milestone is that he can now sing the ABC song! He can also count to 20 and sing along to so many different songs on tv or cd. We took a video of him singing the ABC's and Humpty Dumpty that I need to get on here for you all to see.

From a medical front, Nathan has undergone multiple tests to get to the root of his gut issues. He had 8 vials of blood drawn, 7 stool samples and 2 urine samples and the result is that he is not digesting disaccharides. So for the past three weeks he has been on a very strict diet with no sucrose or lactose. Basically we have had to cut out most sugar and dairy, which isn't the easiest thing to do with a two year old. It's not easy on the parents or grandparents either since we can't eat anything in front of him! The results have been pretty amazing however as he has had normal poop, far fewer stomach aches and no more vomiting! So we'll keep going down this path for a few months and then hopefully we'll be able to start adding some things back into his diet.

So there's the latest update. He's talking extremely well, feeling pretty good and funnier than ever. Most of you probably saw this on facebook, but the other night we were sorting laundry and I threw one of his shirts across the room into a clothes basket. He immediately said, "No throwing mommy. Bad boy! Go timeout now!" and proceeded to take my hand and walk me to the timeout chair. He then told me how throwing was a bad boy and counted to three and said "Get up!" The entire time I was thinking how I shouldn't let him think he is in charge but at the same time I was finding so much humor in the situation, I couldn't really stop him.

He has also just started saying "I love you" which melts my heart. Sometimes when I tell him I love him he says "to moon and back". He is such a sweet boy and is SO good to his brother even when he's being typical Logan. Now that he's walking he thinks he can do everything Nathan can do, but really all he does is destroy everything Nathan is doing. :)

Lastly, I wanted to address a comment that was left on the last post. I apologize, as I just now saw it (serious blog slacker here). Anyway, this is the dosage recommended by those who are doing studies on fish oil and apraxia and we have also cleared it with his doctor. If you have any concerns about the proper dosage for your child, I would just address it with the doctor and they should lead you in the right direction. Hope that helps! Good night everyone (if anyone still reads this!) and God Bless :)

Long Overdue Update!

Wow, has it really been more than a month since the last update? It's been impossible to get online lately since both kids now require an adult to go to bed with them (in separate beds since I only want Logan to co-sleep with one of us at a time). Also, I feel like a broken record for continually reporting that Nathan is doing so well. But a couple of mamas with late talkers who have been reading this blog have inspired me to stop making excuses and start writing (have I mentioned how much I hate to write?? :))

I'll start with the Nathan updates. I took a second and re-read some of my older posts when we were so excited about Nathan saying anything at all. It's incredible that he has come so far as to spontaneously use three and four word phrases now. He can say "bye-bye mamaw papaw house" or "daddy car go?" without much thought. Of course there are countless speech errors and like most apraxic kids, if he tries to repeat a longer phrase it will become unrecognizable by the end. But this past week, he has fixed two of his most used words: Nathan and Thomas. For weeks he has called himself "Nay-nays". I think the 's' on the end was his attempt at a 'th' and he couldn't get past that. So my mom worked and worked at having him hold his tongue so he knew how far it needed to stick out to make a 'th' and now he's about 50/50 with saying "Na-THUN" Same with Thomas- he had been calling him "Mamas" even though he has no trouble with a 't' sound in other words. He can now say Thomas which makes him a VERY happy little boy! Oh, and Dor-deen (Gordon) has now become Dor-DUN (We really have to get him to emphasize the last syllable in a word). Now we need to start working on "Ree-ree" (Henry) and Ewa (Edward). Does anyone see a pattern here??! Oh, and his new favorite things to sing: "Thomas and his friends" and "Go, go Thomas, Thomas number one". Again, leaving out a few sounds but he gets the tune right.

He is also starting to say "I did it" and "I do it" instead of "me me" and he will answer "Right here" if you ask where something is. But what I am most excited about is a report from his therapist at Indiana State which put him on the low side of average for his age! Seriously, who thought he would come close to any kind of average a few months ago?! We feel so blessed to have the therapists, the resources and especially the grandparents who have helped him come so far.

And now for a funny story...Nathan and my dad were playing in the woods and dad said "son of a gun!" so now one of Nathan's new phrases is "sun a dun!" Although I'm not too happy about that phrase, THANK YOU dad for using the cleaner version :) That boy will repeat anything you say now. Oh wait, one more story - Logan was swinging in his baby swing the other day with all 20 pounds of his fat hanging over the sides and I started singing "Fat man in a little swing" (think Tommy Boy) and Nathan pointed at him and said "Fat man! Fat man!" So now he says "Fat man Lo", "Fat man mommy", "Fat man daddy", etc. So if he happens to call any of you "Fat man" please do not take offense :)

Okay, now for my real purpose in posting today- for the other mamas out there with late talkers. I wanted to share some of the resources we have used that we feel have helped Nathan so much. I'm on lunch at work right now so I don't have many links, but I'll try to come back and update when I get home. Anyway, first and foremost I believe the fish oil we have used has made a world of difference. Based on several studies we started using Pro-EFA from Nordic Naturals. Not all fish oil is created equal and if you really take a close look at how much Omega 3,6,9 is in each capsule you will see the differences. With most of the studies on apraxia, they have found that the particular blend in the Pro-EFA has made the difference. We started with one, then moved to two and will begin adding additional EPA soon (also from Nordic Naturals). We will begin the fourth supplement, Carnosine (specifically Carn-Aware) in about six months.

As for other resources, I feel "The Late Talker" book is a must read and can be purchased on Amazon. We also love these incredible DVD's called "Baby Babble" which I think can be ordered on Amazon as well. There are others called Baby Bumblebee or something along those lines, but we LOVE Baby Babble. They're very dry, but are basically speech therapy sessions on DVD. We also use Imitation Station CD's. Again, they are very slow, but catchy songs that are easy to sing along with once the child begins to speak. There are certain places where Nathan can say "me, me, me" or "more" to the song. Also, we use Kaufman cards. Nancy Kaufman is a SLP who has worked with apraxic kids since the 70's. The cards will take one word such as papa and break it down into different parts: pop-a, pa-pa, etc. and are great oral-motor exercises for apraxia. The cards are $200, so they're on the pricey side but we have had tons of success using them with Nathan. Lastly, we use whistles, candles, toy flutes, basically anything to help him blow and do tons of exercises with his tongue and mouth. I think the key is just working at home as much as possible and making it fun. These poor kids have to work so hard to say anything at all, but the look on Nathan's face when he gets a new word is priceless. Okay, that was brief but I'll try to add more information and links later as my lunch is over :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone, and keep in mind that St. Patrick's life was centered around Christ, not beer ;)

Snow much fun!!

Nathan's favorite place has always been outside and when there is snow on the ground you can't keep the kid in the house! We spent a good part of last weekend playing in the snow and he had a blast. As you can see, he found a wet spot in the snow that quickly turned into a giant mud puddle. Even funnier though was the next day when he ran right to that puddle and said "one, two, three, IN!" and took off running... well, by that time the mud had turned to ice and his feet flew up and he landed flat on his back. He lay there for a second and then said "ICE!" I have no idea where he learned that word, but he sure knew what had happened!

Nathan continues to do so well. He has been singing "EIEIO" and "tin-a tin-a li star" as well as filling in words to other songs. He cracks me up with some of the things he comes up with though, like the other night as Logan was laying on his belly, Nathan got on top of him and said "ride baby, ride baby!" I had to tell him that I loved his words, but he probably shouldn't ride baby :)

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers- it has really been amazing to witness the improvement that he has made in just a little over three months.

We love First Steps!

I didn't get a chance to update last week, but First Steps approved Speech Therapy twice a week and OT once a week for Nathan! We had no idea what we were going to do when the clinic closed, but God had much better plans. Nathan is still able to see the same SLP and OT from the clinic, but now that they are working through First Steps, it will be saving us over $1000 a month! What a blessing!

Nathan took his last scheduled trip to Indy today (we will now only be going every three months) and they gave us a lot of things to do at home to work on his motor planning. His speech continues to improve and we are supposed to start pushing for all two and three word phrases now. He is still a bit hard to understand, but can repeat just about any single word. It is simply amazing to witness the progress he is making.

Ugh, it's 9:00 and Fussy Pants is waking up already - gonna be a good night! :)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5!!

So I got a report from therapy today that Nathan was counting. I wasn't sure I believed it, so I put five trains in front of him and told him to count them. Sure enough, he said, "one, two, three, four, five!" Of course it wasn't that clear, but how cool is that?!! And his random new word for the day? Notebook. Yep, Bill was talking about updating our notebook (laptop) and Nathan repeated it like he's been saying that word forever.

Okay, here's another funny story, but I have to rat my mom out :) Bill, Nathan and I were eating dinner this weekend and after we finished he started saying "eye, eye". I asked if something was wrong with his eye and he shook his head and kept repeating it. I got him down from the table and he ran to his snack drawer and looked around saying "eye, eye". At this point I'm a little concerned, because although he hasn't been speaking for long, I can almost always figure out what is wrong. Bill finally broke down and told me that my mom had given Nathan an M&M the day before and for some unknown reason Nathan thought it looked like an eye. Hmmmm.... busted mom! Nathan can now officially rat out his mamaw. No more sneaking treats to that boy!

As you can tell, he is still making tremendous progress. He has become quite the bossy little thing (in a good way!) now that he can say "no" and "me, me, me!". It has made him so much more independent and he is so happy and proud of himself. He uses words like up, down, on, off, and move while playing and the other day told my dad "down, read!"

Today was also his last day of therapy at the clinic in Terre Haute (they are closing) and he received his discharge paperwork. At the time of his evaluation two months ago, he had no real words and was speaking at an 11 month old level (which I think was generous). He now has around 50 words he says pretty clearly and another 25-30 approximations. We have a team meeting with First Steps next week and I will be asking to add speech now that his therapist is on their matrix. Please pray that they will approve this, as it would be huge for us both financially and because Nathan and Tracey have worked so well together.

Sorry for the long post, time to get to work now. I'm going to try to squeeze a couple of hours in before Cranky Pants wakes up.

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year! We had such a blessed 2009, praying that 2010 will be just as wonderful! Nathan's speech is continuing to improve daily. He is beginning to use a lot more spontaneous speech more two word phrases. The bad news to report is the rehab center where he was receiving therapy is closing next week, so we will be losing our awesome SLP. We're still not sure what we are going to do- he has a session on Tuesday so we'll discuss our options then.

With all the updates I've made on Nathan's speech, I've been somewhat overlooking the sensory issues. Nathan has always had problems getting his teeth brushed, hair cut or washed, using blankets, etc. The newest issue this winter was wearing gloves- he would try to put them on but then scream and cry. He really wanted to wear them but he just couldn't stand it. So after a ton of work from my mom, I'm happy to report that Nathan was able to wear his gloves and play out in the snow this past week! You can see from the picture that he loved it! Anyway, we're really trying to focus on the SPD, especially now that we're seeing so much improvement in his speech.

Time for bed, Happy 2010 everyone!