Our growing (kinda) puppy

I figured it has been awhile since I posted any pictures of Rosco, so here you go. He was born on June 18th, so he is now a wopping 8 months old. He is just under 5 pounds, and basically is full grown. He is a good dog, obeys well and loves people. He does get a bit testy with the kids, but he is so much smaller and they aren't always the softest with him. Now if we could just get him to calm down a little.... things would be perfect!

I also thought I would throw these last two pictures in. They are Rosco's favorite way to sleep. I don't get it... do you?

Strep Throat and a new therapist

I have been wanting to post for a couple days, but I have been a little under the weather (to put it mildly LOL). I am trying to get over strep throat and it is not pretty. I started to not feel well wednesday, but blamed it on allergies/sinus issues. By thursday night I had chills, fever, sore throat, ect. By Friday morning I could not eat, talk or even drink water. I went to the Doctor and got some antibiotics. I have no idea where I caught it since I don't know a single person with it. But oh well... at least it is just me and not the kids. I have had strep so many times I can't even begin to tell you when I was younger... hence the reason for my tonsils and adenoids being take out at 12. It wasn't too bad when I was younger, just a sore throat usually and maybe a slight fever. What I have been going through in the last 3 days is worse than childbirth! I have not been this sick and knocked down flat in years. My Dr told me the older you get, the worst strep is and the longer it takes to get rid of. Boy can I tell you that is true. So even though I wanted to get a post done about Josh's new therapy, I was not in any shape to even sit at the computer. Thank goodness I am on the mend. I hope that NOBODY ever gets this. I have been so overly cautious about germ control... I never want to pass this along.

Now onto what I really wanted to post about. We went to meet Josh's new Therapist with Primary Children's Medical Center Rehab Facility. Her name is Tera. I will just refer to her as the PCMC therapist since he has another OT as well.

She was wonderful and gave some good insight into what is going on with Josh, things to try with him and some new concerns we didn't really know about. I have always said that it is usually two steps forward then one step back with Josh. This is no different. This first initial visit was for her to see how he is doing, what his limitations are and what he is able to do with food and liquid. She obviously said the same thing we already knew... he needs to stay on pureed foods for now and some meltable snacks (Like Gerber Puffs). Since we are in a weight gain problem as well, now is not the time to start hitting him with a bunch of new things. Our goal for now is to get him back up to eating a variety of foods and increase his intake so we can decrease the formula. In case I haven't told you, he is no longer allergic to milk so we have all sorts of new/old things for him. He can have regular pudding, milk, yogurt, ice cream ect. All great ways to add calories. So that is our plan. Then she wanted to see where he is at with his drinking. She saw that his results from his swallow test came back normal and that is when we moved him back to regular thin liquids. I have never just let him have full control when drinking them, since he still has a hard time. So she put it in a cup with a straw and we let him do it all. He took one sip and was OK.. just minimal coughing. But then he got brave and took like 3 sips. He got a very panicked look on his face and started to turn red.. then swallowed finally and started gasping for air. The OT was a little alarmed (and me as well). She then held the drink so she could control how much he was getting and watched him very carefully. She told me that she is very concerned he has a breathing problem while eating and drinking. He has not figured out the coordination between drinking, swallowing, breathing. When he was on thickened liquids, he did much better because he could control it a little better. So she started asking me all sorts of questions about other things and told me there is something going on.... he wakes up a lot at night, he always has his mouth open and that can indicate he only breaths through his mouth. So she gave me specific things to do with him this week and then she will decide if it is just a delay in his development, or if there could be a problem. Most common is larger than normal tonsils or adenoids. So we'll have to see where this goes. For now we are going to give him normal liquids at mealtimes with us controlling how much he gets, and we are going back to thickened liquids for him in his sippy cup. He has stopped drinking well since we went to all normal fluids and the OT thinks it is because he has learned that he can't manage it well.

So... in a nutshell the therapy went well, I learned alot of things to do with him to work with the sensory part of it, found out there is an additional problem going on, and got a good mealplan to work with. The one thing I was not expecting was to have her want to see him weekly. I am still a little overwhelmed on how to make this all work out. But as usual it will all work out. It always does.

So that is what is going on with Josh. It's another day here in Paradise. Thanks for all the love, concern, and prayers we get for our family. We love all of you and are so grateful to have such a wonderful support system!! You are the best!

Snow and a Funny little boy

We got blasted here in Ogden yesterday with a snowstorm. I had watched the weather on monday, so I knew it was supposed to snow, but they underestimated our snowfall amounts. I had to go out to run some errands and take Josh to his group therapy. For the first time in a few years, I got stuck several times. Not enough to have to dig myself out, but the kind where you go back and forth in place until you can get going again. It was not fun. So I took some pictures yesterday around 1pm. Keep in mind it snowed another 4 inches after these pictures. This picture shows the ruler at 13 inches.

And today I was folding laundry and Josh was wandering the house. A few minutes later I could hear him in his room, but he never came back out. I walked in to check on him and he had taken toys out of his rubbermaid toybin and had climbed in. I know for most of you that is funny, but nothing big. But for Josh this is huge. He still has Physical Therapy to help him learn how to climb over, onto and up. He is very timid about the climbing and does NOT attempt any climbing of his own. So this was a huge thing for him to do!! It made my day!

The 'Love Bugs' came to visit!

After the past few weeks of craziness here, I thought it would be a good idea to do something fun and exciting for the kids. This month in Josh's group therapy we learned a song about 'Love Bugs' that come on Valentine's day. I taught Jordan the song and he kept asking if some 'Love Bugs' could come to our house. Since he is currently sick and missed his preschool Valentine's Party, I thought it would be fun. So here is what they woke up to this morning. They loved it! Trevor even said to me, "Mom, this is the best Valentine's EVER!". So I guess it was a hit!

THE BIG REVEAL!!!!

So after two weeks of craziness, chaos and late nights... we are done!!! Actually we finished with our home improvements on saturday, but I wanted to get pictures after the new couch covers came. So here is our big reveal. The first 4 pictures are the before (obviously) and then some after. Our camera was not taking the best of pictures so I am not sure it really does it justice. But you'll get the idea anyway. Let me know what you think!

GUS and GUSSIE

This past friday we went to Trevor's school to see him graduate from a program he has been involved with for the past 10 weeks. It's called the GUS and GUSSIE program. It stands for Growing Up Strong and Growing Up Super Strong In Excellence.

It is basically a program to teach the kids how to deal with their emotions and what to do in social situations. Trevor seemed to really like it and when he had the class every tuesday, he came home with all sorts of fun things. It was a nice break from painting for us and here is some pictures.

This is the little GUS puppet he got to remind him about it.

They did a little program with talking and singing. It was cute.
This is them saying Trevor's name for his certificate of completion.

Here he is shaking the principle's hand. He was so good about all of it!

And this is Trevor doing his little speaking part he practiced all week. He didn't talk very loud or clear, but it was great for him. He is growing up!

Still alive!

In case you are wondering... I am still alive! We have been living in a state of utter chaos for the last week. Our house is about 3/4 way done with the repaint. It's been a long week, but the end is in sight. We should be back to normal by saturday night. It's so exciting and well worth the work to see such a dramatic change in our house. I will be posting pictures soon!

And now for another update with Josh. He had his official initial evaluation into the Dyphasia Clinic, or better known as a feeding disorder clinic, yesterday at Primary Children's Medical Center. It went well and he was an angel as usual. We found out that if he continues on his path he is on now... we could end up with a NG tube (tube feeding) if he can't start to gain weight. We are going to add something called 'coconut milk' to his formula that will give him added calories. I had to take a food journal with me down there and they guessed his daily average of calorie intake is only 576. Way under par. So we hope to add more high calories to his food, not attempt to make him take more amount of food, since it won't happen anyway. He is going to also start a medicine that will increase his appetite. We are going to get a 'bowel program' going (ever heard of that???) and added some more meds for that as well. He is also going to start working with another Occupational Therapist who specializes in Sensory eating problems. I hope that is only once a month for that. He currently has a speech, physical and occupational therapist working with him.. each twice a month as well as his weekly group therapy. So we are busy, busy! His new OT will be in Bountiful which makes it a 40 min drive to get there.

So other than that, we just had lot's of medical personel helping us with all this yesterday. One thing that was said by every single dr, therapist, nurse, psychologist there was that sensory problems are not an easy thing to work with. We need to be extrememly patient and know that there is no time frame for when we can expect progress with him. He will continue to be on a bottle for the foreseeable future and not to worry about what other people think about that.

So we will just get all this up and going and see the Dysphasia Clinic Team in May. So (knock on wood) we don't have to go back to Primary's for 3 months!