Great News!

We received our TA for Bebo!! :)

Tasty Tuesday

Chicken Pot Pie Soup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
8 oz mushroom, sliced
1/2 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup flour
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups milk
3 cups cooked chicken meat
1/2 cup frozen crinkle cut carrots
1/4 cup frozen green beans
1/4 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup frozen corn kernels
salt and pepper

Instructions:
Step 1. Melt butter in a large soup pot.  Add mushrooms a handful at a time, lightly browning each batch then pushing them to the sides and adding the next handful to the center.

Step 2. With the last batch of mushrooms, add onion and garlic.

Step 3. Saute mixture until onion and garlic are soft. Sprinkle flour over mushroom mixture.  Stir and cook several minutes until flour is golden.

Step 4. Add chicken stock and milk and heat to a boil.

Step 5. Simmer soup, stirring frequently until thickened.

Step 6. Add chicken and frozen vegetables, heat soup until hot, stirring occasionally.

Step 7. Salt and pepper to taste, serve over a scoop of mashed potatoes.

Serve with biscuits or shapes cut out of pie crust or puff pastry (or you could forget the potatoes and serve in a bread bowl).  If you store or freeze the soup be sure to store it separate from the mashed potatoes.  Otherwise, when you reheat the soup the potatoes will melt completely and throw off the texture.

Birthday Pictures

 

 

 

These are a few pictures from Twinks party that she had in her class last week. Twink turned 4 on Friday! She refused to wear the special birthday hat they have for the children due to her sensory issues. Her school is great in that we can drop in anytime we want. I did let them know that we were bringing cupcakes for Twinks birthday. She had a lot of fun!

We celebrated her birthday here at home yesterday. Very small and quite celebration.

Testing Again

Wondering what we are testing for? That would be autism. Twinks developmental doctor whom I love with all my heart feels the need to test this child - again. Oh wait, some of you may not know that we have already done this test and Twink passed it. I was told at her last appointment that Twink passed but her test results were border line.

Her thinking for repeating the test is Twinks lack of speech, social interaction with peers and lack of pretend play. Twink also does what the doctor calls echolalia. Echolalia is repeating a mimicked phrase over and over. Or singing Twinkle Twinkle over and over which has a calming affect on her but drives us a little crazy at times! ;)

We all know the reason for the lack of speech. If any one of us had a stroke today and it damaged the entire left side of our brain we would have to work our tails off to talk again. Twink is no different. Believe me when I say she is working very hard on her speech. She has come a long way in two years. She has a long road ahead of her but she'll get there. OK, so she had the stroke, has some brain cysts, seizures and apraxia. This is the very doctor who told me about apraxia! LOL I see a ton of reasons stated for Twink not to be talking.

As far as the social interaction she is great with adults but with other children she seems to be a bit more shy. It totally depends on the situation though. I've been told recently by her teacher that she is doing great interacting with the other kids at school. She is sharing and maybe some of you remember Twinks award at the beginning of the school year. She comforts others when they are sad, gives hugs and kisses, engages you in "conversations" and demands attention! LOL

The whole pretend play has made me stop and think. No Twink does not play with baby dolls or barbies. She does not play with the doll house like she "should" be. I started to wonder what Twink DID do for pretend play. Twink LOVES to play with toys cars (trucks) and will make car noises. She pretends she is a puppy. She likes to use her kitchen set with Spitfire. She LOVES to dress up. To be perfectly honest though, we've been so busy trying to help her use both hands and work on sensory issues we didn't think about pretend play. We do arts and crafts, build blocks (her new love), play with balls, fun sensory stuff, etc. Had I known that pretend play would be so important maybe I would have focused more on that.

I'm really to the point where if a label gives her more services for speech then by all means do the test. I almost laughed when the doctor said she wanted to repeat the test. She's telling me that Twink makes great eye contact, great engagement, and is playful. She knows that Twink had the stroke and that could be the reason for the speech delay. She was just not sure about the pretend play and the echolalia. She'd like to give it three months and see how she is doing and then schedule the test *if* things have not improved. She was "not ready to say she was autistic yet".

At what point will she take the test for what it's worth? If Twink does end up taking the test and passes, are we going to be asked to repeat the test again next year? Maybe she wanted to dx. her with autism but saw that same look she saw when she mentioned CP the very first time. I just never thought we'd be repeating this test again. Maybe I'm in denial, parents are experts when it comes to that. All I know is that we'll do whatever it takes to help our beautiful little girl become everything God has planned for her!

Snow!!

We finally have snow! I for one could do without it. It is bitterly cold here and there is no end in when the snow is suppose to stop. It is not coming down heavy but enough to make me crazy! LOL We are suppose to have some major wind chill here in the next few days so I'm sure there could be some school closings.

Twink went and saw her developmental doctor last week. We touched on quite a few topics. I'll probably break them down into a few posts. She is right on target for many four year old preschool activities. Twink can write the * and the * in her name as well as point to each letter when asked. Still working on writing the rest. Twink is now drawing triangles, circles, rectangles, and squares when asked to. She also knows hearts and stars. Did I ever tell you she is obsessed with stars? She can point one out that is a mile away or as tiny as a piece of rice! :) She can draw a stick person with eyes, nose, a mouth that smiles or frowns, hair, and legs with feet. Her person looks a lot like Spitfire's stick person. She draws a house that has a roof and a door with a knob. :) She used to only sing Twinkle Twinkle, we are now starting to hear ABC's!! You don't know how happy this makes us! LOL Twinkle Twinkle was getting really old!

We are really starting to hear more words! The only person she calls by name is my FIL and she calls him Papa. Well that ended this week as I was working with her and she started calling me Momma! :) It is sweet music to my ears. School states that she is really coming along in getting her point across in getting her needs met. She has become more verbal there as well. I think we understand her better at home but that should be the case.

School did state that she is having a hard time staying focused. That does not surprise us. Children with CP are at greater risk for ADD/ADHD. We all feel there is no need to medicate at this time but know that she will probably need it at some point. We need to find some therapy to help strengthen her core muscles. She gets tired easy from sitting up and tends to lean on people or lay down. We will look into therapeutic horse back riding this spring. We have also decided against cast her left arm (good arm). It frustrates her but does give her a boost in her speech. With Evan coming home and the sign language starting, we just didn't think it would be a good idea. We are however going to do another round of botox in her affected arm and in the thumb area. This helps relax her arm so much that she actually uses it more.

I'll catch you up on the rest of the appointment later. I know it may seem I'm bragging a bit but she has come a long way! She is doing great! :)

Phew!

I know I have not been posting here very much, I'm really very sorry. You know it's bad when your husband and sister asks when I'm going to update the blog. LOL

-We are still waiting on our TA for Bebo. We are now at 63 days or 9 weeks but who's counting? ;)
-We have wonderful friends who will be staying in our house with the kids while we are in China!
-We put away all of our Christmas decorations last night.
-Bob painted the girls room and I was/am in charge of decorating it.
-We finally have snow! LOL (I don't like it)
-Both sign language class resume this week.
-Lia went to the developmental doctor last week. (more on this in another post)

I will try to post more than Tasty Tuesdays and Wordless Wednesday, promise!

Happy Birthday Bebo!

Happy 7th Birthday to our little guy! Won't be long now!