Happy Halloween

Neurologist Appointment

Bill is home sick with what they doctor thinks is a small case of pneumonia. Yeah! Not really of course. He called me this morning to tell me that our pediatrician had called with the referral to the neurologist. It is with Dr. Howard Schub of Child Neurology Associates on January 12.

Now I know this is 10 weeks away, and after having some freak-out conversations with my mom and aunt, I called our physical therapist who assured me that an earlier appointment is not necessary. Meredith is not in any kind of critical state, nor is she regressing in any way, she is just not progressing. Our therapist said that if between now and then she feels Meredith should be seen sooner she will let us know. I feel confident that she would to because she is not the type to beat around the bush. She also told me that if it were one of her children, this is the practice and doctor that she would want. So that says a lot to me. Yes, it will be a while, but it will be here before we know it.

Also, Meredith met with a Speech Therapist yesterday and will probably start speech therapy in the next few weeks. I discovered that while Meredith is taking more table foods, she is not chewing them, she is sucking on it until she can swallow it. Having the therapist there to watch her eat and be able to compare her with the other kids was a real eye-opener. The therapist also stressed the importance of teaching Meredith the meaning of on, off, in, out, up, down and what not. She says it is great to know vocab, but she needs to know to put the ball in the cup. The therapist also will be calling the pediatrician for a swallow study. This is where Meredith will go to the hospital and will eat different kinds of foods with barium in them and they will watch how they go down. Meredith has coughing spells while eating and it could be that her food isn't going down the right way. She just wants to rule things out. Other than that she did really well and was able to identify more objects than I thought.

Now, more on Bill. He has been out of work since last Wednesday and he finally sounds better today, but I don't want him to rush things by going back to work. He did that over the weekend and got worse, so he is home in bed. Luckily Meredith and I are still fine and we just blow kisses to him.

Updates on Meredith

Meredith had her 15 month check-up yesterday and she is doing good. She weighs 20lb. 6oz. (10th percentile) and is 30" long (25th percentile). The doctor was concerned about her balance, standing on tip toes, and what not, so she agreed that she would recommend Meredith seeing a neurologist. She was also concerned with her speech development, but we have already scheduled a consultation on Tuesday with the speech therapist from Babies Can't Wait. I will update on that after it happens. We are waiting for the doctor's office to call us with the referral so I don't know much more than that.

On a more positive note, Meredith has finally decided she wants table food! And she even grabs at our food now. This is a relief because we were worrying about that too. I will post some pictures this weekend of her eating activities.

Finally the Floors

Ok, as you know we spent the weekend putting in Pergo flooring. Our wonderful brother-in-law Mark came to help. Really he is the brains behind the operation and we probably wouldn't have been able to do it without him! We started the project over a week ago with my dad helping us pull up the carpet. This is how we lived for a week...

Nice concrete floor living. I know you are jealous.

Every man's dream, a couch in the kitchen!

The hallway before paint and floors. It was really hard to come home and kick off your work shoes only to put on other shoes for the house.

Our little helper, she is so glad to be out of the cage.

Probably calling DFACS to save her.

And now the (almost) finished product. We still need to do the closets, quarter round, and other finishing work, but we are pretty much back to normal.

I realize that we don't have any of the living room and that is because we are still working on getting it back together. Hopefully this will get done by Sunday.

In a Holding Pattern

Since Meredith was sick last week, the doctor moved her 15mo. check-up ubtil next Thursday. So I will update everyone then. We appreciate all your support!

Washington Farms Pictures

So over a week later I am able to finally upload pictures of our Washington Farms trip. We had so much fun. I had a little scare though because Meredith developed a rash on Wednesday and it turned out to be Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease. I thought she may have gotten it from the petting zoo, but no you can't get it that way. Only kids under 4 get it and it is very contagious, but completely harmless. It just looks bad. Who knows where it started, but it is over. Now to the pictures.

Wordless Wednesday-Meredith's Class

Meredith, Alex, Ms. Lori, Warren, Taylor, Jack, Aiden, Asher, and Ms. Tameka

CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO SEE IT BETTER.

Busy

We have been very busy since Saturday. I will post pictures of this stuff once we get the computer back together. On Saturday we took Meredith to Washington Farms in Watkinsville for their fall festivities. She had a good time and I think it will only get better as she gets older. We even picked out a few pumpkins. When got home we started moving furniture for the big project...putting in pergo flooring. Our brother-in-law Mark is coming on Thursday to help us put pergo down in the kitchen, living room, and hallway, so we had to get the carpet up. We are living on concrete floors this week. It is killing me because things are not together and dirty, but I will suffer for new floors. It is probably hardest on poor little Meredith because she has to either play in her room or in the pack-n-play because we don't want her on the dirty floor.

We also painted the living room on Sunday and will paint the foyer and hallway beginning tonight after Meredith goes to bed. We bought paint to do the entire house before Meredith was born and our goal was to get it finished before her birth...didn't happen. After this week we will only be lacking our bedroom as we decided not to paint the guest room since it will be Meredith's one day and we want to do something a little girlie. Why paint twice.

Also, I need to ask for prayers for our family and Meredith. I met with our therapist and the coordinator for Babies Can't Wait and they feel we need to get Meredith seen by a neurologist. They are basing this on the fact that Meredith is not progressing in her therapy and by some of her movements. We have her 15 month check-up on Monday and they want us to speak with our pediatrician before moving forward. I will keep everyone posted as I can.