Sam's eye appointment

Sam had his appt. with the ped. opthamologist today in Springfield. He dilated his eyes (poor Sammy) and said that his eye health looks good. He said that he wanted to try glasses to see if it helps stop the wandering eye. He said we have a 50/50 shot that it will help. (That's a lot of money to take a chance, but what could we say--no?) So we went to the optical shop there at the doctor's and found some cute Fisher-Price teddy bear glasses for him but they said we would have to come back for a fitting in a week, and that's a pain with school and Sammy being Sammy, so we went to Dapson Optician's and ordered the same glasses from them. We will have them in about 7-10 days. I will post pics when we get them. We also got them as Transitions lenses to protect his little peepers from the sun. :)

Sam's evaluation

Sam had his evaluation with the therapists on Tues. They were impressed with his progress! Of course, most of the assessments are motor-driven, so they aren't very accurate in terms of cognition, but they got as close as they could. Besides, I already KNOW how smart he is! :)
He scored 3-5 mos. level with fine motor skills, but got some higher level skills up to 24-27 mo. range like isolating one finger. He scored to 31 mos. (right on target) with his cognition that's without any of the motor skills included. His receptive language(what he understands) score was 27-30 mos. with some higher level skills. He scored 11 mos. with expressive language which was a HUGE jump since he pretty much had ZERO expressive language skills a year ago when they did this before! His social/emotional scored at 31 months (again, right on target). His gross motor scored solid at 2 months, and then some skills within 3-5 and 6-8. Still working on big physical stuff, of course. This will obviously be the hardest for him.
Overall, I am happy with the gains so far, and especially his speech gains are encouraging and keeping us truckin' ! :) Sammy just knows that he is proud of himself! :) Just wanted to update everybody on the results.

Luke's 1st attempt at feeding his little brother...

We were having dinner tonight, and Luke finished first, so I told him he should come over and finish giving Sam his applesauce. He gladly obliged!!! (I almost fell over!) He was very sweet and gentle with him...it was very cute...had to snap some pics since more got ON Sam than IN his mouth. Luke thought it was pretty funny! So did Sam! :) The other pics are of Sammy-mashed tato-mouth....he cracks me up! :)

Sammy and Uncle Mikey

We had dinner at Patty's house on Monday to say farewell to Matt as he heads off to RPI. How old am I?? :) Anywho...got some cute shots of Sam with Uncle Mikey.

Cutie Sammy :)

Took these cute pics of Sammy in one of his new outfits the other day....thank goodness for sales!! Got a whole bunch of one piece outfits (24 months and yet they are big enough--strangely) and 3T jammies and blanket sleepers. They are so cute!!

Good Sammy day :)

We had a good Sammy Speech Therapy day, today! He impressed his SLP (speech language pathologist) with knowing his colors! She put color cards on his comm. board and asked him to press the button for a certain color and he DID IT!! :) He looked at the right one immediately and then with some work and help, pressed the right button to match! She said that knowing the colors that well in order to be able to i.d. them by being asked is over a 3 yr. old skill!! Well, I just LOVE hearing that my children are "sooo smart"! (Her words about Sam, I swear!) She stayed for over her hour today because he was doing so well working with her! :) He wasn't even fussing! Actually, he was giggling....I think he has a little crush on her, personally! (He must like the little blondes!) She and the dev. specialist that came today were really happy with how great his cognition and receptive language are! I always knew he would be ahead SOMEHOW! Even if it's not physically....I ask him if he's wearing his "smarty pants" (a Between the Lions reference for those of you with little ones!) and he giggles! He's too funny!

And of course, Luke just finished reading Jurassic Park, Lost World, Prey(Michael Crichton), the 2 Eragon books, and is currently reading Congo (also M.C.) . I can't get him to be interested in anything less than a college level! They're just toooo boring, mom! :) I could have bigger things to complain about , hah?? (Now if I could just get him to remember to turn off his AC in the morning when he gets up and not leave it on ALL day, we'll be doing well! ;)

Thank God for little favors :)

So Sammy's PT recommended a swing from Step 2 at Target that she uses with her little one. (8 months old) She said it would be perfect for him. Well, I couldn't find one at Target, so i ordered one from the Step 2 website and we got it today. It is awesome! :) Sammy LOVES it! It has a five point harness so he can't fall out and it is open so we won't hurt his legs threading him through the leg holes in and out. It is also a bit reclined, so he can be more supported with his head in it. He still tilts his head a bit, but nothing like before! It is a Godsend! Strange how little things can make such a big difference! Now my little daredevil can go as high as he wants! :)

(The pics are dark because we were under the apple tree. You should be able to click on them and see them bigger and better.)

Deer in the backyard

Saturday morning we had a doe and her new fawn in the driveway next to my bedroom! The baby is too cute! It looks just like Bambi with the spots and everything! :) I got 2 pics, one of them walking away from me and one of them later feeding in the field in the backyard. It still amazes me to see them so close. They really don't mind people too much.

I also had to include the latest cutie-patootie pics of Sammy from this morning. I was trying to snap a picture of him with his stuffed truck book in his mouth, but he laughs when you take a picture, so it kept falling out. Then it just turned into a game for him. So I just got pics of him laughing instead. Too cute!! :)