Jelly Beans

When I was pregnant with Ryan I nicknamed him my little jelly bean. First it was because we didn't know the gender but then after we found out we were having a boy, we couldn't decide on a name! My little jelly bean has now become a toddler who loves jelly beans! We don't even buy them except at Easter but the hubby put a package in the cart last time we were at the store...think he regrets that now??? Probably (even though he won't admit it) because they weren't sugar free! So, here's a little clip of him getting his jelly bean. Oh, and don't mind the mess that I can't edit out..hehe (we're getting ready for a yard sale this weekend).

Preschool party

Since September I've been back and forth as to my feelings about enrolling him in the church preschool (aka Mom's Day Out..or in our case, Nana's Day Out). It's only 3 1/2 hrs one time a week for pete's sake, what could be the worst that could happen..is what I told myself in the beginning. Well, nothing really bad happened other than him being sick a lot of the time. Hopefully, we will remedy that by having his adenoids taken out. I know he will still get sick but the constant congestion & snotty nose shouldn't be there week after week. Yesterday was his end of the year party and we got to see him interact with the other kids. He's still pretty quiet in new situations and since we weren't in his classroom, even though he knew some of the other kids, he was a little timid. He did eventually smile & wave to the kids he knew but was more interested in eating the "chips & cookies". He has a crush on the teacher's assistant and it was so cute to see him hugging her and posing for a picture with her. We have seen such a big improvement not only in Ryan's speech but his physical development as well. Ryan loves to jump in place and across the room. His climbing skills are great & we know the days they have done tumbling because he comes home and will roll across the room! Next week we're starting him in the Summer program at the same place but he'll go 3 days a week (still 3 1/2 hrs a day) and then in September we'll start him 3 full days a week at daycare.

Here's a couple pics at the mall play area

(our favorite place since it's big, enclosed & we can sit & relax!)

ENT Appointment

I made an appointment with an Ear Nose Throat Specialist a few weeks ago. At first it was because I was mostly concerned about his minor speech delays and the fact that his congestion could be playing a role in it. Then 2 weeks ago, he woke up with red bumps all over his face and it turned out to be a staph infection. Even before he got off the antibiotics his nose started running again! Then came the congestion with the runny nose. That's what I usually term as "snotty nosed". He's congested but it's still running. This ENT has come highly recommended and has worked wonders on my godson who as an infant & toddler had multiple ear infections & ear tubes. Unfortunately for him & his mom, it took seeing many other not so good (I'm being nice) ENT specialists before they found this current one. Dean and I went in expecting him to check Ryan over & possibly just say it was allergies and maybe treat him with something stronger than Zyrtec. Ha..were we wrong. We came out with an appointment to have his adenoids removed. In simple terms, the adenoids are at the back of the nose down near the throat. His adenoids are enlarged thus not allowing the mucus to drain as it should. Because his congestion has been going on since September, the doctor recommended removing them. We could wait it out because most kids do outgrow enlarged adenoids (they will shrink) but usually not until they are older (after age 5 for some kids, or older for other kids). However; if we wait, this could cause more harm than good. He will probably continue to get infections which as we saw the last time, may not respond to treatment with antibiotics, he would still continue to have trouble breathing since his nose is congested thus his sleeping habits will not get any better (this may be the reason he wakes up at night and IS the reason he snores) and in some cases facial & dental abnormalities will occur. He has had enlarged lymph nodes on his neck since he had strep throat last year and it has always worried us and the doctor says, this is also because of the swollen adenoids. I'm wondering if his throat hurts and this is the reason for him not really wanting to eat (we've been struggling to get him to eat for the past 3 weeks--a whole other story in itself!).

The surgery itself will only take about 20 minutes. Getting to the outpatient surgery center to complete paperwork and get ready, then recovery will take the longest. When he had his MRI done last October, recovery was a nightmare for us. He woke up from the anesthesia fine but when he realized he couldn't get up and walk around, he was livid! We got home and basically had to sit on the floor with him and get him to stay sitting. Telling a 2 year old he had to sit that wasn't happening. He did finally cry enough to tire him out and fell asleep for an hour but that wasn’t long enough for the anesthesia to wear off so for another 2 or 3 hours we continued to try and distract him and calm him, mostly to no avail. All I can hope for this time is that it’s not as bad since he won’t be under anesthesia for a long time.

Mother's Day

We had a nice Mother's Day weekend. Saturday we were able to spend time with my mother-in-law despite Ryan not feeling 100%. His congestion is pretty bad and doesn't seem to be getting any better even though I'm trying to keep his nose cleared out by using the nasal aspirator, saline rinse every night & decongestant drops. We have an appt. with an ENT doctor Friday so hopefully he can hang in there until then. He's not running a fever or coughing too much..it's just the snotty nose. It was bad enough Saturday that he spit up a couple times but he was his normal self afterwards...just playing with his cars. His appetite or lack there of is getting me a little stressed. He hasn't had much of one since being on the antibiotic but I thought once that we were done with that, his appetite would come back. Nope. Some days are better than others but it's still a struggle. I know most toddlers go through this..they'll eat a lot one day and not very much the next so I'm trying to resign to the fact that he'll eat when he's hungry and at dinner at least get him to eat his protein. Breakfast which is the most important meal of the day isn't high on his priority list. He loves yogurt so at least most days he will eat that with a little oatmeal. Like I said, some days are better than others..sometimes we can get him to eat a few bites of a waffle, pancake, an egg omelet, sausage or hash browns. If anyone has any ideas on how to get him to eat more or what other foods to try I'm all ears!

Sunday, Dean let me sleep in for a bit and then I was greeted with him and Ryan coming in giving me my Mother's Day cards. Ryan helped me open them and he told me he "color brown"...He had colored on the inside of the card he gave me. We had doughnuts for breakfast (a very rare treat for sure since I'm not much of a doughnut person) and lounged around in the morning since we opted out of going to church (because of Ryan's snotty nose). We met my parents & brother for lunch and then Ryan took a 3 hour nap. He pushed me off the couch (where he naps) but I still managed to get comfy on the floor and dozed off for about an hour. As for my Mother's Day gift...well it's not here yet. I found a Mother's bracelet that I wanted so Dean ordered that for me so it will be about another week before I get it. As soon as I get it, I'll post the website and a picture of it (I need to make sure it's worthy of mentioning).

I love being a mother. Sometimes I wish Dean and I had not waited 5 years after we were married to have a child. Maybe I would be a mother to more than one by now. But, I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. There's a reason Dean and I didn't have children as soon as we married. There's a reason Ryan was born early. Do I know those reasons? I don't know all of the reasons, but I do know that Ryan is the joy of my life and that I treasure each and every day. I treasure they fact that despite being born early, he is perfect. I treasure the fact that he can run, jump, climb and is now talking more and more each day. Happy Mother's Day to me!

Here's a recent clip of him playing in the morning..

he so much energy even at 6 am he can

push chairs in from the kitchen!

The Weekend

We had a fun weekend and got a lot accomplished inside and outside the house. We finally got motivated enough to clean…not just every week clean, but “spring clean”. I envy those who “spring clean” every week..it’s just not going to happen in our house. Neither Dean or I are motivated enough to do that. After working 9 hours a day and having little down time after Ryan goes to bed, it’s not high on our priority list to deep clean. It’s all I can do to clean the bathrooms & the kitchen floor every week..which by the way has gotten a lot easier since my parents gave us a floor steam cleaner for Christmas :-) . I desperately want a steam cleaner that I can use on the chair rails, baseboards, walls & cabinets! Maybe for Mother’s Day??? Yeah, I’m probably the only mother who actually wants something to help her clean as a gift! After Ryan went to bed, that’s how we spent our evening. We set up a 8 ft. round pool in the backyard Saturday morning and filled it up so the sun could warm the water and it would be ready to swim in on Sunday. My BFF & godson came over Sunday and while they were in the pool, Dean and I did yard work. This might sound crazy to some..that they were in the pool and we were working..but honestly it’s the only way we can get the things done we need to get done. Keeping an eye on Ryan while both of us do yard work is near impossible. He’s always on the move and his version of “helping” isn’t the same as ours. Bless his heart, he does try to help but it’s more stressful than anything. So to have someone entertain him while we get things done is a blessing. We got bushes pulled out on the side and plants in the flower bed out front and in the back. We also put a picket fence around the air conditioning unit since Ryan likes to go over there and mess with the pebbles around it. That was easy though since it’s the type you just push into the ground. I managed to get a few pictures of him getting ready to get in the pool and in the pool..I’m sure there will be many more pictures of him in the pool to come throughout the summer.

Oh cool!

I'm He-Man!

Cheese!

having fun!

Bye Bye Speech Therapy!

I am feeling overjoyed, relieved & kind of emotional right now. My mom told me Wednesday that our ST was going to call to talk to me about possibly releasing Ryan from therapy but I really didn't think it was going to happen. I guess I just focused on the "possibly" too much. But, I talked with her last night and yes, he has been released! It's just almost unbelievable to me how fast Ryan has all the sudden started talking more and more. I am convinced it started after he was put on the antibiotic a couple months ago and it got rid of his congestion & cough (for the time being anyway). He still has a processing delay but she says that will improve with time and everyday conversations & activities we do with him. The processing delay is when we ask him questions and he won't answer so we have to ask him again and remind him to "listen". When he started 13 months ago he was 18 months old and was barely saying 5 words. If he said a new word, then he would stop saying another. Or he would say a new word one time and that was the first and last time he said it. His attention span was all of 10 seconds most times. Sometimes we could get him to sit down and play with cars for a longer period of time but for him to sit down and have us read a book for instance was non-existent. It took probably a good 4-6 months for us to see improvement in his speech. He was saying more single words and his attention span went up dramatically. He was able to sit and flip through a book or do simple puzzles. His love of puzzles became more and more apparent as the weekly sessions went on and at 2 years old he was completing 12 piece puzzles most 3 or 4 year olds do. Now at almost 3, he can do most 24 piece puzzles. We thought once he started preschool last September that his speech would jump as well since he was around other kids but it didn’t. He was still saying single words and a couple two word sentences. With preschool came the colds. Almost every other week he was congested, had a cough & runny nose. We knew this would happen, but didn’t expect it so often. Finally in mid-February he was put on an antibiotic because he was so congested that he started vomiting several times one particular morning and had fluid in his ears. Once his congestion cleared up, it’s like a new Ryan emerged. He became more vocal and was stringing together 2, 3 & some 4 word sentences. Ryan’s speech therapist was amazed by his progress in such a short period of time and so were we. Three weeks ago we decided it was time to let “paci” go bye bye. We had been working on letting him having it less throughout the day and limited it to naps and bedtime only (okay, in the car as well). One evening, Ryan bit the end off of the paci so we decided that it was the perfect moment to let paci go. We said bye bye to paci because it was “broken” and it’s been nothing but a positive outcome from it. Since then, Ryan has improved even more. He’s almost constantly chattering, asking questions such as “what’s dat noise?”, “where’s daddy?” and new phrases emerge from him every day. Almost 6 weeks ago, Ryan had a speech evaluation for the school system which he would transition into after his 3rd birthday. At the time he passed the “tests” but the report was written in such a way that he would qualify since he did have a processing delay. He will need to get retested in August to see if he would still qualify for the language area of therapy but all signs point to him not needing services, therefore; not qualifying. We are just beyond estatic but as a mother, I still worry. I worry that it won’t get better or that he will backslide. Our ST has assured me that I can call her at any time, with any questions or concerns. This definitely makes me feel a little better and hopefully I won’t ever need to. I’m definitely thanking GOD for seeing us through yet another part of Ryan’s life.