Zachary is now 15 months old--with a whole lot of goings on

He got tuckered out on an outing to the mall with friends

See that tongue, more info below

Crawling on all 4's all the time now, and he is fast

Crowne Center had a Fairy Tale Village exhibit that was fun for the kids. We found this picture funny b/c we often say, "Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum" to get Zach to open his mouth and eat food, laugh at us, etc.

Zachary is 15 months old now!! He is getting so big, so fast. He is up on all 4's crawling as fast as he can go. He doesn't much love to be held anymore. Several people at church commented on how "active" he was, and how "fast" his crawl was. Yes, trust me, I know! He is into eating, crayons. He found a blue crayon the other day and chewed on it to make his mouth blue, and then colored on the tile. Real food is not going as well. He's just started picking up puffs this week and putting them in his mouth, which is HUGE!! He eats some pieces of foods, some times, IF he is in the mood. We are upping his calories when we can to put some meat on him. We've added Pediasure during the day and he loves it. He is cruising pretty well, slow, but not bad. Zach has decided he is an outside boy!!! Loves to be outside, and pitches a hissy fit if we bring him back inside. It's kind of cute, but borders on frustrating for my future.

We are dropping some of our PT sessions. Children's Mercy says that he is doing better from where we started, and he falls w/in the guidelines for now. It is hard to feel happy about this. My PT there is out on maternity leave, so I don't feel this is coming from her. The new PT re-evaluated him and he hit 60% in mobility, and 23% in the standing/walking area. That is for a 13 month old, adjusted age. So, he falls below 77% of other 13 month olds on where he should be in standing/walking, but doesn't need PT?? That is frustrating to me. The walking thing is such a huge spectrum, and so they don't expect him to do it until he is 18 months old (adjusted). We will re-evaluate him with CMH PT at 18 months, per their request. They reminded me that he is 2 months behind, keep that in mind (like I forget!), but by age 2 he will magically be back to "normal". I want to know how he jumps the 2 months overnight just because he has a birthday. I saw problems with his weak neck, but we had to "wait" until he was behind. I saw issues with him not sitting, but we had to "wait" until he was behind (not sitting at 13 months, yeah, behind). I am seeing problems when he doesn't want to stand with me holding his hands, just buckles, but I will again play the "waiting game" again until he falls behind, then we will, again, play catch up. Why?? Not my rules, I just play by them! They tried to put these braces on his legs to help "lock" them in place while he was walking with a push toy (something he can't really do anyway). It made me cry. To see your baby walking with braces on his legs, struggling, trying so hard to overcome whatever challenge he is faced with. I don't like seeing my baby like that at all. It hurt! Picture Forrest Gump in a sense, trying to run with the braces on, but the braces didn't break away (and they weren't metal, John Deer green tractors and all). Sooooooo, I am a little happy to not have to run up to CMH 3 times a week, asking for more people to watch E & C, but I don't know that I am happy that he isn't getting what he might need. All moms feel guilty for one reason or another during motherhood, here is my moment of the month I guess.

We still see Infant/Toddler twice a month for PT, but we are getting a new person now. She is actually an OT, so we shall see how this works out. I told my I/T PT about the above situation and she said we may be upping the amount of times we see them, but it will depend on the new OT person.

We are seeing an OT at CMH for Zach's eating issues. She has a lot of good suggestions for us, and has helped us a good deal. She suggested we see the ENT for Zach's tongue tie. I double-checked with our pediatrician to see if he agreed, and we went. This is an issue we went round and round about so long ago. The ENT agreed within seconds, seeing how tight the tie was. He is supposed to be able to protrude his tongue so far, but can't. He said we were in a rare age group. 50% of his patients come in before 6 weeks, early on. The other 50% come in at age 4 or 5 when there are severe eating and major speech issues. He acted like he needed to convince me, but I assured him I was on board. He said at this age we'd probably have to sedate him, as he might move around. I was telling him to book the OR, call whoever, let's just get it done. So, April 13th we will be back at CMH for a minor surgery. The ENT, Dr. Ellis, said he'd probably have the procedure done in 2 minutes, VERY minor, with minor complications (maybe a little bleeding). So, we go in the 12th for Calvin's 6 week post-op visit, the next day for Z's surgery. Whew! These kids keep me hopping.

Well, that about sums up our last week and a half. We've been busy celebrating Gotcha Days, remembering Grandpa's bday, Uncle Shane's bday, having some fun family moments, loving the beautiful weather, hosting Steph, Keegan, & Gavin here, and running to doc appts. I don't understand the definition of bored, anyone want to explain that one to me??