To the Doctor’s Office again We Go

I feel like we are always at the doctor!  Natalie went in on Saturday because her eyes had so much goop, they were sealed shut.  Zach had just finished antibiotics for an ear infection and Julia was 5 days behind him on antibiotics for an eye infection.  Today we were back at the doctor because Julia has had a fever for several days.  Motrin knocked it out so she seemed normal but then at the end of the day she’d be voluntarily taking naps and the fever would be back.  We went to the doctor Monday afternoon and she has strep throat.  Zach had some similar symptoms on Saturday and Sunday but no fever.  He tested for strep throat too.  Neither one of them has had a sore throat, just a headache and slight stomach ache.  I asked and the doctor said it was almost impossible for a baby to get strep throat so maybe Natalie will make it through at least for this round.  Still no poop coming through but she’s been happy.  The picture above his what she looks like while we are eating dinner and she is waiting for hers.

We had the speech teacher and teacher for the deaf come on Monday to evaluate Natalie.  The speech teacher thinks that Natalie’s challenges with learning to talk will mostly be from the Down’s syndrome and that the hearing loss won’t hinder her much.  Since she does have mild hearing loss, though, they will start working with her now.  Cool how God works, huh?  Early Intervention wasn’t going to start speech yet just because she’s eating fine.  Miss Margaret (speech teacher) is talking about me working with Natalie daily on specific sounds right now, though.  In the evaluation, Natalie was on track for her age in the sounds and responses she’s making.  Natalie even had a few things she was doing ahead of her age group.  The speech teacher said Natalie was very bright.  Julia was home while they were here so I talked to her a little bit yesterday about how we need to read to Natalie and talk to her to help her learn to talk.  I caught Julia describing to Natalie in detail all the toys in Natalie’s gym today.  I called Julia aside and told her what a good big sister she was by doing that.  I then decided to tell her about the Down’s Syndrome.  I had talked to Zach about it previously and his response was pretty much, ‘great, now what’s for dinner.’  I talked to both of them about it more Monday.  Julia got a little sad and looked worried.  I told them both of all the great progress Natalie’s made, how healthy Natalie is compared to things the doctors have told us could go wrong and how lucky Natalie is that she has them as an older brother and sister.  They are going to teach her so much!  I told them it was why I was crying so much when she was first born but now I know that Down’s Syndrome is not as bad as I thought.  I mentioned how important reading was for her and Zach said, “we’d better get back on it then.”  It’s been awhile since David has read a chapter book.  Instead, he’s been reading smaller books each night and sometimes feeds Natalie while he does it.  Now, we’ll have the kids asking to read to help Natalie out too.

Got a call from DSS yesterday.  They said they were submitting my application that they had previously thought was a duplicate for January’s bills.  I found out that social security is examined for the date you call about it.  Since I didn’t get around to calling until February, that is why we can’t get it for January.  Still have hope that the state will approve us for a retroactive decision, though.

Experimenting with a video link on this blog.  Hope it works so let me know!

Amy