Having a Ball!

Alexis is 1!

We had cake and opened presents at home on her birthday, then had her party at a museum. I like to think it went well and that everybody had fun - it's hard to please kids that range in age from 1 to 11 at the same location!

My crew definitely had a "ball" - these pics are from one of those "dive in the balls" thinigies (what do you call them?), and the best part was that there was a separate part for younger children.

Now for updates! We've made some changes to Deuce's diet - started giving him a multivitamin, mixing flax seed oil (with DHA) with his milk, and switched him to rice milk (which is actually pretty good, though I keep a stash of soy and cow's milk for myself!). Within days I started to see changes, and in the past month and a half we have seen significant gains in his general demeanor, how he manages stress, how he manages excitement, using more words (at minimum trying to repeat words),.... the list goes on! The best part to me is to see him interact more and more with other children and actually have fun at play group. There was such a drastic improvement that MULTIPLE mothers came up to me to ask me what happened!

We have definitely seen some sensory issues, but thankfully his developmental therapist had explained that to us early on (last November), so we've been working with him along those lines and things have gone so much smoother.

As for Alexis, she isn't walking yet, but likes to pull up and let go, stand for a few seconds, then hold back on to whatever it was she used to stand up! I was SO glad that her two top front teeth were in just in time for her birthday and party, and in the past week I see FOUR more teeth coming in (two more on top, two more on bottom), and her gums are "bumpy" so I think more will be here soon! She's doing well with her words still, which is just wonderful.

As for me, I think I've finally got it together to knock out this crazy Ph.D. I've been reading my stuff, trying to get things in order for the fall, identified a data source for my dissertation (when the time comes!), so I should be able to post progress reports for myself as well.

Sounds good? I think so!