All Done!

I'm using one of Judith's favorite phrases for the title of this post, because today was a big day for her.  We had a meeting with her service coordinator during speech because her coordinator wanted to touch base before her annual eval.  We discussed her progress, and decided that since she met and exceeded her goal, we would officially discharge her from services!  Speech was the last area she was showing delays in, so this means she is completely caught up, and the discharge is a total discharge from early intervention!

Of course we have the card and number for her service coordinator, and we can call at any time if we have a concern or want an evaluation for something, but unless she shows some serious regressions in an area we should be set and can close another chapter of her preemie story.

Adventures in Toddlerhood

It's amazing to see all of the new things Judith is starting to do, and I'm watching her grow up so fast right before my eyes.  It's hard to believe that last year at this time we were working on getting her to sit unsupported, and now we're chasing her all over the place.  And let me tell you, this kid is fast!

Judith's still working on those molars, and based on how crabby she's been (and how many things she's been chewing on), there are more that are working their way up to the surface. She doesn't mind having her teeth brushed as long as we do it quickly.  I need to build up some courage to get my fingers in there to feel around her gums again since the little stinker often moves her tongue over her teeth and won't let me see them.

Judith loves to imitate us, the dogs, her grandparents, practically anyone she's comfortable with!  Baby sign language is not going well - the most we can get out of her is a sign for "more", otherwise she looks at us like we're nuts and refuses to mimic the sign.  Her speech therapist isn't concerned though, especially since Judith's starting to have a language and sound explosion!  This weekend we added duck, doggie, and boogie to our list.  Most things are either "Dee" (for Lady) or "baby," but I'm hoping she'll start repeating the proper names soon.

We experienced another first today.  Now that she's almost 19 months old, Judith thought it would be appropriate to initiate us into the world of toddler tantrums - as in, full-out, screaming, stomping, throw yourself down tantrums.  She got mad when she had to give up one of her rings before speech therapy.  She got mad during speech therapy when we wouldn't allow her to chew on every single toy.  She got mad at the grocery store because we wanted to wipe down different parts of her new snail balloon (mostly the clip anchor part, because we knew it would go straight into the mouth), and to accomplish that we had to move her hands.  She got mad when we had to take the balloon from her temporarily to put her in her car seat.  And she got mad over the meal menus for the day.  Her speech therapist and I are thinking she's starting to get frustrated by not being able to communicate things, but at the same time we're hoping she'll start picking up some more words so she can communicate better.

Life is definitely interesting right now!

Reculture and Miscellaneous Musings

Our days have been fairly busy lately, especially now that Judith is walking all over the place and getting into everything she possibly can.  She seriously wears me out big time - at least I'm getting a decent amount of exercise chasing after her!

Thursday and Friday of last week we enjoyed some warmer weather.  Friday's temperatures were high enough that I was able to break out one of the adorable smocked sun suits I purchased for Judith a couple months ago!  I decided to go with the Preppy Alligator pattern from Shrimp & Grits Kids:

 Removing all of her animals from the chair

Check out that ruffle butt!

Adorable detailing, and a bonus side-eye (she's getting rather good at that...)

On Saturday I packed Judith and the dogs into the car and drove to my parents' for a little visit!  The dogs were excited to go to their house again, but were apprehensive at first - they weren't sure about what was going on with my dad, and they finally warmed up and realized things are ok after an hour or 2.  I went with my mom to the salon to get haircuts, and Judith had a great time trying to de-shelve the brightly colored bottles of products and playing in the hair that was cut off of my mom's head and my head.

Sunday afternoon we caught a break.  John played in our local AGO chapter's member's recital, and got a ton of compliments on one of his arrangements!  Thanks to these people complimenting him, he got an extra dose of motivation to start contacting publishers to get some of his stuff out there (I've been encouraging him to do this for years, but I guess this was the push he needed to really take it seriously).  Since Judith decided naps are for quitters (that made for an interesting worship service), I stayed home with her so she could sleep and I could relax.

We'll skip over Monday since it was a boring day with minimal action.  Fast forward to today: I took Judith to Hershey for her reculture of her throat/sputum.  While we still have 3 more doses of TOBI to give her, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the meds worked and the pseudomonas are gone.  We probably won't get the results until Monday.

I was alone with her for this appointment, and thankfully she didn't have an epic meltdown - she was by no means happy about having her throat swabbed, and melted down a little bit, but it didn't last as long as normal.  She even reached out to the nurse for her to hold her!  Of course after the nurse swabbed her, Judith gave her best "boo boo" face and cried, but when I reminded her that she wouldn't see Dr. Graff at this appointment she calmed down.

Speech therapy went well today!  Judith babbled more for her therapist, and we got a charge out of her carrying around a canister lid and laughing hysterically at Lady, who was closely trailing her - Lady naturally saw a disc shaped object and assumed it was a frisbee for her, and wanted to play with it but Judith wasn't giving it up!  I knew she was getting tired on top of it, because she was extra silly, but I was also impressed at how focused she was when playing with Lady!  Naturally Lady had a blast chasing after Judith, even though she didn't understand why Judith wouldn't just throw the lid for her.