"Love, Grace. To: Benjamin."

To the untrained eye, the words on this "crown" say LV GRAEC TO BNJUMN.  But to Grace, they say "Love, Grace.  To:  Benjamin."  :)

An Exciting Development

Grace has suddenly become very interested in writing!  I, of course, am thrilled.  Here is her name the very first time she wrote it.  She has been giving me some challenges in other areas lately, so it's very encouraging to me that she is so determined to figure out how to write.  (She does get really frustrated with herself when she can't figure out how to form a letter without help.)  Yesterday she told me that it was easy to write "love" because she only had to make an L and a V.  I thought that was great...and funny.  (Jen, if you're reading this, I bet you have all kinds of insight into that statement based on your recent studies on Grace's stage of development!)  And she spelled "frog" on her own today, too.  I'm just a little proud.  With scissors, markers, and paper, Grace can stay happily occupied for a long time.  She ends up with a big pile of paper scraps on the floor, but I think it's worth it!

Cousins

I have barely blogged in May, and I expect that trend to continue for the rest of the month.  However, I did want to mention that we spent a long weekend recently with Jeff's mom, and Jamie & Michelle, and their daughters, Hailey and Brianna.  The kids had a lot of fun making trouble together.  We were so thankful that our faraway family came to see us.  Here is a picture of Cheryl and the cousins together, all dressed up and laughing at Jeff's antics.  (His silliness paid off and gave us a good picture!)

Shopping

Updates on the Boys

We had a couple of events worth remembering for the boys today.  I'll start with Benjamin.  He has been in speech therapy - among other things - for almost a year now.  (It was a year ago - in June - when his pediatrician freaked out at his 18-month checkup.  And in July, he qualified for services.  In August, he had his first visits from his therapists.  I somehow managed to type out some thoughts about how he was doing in September 2012, some pictures with his speech therapist in December, getting orthotics in December 2012, and his progress in February 2013.)  His therapists and I have been planning to re-evaluate him by June, which is his 30-month birthday.  (He was also re-evaluated last December.)  His testing with his speech therapist was today.  At his first evaluation, at age 19 mos., his receptive speech scored at 17 months, and his expressive speech scored at 14 months.  That was called a 33% delay in expressive speech, and was the main concern of all his scores.  In December, his expressive speech was (still) not a concern, but his scores showed that he still had a 3 - 6 month delay in his expressive speech.  I still felt like we were struggling with him.  It seemed like I was bashing my head against a brick wall with him a lot of the time in the area of his speech.  Soon after he turned two, though, he began to blossom, and it has been a joy to watch his ability to talk grow and grow.  At his evaluation today, here's how he scored, compared to his original scores..  And I have to set the scores off by themselves because they are so shocking and gratifying.

July 2012, age 19 mos.

Receptive speech:  17 mos.
Expressive speech:  14 mos.

May 2013, age 28 mos.

Receptive speech:  44 mos.
Expressive speech:  40 mos.

Yes, friends, you read that right.  My sweet boy is scoring in the range of a three - to three - and - a -half - year - old.  Seriously.  I can't tell you how grateful I am that all our prayers and hard work have produced fruit in such a short time.  I can't even believe it.  Originally, our hope that he would be "up to speed" by age three, and he has surpassed our expectations!  I don't yet know how he'll score with his physical therapist - he and the teacher only come once a month now - but I am optimistic.  Even if he still needs their services, I am so proud of Benjamin and how far he has come.  He no longer qualifies for speech therapy!  And it is so much fun to hear the phrases and sentences he comes up with, all on his own.  (Here's one from this morning, TMI, but if you have read this far, you probably don't mid that this information is embedded in my post.  He said, "Need (to) poop..because my tummy hurts."  Ha!)

Now for Jonathan...I suppose teeth are not that interesting, but Jonathan's have a way of adding some interest to a boring subject.  I thought today would be the day to crown his broken tooth, but it was just an appointment for the dentist to check the health of the tooth and THEN to make an appointment to crown it.  (Clearly, dentists do not know that it is tricky to set up childcare multiple times.  Anyway...)  Thankfully, his tooth looks good and she will put a crown on it that will hopefully last five to seven years.  The dentist took a panoramic x-ray of Jonathan's mouth for the first time.  And you may not remember that Jonathan has a permanent tooth that is just not there.  Well, this is where it gets strange...it IS there, it is just growing so very diagonally that it is not pushing out the baby tooth, or the eye tooth next to it, but the MOLAR next to that.  This is why Jonathan has a loose molar even though he is only eight.  The dentist said she had never seen anything like it, and that Jonathan's mouth could be in a textbook.  (At this point, I'm not excited about his uniqueness, I'm just seeing dollar signs and hearing a cash register say, "cha-ching!")  She referred him immediately to the most experienced orthodontist she knows.  She said that the orthodontist will evaluate Jonathan and likely want to pull the three teeth being affected by the stray permanent tooth, and while the tooth straightens itself out, he'll likely need to wear a retainer or something until he is 12-13 and the other permanent teeth come into their regularly scheduled locations.  Oh, my.  The good news, she said, is that he has all his teeth!  Um, yes.  But I think we should have started saving for the orthodontist bills a little sooner...