Yesterday was a busy day. 1st we drove EARLY in the morning to Shriner's Hospital in Tampa. We spent 4 hours their getting Jacob's long leg braces finished up for us to take home. They have AFO's at the bottom and from the knee joint to the hip is a metal brace that wraps around his waist. Haven't had the opportunity to put them back on him since the fitting but I will post pictures of everything at the bottom of this post as soon as I have a chance. Also a really nice things they did for us was GIVE us a pair of Answer 2 AFO shoes! Heck yeah! I was pretty excited about it. :-)
After we left Tampa around 1pm by the time we got home we had time for an hour nap before the drive to Orlando. To another orthodics place. We FINALLY got to pick up his TAOS device! It definitely looks a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. Has the same kind of Long leg brace frame I described above except for AFOs at the bottoms their is a pair of high top shoes that have a metal thing that locks onto the braces. While we were waiting out the rain yesterday we took it over to a friends house that lives in Orlando and tried him in it. I'm not quite sure we have master putting him in this thing right he did take a few tiny steps, but he is also not used to walking in shoes....I have been excited for this thing for months. Now I am not sure if I am more excited to put him in his Shriner long leg braces in the rifton or the TAOS device..I have plenty of time to play with them today so we will see...
Yesterday while driving home from Orlando while driving down the interstate baby number 5 was kicking up a storm. Jack hardly ever gets to feel baby movement during any of our pregnancies and yesterday was the 1st time he felt this baby move. It was kinda funny. He is driving and I have him put his right hand on my belly. About 30 seconds later she kicks really hard. He jerks his hand away real fast and then puts it back. Nearly yelling. "That was it" ha ha I don't think he realizes how hard they can kick. They did an ultrasound this past Friday and they also gave me some pictures of her yawning. We have made it to 29 weeks now. She still has no name. :-(
Andrew started Speech Therapy last week. Today was his 2nd visit with them. They are still in the process or determining what he can do and what he can not. The initial purpose was for them to work on his texture issues when eating....which they have not touched. Andrew says alot of words and he can put sentences together, but I guess there are things he should be able to express and say that he does not.
Ava has been doing well in school. She is counting in English and Spanish. She is learning new words in Spanish as well. Over the next few months I am going to start working on her sounding out sounds and learning sight words. After everything settles down in my house I hope to have more time to work with her. I kinda feel bad. I feel like my kids are so much farther behind that others due to my lack of time and effort to work with them...like I used to.
The Cangialosi Family that lives with me is MOVING OUT SOON! I am SO very excited to get my home back after almost a year! She is fine and her tumor has been stable for this entire year. No growth and no new symptoms outside of her needing a stronger prescription in her glasses. Her head pain comes ans goes. They were able to buy a small mobile home not far from my house in the same school district so her kids don't have to move schools anymore. They will be ready to move some time by the end of March hopefully the 2nd week of March. All these kids in one house and things are breaking left and right...usually "NO ONE DID IT" but man I know as soon as it is only my kids my angry thoughts about everything I own breaking can only be caused by MY children. It has really put a strain on part of our friendship. Somethings have been joint efforts between all our children and even my nephews getting together and destroying...I getting really cranky when something I spent my hard earned money on breaks! In the past year I have a broken window, a broken recliner, more broken toys than I can count, broken coffee table, broken box spring from Ava's bed where they used it as a ledge to jump from, one of the biggest things that pisses me off lately is my daughter's broken trampoline that she got last Christmas. A child that I witnessed doing this put their feet at the top of the netting until they managed to rip all the safety netting down to the ground oh and some of the padding that covers the springs...it will cost almost as much to replace as to buy new. This morning I decided to walk out to the pool deck that we had built last summer. I just knew their would be something wrong with it...they hang out on the steps while talking to the neighbor kids SURE enough their is all kinds of things carved into the wood on the stairs! I am just so very tired of my things breaking and things I know my children did not do.
One we have our home back to ourselves. I plan on getting a Jacob a new big boy bed. Andrew will get Ava's bed that was only about 6 months old before she moved in our room with us after the house guest, but I have to replace the box spring 1st :-/ Ava will get our old bed in her room...but I have to see if I can fit a crib in there for new baby as well, if not Ava will keep her bed and Andrew will get a new bed. Then Mommy and Daddy will get a new bed!. We also have plans on replacing our couches in the next few weeks as well since ours has been pissed on by numerous children and vomited on my Jacob. It will be nice getting some new things and have our home back :-)
