9 Months Already!

Can you believe my little big Tegan is nine months already! I forgot to update last week when he hit nine months and had his nine month check-up. Here are the stats:
Weight: 22 lbs 2.5 oz
Height: 28 1/2"
Such a big boy. HE is already having to wear some 18 month outfits. The Dr. agreed with me when I said that more and more I feel like his vision is what has affected his development and he said that is the best case scenario. How will it continue to affect it....who knows. Until he is older and he can tell us what the world looks like through his eyes we don't have a clue. Some grown people that have his vision problem say that the whole world is constantly moving from side to side and some say it doesn't do that to them. Hopefully his brain is compensating and he will never know the difference. In fact, this is all he knows. He has the cutest look where he has his chin down toward the floor and cuts his eyes up to look at you and it looks like he is flirting but really this is what they call his null point. A null point is where they can turn their eyes a certain way and make the movement stop. Oh for those of you just joining us, Tegan has an eye condition called Nystagmus. I noticed at around three months that it looked like he was constantly scanning the room. Nystagmus is where their eyes constantly move from side to side. It can never get worse but only better with age. The range is huge as that he could be anywhere from legally blind to almost perfect vision...there's just no way to know this yet.
Anyways Of course he showed poor body tone for the Dr. but I know better and I know that he can do most of what he wouldn't do for the Dr. The only concern is still his legs but I have been working on that and he seems to be getting a little stronger. It's just that his hips seem very unstable and wobble alot while I am holding him in a standing position. He can't stand at all holding on to something without me helping him.
He is doing amazing things everyday. He loves to be in the floor in the sitting position surrounded by his toys. He can make a mess fast. HE can also get across the floor on his butt to get what he wants. If I put him in the all fours position he doesn't try to crawl but yet will push himself up to a sitting position. He laughs a lot. Oh I love that laugh and so does Rylee. She makes him laugh alot and he loves her and loves to play with her. He still isn't interested in much table food except last week at Cracker Barrel when he ate dumplings, macaroni and bread. He is so sweet and loves his mama...that translates into....that he is spoiled and would like to be on mama's hip every second of the day. For the sake of my back he does a little whining but is getting better.
So anyway, he is coming along well and I really feel like and pray that he overcomes all of his delays and that his vision problem completely corrects its self. We still continue to do occupational therapy and after a six week break from physical therapy, we go back next week and hopefully will start working on his legs a lot more.

Time nothing but time...

Sometimes I feel like the world (by that I mean my kids) think I have nothing but time on my hands. Mommy I'm hungry, mommy I want juice, cry for bottle, cry with dirty diaper, etc....
Well lately I do have a little more time on my hands. Things have worked out (by that I mean I'm going in a different direction as my part time job)so that I get to be home with the children for the summer. This is especially nice b/c this is Rylee's last summer before big kid school and it is nice to be home with her. But so far I can't tell that I am getting any more done than before.
Last weekend Paul went and bought a baby pool for the kids. Since it was really hot on Memorial Day I decided to see how Tegan and Rylee would like it. I spent 20 minutes dragging it around the house trying to figure out exactly where I wanted to put it so that the sun wasn't shining directly on Tegan but yet I could sit very close by to him (without getting in) and still get a little sun. Then I spent another 10 minutes rounding me up a chair, propping up an umbrella over Tegan's side, and finding them some toys that were age appropriate for both a five year old and nine month old...that part may have taken a little longer. Then I spent another five minutes filling the pool up. Another 20 minutes getting on swimsuits and sunblock. Finally we are in the pool.....18 minutes later....They have had enough! So let's recap, close to an hour to get prepared for 18 minutes of pure fun!
They did love it and Tegan took a face first dive a few times so I guess it was worth it. Rylee starts swimming lessons this coming week so she will get lots of pool time.

Jump around

Friday afternoon after Paul left to go to his second job around four, I decided to be brave and me and the children went to Ingles to the bank and to get groceries alone. I say alone b/c that is how I felt. As I started off with my baby in the cart (with a buggy cover of course) and my 5 1/2 year old I quickly noticed that I was all alone with a baby who hates to ride in a shopping cart so therefor you either give him a bag of unopened chips to play with or he screams the whole way and another child who decided that since she is out of school for the summer she needed everything in the store to eat. Oh don't worry about the chips...I always take back the ones that Tegan has played with and get myself a fresh bag. Anyways, as I was trying to cut our usual grocery bill in half, Rylee was steadily throwing food in the cart without me knowing. So needless to say I spent the same amount of money as always....plus I think I forgot to switch my chips!
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Saturday morning we got out of bed early (8:00 am) and went over to the lake where my mom and step dad were camping. This was so exciting to me b/c this is the first time in two years we could do this b/c of Paul's dad being sick summer before last and me being home bound pregnant last summer. Despite keeping up with a 22 lb baby and hitting at 100's of flies and the boat deciding to break just for us, it was still a pretty good day. Oh...until my crazy brother showed up with 8 of his dearest redneck, middle aged friends (my brother is 22). Which didn't really bother us except when it rained for a minute and they came up and took over all the chairs outside the camper. Still mom cooked a good meal and we enjoyed that with a side of flies.
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Today we went to church. I am trying to trick or help Teggie's ease in to staying in the church nursery. Those who know me know what a huge step this is as I don't usually let people within five feet of my child much less touch him and take care of him (that's the germaphobia talking). But I was brave and half way through church carried him up there and he did great! Wait, I think I forgot to mention that I stayed there right behind him the whole time where he could hear my voice. But hey...it was a different room that he had never been in before! Him and Kailey (my best friends little girl) sat on blankets in the floor and stole toys from each other. It was very cute. Neither cared if the other one took their toy just as long as they could reach a toy that the other one had. Then we went and got lunch and came home....I can't remember what I did the rest of the day.
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Tomorrow I think we will be going to a cookout at my dad's. See my dad is like a teenager and frequents a local club. When I say frequent I mean if he isn't there by a certain time on Friday and Saturday nights, the employees and other regulars start to worry and call to check on him. So why am I always surprised that 50 of his closest friends end up coming to our small family cookouts. My hopes are that doesn't happen tomorrow but my hopes have been crushed before.
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I leave you with an awesome video of my sweet little guy getting his exercise. I think one to many people have called him fat and he has decided to do something about it with a little exercise.

Short clip

I only caught a short clip of her singing but you can hear her well in the microphone. Now that I can post videos again I will have to catch up on some recent ones.

Show stopper as always!

Rylee has attended a small private Christan preschool the past two years called the busy box. She has loved going to this school as have we. They teach them so much and also have things like bible time, how to pray, etc. Last night my little lady graduated from preschool. It's so hard to believe that she is going to be in big kid school next year.(that's what she calls it) Last night 32 kids from her class stood up in front of a packed house of parents and family members and put on a great show. Together as a class they said bible verses that are so long it is unbelievable that they can remember them. Each and every child had a short little speaking part but a few did parts and led the class in songs. Rylee's part was to say "We have learned three songs about our country this year" then she was the leader of all three of those songs which meant that although everyone else was singing, she was singing in the microphone so you could hear her so good. She was amazing. I have no idea where she got that courage from to do that in front of all those people. She was singing as loud as she could and it still sound good. She wasn't the slightest bit shy. I was so proud of her.
I also must report that we sat Tegan down between us and let him play and he didn't make the first sound for the whole 45 minutes! I have two great kids!

To tell or not to tell...

One of the things that people most compliment Rylee on is her eyes. I am starting to notice the same thing with Tegan. But I wonder when people compliment him on having such pretty big eyes do I just say thank you or do I blurt out...thanks but he has nystagmus, which is a vision impairment that makes his eyes move constantly from side to side. I mean do other people, complete strangers, notice his eye movement or not. Do they see it and say he has pretty eyes b/c he does or b/c they notice something different and are trying to open the door for me to explain what is happening. See to us his eyes don't move all that bad anymore, it has definitely improved but we aren't sure it looks to much better b/c we are use to it or b/c it really is less noticeable. He has what I call a flirting look which is when he looks back at you with his chin down toward the floor and cuts his eyes up at you. It is so cute and people love it when he does it. They think it is his character but I have started to notice that it isn't him being a character at all but yet a place where he can hold his eyes and have no movement at all which is called a null point. His null point can change many times between now and 8 or 9 years old. Depending on where it ends up at he may have to have surgery to literally turn his eyeballs b/c the big problem with null points is that they are usually to the left or right and they have to cock their heads which could give their head a permanent tilt. But so far his is more straight forward and he doesn't always have to tilt his head but most of the time he does.
Which leads me to the next question...when people ask how old is he and I say 9 months old and they say "Oh is he crawling and getting in to everything yet?" Even though I know that Rylee wasn't even crawling at 9 months old, do I say no not yet or do I say, he has had a developmental delay and goes to therapy to catch up.
This all comes from when people ask me how many kids do I have, do I say two or three?
When they ask if we are having more do I say no b/c we buried one baby and almost lost the next one not to mention the third child has had lots of medical problems and oh by the way he has a vision impairment called nystagmus and has some developmental delays that we are working on.
After re-reading this I think the best answers are thank you for the eyes, no not yet for the crawling, three for the kids without elaborating and nope we are blessed to have one of each on the kid thing. It seems less stressful!

Sick Couch round 347....

We are back to the sick couch. Tegan has now came down with a fever. For my mom this morning he did a lot of crying...lucky for me...oh I mean so far for me this afternoon he has done a lot of sleeping. He has a Dr.'s appointment at 3:15, wish him and me luck!