Hello everyone! We've been pretty non-existent over here on this blog! I use Grace's blog as her journal, and every two years I download it into one of the self publishing companies, and save it for when she gets older, so of course I make sure my little bits of spare time go to that! But anyways, I'm hoping you all would like an update on miss Grace.
We are doing pretty good! Grace is now 33 months old, with her birthday zooming up to us in September! I can't believe I'm going to have a 3 year old! The picture above is in our garden that daddy had been tilling. She just loves laying in the dirt and getting her sensory fill while being entertained by daddy throwing rocks out of the garden!
So what are some new things about Grace? She can say more than 50 words, either signing or speaking, but most of them are parroting. She's not learned how to express herself on her own, so we usually tell her what to say or ask. People in the stores sometimes gawk when they realize she can't answer them, but I'm so used to it at this point. I like to just politely tell them that she's shy to help them out of the moment.
She has learned how to run, can go down steps VERY CAREFULLY by herself while standing and facing forward, but they have to be those little short kids steps that are about 2 inches tall! I'm so excited for her though! With hardly any depth perception, she's really worked hard at mastering those steps!
She's absolutely loving life, all the people around her, all the fun stuff she gets to do when she goes to Toddler School, and loves being outside. Her favorite thing to do is play in water, whether that means swimming with Mommy, splashing in a sensory table, on smacking puddles (while we are at Walmart!)
Some other things we learned recently... We go to Spina Bifida clinic every 6 months in Utah, and this last week we had a urodynamics test on Grace to see how her bladder is working. If you don't remember, she has neurogenic bowel because of the SB and a tethered cord, so we were trying to keep our expectations low. Well, it turns out she has neurogenic bladder as well. Her bladder is especially small (as it her all around self), and it doesn't drain completely. She basically dribbles all the time. The fear with this draining problem is that her bladder won't get used to holding urine, which helps the bladder expand as it has to hold more as she grows, so it will remain the same size it is now. This will obviously cause a problem as she gets bigger because she will be making more urine then the bladder can hold. Anyways, we will start catheterizing her on the 14th, and that will go until at least 6 months from now when we go back to the clinic again to have her re-checked.
Another thing we learned...she's got a very slight hearing loss in her right ear, but otherwise, her hearing is fine. What a blessing, but also not so much. My viewpoint on it is that her language must be delayed because of a significant hearing loss. But to hear that it's fine stumps me because now I think, "so why is she so behind in language??" She's at about an 18 month age for language. But I am grateful that she has good hearing. Her vision is great too! If you don't remember, she uses one eye or the other, she is not able to use both because the nerves that connect the two didn't develop completely. As you can see in the picture above, she's using her left eye, which is why the right is turned in. She has very very slight farsightedness, but not enough to worry about! Hurray! We also go in for eye surgery on the 14th to have both eyes straightened, which is an outpatient 1 hour surgery with about 1 day of recovery. So that will be a breeze for her!
All in all, she's a super healthy, super happy girly. We're over here in "Grace's Journey" land chugging away at life, getting prepared to go to developmental preschool when she turns 3!
There's another picture for you! This is when we had her crib turned into a toddler bed. At first, she was doing fantastic! Didn't get out when she wasn't supposed to, slept well without falling out, and would get up and entertain herself in the morning. But then this started happening! Getting out, playing for hours (I was going to wait her out after about 100 failed attempts of Super Nanny's "put her back in every time she gets out.") and then she'd konk out on the floor. Silly girl!
Thanks so much for reading our update story! We are so happy that you are all watching our little ones grow up!
Amanda
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