I may be biased...

I joke that I have this need to rid the world of ignorance. I seem to be a magnet for ignorant comments. Some come from well-meaning people, but most come from complete strangers. You would not believe the things I have been told about Little Man from people who don't even know him. A few months ago we were told that we were being "lazy" teaching Little Man sign language. Apparently, we were supposed to "force" him to talk. I feel the need to educate this person and others like them!

I know I am a very proud mommy. I may be a little biased, but Little Man is such a smart litte boy! He is constantly amazing me with the things he picks up. He has a very large signing vocabulary, but doesn't talk. If you take the time to play with him and get to know him, you will also be amazed by him. I promise! Unfortunately, we are already running into people who treat him like he is "slow" because he does not talk. Others seem to be bothered by him because it takes a little more effort to work with him. I am terrified of what he is going to face in life when he begins school. I worry that he will be treated like he is stupid because he does not talk. I worry that the teachers will not want him in their class because of the extra effort that will be required.

So again, I feel the need to educate the world. Do not judge my son because he does not talk! Get to know him and he may just teach you a thing or two.

Meet the family

Let me introduce you to the family. We have 4 kids. Yes, 4 kids and 3 angels!!

KJ (11 years old), Sport (6 years old), Little Man (2 years old) and Princess (4 months old).

KJ is your typical first born. He likes to try to parent his brothers and sister. He is such a great big brother to Little Man and Princess. (He and Sport like to fight!) KJ is extremely tender-hearted.

Sport is all boy! He is into every sport imaginable and likes to play rough.

Little Man is as sweet of a boy as there can be. He is a former 32 week preemie and a twin. His twin, our Precious Angel's heart stopped at 13 weeks. We carried them both until delivery, which was early because of the placenta rupturing.

Princess is just that, our Princess! With 3 big brothers, she is being treated like a princess already! In a few years we may have to change her name to Tomboy! She is a precious little girl that loves to smile.

John and I are truly blessed. 12 years ago when we got married, we did not dream of having 4 kids. But, God has blessed us and we are thankful. They sure do keep life interesting!!

Scary Times

It is amazing how quickly things can change. It only took a matter of minutes to take me from thankful to scared.

 

Tuesday morning I was working up at the school getting ready for our first day. Princess had fallen asleep in the swing and Little Man was playing with his toys while I was cutting out lamination. Little Man curled up on the floor next to me and fell asleep. It made my day! Both of my little ones were sleeping peacefully and I could get a lot of work done without chasing Little Man around keeping him out of trouble. I was incredibly thankful! An hour later Little Man woke up with his eyelid swollen.

 

 

 

I will admit I am a paranoid mommy. Okay, I am an extremely paranoid mommy. So I quickly called the pediatrician (whose phone # I have memorized by now and we are on a first name basis). "Give him benadryl and bring him in to be checked out." Off to the dr. we went. I think my car would know the way to the pediatrician's office if I ever fell asleep on the drive. It appeared to be a reaction to a bite, even though it was too swollen to find the bite. Back home we went to keep an eye on it.

 

12 hours later Little Man wakes up and his eye was swollen shut.

 

 

He is such a happy boy. He is still smiling! And we were off to the pediatrician's office again. Just in the time it took to drive to their office, the redness began spreading further away from his eye. I was a little worried about what was going on with my Little Man, but once the doctor saw it, I became scared. It is not a good feeling when the doctor is worried about your child. She sent us down the street to the emergency room. She was convinced that it was cellulitis and it was going to require him to be admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics. So, off to the ER we went.

 

I can not even begin to write the things that were going through my head. I was worried he would lose his vision. I was terrified I would lose my precious boy. We had to sit in the lobby waiting to be seen for 4 hours. The redness continued to spread and I grew more scared. Finally he was called back to a room to be checked out. He was still happy and wanting to run around. 7 drs. came to check him out. It is cellulitis, but they were trying to determine if it was just in the skin or if it had gotten into the muscle. Little Man has seen a lot of doctors and been through a lot of poking in his short little life so far. He did not like the doctors coming in to look at him. One doctor sat on the bed next to him and colored with him. When Little Man was calmed down and enjoying playing with the him, the doctor said "Okay, I played your game, now you have to play ours." Little Man reached up and grabbed the doctor's stethoscope and wrapped it around his own neck just like all of the other doctors. I wish we had taken a picture. It was the funniest thing!

 

I did take a picture of him watching his sign language videos to pass the time.

 

 





 

It is cellulitis and it has not gotten into the muscle. So, we get to go home on antibiotics. Of course it has to be the worst tasting antibiotics that they could only flavor with lemon-lime. Yuck! We are bribing him with candy to take his medicine and still having to force it down him. 4 doses down, 17 more to go!! 24 hours later, he looks so much better! If you look closely, you can now see the bite that started this all.

I am not as scared, but I am still worried. We need this to go completely away quickly. Please add Little Man to your prayers. Pray for complete healing and that he can willing take all of his medicine so it will go away!

Little Man is such an amazing boy! Through all of this, he kept on smiling. It did not phase him a bit to have to watch tv with only one eye open. I wish I could be more like him. He has a lot to teach the world!

Back to School and Back to Life

About 2 1/2 years ago we found out we were pregnant with twins (Little Man and Our Angel) and it felt like our life began spinning slowly out of control with each new medical issue that popped up. We have been living in survival mode ever since. Who would have thought that the surprise addition of a 4th child to our family would get us back on track?! Last week was back to school for our two oldest boys and back to real life for the Craigs! It has felt incredible sitting down to dinner together every single night, working through homework with both boys right after school, and eating breakfast with the 3 boys every morning before school. No longer living in survival mode is exhausting, though! But, it is a good type of exhaustion.

There is a lot going on in our family that I would love to share, but tonight is a school night! Early to bed.

It's Not a Toy

Here is the deal with Little Man's Ipad (I want to call it his Italk!). He had an assistive technology evaluation this week to see if there was anything available that could help do his talking.  At first, they were unsure that a 2 year old could actually figure out how to use the Proloquo app on the Ipad to communicate. Little Man blew us away with his evaluation. I have always believed he is extremely smart, and even I was surprised at some of the tasks he was able to complete. They started by showing him a page with 4 pictures of objects and asked him to point to certain ones. Then they moved to 8 pictures on a page. He was able to get all of them! Eventually they showed him a page with 40 pictures and asked for more abstract ideas. The first one they asked on this page was for him to point at the picture of the girl sleeping. After a minute of looking at them, he pointed right to the picture! I was shocked. We really don't talk a lot about sleeping. We say "night-night". He just kept on amazing us with the rest of the evaluation. After the evaluation was over, it was decided that he would be a perfect candidate for using the Ipad to help him communicate. There is a group that is going to provide the Ipad, the app (Proloquo2go, which is about $200) and an otter box to protect the Ipad from the 2 year old. What a HUGE blessing! It can take 2 months for the entire process before we actually get his Ipad, so they sent us home with a loaner. Unfortunately we are not able to make any changes to the Ipad or lock any of the apps until we get our own. We were encouraged to not let Little Man play with any of the other apps. He needs to understand this is not a toy. He needs to use it to communicate. When he understands, we can add apps for "playtime" and then lock him out of them when we need to. It took him less than an hour to figure out how to get out of the Proloquo and into a lot of fun games! So much for this not being a toy!

Last night we were able to help Little Man tell us with his Italk :) that he wanted pizza and he wanted to watch Mickey Mouse! Yea Little Man!! Today we have been playing little games with him to help him practice with the Italk. We pulled out some of the Little People animals to match the words with the toy. He wasn't interested at all. He wanted to get out of Proloquo and find a game. This is going to be a challenge!

If you ever have a minute, you should check out the Proloquo2go videos on youtube. It is amazing how children that can not speak a word can catch on to the app so quickly and begin communicating with the world! We are so excited to see where this can take Little Man!

This first video explains the app...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vomkNSluWW4

This video shows a toddler a lot like Little Man using the app to ask for cheese and crackers. Without the app, we normally take Little Man to the pantry and either have him show us what he wants or we offer options. If we can't figure out what he is asking for, he melts down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp2ROyyyqjo


If we can teach Little Man that this is not a toy we will be on our way to helping him find his voice!

Starting a new adventure

Our life since our oldest child entered this world can best be described as a series of new adventures. Just when we think we have learned how to navigate through the adventure, along comes a new one. Today begins a new adventure in our family.

Our Little Man became the proud owner of an Ipad at the young age of 2. It is his and his alone. His 2 big brothers can not use it. Mommy and Daddy can't even play with it. It may seem a little unfair, but this is Little Man's new communication device!

This new adventure seems a little scary and very exciting all at the same time. Unfortunately, our future is uncertain. Will Little Man ever be very verbal? To what extent will he be able to talk? We are praying this new Ipad will help do his "talking" while we wait for his future to unfold. Little Man is one of God's precious miracles, just like every baby! But, with him in our life, we have been able to witness God continuing to work miracles in his life. We firmly believe he will be verbal and the sound of his Ipad doing his "talking" will be a distant memory.

So, I begin this blog. I want to remember this time in our life. I want to one day share this with Little Man, so that he can see how God walked with him through this process.

We have 3 other miracles. Talk about a new adventure!! Everyday with 4 kiddos is a new adventure. We have watched God work in their lives as well. I do not want to forget this time with them. Life on our journey is crazy. I hope this blog will slow me down occasionally to write some thoughts down and not let this time slip by...