Wonderful Week

We have had a wonderful week! We started out the week meeting with our new casemanager from Infant/Toddler services and Josie's new occupational therapist and speech therapist. It is was a great first meeting. Our casemanager is a former nurse and was very familar with Josie's physicians and the procedures she has had. The occupational therapist is going to begin working with Josie once a week on feeding issues and also include a dietitian to help us with Josie's blended diet. These are two services that Josie desperately needed before we moved and it was so exciting to talk about the possibilities. Chad and I have spent an extensive amount of time researching and calculating Josie's daily diet so that we are giving her more solid food via the g-tube. The dietician will take all of this off of our plate and will be much more skilled at it. The speech therapist is going to see Josie once a month and work on sign and communication devices. At the end of the meeting we developed some goals to work on over the next year, mainly related to feeding and communication. They all felt that it was also important to include a goal that Chad and I have access to the information we need to deal with Josie's medical needs. They said they wanted to allow us to get back to being parents rather than medical caregivers. I almost cried. Chad and I have spent countless hours researching and talking about what we need to do for Josie. For the most part we have really been on our own and it is a great relief to know that we now are connected with a group of people who will help us do this. They have already been sending me information on things that have worked with other kids like Josie. These services along with Josie starting school in March are going to make an unbelievable difference in her development.

The other medical related activity this week was to meet Josie and Henry's new pediatrician. This was kind of the final act to feel like we were truly settled in KC. Dr. Woolery is going to be terribly hard to replace, but we saw an excellent pediatrician, Dr. White, this week. She spent an hour and a half with me going over Josie's history and taking a look at both kids. They both got a clean bill of health and had some great growth. Henry is now in the 75th percentile for height:) This has got to be a fluke growth spurt because Chad and I are definitely not close to that:) Josie was in the 8th percentile for weight!! We have never been this high. The benefit of having a pediatrician here is that she knows most of the physicians we see at Children's Mercy and is going to get Josie into the orthopedic clinic with her connections. We had been unable to get her in. The doctor felt it was really important to get Josie's neck checked out since she is still showing significant signs of torticullis. What a great experience the appointment was and we are now set up in case one of the kids gets sick.
The best part of the week was a visit to Gramma and Grampa Scott's for a few days! Chad had an extremely busy and important week at work and neither kid was sleeping well. Sooo we hit Gramma up for some assistance at night. Both kids traveled great and slept fairly well. It was nice to visit for a few days and also get a chance to see Uncle Phil.

Both kids have been doing really well. Josie recently started showing us she loves us by putting her hands on our head and slowly run them down our face. Then she gives us a kiss. Her face looks so peaceful while she is doing it and it clearly means I love you. She has even done it once to brother:) Henry is enjoying time in the exersaucer and getting better at sitting with minimal support. He is going to start sitting on his own before too long. He is still as easy going as ever and free with his smiles.