Living on Love, leftovers, and credit card debt...

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Myla's Progress

It has definitely been an emotional week as far as Myla's progress goes...last time we checked in we mentioned a few upcoming appointments. Last Thursday, we took Myla to "the" developmental specialist for the bay area and both Andy and I thought that it went terribly:( The Doctor started off telling us we weren't allowed to interrupt and that we were supposed to treat the next hour as a test for Myla. IT WAS AWFUL! It felt like we were watching Myla fail time and time again for a whole hour...the Doctor moved so quickly from one test to another we don't feel like she even had a chance. Despite the fact that the test was awful the outcome seemed to be the same. The Doctor officially diagnosed her with a gross motor developmental delay. She concluded that Myla is functioning physically at a 10 month old level and made an appointment for today (Tuesday) with a physical therapist in Walnut Creek. Because the appointment was so last minute neither Andy nor I could get the day off so our amazing new babysitter (Rachel McDonald) who is a nurse awaiting her first job was able to take her and learn everything we needed to know. The physical therapist today came up with the same information, Myla is physically functioning at a ten month old level. She showed Rachel various exercises we can do with Myla to help her and told us to hold her less.

Andy and I are a little bit emotional about everything...the physical therapist said today (and another one mentioned) that part of the reason she's struggling could be related to the fact that she spent a lot of time in the johny jump up and the exersaucer. The reasoning behind this is somewhat complicated but basically she gained too much confidence in the jumper and exersaucer so now she can't stand because she doesn't have the confidence or the muscle memory. This is all obviously "fixable" but it's hard for Andy and I to face.

Now we wait and see what Kaiser officially says before moving on to physical therapy and working on exercises we've been given at home. We fully trust in God's plan and know that He's go us in His hands. I can't help but think of the song, "Forever reign" which goes like this,

And Oh, I'm running to your arms, I'm running to your arms,

the richness of your love, will always be enough,

nothing compares to your embrace

light of the world forever reign.

It seems silly to be concerned, we understand, but saying the words "she's been diagnosed..." is difficult. Admitting there is something wrong is hard and we want to take it all away. So we're running to God's huge embrace.

Because I know you all love pictures...here are a couple:)

Ms. Sassy Pants on Valentine's Day before heading to school

Millie on V day playing around the house (she's standing!!!)

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Progress!

Every day Myla seems to show us a little something new with her physical progress, here's just another example of how far she's come!

Being little..

Here's just a sneak peak into what poor Myla goes through with her big sister Avery:)

Our sweet Myla Bea

As I am sure most of you have heard by now, our sweet Myla is a little bit developmentally/physically behind. Her one year check-up did not go as planned and we ended up being referred out to a nutritionist, and a developmental specialist among others. It's been about 3 months since the original Doctor's appointment and I wanted to give you all an updated on what's happening.

There are 2 sides to this, first there is Kaiser. We have an appointment with "the" developmental specialist of the bay area in one week, it takes forever to get an appointment with her as you can imagine. The other side is that we've been pursuing the community based agency the regional center. Last week, a physical therapist came out to assess Myla to see if she qualified for services. Thankfully, she was right on the cusp of being fine and needing help. Today we met with our case manager and another lady to assess her other needs and come up with a plan. Again, thankfully she has no other needs for occupational or speech therapy, just physical therapy. We're going to get her set up with a physical therapist that will come to our house once a week to work with her and show Andy and I how we can help her with the ultimate goal of walking.

This has definitely been a journey for Andy and I. We've known for a while that she's behind as far as physical development is concerned. We began to get frustrated with people who would say to us, "every kid goes at their own pace, she's fine" (which if that was you, no worries, no hard feelings:). In our minds, she wasn't fine and we needed people to validate that AND validate the fact that it's okay that she might not be fine. We trust in God's plan and while it's hard to know she'll need outside help and it'll be really hard to work our schedules around physical therapy every week, we know we can do it because we're a family and that's what families do.

The day that the physical therapist came and determined it would be best for her to get help we shot this gem of a video. She doesn't love to walk, even with assistance, so this hasn't happened very many times since this video was taken but it's a huge step in a process that seems to be going at a snail's pace. Please keep Myla and our family in your prayers:)

Monterey

My sweet cousin Lacie got married last weekend in Monterey and asked Avery to be a flowergirl. As you can imagine, Avery loved it. She got to have a spa day to get her nails done, then be a part of rehearsal and the big day. She got to get ready with the big girls which meant she wanted nothing to do with mama:) At the reception she couldn't bear to dance with family, only with someone from the bridal party. Overall, a good weekend. Here are some pictures of our adventures:

We got there a little early so before heading to rehearsal we hit the beach!

Well okay we hit up Starbucks and then the beach:)

Our sweet Myla Bea did not love her first time touching sand.

Avery on the other hand couldn't get enough.

She went exploring with Daddy

Waiting for rehearsal to begin...

Myla loved looking at the san from afar!

Avery and her cousin Sami (one of the other flower girls) at rehearsal

I don't know that I've ever seen this girl so excited

Sassy pants the day of the wedding.

Avery and Sami hanging out with the big girls.

Dressed and ready for pictures!

They took pictures together before the wedding.

This is hilarious to me...

Walking down the aisle!

The Koning 4! Thanks Lacie for a fun weekend getaway!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Christmas 2012

Christmas was as crazy as ever last year. We both worked Christmas Eve but had Christmas day off, despite that it was our only day off that week it was a very special day and we loved staying home in our comfy pants all day. The Sunday before we were able to celebrate with my siblings and Christmas Eve night we went to one of Andy's services and then headed over to my parents' house to meet up with out extended family. Despite the fact that it was totally crazy, it was great. We told everyone that as far as Christmas day went, if people wanted to see us they had to come to our house so we got some good visitors including my parents, Andy's Dad, Janet and Grandparents, and our friends the Lynch's came over for dinner, we had a rib cookoff and it was amazing. We celebrated later in the week with Andy's Mom and Roger and our Christmas celebrations were finally complete! Here are some highlights from the week: