We celebrated NiNi's 6th birthday at Monkey Joe's. She has been planning her birthday party almost since her last birthday party, right down to the cake. Problem is, the plans change from month to month...princess party, Hello Kitty party, horse theme, skating party, etc. Chris happened to win a Monkey Joe's party at a fundraiser so that seemed to sufficiently fulfill the queen's requirements:)
There is a toddler area at Monkey Joe's. It captured Ethan's attention for about 3 minutes, or until he realized that there were much much bigger slides to be conquered. The above picture shows Ethan's size relative to the other kids! Going down was a breeze, but getting to the top a whole different matter. A couple of times I saw him walking around hand-in-hand with random little girls, and then realized he was using them to help him get up the ladders. Smart boy...he knows how to use his looks to get what he wants!
We have started attachment therapy. The big 2 week intensive sessions are in April but we have started our stack of reading material and the individual parent session. Here's a fun fact. One book reported a much lower rating of marriage satisfaction among couples who have children verses couples who have no children. And marriage satisfaction increase as the children leave the home. Chris and I had trouble stifling the giggles. I guess we are up a creek then, metaphorically speaking. The therapist has a 2-hour session with each parent to make sure there are no underlying issues that could hinder the attachment process. I could have told him that it's going to take a lot longer than 2 hours to sort through the inner workings of this crazy person! Seriously, we are very excited and hopeful our home will be a much happier place when all of this is over.
I have not updated in awhile about E-man. We are hopefully coming to a reprieve in doctor visits and tests. In the past 3 months we have had 1 surgery (ear tubes) 5 specialist appointments, 4 blood tests, 1 unpleasant allergy test, an MRI (with IV sedation)and 1 eye dilation (after which he nearly fell down the stairs because he couldn't see to walk). I have a whole new sympathy for families whose children have chronic illnesses. Luckily Chris had some PTO to eat up by the end of the year, otherwise I don't know how we could've taken all the time off of work. And (drum roll please...) the reason for his small size??? Well, as it turns out, he may actually be Chinese. Yes, it came as a shock to us as well. That, and he does have some small differences genetically. We are learning that many people can have small deletions or additions to their genetic code and this has absolutely no effect on them. They may never be aware of it, because they don't have a reason to get tested. Let's face it, not everyone is independently wealthy like we are, and can afford a $5,500 blood test to screen for genetic abnormalities. We go at the end of March for the consultation with the geneticist to discuss the results, but I don't expect any earth shattering news. There is no known syndrome associated with his deletion and, functionally, he is doing great. He is growing, albeit slowly, but he is growing. His speech has really taken off after the ear tubes. He is still hard to understand, but the girls and I understand most of what he says. He is speaking in 2-3 word sentences. At breakfast he chants, "Eat my Panda Puffs!" When I yawn, he asks, "You Tired?" He loves to play role reversal when we read books. He points to the picture and wants me to tell him what it is. When I do, he enthusiastically says, "You're right!" He learned how to sing the Happy Birthday song. He likes to pretend things are candles and brings them to us to "blow out". When we're all sitting around at the table, the girls tell us long, drawn out stories about their days. Now Ethan likes to says, "Mom! Hey Mom!..." and then trails off into his toddler language with all the appropriate inflection and intonation. We listen intently and say uh-huh, uh-huh and then laugh hysterically at the end of the story. So the conclusion of the matter is that he is a smart, happy, active little guy, just a little on the small size. Dashed are our hopes of having another Yao Ming. I guess I can live with that.
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