A couple more things

I forgot a couple things…

Charlotte started feeling bad in the evening the day of her birthday (Monday) and had the worst meltdown at dinner time.  She’s been congested, coughing and sneezing and she ran a small fever on Tuesday.  Now Cooper is sick with the same stuff.  No fun.  This means we didn’t have speech therapy this week, so nothing to report.

Charlotte had her 2 yr well baby check up today.  She had a melt down and HATES the nurse who does all the shots.  We got some measurements, but I don’t know how accurate they are because she was flinging herself all over.  At 2 yrs old she weighs 26 lbs and is 34.5 inches tall, which means she’s really grown!!  Which I think is definitely the case since we basically had to replace her wardrobe recently since she grew out of all her 18 month size clothing.

We talked about how her speech therapy is going and her emotional behavior (short temper, impatience, struggle with transitions, needing things done a specific way or with specific item) and how we deal with the behavior.  We also finally got the referral for the hearing test, so we’ll have to take her for that.

When we discussed Charlotte’s motor skills, I mentioned again about the weakness and limpness in her extremities, particularly in her arms and hands.  When she first came home we noticed she never gripped on to us, but thought it might be because she was warming up to us and needed time to bond.  It has gotten a little better with her gripping with her legs, but she doesn’t hold on at all with her hands or arms.  She also doesn’t grasp or grip things strongly and rarely picks things up to carry them, but instead drags or pushes them around.  She doesn’t do much climbing and really only copies Cooper if he is doing it.

The doctor tested her grip and strength of pulling her arms away by holding on to both of her hands.  Charlotte started crying and throwing a fit, but barely made an effort to pull her hands away.  The doctor understood what we meant by weakness in her arms and hands as well.  She said the weakness isn’t necessarily the concern, but the modification of motor skills is more the issue.  It’s good that she’s problems solving and finding other ways to do things, but it also means she’s not doing the things she should be able to do.

The doctor recommended that we have Charlotte evaluated for physical ability (major and minor motor skills) through the Early Start program.  She said the gym we joined will probably help with building strength, but that an evaluation will give a better indication if she is really behind and needs more structured physical therapy.  Now it makes me wish we would have had her evaluated for everything to begin with!  I don’t know how we will fit in physical therapy if she needs that as well.  We’ll figure out a way, but gosh we have a lot going on right now!