Change is in the air!

Well, it's happened - our little girl is officially in school! She did great, I did great (a little sentimental, but no tears:)) and we are officially on a school schedule! Labour Day weekend was fun for all of us - Brian and Lynsey had a great time camping (even slept in the tent every night despite some cold temperatures!) and I had a great weekend with my boys:). It was indeed a quiet weekend like I predicted, and I realized how much work my little girl must be! I always thought she was my easiest child, and in some ways she is, but she definitely requires a lot of me still because I felt like I had it fairly easy this weekend with my two youngest:).

Nathan has been doing so well - he's just a happy baby! We are in a bit of a transition sleep-wise right now as it seems we need to start cutting out his third nap, but he sleeps great at night (had his first 12 hour uninterrupted stretch a few nights ago!) and does pretty well at nap time most days. He seems very interested in what we're eating and I think we will be transitioning him to table food sooner rather than later (had some potatoes the other day and I gave him a bit of meat sauce today - definitely seems ready for some new flavours and textures!). On Saturday, I was at a day retreat for youth leaders, and Brian witnessed him getting up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth a few times. We think that crawling might not be terribly far away at this point! He has also started saying "da-da" in his babbles (and no, he is not referring to Brian!) so his development is coming right along:).

I have not written about this on the blog yet, but I feel like it's time to talk a bit about our journey with Adam. We have been on the list for an assessment with the Early Childhood Development Team since last September. It's been well documented that we have many struggles with communicating with him and handling his tantrums etc., and the more time passes, we feel like we could use some help in these areas. We're not sure if he's on the Autism spectrum, but definitely feel there may be some delays that we could use some help addressing. Anyway, we had our first in-home assessment this morning with a speech therapist and an occupational therapist. It went pretty well - I felt like he behaved very much like he always does, giving them a good idea of what we're dealing with as far as his strengths and weaknesses go. This is just the beginning of the process, so on Wednesday, we are bringing him to the Children's Hospital where he will play in this play area with other kids so they can observe him in a social setting. I feel like help has finally arrived, and that is a big relief! I'm a bit unclear as to how everything will work out if he does end up with a diagnosis, but I'm just concentrating on the next step right now, and when that's done, the step after that. It's definitely a bit of a bureaucracy which I can imagine could get quite frustrating to deal with! Fill this out for THIS type of funding, oh and if you want THIS kind of help, fill THIS out, blah blah - we just want the RIGHT help for Adam! What do we fill out for that?? Anyway, I'm confident that we're on the right track with him now and we WILL get some help, and that is what really matters!