Little Lady

I realize I've been talking about little Z a lot lately. So now it's Little Lady's turn!

Little Lady is 5 months today. It's so funny how time goes by. While I feel like she's been here forever it's also hard to imagine that it's been 5 months already.

Little Lady has been doing great. She was weighed about 2 weeks ago and she weighed about 12 1/2 pounds. She's still exclusively breastfed and petite.

She was rolling back and forth last night for the first time. It's so cute when she is on her tummy and she's trying so hard to crawl and get something, but she rolls over because she can't crawl. Normally once she rolls on her back she's stuck but last night she finally made it back to her tummy!

It is so amazing to watch the things that she does every day... Hell, every hour!

The other day she was playing fire trucks with her brother. He didn't really want to play with her, but he tolerated it. She couldn't do much more than kind of pull the fire truck back and forth and try to eat it, but she seemed to have fun playing with Z.

She is still sleeping in her bedside co-sleeper. Though she thinks that our bed is her bed. I've given up and let her take naps in our bed. Last night she didn't wake us up so she could eat and get in our bed. She has phases of sleeping through the night and not sleeping through the night.

Another cute little thing she is she seems to know that when I pull my boob out food is coming. Sometimes D will bring her to me when she's hungry, she'll see me pulling my boob out and stop crying. She'll just sit there and stare, as long as it doesn't take too long!

All in all she is happy and healthy and a complete joy. I just love having her! I can't believe it's only been 5 months.

Where did I go wrong?

I'm feeling pretty stressed about little Z today. Yesterday he had speech therapy and it went great until the end. When it was time to clean up and say goodbye to H he had a melt down. We got in the car and he kicked Little Lady. We spent about 10 or so minutes in the parking garage trying to calm him down!

I feel like I just don't know what to do anymore. I am trying to get him the help he needs. He has play therapy and speech therapy. I've been calling ever so often trying to get him an assessment so I can get him in a preschool. I just don't know what more to do!

And to top that off I feel guilty. I don't know where everything went wrong. I don't know what I did wrong. I tried to do everything I could.

I didn't smoke, drink or have caffeine while pregnant.

When he was born I breastfed until he was about 5 months.

I only gave him organic food until very recently. Even now he mostly eats organic.

I kept him away from BPA, phthalates and PVC as much as possible.

I stayed home with him so that we wouldn't have to send him to daycare.

I just tried to protect him from what I thought could be hazardous to him and his development mentally and physically.

I'm so frustrated. Z doesn't deserve this. He is a sweet boy despite it all. A happy kid and he just seems to really love life. But he has problems and I want to fix him and I can't do it. I can't make him all better.

Because of that every day is a challenge for everyone in this family. We have to worry about simple things like taking him to the grocery store or on walks. Or worry about what is going to happen if we tell him no.

I'm emotionally drained from this. I am so thankful that he only has a developmental delay instead of something like autism. I know it could be worse. But it could also be so much better. It doesn't matter that he isn't autistic, because people are constantly assuming he is anyways.

I hope that one day we will be able to look back on this and be proud that we were able to overcome this struggle. In the meantime I just need to keep taking it minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day.

Little Z

We signed the papers in March to move in to our new place at the end of April. Since then things have been pretty crazy around here.

Z's behavior got better for awhile. Then it got worse. We took him to the doctor on April 7 and discussed behavior. No diagnosis, but a referral to a child psychologist. We got him in 2 weeks later and met with Dr J.

Dr. J was a nice guy and Z seemed to really like him. Or his toys at least. Dr. J noticed Z seems to have a hard time comprehending speech as well as speaking. e were then recommended to call a speech therapist and told to come back in about a month.

On to the speech therapist. We got into the speech therapist 6 days later. That appointment went really well. The speech therapist, H, thinks that Z should only need about 2 months of once a week therapy. So we start therapy Tuesday and have an appointment every Tuesday for the next couple of months.

It's all been an adventure. I'm glad we are getting him help. I've also been trying to find Z a pre-school. I want him to go to one with kids with special needs and typically developing kids. There are a few here, but I know the one I really want is full. So my next step is trying to find someone to assess him and place him in a school. Last 2 weeks I've been taking a few days a week and a few hours a day and calling anyone I can to help. I keep getting passed on to the next person and back and forth. I know I will find someone eventually and I will get him in and he will get the help he needs.

In the meantime we just need to keep loving him and trying to keep our patience. But most days the patience thing is very hard.