To Go or Not To Go?

Kaitlyn's developmental pediatrician appt is coming up in about 2 weeks. She has shown a tremendous amount of improvement in the last month, so Mike and I are wondering if we should keep the appointment. If insurance was paying, this would be a no-brainer. What's to lose? Well, the doctor we've selected (who came highly recommended) isn't in our insurance network, so we're looking to pay for this out of pocket. It's very expensive. Hind sight being 20/20 and knowing that we're teetering on the brink of cancellation now, I wish I had picked a different a doctor who was in our network so at least she could see someone and either confirm or deny our thoughts. And we probably will still do that, but we expect another several month wait to get seen. (The doctor we currently are scheduled to see took 4 months to get this appointment.) I, however, don't want to make a decision as important as this one strictly based on finances. Kaitlyn is worth every penny, and I hate to think about losing precious time if there is something wrong. Ahhh...parenthood.

Anyway, here's the update on Kaitlyn which is why we're thinking about not going now.

Ever since the "plauge" hit our house with the stomach bug, Kaitlyn did almost a solid week of nothing but cuddling. So, since she's recovered from that, her stimming/bouncing has greatly decreased. She still does it, but not as often. So, I would think a decrease in that behavior is good. I'd be even happier if she didn't do it at all of course, but I'm looking at baby steps here. :-)

Second, her vocabulary is exploding. Just being able to say words doesn't mean she's not autistic though, so again, I'm at a cross roads. Her current words include:

-Hi MaMa
-Hi DaDa
-She has a version of her own name, Kaitlyn (sounds pretty close too)
-book
-train (and choo choo)
-duckie
-elephant (wow, that's a big one...GO KAITLYN)
-aligator (another big word!!!)
-nana (banana)
-light
-more (and she signs it at the same time)
-cookie
-milk
-plane
-daisy (both for our dog and the Disney character)
-donald
-goofy
-ball
-baby
-earring
-ear
-eye
-mouth
-hat
-she still does all of her animal sounds (bee, owl, horse, lion, snake)
-and she tries to sing along to words of songs where she can as well as chimes in when we count from 1-10 for the numbers she knows
-there are several more....

OK, so yes, she's "talking." And it's not just when she's watching certain videos. She will go over to her toy shelves and point up at the books and say "book." She will see a banana on the kitchen counter and say "nana." She will look up in the sky and say "plane"...sometimes there isn't actually a plane up there, but hey, I guess she thinks there should be. So, we've got pointing in conjunction with words which I know to be good from an autistic perspective too.

However, I have a co-worker who has an autistic son. I was sharing with her this morning that we might want to cancel, and she was excited for us. She is, however, trying to help too. So, she just mentioned to us that when her son was diagnosed at 25 months that he had 111 words, would point off and on, etc... So, I guess the moral of her story was that just because a kid talks and points doesn't mean that enough progress has been made to rule out autism. I hadn't thought of it that way. I was simply thinking, hey, she's talking. Something must be going right. To hear her story with her son gives me pause again about what to do with this appointment. Kaitlyn does not have many of the autism red flags (she makes eye contact, she points, she's talking more, she doesn't have sensory issues), but that doesn't/couldn't mean that she still wouldn't be somewhere on the spectrum toward the mild end. AAAAHHHHHHHH!!! I reiterate...parenthood. This is tough.

Help...what should we do?

We Need a Miracle and Your Prayers

Mike's cousin, Michelle, and her husband Jeremy have two adorable little girls, Madison and Aubrey. Aubrey turns one in about a week, and about a week ago, she was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive cancer on her liver. Right off the bat, this type of cancer doesn't have the best of survival rates, nonetheless, there is a SURVIVAL rate. Someone's got to be that one...and we're praying that it's Aubrey. It MUST be Aubrey.

She's had 5 days of intense chemo and went home yesterday for just over a week off and then will return for more chemo. The only chances of shriking the tumor to a size where cutting it out or a transplant are even options was a very strong dose of chemo. They say that even if Aubrey makes it, this chemo may give her problems later in life...even a possible loss of hearing. When she goes back for this second round of chemo, they will run a test on the tumor to see if these past 5 days of intense chemo have even had an effect. Please keep Jeremy, Michelle, Madison and sweet, sweet young baby Aubrey in your prayers.

With Love, the Barbrees

What Fish?

Before the plague hit our house (see entry below), we had taken the girls to the aquarium again. They had the doors for the Oceans Ballroom open and people were kind of milling in and out because there are two viewing opportunities in there that I guess people don't always get to see. One is the Buluga Whales just from the other side and another is the Whale Shark exhibit. Same fish, just a different perspective. Anyway...they had this machine out to clean the carpet and it was just sitting in the middle of the ballroom. Don't you just know my kids ran over to it and wanted to try to push it. (They LOVE to push things: shopping carts, their doll toys, their real stroller, anything...) Did we mention there were fish at the aquarium?

Nicole trying to push the machine.

Running around in the ballroom....did we mention there were fish?

Oh, finally some fish!!!! But not for long....

We spotted Deepo!!!!

And more Deepo....

We actually got back in line (not long thankfully) to see Deepo again because once was apparently not enough. Did we mention there are fish at the aquarium?

And I wasn't kidding when I said Kaitlyn REALLY likes Deepo. Good thing we have the annual passes!!!

What a Week!!!

Well, the girls got some nasty virus or something and it invaded our whole house. Late Saturday night sometime (I say that because she's such an angel and just slept right through the night) Kaitlyn threw up. We found her with a small amount of puke in her crib Sunday morning. And then we were off....

Kaitlyn was the only one with sick signs for Sunday and most of Monday. Of course we weren't foolish enough to think that Nicole wasn't going to get it. It was only a matter of time. Monday evening, Nicole threw up everywhere, and then we were off with two kids....

And then, Mike called Monday and said he was on his way home from work because he had gotten sick. So, I was the lone hold out....well, until about midnight when I too started getting sick. Then, Tuesday night our nanny called and said she needed Wed (and it turns out Thursday too) off because she got it. As I said before, WHAT A WEEK!!!

My poor, poor girls. And poor Kaitlyn, my tiny, tiny Kaitlyn, she got it first and threw up for the longest...SIX days! Nicole only threw up for about three days. Most of the throwing up was at night time too. How strange? We had very few instances of day time throw up. Maybe it was something about being horizontal. However, it wasn't during nap time. Whatever. The most random virus ever. They told us they thought it was rota. Of course I'm wondering why they vaccinate against rota if you get it anyway. It turned out not to be rota though. And the bacteria cultures for eccoli and salmanilla came back negative too. So, what a mystery.

I think I did about 20-30 loads of laundry last week. Can't wait for that water bill. :-) Anyway, that's the update!