Rebecca

Was planning to do this in one post instead will be breaking it into three.

This will be a long and photo heavy post . I feel its been so long since i have documented what the kids are up to , i want to get it down before i forget. At its heart this blog is still a place for me and my family to look back on years from now and remember all these moments. Will not mind at all if you chose to skip this post

Amazingly my first born will be 3 1/2 in a matter of days (on the 8th December), i remember 3 years ago nearing this date and being so excited about starting solids – as it turns out it was not the best of moves and we should of left it for a few months. 3 and a half sounds so old to me, from that day it becomes a count down till the 4th birthday and that is just big .
Rebecca has had a tough year and has came out the other side better and brighter than before . No one could tell by looking at her that she was in such a bad place a few months back , we would never chose for the summer to have played out the way it did but in the end its made such a difference to Rebecca’s life .
Since the original surgery in June she has gained about 4lbs bringing her up to around 31lbs , not huge but she is on the charts now – we do wonder if her condition had caused her slow weight gain – the surgeon had mentioned it as a possibility before. She also no longer gets out of breath so easily . She is so healthy and happy these days, she takes medication 4 times a day and had to get blood taken last week to check her haemoglobin levels – she handles this better than most adults i know .

Her development is still behind , but this no longer gets to me the way it used to. She has picked up so much in the last few months . Plus i feel as if we are now being listened to and she is either getting help or will be getting help . She is not stupid , everyone agrees with that – she knows just as much as every other child her age but just cannot seem to express it (through either words or actions ) the same way . She seems to lack in fine motor skills and strength – all issues im hoping will be looked at at the orthopaedic clinic.

Rebecca at 3 1/2

- Is still co-sleeping, she may be ready to move into her own bed but we are not giving it a shot just now (lack of room really) . Plus she does have a few clingy issues resulting from the hospital stay.

- Is fully toilet trained during the day but not at night, night time may be a while off yet but due to the sleeping with us we don’t care. Im still shocked at how easy it was, i think she has had maybe 2 or 3 accidents the whole time (and never out and about)

- Can be very clingy , she sticks to me like glue till someone else is around . Once Daddy/Auntie Stephanie/Nana ….etc… is around she refuses to leave there side . Cute at time it can quickly become annoying . This is new since the hospital stay .

- I have no idea what height she is but i think she is just slightly below average now although she is only into 2-3 years clothes wise. T-Shirts and tops she can go for 3-4 fine but trousers she really needs 2-3 years or sometimes 18-24 months. Short legs and long torso .

- Motor skills have came along way and she has went from scribbling all over paper to drawing faces and people in a few weeks. She can easily complete puzzles and build more complicated towers using legos and blocks . According to both the speech therapist and nursery they think the reason she could not do these before was down to lack of patience rather than ability – common in speech delayed children . She loves to “write” , i should take a picture of her writing as it is more a series of shapes but she is getting the idea of it.

- Speech blooms every day, still very unclear but im just happy she is talking. We can now have conversations , we are working on “using out words” to explain situations . She is a wonderful (silent) communicator and for to long we have accepted this , now we are making her explain or ask for what she wants and its helping alot. Through work with her therapist we have realised she really lacks in verbs and are currently working on them . My fave from this week was when i stole a bit of her chocolate and she clearly told me “no mummy , there mine” . Noticing a lot of there’s coming in lately (as in there mine, there they are etc…) . I think she knows all her colours, shapes and numbers just fine although she does not always express that. You ask her the colour of an object and she seems to always answer blue – but is you asked her to pick up a pink object she could do it just fine.

- She adores her nursery and is starting to make some friends there, she is shy and holds back a little. The teacher does think its her communication skills that do this, Rebecca seems to not to want to get involved to much – she seems upset when the other kids don’t understand her. Its a shame and hard to not get upset over , she is so great and i want everyone else to see that. She is getting there though and the other kids are always shouting on her and encouraging her to join in – her teacher thinks its now becoming a game for her . She is prone to copying bad behaviour though.

- She loves Lazytown , dressing up , crafts/drawing , playing house (with dolls, pretend ironing etc..) , yoghurt sweets , wearing boots, slides, buttons , helping everyone with anything but doing everything herself , playing chasing games with her sister, helping with her brother , lights (she goes crazy for circle lights) and much much more.

We do sometimes worry about her, we worry she will not be ready to start school in August 2010 . At 5 years 2 months she will already be older than alot of her classmates and we do not want to hold her back (they only do one intake, Eilidh for example will start school when she is 4 years 9 months old ).
We just constantly remind ourselves how far she has came in the last few months and how long away August 2010 really is .

She is perfect, she is healthy, she is happy , she is amazing, she is crazy ,she is admired, she is brave, she is my girl . She is loved