And it sounds like...

We took Makena today for a speech evaluation at All Children's in Tampa.  It took months to get an appointment.  She has a little lisp and is still having issues pronouncing some words.  Nothing urgent or of major concern, but we wanted to get it checked out before it became an issue.

The evaluation was very thorough.  The Speech Language Pathologist spent some time asking me questions and observing Makena playing.  Then she went through a long photo book to get Makena to say certain words so she could listen for issues.  Then they both went through a book and said sentences.  First the SLP would say it and then Makena would repeat the sentence.  Finally they practiced some sounds and tongue exercises.

The ruled out any physical issues causing the lisp and hesitation.  Because the problem is minor, they spent some more time with me going over techniques to work on at home.  She provided me with some photo and word sheets to work on with her, talked about speech training and gave me some tips to help Makena.

We will work on speech training at home and re-evaluate if necessary in 6 months.  I was really impressed with the entire process, even though it was much longer than I thought it would be.  So nice to not be rushed in a medical environment ;)

Slacker Blogger

Not sure how I managed to post multiple blogs a day when the girls were infants.  Now I can't seem to manage one a month!

So let's see...

The girls are doing wonderful in school.  This winter Melia won the reading award for all the VPK classes.  We were so proud.  She is really excelling in school.  Makena loves her PreK3 teacher, Mrs. Melissa, but still wants to be in VPK with Melia.

In December we took Makena for allergy testing because of reactions she kept having to bug bites, multiple colds, etc...  After a painful round of testing for 64 possible reactions, we found out she is allergic to carrots, almonds, watermelon and mosquitoes.  Of course, those three foods were some of her favorite.  At this point we are not doing allergy shots.  We are choosing to avoid the foods that trigger allergic reactions.  The doctor said she may grow out of it.

Both girls are enrolled in gymnastics class and love it.  We are considering adding a 2nd day of classes, but right now our plates are so full trying to juggle everything.

We went on two last minute cruises so far this year.  A perk of living within driving distance of 4 cruise ports.  The girls absolutely love to travel and really enjoy the kids clubs on the ships.

VPK graduation is coming up soon.  For some reason Kindergarten is really scary for mommy.  My little baby is getting so big!!!

I can't promise I will get back to my daily posts, but hope to try and be a little more frequent.  We shall see.