Cutie Christine

Christine has been quite a busy girl lately. She has been getting more and more active. She is eating like crazy, practically keeping up with her brothers who are both good eaters. She is handling more challenging foods like raw apples and pieces of meat that would have given her trouble only a couple of months ago. Also, she is very actively using a straw sippy cup now.

We've been working on teaching her to sign for awhile now. She's starting to show signs that she is making connections that she wasn't before. At first we noticed that Christine would get excited when she saw us sign like she recognized them and knew what they meant. Now she is signing "more" and "milk" at meal times. Its very exciting to see her trying to communicate with us!

Christine has been working really hard in her First Steps therapies. We had her annual re-evaluation last month and we changed her IFSP a little bit. While PT and OT will continue at 1hr weekly as before, her DT has been extended from 45min sessions to 1hr, and her Speech will be every week instead of 2x monthly. In PT she is working on transitioning from laying to sitting and pulling from sitting to standing (see how cute she is?!). OT is working on fine motor and feeding skills. DT is working fine motor and play skills. Speech is working on communication and play skills. As you can see there is a little overlap from therapy to therapy.

Recently we saw a local pediatrician about Christine's umbilical hernia. She has had it since birth and it has gotten a lot smaller over time but has not completely closed and we wanted to get it checked out and see if it required surgery. Well, the doc said that it is actually very small and does not need surgical attention at this time (or probably ever). He said it might be something we can revisit later if we feel that she's getting teased when she starts school or something like that. But since we are planning on homeschooling it doesn't really pose a problem at all right now. We are obviously relieved to know that there is no reason to be concerned about it. One less thing to worry about is a good thing!


Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. - Psalm 127:3-5