Happy New Year To All!

Happy New Year to all! More Blessing to come to all and God Bless!

Christmas Day

***** A Christmas greeting to ALL ! *****

I would like to greet everyone a Merry 2x Christmas! I was blessed to received tons of Christmas cards from around the world. Thank You , Thank You very much to all my friends, you guys are very thoughtful! It was such a nice feeling knowing that I have tons of friends that thinking about me and my family this holiday season! Merry Christmas!

***** The Day Before Christmas *****

We were kinda tired the day before Christmas since my little daughter had slight fever overnight. I normally cook food for Nouche Buena but ate it before 12 midnight ( in my country we open gifts at 12 midnight and eat dinner at the same time) that is our tradition that I followed. But this year we had a slightly different arrangement. I had no plan of cooking Christmas dinner this because my husband went to work, and he was gonna take me to a restaurant to do our own family tradition. However, this plan changed. So, I prepared some quick Christmas Lunch/Dinner on Christmas eve within 70 minutes including arranging my table to a nice and presentable Christmas theme. I don't know how I did that, but I have pictures to proved it!

Here we are... Merry Christmas!

The next day we went to mom's house as part of my husband's family tradition. Here is the picture of my kids with their cousin Austin.

Kathlyn was checking out her stocking that full of baby goodies.

She also received few dolls this year from Santa and her cousin Austin. Thank you very much!

Gerald got a new play-dough. I was surprised when he touch the dough with his bare hands. That is a big improvement from the past. Before he wouldn't even come near by the play dough.

Gerald got a new flat screen TV... a huge one :)

 

... and a new game. He love it! I got it one sale the day before Christmas :)

I love sales!

Playing after opening gifts. KC just following what big brother was doing... making a mess!

thats what kids are for... to enjoy being a kid!

yup she was having fun as well...

One week before Christmas

One more week before Christmas and I haven’t done any wrapping or even shopping yet. I only bought stuff for my two little angels and that’s about it. I think Christmas for me now is not as exciting, and I don’t know why I feel that way.

Anyway, I just put up some of my Christmas decors and the Christmas tree just up this evening. While I was in the process of decorating my tree…my two angels were taking all my tree ornaments. Even my eight month old helped her brother grabbing all my tree ornaments. I put my tree on the top of our grand piano just to make it sure that no one can reach it J. The down side of having a tree on the top of the piano is that I cannot get higher than 3 feet. So, my tree is just half of size than it was used to be.

Another thing that happened is that my hubby got me a supposed to be a Christmas presents, but it did make it to Christmas day. I opened it last night, and I enjoyed it the whole of taking lots of pictures of my darling kids. Yes, he got me a nice camera. It was kinda pricey in my book, but he likes me to have a quality one. He always like to buy a quality product because it last longer which I agree 100%.

Also today I picked Gerald Jay from school. It was his last day at school and took some of his pictures while he was in the classroom. But, I did get a nice pose from him. He was kinda sleepy according to GJ’s therapist and his teacher, and they were right because we went to bed very late last night.

Autism Issue:
I mentioned this issue with Gerald’s other therapist just to gather some ideas of what they think about Gerald’s current behavior and progress. In my previous post I mention that one of the therapist expressed his concerns about Gerald’s behavior that he might have autism because he was not progressing in his speech therapy but instead he was withdrawing ( hmm I can’t get this issue straight). Anyway, different therapist have different opinion and the other therapist was surprised when I told her about the autism issue. She sad she never thought about autism since GJ was very social and he said he have some odd thing that he does repetitively, but autism was not hit in her mind. But she will recommend GJ to a genesist (I can’t get that spelling right) the doctor might have another opinion about it.

For me it’s not a big deal, I mean he is my kid no matter what I still love him. His gone through so much in his life that every moment now is a blessing for him and family. Dad on the other hand is a worrier, and he has the right to be.

Merry Merry Christmas to all!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

What??? Autistic???

What??? Autistic??? I hope not! That was my first reaction when my husband told me that Gerald's speech therapist mentioned that he might have autism. I hope they did just come up something like that word because he is not formally talking yet. He had gone through a lot this year, and he is not out of it yet (MRSA need to deal with). Gerald Jay has this weird thing that he always do like staring up on the selling or moving his pupil towards the corner of his eyes, and his therapist thought that he might have the signs of autism. I can see that he has another appointment to look forward too grrrr. My husband has been troubled by that thought since he came back home from Gerald's therapy session today. So, I searched some information about autism online. I found some websites  that are very informative and read the sign and symptoms of early autism  just to comfort him.


Possible Indicators of Autism Spectrum Disorders ( About.com: Autism)

• Does not babble, point, or make meaningful gestures by 1 year of age  ( GJ does meaningful gestures all the time)
• Does not speak one word by 16 months ( he had a higher social skill by six months)
  
• Does not combine two words by 2 years ( he doesn't do this often I agree but he copy what ever we say to him.)
  
• Does not respond to name ( This is my biggest concern because he does not respond when you call his name. Although, he knows that we are calling him ;( )
  
• Loses language or social skills ( he lose some language skills due to his heart surgery last Feb., but he has the best social skills [ at least that is what we saw from him])
  
• Poor eye contact ( he can stare at you actually)
• Doesn't seem to know how to play with toys ( He knows how to play toys and even figure out what to do with it or how it works)
  
• Excessively lines up toys or other objects ( he does line toys up like a train.  That is also the reason why I bought him the train and train tracks)
  
• Is attached to one particular toy or object ( No, he his not focusing on one particular toy, but he have favorites one. I think all kids do.)
  
• Doesn't smile ( He score higher point on this. As you can see his pictures)
  
• At times seems to be hearing impaired ( he can hear me when I yell )

I also look at the sign and symptoms of  Asperger Syndrome , and seems he only have couple signs that almost match. I
I don't think that he is autistic though, but whatever they recommend to get this issue strait  I will do it. It's just frustrating and sad.

Please give me your opinion or if you have a knowledge about autism. I will appreciate it! Thanks

Winter Party

Every year the Atherton's Family hosting a winter party. This is our second time to attend in this party, and I am telling that my little heart boy had a blast.

At first, I thought he was gonna go to play the snow and join the other kids enjoying playing snow balls, but I was wrong. He normally observe first and then if he thinks that he can do it, he will join them.

He would rather be by himself playing who knows what. First time for months that he refused to his picture taken, but today he had fun and pictures is great souvenir :-bd

Another good pose that shows " attention" kind of pose.

* You look great sweetie ~ Mom*

He even played the ball...

 

...checking out the Christmas balloon...

and sitting on the grass ... he must have been tired:).

I like to see him happy playing with other heart kids too, but he is used to play by himself when on other kids want to play with him. Before he had the Ng-tube that was taped on his face. But now he got his g-tube...he looks a whole better and normal. I hope he will gain more friends as he grow up.

Anyway, while brother was busy and entertaining himself my little princess was busy too...

she was eating pizza crust! It was good food!

also eating her shoe :)... or whatever she can put in her mouth.

Anyway, I would like to thank the Atherton's Family for giving us a nice place for our kids to play and for providing delicious foods. I also glad to see some of the heart moms from our group , and I am glad to met the heart moms that I follow blogs (owen's mom and grace's mom) with.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Cardiology Visit

Gerald had his follow up check-up with cardiologist this morning at the CRS clinic. It was a calm visit because Gerald cooperate with the medical assistant to take his vital signs ( he normal screams during vital signs and at the end we never get a chance to check his blood pressure on four limbs).

He lose weight since they put him on diet couple months ago. Anyway, there is a little change in his medications. The blood thinner which is the aspirin was reduce to half tablet a day. We noticed that he bruised easily, and I hope by reducing the blood thinner intake will solve the problem.

Gerald still on the two month window (cardio visit), and he will have his first heart cath after a year of fontan procedure in summer. Heart wise he looks wonderful, and everyday he is getting back to his normal activity.

Another, we have a little concern about the MRSA site though. The wound site kept protruding and the redness around the wound is getting bigger. They heart surgeon recommended to see a plastic surgeon. I don't have a date for that yet, but I already turned in the progress note to the PCP this morning. I hope the referral to the plastic surgeon will be out soon.

Rehearsal for his presentation

Presentation will be tomorrow. He rehears and rehears, and rehears, and rehears, but it was not prefect yet. Tonight when come back from work at 11:30PM I will make him rehears again.
Well, I hope that he will not forget everything that we rehearsed last week.

Anyway, I wish my hubby good luck!


******************* UPDATE ************************
He did well on his presentation. He also find out that his instructor have a heart defect too.

Hubby's Poster for his Presentation

               Ralph is taking COM 100 and PHY111 this semester. Towards the finals they have to make a presentation of what they passionate about. My husband been very stressful about this coming presentation, because he hated the class and he took English class some 30years ago. He was just not interested of standing in front of the class with bunch of 20 years old students. Anyway, he needed this class to graduate. Therefore, he worked hard to finished his presentation paper, and actually he did pretty good. Now here comes that part that he needed help , making the poster. Well, no worries because Nelda is here to the rescue . He asked me yesterday to buy a foam board, and he painted it with blue. After it was dry, I took over. I printed some picture off the internet ( all pictures were cited) and put taped on the back. I let Ralphy put on the board, it was in fact his project and here it is...

He chose this title and Gerald heart defect is his topic the Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.
What do you guys think? I coaches him of where to taped each of those pictures.
He did pretty good isn't it? or We did pretty good .