May 11

I would say that after the craziness of March and early April, the majority of April was pretty sedate, but only by comparison.  I hope we appreciated that *slight* bit of down time in terms of activities, because now May-cember is in full swing!

The end of the school year is coming and thankfully the weather has been mostly nice enough to enjoy it (even with some hot or stormy patches that come through).  Have to enjoy the outside time now because the sun decides to try to broil us for Texas summer!

     

Enjoying our yearly tradition of eating Grimaldi's and cheering everyone at Ironman!

Drumming on his drum out on the pirate ship!

Cheering on Little Sister at her swim meets!

Getting our last sessions of horse therapy in before summer break!

Even got to go enjoy himself at the Girl Scout skating party with Mr. J!

We've also been busy at church!  Little Buddy finished up his adaptive Faith Formation class for the year and we got to celebrate L's First Communion with him!

     

Another great year of Amazing Grace!

Congratulations L!

     

     

     

Everyday with this boy is a great one!

Height and Weight

Happy to say that Little Buddy is staying consistent and weighing in at 116.6 lbs. this month and still eating well.  Teeth seem to be ok, but we still have 4 baby teeth left to lose, ay yi yi! 

     

Perfect teeth at the dentist again, hooray!

Personality

Unless he's annoyed with me for having to get him up for school (or swim meets!), he's overall still very happy and joyful!

     

"Why Momma, why?  Just let me sleep."

Crazy hair but happy boy!

Developmental Changes

What a month.  Overall, Little Buddy has been stable, although we've noticed a bit more unsteadiness on his feet that we're working address.  It's not been his changes that have been the most stressful, it's been fighting with Medicaid to continue his twice-a-week PT and OT services that have been so draining and stressful.  We are thankful that a month of fighting and appeals and denials and submissions and phone calls and letters and fair hearings have resulted in what we wanted and what Little Buddy deserves, but why must it be this hard to fight for him to maintain the services that give him the best quality of life?  

 

 

Me, crying with exhaustion and relief as we received the news of his OT approval.

What was even more frustrated is how much energy those appeals and hearings took from us only for us then to find and face trace amounts of blood in Little Buddy's urine.  How despicable that we cannot reserve and protect our energy for an ACTUAL HEALTH ISSUE and instead have to rally after being mentally and emotionally drained over bureaucracy?  Thankfully, it turned out Little Buddy just had a UTI and a course of antibiotics took care of the blood and the strong urine smell.  But still.  We're worn out.

Thankfully, it was resolved, but seeing blood in his diaper was terrifying. 

Fun Tidbits

We caught Little Buddy playing again with his one time bestie, Elmo Bones!  It made us so happy to see him interacting with it.  His favorite toy now is a Rubik's Cube, and he doesn't seem to like stuffed animals much any more, so seeing him love on Elmo Bones again was so fun.

     

Why hello there old friend!

I knew the rest of the school year was going to pass quickly and I was write!  Next month, we'll have a THIRTEEN year old and be enjoying summer break!

Good night, 

LBM

Little Buddy's Momma