Joey Graduates Preschool and Other Stuff

Joey and Gramma Phyllis graduated from Preschool last week. This is no small feat! After attending one day per week from October to June the progress Joey has made is astounding. His initial fear of other children has all but vanished, he finds other kids interesting rather than scary and can be left on his own for periods of time to explore and be independent.

None of this would have been possible without Gramma...she attended faihfully every week, and it was A LOT of work. The school is in a church basement with stairs...lots of stairs, and Gramma was solely responsible for Joey's mobility so it involved a lot of carrying. Joey's needs are too great for him to attend this preschool without assistance, so without Gramma Joey would have missed out on this amazing opportunity because the funding for mediators has been both cut and frozen, we could not have afforded to pay someone $15 an hour all year to accompany Joey. So a big THANK YOU to Gramma, we couldn't have done it without you!

Here's Joey with Gramma coming down the "red carpet" to get his diploma:

Joey and Gramma accepting the diploma from his teacher, the wonderful Mrs. V.

Joey and Gramma sitting proudly with the rest of Joey's class

Joey and his classmates. He's the second from the left in the front row. That's right, the one who is much more interested in his neighbour that anything else :)


Next year Joey will be attending a different preschool in preparation for the transiti0n to junior kindergarten in September of 2010. This new school feels they can handle Joey without a mediator, which is the next big step. Gramma is going to attend with him for the first few weeks as I'll be busy with a newborn but the goal is that by October we will be dropping Joey off and picking him up, not staying with him throughout the class. I know he can do it and I'm so excited for him to experience this independence from family members, a HUGE step!


In other news:

At the beginning on June Jason and I took what will likely be our last trip to Vegas in a loooooong time.

In all the times we've been to Vegas (6 for me, 5 for Jason) we've never actually had our picture taken with the sign.



Jason in heaven...Star Trek slot machines!!!



The friendliest slots in Vegas, the progressive Elvis slots. They move around Vegas from casino to casino, we actually had to research where they were before we left. We found them safe and sound at Planet Hollywood. The progressive hasn't been paid out since 2006 and I thought for sure it was waiting for us, but no such luck.

I was so excited to be in Vegas during their extremely hot weather so I could use the pools, but this is the crowd we encountered. Even thought he pool "complex" was huge, it was wall to wall people like this everywhere.

Ahhhh, the best sign to see when on vacation. I love visitng the US but am always so happy to be returning to the best country in the world.

And last but not least, on to Joey's latest discovery..."singing". It's very cute, but very loud and once he starts he goes on, and on, and on.... Here's just a sample. I warn you, turn your volume down :)

Ouch!

Poor kid can't catch a break. On Sunday night Joey was bitten by a mosquito at the outer tip of his eyebrow. All seemed normal until Monday night when it started to swell, and this is what he looked like when he woke up on Tuesday morning:

Other than some rubbing he didn't seem that bothered by it, but the delayed reaction caused us some concern. So Tuesday morning we went to see the nurse practitioner and the doctor and after a thorough examination we decided to take a wait and see approach, as our clinic tries to be as medication-free as possible. Just a dose of Advil to bring down the heat and swelling and we were on our way.

He's definitely looking better today, though it's not completely gone. We have been told it could take up to a week for it to resolve completely! Next week is nursery school graduation so I'm hoping it's gone by then...

- P, J & J

New Pictures

Not much to update... Joey's little brother is developing well, everything seems to be stable right now. Our last visit to Mount Sinai on the 3rd was very quick...Dr. R said he is comfortable that we've done all of the investigations possible and everything appears to be normal at this point, short of doing an amnio we've pretty much done everything we can. I go back one more time to meet with him in 2 weeks, and then another specialist on July 15th (she specializes in liver problems during pregnancy) and if all goes well he is happy to have me followed by our regular OB and deliver locally, which is great news! I'm still marginally itchy but the medication seems to be doing its job. I know I'm not out of the woods yet, my third trimester starts at the beginning of July and I expect it to get worse then.

Joey is doing very well. Still no huge progress towards walking but we're trying to be patient and celebrate the little things. Today we went to visit Papa Roy and play with the little toy tractor Joey's nursery school has lent us over the summer. Jason and I had never seen him on it before and were so pleasantly surprised at how well he balances and moves on it:

Yesterday was his nursery school's year-end picnic, we found some cool equipment on the playground that he really enjoyed, especially this little flower that spins:

Hugs from Mommy on the teeter-totter:

Nursery school comes to an end in 2 weeks, so Gramma gets a break over the summer. Tomorrow we're touring a different nursery school that may be better able to accommodate Joey in the fall, though I will be very sad if we have to leave the one he's at, they've been so great to us.

- P, J & J