Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Episode 6: Eli's Birthday

IN A GALAXY NOT SO FAR AWAY, ON THE DAY OF APRIL 16, IN THE YEAR 2003, A BABY BOY WAS BORN. FROM THE BEGINNING HIS ENERGY DREW THE ATTENTION OF THE JEDI COUNCIL, WHO NAMED HIM ELI. THEY KNEW HE WAS THE ONE. IN THE 6 YEARS THAT FOLLOWED HIS BIRTH, YOUNG ELI HAS BEEN LEARNING THE POWERS OF THE FORCE.

RECENTLY THOUGH, THE JEDI KNIGHTS HAVE FELT A STRONG DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE. A DISTURBANCE GENERATED BY THE DARKSIDE. MANY JEDI KNIGHTS HAVE BEEN LOST. THE VERY FUTURE OF THE JEDI ORDER IS NOW IN JEOPARDY.

THE JEDI COUNCIL HAS CALLED UPON YOUNG PADAWAN ELI TO SEEK OUT FUTURE JEDI. PADAWAN ELI AND SEVERAL OTHER YOUNG PADAWANS WERE PRESENT ON SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 2009 TO ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE OF JEDI TRAINING.
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.

Young Padawan Eli waiting on his Jedi Training.
For those who aren't up on their Star Wars lingo, a padawan is a Jedi in training.

The Padawans that accepted the Jedi Training challenge.

Obi-Wan Kenobi instructs the Padawans.


Darth Vader showed up to spoil the Jedi Training.

Obi-Wan and Darth Vader in a lightsaber duel.

The Padawans pose for a picture with Obi-Wan and Darth Vader.


I had several mishaps with this cake. It isn't anywhere near what I had wanted it to look like. All Eli really wanted on the cake was the action figures on top. He really wanted a LOT more action figures (like 12) on the cake but that idea was vetoed. But I guess the looks of the cake didn't affect the taste because there wasn't any cake left.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

An Update of the Dickey boys

SETH
Seth had his ECI comprehensive evaluation and a doctor's appointment to recheck his ears. The ECI evaluation went well. Sallie Justiss, the Early Intervention Specialist, and Debora Mears, an RN with ECI came out and evaluated Seth using DAYC (Developmental Assessment of Young Children) assessment. Through this screening they were able to determined at what age of development Seth was performing at in the different areas of development. Here is Seth's results as compared to where he should be as a 13 month old.

Developmental Skill - Age Level
Cognitive - 11 months
Communication - 12 months
Social-Emotional - 14 months
Physical - 7 months
Adaptive Behavior - 10 months

So as you can see, he is pretty much on target in all of his development except his physical development. Since he was more then three months behind in his physical development, he qualifies for services from ECI.

Our plan of action for Seth is for Sallie to come out once a month and work with him. She will play with him and try to get him to do new things. She will also instruct me on how to help him develop with games and activities. They even showed me today some things to do with him to help with his balance and to get him to start alternating his hands while crawling.

Once the physical therapist comes out and evaluates Seth, he may also have physical therapy. Hopefully in a week or two we will know if physical therapy will be necessary. I believe that both Debora and Sallie think he is borderline on needing physical therapy. Seth favors his right side more than the left. When he army crawls, he leads with the right hand and leg and drags the left, which could lead to an imbalance in muscle tone. But they were pleased to see that he will pivot to the left and right when crawling.

Right after the ladies left the house, we loaded up and headed to Pittsburg to see Dr. Delisi and to get our third Rocephin shot. After Dr. Delisi took a look at Seth, my mother's intuition was confirmed. He still has infected ears. :( His lungs sounded better which was great to hear. Dr. Delisi's plan of action now is to have him free of antibiotics for one week and come back in to see how his ears look. He also instructed me to spray saline solution up his nose more than I have been. He actually mentioned me doing it 5 -6 times a day to help get the drainage out. Since Seth is so young, there isn't a decongestant that is effective to help relieve the drainage. Right now Dr. Delisi isn't ready to refer Seth to an ENT because this is his first ear infection. It is just a stubborn first ear infection. Usually they wait until the 5th or 6th ear infection before they refer to an ENT. But if the ears are still infected on Wednesday, I am afraid we will be headed to an ENT for tubes.

Please pray that Seth will be able to get rid of his ear infection soon and that we can stay clear of having to have tubes.

LUKE
A few posts ago, I reported that the Farmer's Almanac had the best days to potty train. Well I am here to report that it is all a bunch of HOG WASH. For April, it says the best day to potty train is the 10th and the 20th. It is a bunch of Hog Wash because to day is April 2, and I consider Luke POTTY TRAINED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH LUKE!!!

He will go sit on his potty chair when the urge hits and then call us in to show us our surprise. We have to guess what the surprise is every time!

The other day, he told me that he had to go tee tee. He went to the bathroom and I hear "Mommy, I have a surprise for you!" I go in there and he gets up and shows me that he did #2. We had to admire the #2 and we even counted how many were in there! After the count was over, he said that he needed to tee tee. He was so excited to find out that you could tee tee and poo poo at the same time!

He still has accidents though. It want be long though before those are few and far between. We still put a diaper on him at night. Some nights he is good at holding it until the morning. And then some nights not so good. But I am just excited that he has thrown diapers away during the day! Way to go Luke!

ELI
There really isn't any big developments with Eli, other than him about to turn 6 and getting excited about his Star Wars: The Clone Wars party.

I am taking Eli to a pediatric dentist tomorrow. I took the boys to a local community college dental hygiene clinic a couple of weeks ago to have their teeth cleaned. They found several problems with Eli's teeth. Bless his heart, he inherited his dad's small mouth and my cavity prone teeth. Not a good combination at all. From the way it sounds, we will be paying for the children of our dentist to go to college!