Evaluations: done but not finished

It's Nicky's spring break and he's off to Nana's house for fun in the sun! Tom drove him there today, and he'll pick him up next weekend. At least that's the plan. Last time he tried staying over at Nana's he made it about two days or so and then Tom went to get him in the middle of the night. But he's five now, so hopefully this will work out to be a fun week for them both.

The girls had their evaluation Friday. They performed for the four ladies who came over. And by the end I think everyone was in love with them. They did think that they need a physical therapy evaluation due to low tone in their torsos, and asymmetry in their fine motor and gross motor. Basically they both have better pincer grasps on their left hands and Gabi really uses her right foot and leg much more when moving around. Gabi was more in need of the PT evaluation, but since she's going, we'll have Lily evaluated too since she's also showing low tone and asymmetry.

Of course they continue to make huge strides every day, so who knows what they might be able to do by the time they're evaluated! Gabi is now pulling up reliably on the sofa, toy box, shelves, etc. And she can sit very well too. Lily can finally sit, but not quite as well as Gabi. Lily can cruise a little bit, but Gabi can't yet. Really they're both doing great, and always progressing, so we're not really concerned exactly. But they were behind enough in gross and fine motor to qualify for services.

Nicky had his 5 year checkup Friday afternoon. He had three shots and it took two nurses and myself to hold him down for them. He's a lot stronger than he used to be! I think if Tom had been there he would have been braver, but since it was Mommy he really let loose. Of course he was fine immediately after. They also did a finger stick for hemoglobin testing. He's all vaccinated and his iron is fabulous! We did get the pleasure of collecting urine for the first time too. That was fun. I had to ply him with about 3-4 glasses of water to get him to go. But we finally finished up. Oh, and a hearing test too that came out fine. We'd been concerned since his eval Monday showed there might be an issue. But he checked out ok on Friday.

But there are two referrals we're getting for him. One for a psychologist to discuss his attention and focus issues, and one to a surgeon.

Scary huh. Well don't give me ANY crap about this, but it appears he has phimosis and is going to probably require surgery (circumcision). I'm having plenty of mommy-guilt all on my own here. So saying 'I told you so' is NOT going to help anybody. We knew this was a small risk of not circumcising him at birth, but actually I think we did make the best decision we could at the time. It sucks to have to do it now, but he's five and it really doesn't seem to be loosening up at all. For anyone trying to make the circumcision decision for their baby, know this is NOT common. We might have suspected since theoretically Tom had it as an infant, but really, we weren't convinced he'd had it either since it was noted on the hospital papers from when he was born. Really, that's a bit early to make that kind of diagnosis.

So anyway, yeah probably looking at surgery this summer. He doesn't know yet, and we haven't exactly figured out how to have that conversation. The last thing I want to do is give him a complex about something being wrong with that body part.

As for the psychologist, well we suspect ADD. Not really ADHD, but just ADD. I don't anticipate medicating him at this age, but if we can get the diagnosis(if that is what we're facing) then we can get a 504 plan for him at school which will make sure he has accommodations for things like testing. Going into school I think that is important. So we'll see what the school system evaluation says on Monday, and then what the psychologist says. The initial feel from the assessment Monday was that his learning isn't really being affected by his focus/attention issues, but his expression or relating what he HAS learned really is. A section 504 plan would help him to have accommodations to mitigate that.

So that's the past week in a nutshell. Tom will have it relatively easy this week if Nicky makes it through the week at Nana's. Just two to watch! To most that would still be overwhelming, but really it'll probably feel like quite a break for Tom. I swear, I don't know how he does it! He's really the most amazing dad ever.