tasha & big red school

This has been a crazy week! It's been a lot of fun, but we had a lot going on. So, I'll start at the beginning.

MONDAY-- Justin started his new job at Earnhart + Friends. He has been enjoying the work and positive reinforcement so far. We can already tell a difference in his general spirits! As Justin headed to work, the rest of us headed to Nashville. Owen is taking part in a baby sibling study at Vanderbilt for siblings of kids with ASD. So Lewis spent some time with some friends while Owen did research. Owen seemed to enjoy every minute of his assessment. He got to play with all kinds of toys and interact with some really nice people at Vandy.

Meanwhile, my friend, Tasha, was flying in from North Carolina for a visit. Lewis got to help pick her up at the airport with Heather, Val jr. and Annabella Morozov. We had fun hanging out in Nashville for the rest of the day and then we got to bring Tasha back to Bowling Green for the night.

Heather, Tasha and I.


Val and Lewis (Lewis loves their cool toys, esp. this house).


Val and Owen.


I missed Annabella somehow, and she is certainly photogenic! Oh well, onto the next day.

TUESDAY--Lewis has his first day at the Big Red School. This is a preschool on WKU's campus that generally has classes of half typically developing kids and half with developmental delays or issues. They have a number of students helping this summer who are training to become speech therapists or other kinds of developmental therapists. Lewis seemed to have a lot of fun once he got over the fact that I had to go (which only took about a minute).

Here's Lewis ready for school.


And a picture of him working with a girl from the parents' observation room.


Immediately after Big Red School, Lewis had speech clinic with his therapist, Katie. She is doing a great job! Lewis really loves her and she has the perfect personality for him. We are really happy to have her for the month of July. He's saying all kinds of words now too, or at least trying to say them. Some words are really clear, and others are impossible to interpret. But all in all he making great progress. For Katie he has said the words: count, playdoh, car, bubble, ball, bye bye, icky (he really mastered this one!), me (labeling a picture of himself), music, mom (though I never hear this one!) and many others. At home he is saying some interesting words/phrases like: alright, go in, in the house (in how), Owen eat, and his favorite--ready, set, go! Here's Lewis with Katie (again from the observation room).


We had lunch with Tasha after that, and more time with her in the afternoon before taking her back to Nashville to complete her visit. As always, it was really fun to catch up with her and we welcome any time she is able to spare from her seminary and ministry schedule.


The rest of the week was our typical therapy schedule plus a couple other random appointment. We had more free time on Friday and Saturday. Some male bonding took place at the piano at some point. They all seem to love gathering around it which would have made my mom thrilled. She seemed to always have dreams of our family singing around the piano that never quite happened! But so far our boys really love it, and Justin's playing is good enough to keep the angriest toddler entertained, which is a big asset in the evening.

Otherwise, we can report that Owen has been sitting up on his own (getting himself into a sitting position) when waking up from his naps or in the morning. I often find him sitting in his crib now, which makes me so happy. He mostly still crawls where he wants to go and so far has not moved to sitting while playing on his belly during the day. So it is nice to know he CAN do it.

We've had fun this weekend too, but we'll have to save that for another post!