Saturday, October 16, 2010

Well, it has been a good long time since my last update. Lily's little sister Meadow was born and is now 7 months old, and Lily just turned 4 years old two days ago! First I wanted to update on my last zinc suppliment comments. Lily was taking Zinc Picolinate (I have no idea what that is exactly) but Lily's response was to the picolinate, not the zinc. We switched her to regular zinc and the changes have been even more astounding.

Lily has had a hard time adjusting to being a big sister. At first she didn't seem to mind, it felt to me that Lily considered her an accessory. THEN reality set in. Lily was a handful for a number of months. Getting into EVERYTHING and making a mess everywhere she went. She didn't want to listen and even went through a period of time where she actually ignored me completely and wouldn't look at me. It wasn't as though she wasn't getting enough attention, it was that she was not getting ALL the attention...which I suppose is pretty normal for most any sibling. She didn't want to have anything at all to do with Meadow and refused to even look at her almost at all.

Recently she has done so much better. She has been listening better and is so much farther down her road to recovery! Basically her main obstacle is her auditory processing. She still has some difficulty understanding some questions and her self expression is a continued struggle for her...but she is doing so wonderfully. She talks in full appropriate sentences about 80% of the time and the other 20% is coming along. She has picked up so many different phrases and uses them so appropriately (she is our little comedian as well, always making us laugh). She LOVES school this year and can finally enjoy a lot of her day instead of struggling over simple things. Lily is now potty-trained!! I never thought that day would come but about a week after school started this year she transitioned to underwear 100% of the time! Woohoo!!

Lily is following direction and I can't say enough positive things. I still make her a bottle everyday, since that is the only way I can get her to drink all of her nasty suppliments (mixed with infant formula still...yuck!). I left her room to make it and a few minutes later she yells from her room, "Hey mom! You got that bottle yet?!" Last week Lily asked her daddy for a snack. She said how about popcorn? Daddy said no. She said, how about cookies? Daddy said no. She said, how about an icecream sandwhich? Daddy said, "Lily, are you hungry?" She looked at him and said, "you think?" LOL. She also put herself in her own timeout after getting busted for something she knew she shouldn't be doing. She went and sat down and said, "I'm in a big timeout."

Lily now introduces herself and has to make friends with everyone. While we were at the pool she decided to go over and talk to a group of teenagers, AGAIN. As I went over to relieve them, I heard her say, "my name is Lily....your name isssss???" Then she introduced me to them by saying their name and then saying, "this is my friend Mommy". SOO cute. I went over there another time and she turns to me and says, "mommy, say helloooo to the guys!"
She has been asking tons of questions, but she hasn't been asking "why" questions yet. The time will come soon enough and it will be bittersweet for sure, lol.