Month: April 2010

Busy, Busy Brooke!

 A lot has been going on for my little Munch!

Daycare transition is going awesome!!  They love her, she seems to be having fun, she’s napping 2+ hours every day (I want their secret!).  So far this week, she read a book about manners, played outside, sang songs during circle time, learned about colors and on and on….I’ve gotten really great feedback from her teachers.  They’ve told me that she follows directions very well, stands up for herself with the other kids, is bright, and today Ms. Ashley told me she loves her outfits.  And most of her cute new stuff from Grandpa & Grandma Marshall & Kasey was in the wash!!

We had a speech therapy evaluation on Tuesday.  While she’s very good a receptive & cognative language skills, her expressive language is a little lacking.  Miss Judy evaluated her and was very impressed with how bright she is (see, we’re not the only ones who think so!) and her problem solving skills.  I talked to her today and she does recommend therapy for a little while but thinks Brooke just needs a little boost.  We think her new, more interactive environment at school will do wonders and we’ve already seen improvement.  We’ve added “Baby” and “Bottle” to our vocabulary this week!!

The TOT Collar for her tort is doing its job apparently.  Miss Mike, her physical therapist, told Keith yesterday that she like what she sees already and to keep at it!  Brooke is still tolerating her “collar time” at home really well and still runs up to me and sits down when I tell her its time to put on her “necklace”.  Hopefully we’ll only need it a little while longer.

We’re looking foward to the UH Spring Game tomorrow. Cheerleader Brooke will be yelling and jumping all over rooting for her Coogs!!!
Cheerleader Brooke

A brand new day…care!

After some deliberation, we enrolled Brooke in a new daycare last week.  We had been discussing the prospect of finding somewhere new for awhile and would casually search the internet for other places & reviews.  Keith came across this new daycare so we decided to go ahead and check it out.  We liked what we saw and only a few hours later we were giving our deposit!

That afternoon I picked Brooke up from her current daycare a little early and we stopped by the new one to meet her new teacher and let her check it out.  In no time she was finding toys to play with and even joined in when it was time for everyone to clean up!

Today was her first day at the new daycare.   The teachers were very excited to meet the “new girl” and the teacher for the 4 year olds couldn’t get enough of her chubby cheeks!!  She was a little hesitant at first but once the cook brought breakfast to her table and put a plate in front of her, she pretty much lost interest in me!!  Yay for no tears!!

I’m excited to hear about the rest of her first day!!

Like a cool new necklace

When Brooke was about 2 months old we started physical therapy for a condition called torticollis.  Since then we’ve had X-rays, CT scans, visits to a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon & pediatric ophthalmologist to determine that her tort is congenital and not the result of bone abnormalities or vision issues.  The physical therapy has shown us great results but she still has a stubborn 5° tilt. 

Tilt Compare

So our next step is using a TOT collar.  Since Brooke seems to be physically able to hold her head midline, her physical therapist believes that she may hold her head tilted out of habit.  Tilted is normal to her.  Hopefully this collar will “re-train” her to keep her head midline on her own!

She was fitted for her collar yesterday and when she came out with her physical therapist, she strutted out like she had just been given the prettiest new necklace and wanted to show it off!!  No signs that it bothered her at all.  We had our first go with it at home last night and I fortunately had good results.  She ate a snack, played and hardly seemed to notice it at all.

TOT Collage

It’s hard to see my baby wearing it but I’m so relieved that she’s adjusting to it so well!