18 Months

My girl is 1 1/2 years old! 

Josie is 30 1/4 inches tall and weighs 20lbs 2oz. She is still the smaller sister (by 2 pounds and about 4 inches), but it won't be long before she weighs more than Sophie. Josie is still wearing 12 month clothes, but is starting to outgrow them. It won't be long until she and Sophie are wearing the same clothes.

Josie popped out two teeth this month. Her last molar came in and her bottom right canine came in. Her top right canine looks like it is going to coming soon as well and I know the other two won't be far behind. This poor girl has been teething for so long. I can't wait until she has her full set. 

Josie's hair has been getting so long. Her bangs have been in her face for weeks. I'm not ready to take her for her first haircut yet so I decided to try out a little ponytail. It is so adorable! Whenever we take the rubber band out her hair continues to stay straight up on her head. Hilarious!

Josie is listening so much better. She will stop doing something when we tell her no. She might test her luck and stared us and then try again, but she won't do what we asked her not to. She will also go and get balls if we ask her to. If we ask her to clap her hands or dance she will do that as well.

Josie still isn't walking or even standing on her own. She will stand for a long time while holding onto something, but she isn't brave enough to let go. I've tried tricking her into doing it, but she will lower herself to the floor instead. I can't decide if she is extremely cautious, stubborn or both.

Josie's services with First Steps still haven't started yet. We will see speech for the first time in two days. They still haven't found a physical therapist to work with Josie though, which worries me. I really would like someone to give us ideas to help her with standing and walking. I tried asking our pediatrician about her muscle tone and for tips to help her walk, but he said I should talk to the people about First Steps about that. (I was so frustrated by his lack of help!) Hopefully our service coordinator will find a PT for Josie soon. 

Josie loves sensory play. I've made up a couple different sensory boxes and she really enjoys playing with them. She likes taking beans and throwing them all over the place and running her hands through them. She also likes to take cloud dough and stuff her hands and it. She laughs as she rubs her hands and feet and shaving cream. Her all time favorite sensory activity is playing with water. Nothing makes her happier!

 

The girls love when we get the hose out and make puddles in the driveway. Josie cracks up while she splashes through the puddles and through the stream of the hose. 

Here are some other pictures from this past month:

Josie absolutely loves popcorn!

Josie enjoys flipping through the pages of picture books. She studies the pictures and flips back and forth between the pages and cover. Her favorite books to look through are When Sophie Gets Angry--Really, Really Angry and God Loves You. 

Mornings snuggles with these two are pretty darn wonderful. 

Even though she won't say the names of the people in the photo album, I know that Josie recognizes their faces. She loves looking at it and chews on her favorite pages. 

The girls both love swimming and they get really excited when we fill up the baby pool for them. Josie loves crawling in and out of it and splashing water all over the place. 

Josie wasn't too impressed with the aquarium.

Kaci spent the night with us. It was so great seeing the three of them playing together.

We went to Joe's work to have lunch with him one day. The girls loved getting to see him, and he loved showing them off to his co-workers. 

Josie rode the carousel for the first time. She liked sitting on it before the ride started. She was moving about on it and exclaiming, "Wheeeeee! Yippee!" When the ride started she liked it at first. Then she started to shriek a bit, cry and tried to leap off of the zebra. 

Rachel joined us for one of our zoo trips. We had a lot of fun with her. It is so helpful when we have people go with us, especially when we do things like ride the train. 

Josie's frustrated face. 

My friend Angela was in town and brought her two youngest over for a visit. We tried to get a picture of the 4 together, but Josie and Audrey weren't having it! 

I love that Josie and Sophie are making the exact same face in this picture. 

Josie has become even more interested in Cosmo this month. She gets really excited when she sees her and pats her (when Cosmo allows it, that is). 

A Step in the Right Direction

Josie took a step today! Granted it was just one step, but she did it multiple times. She is getting there!

We keep working hard on trying to help Josie to stand on her own and walk. The longest she has been able to stand on her own is about eight seconds. We generally have to trick her into doing it. As soon as she realizes what she's doing she lowers herself to the floor. She is gaining strength and confidence. She is getting steadier walking while holding onto things. Walking toys and holding her hands have helped. The thing that has been working the best is letting her hold on to the front of our legs and letting her walk forward while we walk backward. She is getting so much better and is even starting to walk while only holding on with one hand. 

Tonight she was leaning up against the ottoman and I held my phone out for her to look out, making sure it was out of her reach so she would have to walk to grab it. She took a step to get to me and then leaned forward so that she could grab my leg. Joe started doing the same thing. We could only get her to take one step before she would either fall or lean forward to grab onto us. It is still progress. I am so proud of my little girl!

First Steps

When one of Josie's pediatrician first suggested that we have Josie evaluated with First Steps, Joe and I were very resistant. Since the doctor didn't really tell us why she thought she should be evaluated, we just assumed that it was because she wasn't walking. Sophie was a late walker, so we figure that Josie will be as well. Still, there were other things that Josie wasn't doing that were starting to concern us. We realized she was pretty behind in some areas. If I am completely honest with myself she seems more like a 12 month old than a 17 month old. She is missing out on quite a few skills. I ended up calling First Steps and setting up a screening. The screening was basically questionnaires, which I hate. I always over think things and end up scoring too hard. After the questionnaires were completed we discovered she is below average in all of the areas they test (communication, cognition, physical, social, emotional/self-help). Oof! Punch to the stomach to hear.

The next step was to have an evaluation. The lady (Sister Sue) that we saw for Josie's screening can to our house for the evaluation. Josie dislikes strangers, so she spent half of the time trying to crawl up onto my shoulder instead of performing the tasks that Sister Sue wanted to see. She did best when I left the room to fill out another questionnaire. After an hour I put Josie to bed and continued talking with Sister Sue. I completed a survey to see if Josie has autism (something that I worried about since it seems like she seems to regress from time to time). After the initial survey she scored an 8, which is a moderate risk for autism. I was then asked follow-up questions (it was in the form of a flow chart). From there her score when down to a 3, which is a mild risk. She still isn't walking or pointing her finger, so those counted against her. Sister Sue said she wasn't worried about autism for her and I agree. That is a weight off of my shoulders. Sister Sue called later that night to give the results of the evaluation. Josie was below average in motor skills and communication (the evaluation brought her up in the other areas, though she is still in the lower average range of those). It wasn't a big surprise to hear as those are the two areas that we had been concerned in.

Since Josie was going to need services in communication and motor skills, we had to meet with Kelly, our service coordinator. She came to our house and asked lots of questions. She had me walk through what a typical day is like for Josie. For each part of the day she asked me what goes well, what Josie struggles with and what we would like to see done differently (if anything). This would help with finding which goals we should focus on and how frequently she should have services. It took about 2 hours to go through all of this. Sophie and Josie were so patient throughout this process; I was so proud of them.

Sister Sue and Kelly both came back to our house a few days later to go through our family service plan. (It was basically like an ARC meeting at school. It was so strange to be on the other side of the table and I have a new found understanding towards the families in these meetings.) Together we created Josie's goals and it was decided that Josie will receive speech services twice a month and PT once a month. I am anxious for these services to begin. I just want Josie to get the help she needs to be a happy, healthy little girl.