Julia’s week started out with at trip the hospital to have her tongue clipped. Emily went to play at a friend’s house so Julia had the attention of both her parents. Julia was unsure of everything that she saw, not surprising for one of our cautious girls. She did warm up after she got used to seeing people in hats. They gave her “silly juice” to help her with saying good-bye to Mommy and Daddy and to make her memories foggy of the time. Julia disliked the effects of the silly juice. She kept trying to control things that she couldn’t control. She ended up being pretty upset over it. She refused to wear her gown and kept pulling at it until we just took it off. While she couldn’t control much, at least we could grant her control over the wearing of the gown. When it was her turn she went back with a few tears, but then that was expected too. The procedure was very quick and the doctor felt that she would be feeling back to normal in 2-3 days. She had a few stitches that would need to heal and would have some swelling. When we got to go back to see her after the procedure she was upset. She had woken and not found a face she knew. They had rockers in recovery and we got to rock and cuddle for a while. She only threw up once while we were there, and after she had settled and was back in her jammies, we were released to go home. She fought a nap most of the way home, but gave in and took a great nap. The rest of the day she was a little off because of the medications, but by the next day she was running around like usual.

Then, today we went for Julia’s speech assessment. Julia liked the idea of playing games, but got tired of the ‘performance’ aspect of the assessment. With a little bribery she got thru it, although it took the whole time. The general assessment of her speech is that she is pretty far behind. The therapist said that the fact that she doesn’t say the middle and ending sounds of words is a tough thing for them to learn if they don’t start off saying them. It is like she is missing association of the rest of the sound to the word. She said it will take lots of repetition and practice of making sounds that she doesn’t already make. Although on a good note, she seemed very bright and would be able to learn them. It will take a few weeks for us to get a set therapy schedule, but looking forward to seeing Julia be challenged and grow in this area.