Future's so Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

I know I haven't written in a while so I will try to be better about that.  It is not easy working full time with 2 kids and a hubby that works nights.  By the time they are in bed, I am about to pass out myself!

Today was a pretty big day for the Yarbrough family.  Lennon had her first appointment at the developmental clinic.  I was a nervous wreck.  I know she is doing great considering where she started, but any time your child is getting assessed by professionals, it is terrifying!  I was scared that my radar was off and that they were going to come back and tell me something was up either with her physically or developmentally.  I was scared because I am not used to being on this side of the assessments.

When we arrived at the clinic, there was the typical paperwork; consents, privacy papers, yada yada yada.  They also had me fill out a medical background form for her and her family.  Then the nurse called us back and asked the same questions.  The thing that irks me is that they had all the paperwork from the special care nursery.  It is not like I was going to give them any new information.  But, I filled it all out.  Redundancy at its finest.

One sweet thing was that the nurses were arguing over who got to take care of Lennon.  It was nice to see that.  The nurses kept talking about how sweet she looked and how cute she is.  I have to agree if I do say so myself!  I just told them that I will have to remember all that they said when I was bouncing on the ball to get her to sleep :-)

The developmental specialist was the first to come in.  She was so sweet!  She played with Lennon and asked me a few questions about Lennon's abilities.  She was surprised to see how wonderful her head control is and how close she is to sitting up without support.  She was amazed at how expressive she is.  Lennon of course ate all this attention up!  She put on a good show for the specialist.

The Developmental Neurologist came in to talk to me about how she is progressing physically.  She is gaining weight, head circumference, and height wonderfully.  She wants to see a bit more weight put on, but lets be honest, is anyone really surprised by that??  She said it was good to see that her nutrition appears to be going to support her brain development.

The neurologist shared with me that Big Wake will be putting in rooms in their NICU to encourage parents to stay overnights.  That would have been awesome when Lennon was still at Rex.  I told her about how Lennon had trouble bottle feeding and how that would have been awesome to be able to stay over and nurse at every feeding.  She said that is one of the main reason she fought for that.

The specialists both agreed that Lennon is meeting or exceeding all expectations at this point.  They do not want to see her for another year unless something drastic changes!  We go back in a year to complete the Bailey Developmental Assessment.

Oh, and we have officially broken into the double digits!  She is 10lbs, 4 oz and 23 inches long!  Grow baby, Grow!!