Walker Family Blog: January 2010

Hmm whats going on at the Walkers house? Well Rio has been in school for almost 2 months now, getting two weeks off and having a few snow days in there kinda of made it hard to get into the routine but we are doing great with it so far! Rio hasnt been late once! And he LOVES school! Once I get him dressed in the morning and he sees that we are leaving he gets very excited and pushes me towards he door as if hes saying "lets goooooo mom!" Then when we pull up in the parking lot he trows his blanket off his lap and piratically jumps out of his seat the second I unstrap him! Most days i get there in time to watch them sing a few songs before its time to leave, Rio is not using any words yet but the singing portion of his day is by far his favorite! Today when I got there he was bouncing up and down with the biggest smile on his face. Surprisingly when i get there to pick him up hes happy to get his coat and leave with me :) so we have not had to fight dropping him off or picking him up. His classroom has 1 main teacher and one aid per child. They do a lot of typical preschool things they are just guided through every activity by an aid and most of them do not understand every activity but thats ok because exposing them to the activity is a huge part. So Rio loves school is my point! Hes doing wonderful and showing so much improvement every week.
Rio has also started to sit on the potty more and seems to understand when you put him on that he is supposed to pee, and does pee about 90% of the time! He doesnt seem to understand to hold it or to tell someone if he needs to go, i think that is going to be the biggest hurdle in potty training him. It could take a few months it could take a few years no one really knows, its up to Rio.
Both boys had evaluations at childserve (a therapy center in town) and Rio will be going for speech, OT and food therapy every week. Milo will be going for speech, OT and physical therapy. As for physical therapy for Milo they are concerned with how he still sits in a "W" shape with his legs and walks with his feet in most of the time. We are excited to start at the new therapy center but know its going to make us very busy on top of Rio being in school 5 days a week AND a new baby coming soon!
Milo fell a few weeks ago and split his eye brow open on the entertainment stand :( it was on a snow day so we were snowed in and decided it wasnt bad enough to try to get him to the ER. Within a few moments Milo was smiling and back to himself. So we bandaged it up and it healed very well.
The boys also had their yearly physicals and Doc says they are perfect.
Israel is working lots as usual, we are trying to prepare for him to take 1-2 weeks off in march to be home when the baby comes.
Im almost 34 weeks now! Only 6 weeks before baby Atticus is here! Are we ready? ... I think that is a trick question, we could not be more ready as far as having everything for him, but are we ready to handle 3 boys is the real question! Im sure it will take a few months but Atticus will surely fit right in and after a while i wont know what i did with all my free time "back when we only had 2".
We are headed to the Iowa city children's hospital on Feb 8th for Milo's Autism evaluation. We expect him to also be diagnosed with a form of Autism. Our intentions are not to label him but to begin the process with medical insurance and therapy.
OK now on to some random phone pictures that i thought were fun!