Isabelle Bentley

Early intervention did Izzie's yearly evaluation and she was found not qualifying for services for 3 out of the 5 areas. Her scores in the 3 were on the lower end but if she was a typical kiddo, she wouldn't qualify for those 3 areas. Kind of cool. I will get the scores and report back next week. Last year she only didn't qualify for 1 area. 

We celebrated this awesome girl's 2nd birthday today. 

Isabelle is saying roughly 15 words: apple, tickle, cheese, up, down, yeah, hi, bye, mama, dada, Jack, Izzie, all done, yum, star and dance.  She is also trying to imitate different words and sounds such as "sh", animal noises (moo, baaa), E-I-E-I-O. She also tries to fill in the end of songs. So if you say "twinkle, twinkle, little" and then pauses, she will try to say the end word. She does this for itsy bitsy spider too.

Isabelle is trying so hard to use a spoon.

Jack is Buzz Lightyear and Isabelle is Belle.  Scott is Woody and I was also Belle. We went to a neighborhood in Sutton where 3 of my coworkers live. Like 500 kids were out. Crazy.

Isabelle's 10th tooth is in! Bottom left lateral incisor. 

Look who's climbing stairs!

Look who the mdsc made their banner of their facebook page in support of Scott raising money for the hockey game !

Bottom left molar came in - tooth #9.

Isabelle's speech is improving. She says the word "hi" and "all done". But she's trying to say other words SO HARD. If you leave off the last word of "Itsy bitsy spider" lines and "twinkle twinkle" lines she will try to say the missing word. It's wicked cute.  She also tried to imitate small words like "up", "down", "Jack" and "Izzie.  She's starting to randomly sign "eat" and "more" and "milk" and "all done". Also when you sing certain songs she tried to do signs like "spider" and "star".  She follows directions like "come here" and "stand up" and "give me that". 

Izzie's 8th tooth came in. Bottom right molar. It's just broken through though so it'll take time to pop up fully.

The kids went to their first Red Sox game tonight. It was Down Syndrome awareness night. We ordered memorial signs for papa and great grandpa. We also got to go in the WEEI broadcast booth - very cool!

Where did my baby go???

Tooth #7 came in! Top right.

Isabelle's anywhere chair from pottery barn came in!

Izzie was finally able to climb onto Jack's chair.  She can also get down. She's VERY proud of herself.  BTW - I just ordered her chain so she can climb into that. 

The buddy walk was sooo much fun! We raised $5845 so we got a tent with our team name on it. The overall event raised over $87,000. We had 17 walkers on our team including Aunt Crystal & Uncle CJ. Crystal raised $1300!! Anyone who raised over $500 got an all-star sign.  We were the #3 top fundraising team.

Isabelle's 6th tooth popped through. Bottom left next to the one that already came in.

Getting closer & closer to walking! She'll even walk holding only 1 hand.

Isabelle's newest word is "all done" which she pronounces "ee dah". You might be thinking - how is that close? So, first, I am not sure it IS a word.  There are two kinds of words kids say: things they repeat but don't know the meaning of (imitation) and words they know the meaning for. I am 100% confident she is repeating it. I know it doesn't sound like "all done" but when Jack first said all done it was "ah dah". When I say "all done" she ALWAYS says "ee dah". And 90% of the time she has the same hand motion for it. Now, she doesn't necessarily say it when she's done doing something means it's likely imitation but she does sometimes. It's mixed. As long as a kid is saying something consistently - it doesn't matter how close it is to the actual word. Same with signing.  She follows directions really well too. 

Isabelle got her 4th tooth! Top left!

Walmart is letting us fundraiser outside o August 27 from roughly 8a-4p. We'll be outside the pharmacy entrance. Looking for people to sign up in 2 hr shifts if possible. ALl the money raised will be donated to MDSC for team Isabelle. 

We are having a fundraiser at UNOS in Millbury on September 6 & 7. If you come in and bring this ticket/coupon or tell them you're there for this fundraiser, they will donate up to 20% of the bill to the MDSC buddy walk in honor of Team Isabelle. 

Isabelle started a new playgroup today at Kennedy Donovan Center. She will be bused from daycare to there once a week for 2 hours and has a 1:1 aide. 

Isabelle and Jackson have now been to the same number of states: 16, plus D.C. Maine was the last state she needed to catch up.  We stayed in wells, ME at Carriage House Motel Cottages  & Suites. They had a playground, shuffleboard, a pool and a hot tub. Pretty cool. We first hit at the York's Wild Kingdom. Jack won his first stuffed animal plying the game where you shoot water into the hole. He had fun.   Jack played mini golf for the first time.  He loved the donuts at Congdons. We still found time to hit up the home depot thing where Jack made a truck.  And of course we went to the Trolley Museum. Jack now loves trains - we bought him a train table & set.   We chose to try Old Orchard Beach. It was Izzie's first time in the Atlantic.   And finally we walked along the Marginal Way. Gorgeous. 

Izzie got her orthotics today! They were specially molded to her feet in June.