The first case of H1N1 was confirmed in the 3 year old room at Nina's school.
The school followed all the CDC's guidelines and the school is all bleached up.
Nina got a flu shot last month and not sure about the H1N1 yet. It's not even available to us at this time.

It's been 5 months since baby boy died and it's not getting any easier for me. I cannot be happy for friends, relatives, people in Gymboree class, people on the street or in my neighborhood (anybody really) who are pregnant or have babies under 5 months old. Baby envy...jealous rage... whatever you wanna call it...I have it, and I don't care.
This experience has changed me and I am not sure if I can change back.

Services

We had OT come out to the house this week.. the lady did not have her scoring papers (coming to my house was a last min thing so she was not 100% prepared) so she is coming back in a couple weeks...
Said that it's not strength that's a problem for Nina, it's body awareness(whatever the heck that means for a 2 year old) So hopefully we'll get it all figured out when OT comes back.

In other news Nina is going well in school. She's just painfully shy and the teachers tell us she does not really hang with the other kids, they are trying to break her out of her shell.
When she comes home though she tells me about her friends and is happy with life.

Yesterday at the park I met a nice young couple with a 3 year old boy. The boy took an interest in Nina so the parents took an interest in me. The woman was 38 weeks prego which still slaps me in the face...I, of course, did not bring up baby boy... I never bring up baby boy...they is really no mainstream conversation starter about deadbabies. I can talk about Nina being 1 pound and in the hospital for 102 days and yada yada yada but I really do not tell strangers about her sisters...
Maybe I should...maybe I just save it for theapy...
Anyway we got talking about Nina being 1 pound and blah blah blah...told them about her PT and OT...they just keep telling me how good she looked and she'll catch up right??? What does that even mean anymore?

updates

So 2 months ago Nina was evaluated by Early Intervention and they closed the book on her. Then she was evaluated by NICU followup program and they did not agree with the Gross Motor Eval so Nina started PT yesterday. We love the therapist(she is the same one we had last year)
She told me much of Nina's issues come from lack of strength. So we really need to work her out and get her legs and arms and core stronger. Nina at this point cannot really use her legs to push a little push toy... She also wants us to get a mini trampoline...

The more I spoke to the Therapist, the more it became apparent that Nina is weak in her hands too...So I emailed the EI coordinator last night to request a do over for OT to see if she qualifies. I think she needs to be 25% delayed. I do think the EI eval from July was crap and they overlooked a lot of Nina's delays and just wanted to say that a 24 weeker had no delays.

Now don't get me wrong, we all think Nina is doing AWESOME! She is a sassy, bright kid who talks NON STOP! She is happy and pleasant and does well is school. I, like all mothers, want the best for their child. I want her to have any or all services that she requires.
We have been told time and time again that we are fortunate that way Nina turned out. I get that, and I am grateful that she is doing so great. I had 4 kids and she is my survivor in more ways than one.

So that's my update in a nutshell. All I can say to you guys is that if get an evaluation and still think something is not right, ask for a do over. We did not for the Gross Motor...Thankfully the NICU follow up program spoke up and said No Way, she needs some help!!!
Always push harder for your kid.

Starting PT again.

Last summer Nina qualified for PT services with Early Intervention and we are finding ourselves back with them. Last month at her EI visit she was age appropriate with everything but gross motor. They told us she has some low tone in her hips... So today she had an evaluation to see how delayed she is. She is performing at only 23 month level (she is 30 months old) so we qualified for PT services. She'll start up this month.

We are not at all surprised that something came up at this eval and are grateful she was delayed enough to get the therapy and training she deserves.

So yep the Preemie Fairy paid us a visit.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

About our girl at 29 months

I am finding myself forgetting lots of Nina stuff as she gets older. I do not keep up with a baby book so this is what we have for memory sake.

Favorite TV show: Yo Gabba Gabba (hands down)
Fav book: Currently Bear Snores On and Good night Philadelphia

Items she sleeps with in crib: Glowworm, big baby, little baby, dolly, baby elmo, elmo, foofa, little blanket, big blanket, cookie monster... we go over each of them before she goes to bed.

Fav meal: chicken and fries. Last night I tried to give her BBQ Chicken and she screamed NO I WANT MY CHICKEN! (which of course is frozen chicken nuggets)

Fav toy: little people stuff

Friends Ava, Lilah, Bobby ,Hannah, Emma and Matthew, Gianna, Adelina, Baby Lucia, Max

Fav activities: tap dancing and playing babydolls (feeding and putting them on the potty and to bed) being chased around, singing songs. We make up silly songs a lot.

What makes her laugh: silly faces, tickles under her neck, playing in the 'big bed' with us.

What makes her cry: time out for hitting, being told No, Getting her hair washed

Nina has quite the sense of humor. She loves to call us other names.
She called Jason "Uncle Daddy" and will call me by the cat's name. She also talks in different voices to be silly. She just laughs all the time.

Neonatal Follow-up Updates

I always try to remember to update the blog about developmental and physical evals b/c when Nina was a baby I sought them out on other blogs like a madwoman:)

Last week we went in for Nina's 24 month(adjusted) Neo-natal follow up evaluation.

Early Intervention stops adjusting for prematurity after 2 years, but the follow-up programs adjusts until 3 years old. So this visit was based on Nina at 24 months old adjusted.

Stats:
26.8 pounds (80%) (gained 1 pound in 6 months)
32 3/8 length (30%) (grew a little over 2 inches in 6 months)
18 3/4 head (50%)

Development: her language and cognitive skills are well above normal. They had her do most of the stuff I mentioned in my EI post.

Her gross motor skills were slightly immature-they said she had mild low muscle tone and want a PT eval (which we just had with EI, so I called for a do-over from the County)
They want her to be able to jump from the last step to the floor. I thought she was just a cautious kid...and she needs to work on walking up the steps without using our hand so much for support. I thought she had trouble with the steps b/c she's a bit tiny.

Maybe if I had her tap dance for them.....

C'est la vie....

I guess we'll know more after she gets a through PT eval next month.

Nina is missing one canine tooth which is bizarre to me. She has 17 teeth in right now. Her molars have not come in which is fine, but the one canine missing is weird. Hopefully it's just super late and will erupt someday. If not, I hope there's an adult tooth up there. Nothing I can do about it, but get an x-ray, and I chose not to put her through that.

So in all, she's doing great. Dr said we are lucky given her shit beginnings in the hospital.