Where There is a Stepstool...There is a Way!

The title of this post comes from the fact that Chun Le has become an expert in figuring out how to get to pretty much anything she wants (as long as nobody is looking!). The fascination with the stepstool started off in the kitchen where I would pull up our step ladder alongside the counter for her to watch and "help" me cook and bake. This has become one of her favorite activities. She loves to be in the kitchen making something---anything! Here she in on the kitchen step ladder but not actually cooking in this pose.

Once she found out what a helpful "tool" the step ladder can be for a kid her size she has been found in various locations throughout the house using step ladders and stepstools to get to what she is interested in. This time it was Isaac's CD player.

Sometimes it is to reach balloons that have floated up too high for her to reach their string, other times to get to mommy's makeup. Thankfully, so far, she has been "caught" before any damage has been done but this means that we have to keep an even more watchful eye on our very clever and resourceful two year old!

Rachel celebrated her 7th birthday on February 22nd. We had a family birthday party for her the weekend before and then she chose a good friend to spend the afternoon with celebrating her birthday at the Jump Zone, getting ice cream, and trying on high heels at Target. :)

We have had a few spring like days a couple of weeks ago that allowed us to get out and enjoy the fresh air. Then, this past week, we have passed around a virus. It started with Rachel having a low grade fever and sore throat (not strep) that lasted for about 3-4 days, we had 1 day of good health for everyone, then Isaac had a stomach virus that went from him to me to Rachel over the past 3-4 days...not fun! Chun Le and Phil have thus far escaped this virus and we are sure hoping they will stay healthy. On the day when we were outside playing, we let Chun Le try the Diego bike that Isaac grew out of. She is a daredevil! Our driveway has a decent amount of slope downward from our garage and she accidentally started coasting down toward the street at one point and LOVED it (she ended up in the grass and I was close enough to catch her had she aimed directly for the street). From the time of that "accidental" coast, she decided this was the only way to ride the Diego bike. No more back and forth along the level sidewalk area. So we spent the next 20 minutes letting her coast downhill with me catching her near the end of the driveway. Chun Le is going to be a lot like her big brother Isaac we think in many ways--our two daredevils and crazy dancers. They are both a lot of fun--along with their big sis Rachel.

On the note of Chun Le and Isaac's relationship, had a neat story shared with us a few weeks back. We had Chun Le go in the childcare with Isaac on my mom's mentoring morning at church for the first time in late February. I had talked to Isaac ahead of time about helping her in case she is sad or needs a familiar face (which she needed none of...she did just fine after giving a big hug to me and letting her know that I would be back soon). He did even better than that--when the kids were playing a game where they take turns running to get certain color blocks and it was Chun Le's turn Isaac told all the kids to be sure to cheer for Chun Le! What a great big brother encourager and supporter he is growing into. I was so proud of him for that and glad that the childcare worker shared that story with me.

As far as cleft related progress goes, Chun Le's scar from lip revision surgery seems to be healing nicely. Every once in a while she will get some threads hanging down inside her top lip that are internal stitches working their way out. It does not seem to bother her though. We continue the three times a day lip massage and she has finally in this past week gotten to the point where she willingly allows us to do this and there are no tears from her. We think it definitely has some to do with the area being less and less sore but also she has figured out that this is just now a part of our routine that has to be done. Now I just have to be diligent to apply sunscreen everytime we leave the house as the days are getting brighter and warmer and we will be outside a whole lot more. The doctor wants us to keep reapplying sunscreen to her upper lip scar area every 1.5 hours when we are outside--got to develop a new habit of doing this!!! The less sun exposure the more invisible her scar will be once it is at its completion of healing. We also started speech therapy since I last blogged. Early intervention program of IL sends a speech therapist to our home two days a week (when there is no sickness in the home) for 1 hour sessions. Amy is our therapist and she has only come 3 times so far since we had to cancel both sessions last week due to sicknesses. We are working on Chun Le making the "mmmmmm" sound by keeping her lips closed tightly together. This is more difficult than you might think for a little girl who just recently got her lips repaired so that they can now come together! There are so many sounds that we can't do much with yet until her palate surgery to close the roof of her mouth. We have that sheduled for June 19th. Also, our speech therapist referred us to get another hearing test done for her paid by early intervention to find out for sure if she has fluid in her ears that is causing hearing loss. The hearing eval she had done in late December was done on a day she had a bad ear infecction so the results were not reliable. This hearing test done last week did show fluid in her ears (very common in cleft kids!) that is resulting in mild hearing loss for her. Based on this new info we will probably have ear tubes put in at the same time she has her palate surgery in June. We have a follow up visit at the ENT in late March to discuss for sure this decision, but it seems like the tubes will be helpful for her as she develops her speech especially.
Here is one last photo of Chun Le enjoying her bath time as always. :) It also gives a close up shot of how her scar is healing. Until next time....