A good first week of being 1!

The first thing you may notice about this post is the lack of pictures. Timmy is still sleeping this morning, (well, back to sleeping this morning) and there were no new pictures on the camera from the last week. As it stands, we probably have more pictures of Timmy from his first year of life than we have of the first years of the other 8 children put together, so I think we're still OK on that front.

Two weeks ago, we met with a woman from the Chautauqua County Early Intervention Program. They help identify and provide services for children who are at risk of having developmental delays. We went back and forth on calling because life was so hectic there for a while. She took Timmy's information and would pass it along to an agency to set up an evaluation. The evaluation is to see whether Timmy 'qualifies' for services through the Early Intervention Program. At the same time, Timmy's Trisomy 21 diagnosis automatically qualifies him for services. The evaluation is scheduled for this Friday and then we will meet again with the first woman to get things set up in about 3 weeks. The outcome of the evaluation will be that Timmy qualifies, but we also hope to learn how we are doing at stimulating Timmy in regards to speech, motor skills and other abilities. We are told they will provide the appropriate level of services to meet our needs: evaluation to look for delays, then, if needed, information to help with any delays, and then, if necessary, therapy if we do not use the information they give us, or it doesn't work. In general, it sounds like a good system, and we look forward to what the speech and physical therapist share with us on Friday.

Timmy is doing well - continuing to move, make more sounds, grab at things, pass toys between his hands, roll over, all on top of bringing joy and many smiles into our home. We are blessed!

In other 'milestones' - yesterday was the first time Jen and I have both been away from Timmy for more than a short, 20 minute span since arriving home. We went and perused items up for auction at a local moving business that has closed, had dinner at a restaurant (We don't go to sit down restaurants very often, and there was some sticker shock, but we enjoyed the dinner), and got some shopping done. Over 5 hours out of the house without any kids - and we spent it without talking about Timmy or the other kids. :)

Hopefully, I'll put up some pictures later this week and have an update on Timmy's evaluation. Thanks for your interest, concern, and prayers for Timmy. We are grateful for each of you.