Brothers❤️

(In their sisters room.) Most of the time, Desmond kind of drives Quincey a bit crazy because he gets into his stuff, and will randomly come up and smack him. But Quincey is quite proud of the fact that they look alike. He will say, "He's my younger twin."

Mr. Quincey

 

 

Right before I took this pic, Scooby was snuggling up to Q (they are best friends), which he does quite often, but our silly dog is camera shy.

 

My boy sure is growing up. He is loving Kindergarten and doing really great in his class.  Last month he won the 'Be a Buddy Not a Bully' Award at school. Which just proves that he has come along way compared to Preschool where if the opposite of that award existed, I am sure he would have received it. He has really become quite the peacemaker especially in dealing with his sister. (although he can be pretty good at disturbing the peace with her too.)

Quincey loves to laugh and tell jokes and to make people smile.  He has also come along way in his patience with himself.  At the beginning of the school year, he would try once at something and then give up and say it was good enough.  Now he is actually quite gifted at 'try, try again' and 'practice makes perfect.' He is becoming a very good reader. He is one of the three kids to be in the top reading group in his class.  It is so neat to watch it all 'click' in his brain.

He of course still loves his video games and I am still amazed at how fast he figures out levels.  He is way better at them than I am and I am a bit embarrassed to say that I practice quite a bit!

And now introducing....... 'Quincey Bieber' ;)

My little Artist

We borrowed this really cool little white board desk from the toy lending library that we have here in town.  And Quincey has been showing off his drawing skills.  This particular picture is of blues clues.  Blue and Steve.  I really see the resemblance!

Miraculously Cured!

So, I realized that I never updated about how Quincey's speech therapy went.  He went 30 min. every mon and wed for about 1 month total and is now pretty much cured and graduated on August 3rd.  We saw such an improvement after even the very first appointment.  He really just liked his therapist, and the environment and responded to all of the resources that they had there. 
She taught him a lot of techniques to help when he got stuck, like "Stop, take a breath, start over."  When we first took him he just got so frustrated because he had so much to say, and it wouldn't come out fast enough and there was so much tension all over his body, but especially in his face and neck.  I've noticed that he has been able to transfer that tension to his hands now, so he is a bit of a hand talker ;)  (which just runs in the family).
It isn't completely gone though, with Quincey his speech problems are highly influenced by his environment.  Especially, really exciting ones, where he feels like he has to compete with the noise.  Like when we went to Vegas with my sisters family, I noticed that he regressed a bit.  But, we just remind him of his speech tools and he responds like a champ.
I have been hearing a lot from people that know him how amazing the change has been. Life is a little better now all around.  Quincey is much happier, a lot less frustrated, and G and I too.  So glad we were able to get some help, and hope it lasts!

Quincey with Kandy practicing smooth, and relaxed speech with a swing.  I was amazed at how well that worked. 

19 week Ultrasound

I got an ultrasound done today, and it was really neat to see the baby! It always makes it a little more real when you can see the hands and feet and the cute little head.  One thing we got to learn about our little one though is that he/she likes privacy!  The baby kept it's arms around it's face and it's little legs closed the entire time, so we weren't able to find out the gender.
At first I was disappointed,  I was looking forward to telling the kids and to help prepare them more for what's coming. But, we didn't find out with Quincey and I remember how much fun it was to find out the old fashioned way, so I guess a few more months won't kill us.  Maybe I will have to go back for another ultrasound, and the baby will be be less private then.  
Quincey and Maiya were very fascinated by the Ultrasound.  And Quincey became really kind of giddy.  He had a hard time not smiling and giggling and telling us how much he loves us.  And when the tech put the heartbeat waves up on the screen, Quincey said, "And there is the babies sharp teeth!"  I love how sweet he is.  He has been taking care of me.  Asking if the baby needs some water, or if the baby needs to rest.
Here are the pictures! 

The baby kept waving at us!  Hi Mom! Hi Dad!

cute little arms.

Stop taking pictures! I am trying to sleep ;)

Quincey's Speech Appointment

Quincey did so good at his first speech appointment.  He loves it.  The first time we went they recorded him having a conversation with the therapist (who's name is Candy) and then she went back and counted all of the disfluencies that he had in that time.  He had 340 disfluencies in that 15 minutes. Now, no one always has 100% fluency in their speech, it is normal to say 'um' every once in awhile, etc. One thing that you don't see in normal speech though is blocking, when you are trying to say something and it won't come out.  He had 10 of those in the 15 min.  Crazy!!!  It is easy to see how we can both get so frustrated!  
Candy sat him on her lap and held his hands as he leaned backward.  While he did this he practiced stretching his speech, and saying things longer and slower.  All of that going backwards right after breakfast started giving him hiccups though, so she stopped that.  Then she held up pictures of things and had him say the words slowly in a sentence ie: 'that is a xylophone'.  Then they played with trains and when he needed more track he needed to say, "More track please!"  "Thank you!" A lot of it is just getting him to recognize what is going on while he is speaking.  And if he starts to have 'bumpy' speech, she tells him to stop and start over again, and he does really well the second time.  So! So far so good.  We have another appointment tomorrow.