Aw, Nuts!

Today Cole was tested for allergies of the nut variety. He tested positive for both tree nuts and peanuts (poor kid) but he was fantastic throughout the entire experience. He was really upset by the crying, wailing, and screaming we heard of other little kids through the paper thin walls of the examination room. He kept asking about the baby and wanted to sit in my lap whenever the crying/screaming got really loud. He's always hated to hear or see other kid's in pain and I know he would've liked to have been able to offer them comfort but still I was worried that all of what he'd heard prior to his own test would make it that much worse. Nope. He sat on my lap and only flinched a bit on the last two skin pricks. What's more, he only tried to scratch his itchy areas once. There was no crying, no fussing. Cole handled it so much better than I anticipated. To pass the time he liked cuddling and then he seemed to get used to the itching so he went back to the chalkboard (which is what he'd found irresistible when we were waiting for the testing to begin). It was Cole's first time with chalk, a chalkboard, and the eraser. It was pretty cool watching him figure it all out. He had not hesitation over the chalk and started doodling away, er, I mean, writing away (he was reciting letters as he 'wrote'). The eraser surprised him at first I guess he must've expected it to put more chalk on the board rather than take it all away. Once he figured out it's function he really enjoyed filling up the board with as many markings as possible and then he'd wipe it all away with the eraser with a 'bye bye' for each mark along the way. We brought George along for moral support and Cole really liked introducing George to the chalk, board, and eraser as well.

Other than that, Cole kept wanting to wash his hands so he could get soap out of the cool dispenser. After we'd done this a few times I told him we were all done so he gave George some more chalk, a squeeze of the soap, and of course that meant we had to then wash George's hands as well. He's nothing if not quick.

Anyway, Cole is doing fine. We've got tons of info. on how to deal with his allergies and a couple EpiPen's as well. Hope this finds all of you well, too!

86 and Counting

Cole has a new speech therapist now (the other one went into labor en route to our house a few weeks ago) and they have really hit it off. Today, he added three more words to his vocabulary (fish, bear, and turn - as in take). We've been keeping a running list for a while now and the boy is up to nearly 90 words - 86 and counting. He has another evaluation in two weeks and it will be fun to see how much he has improved. We're grateful for the extra help from his therapists but truth be told - he started chatting up a storm right around his birthday, (when school was out), which means most of this great progress has come from Mister Man himself. Way to be, baby!