Colonial Williamsburg

This past weekend Sharon and I took a road trip (RJ was submerged under piles of school work...finals are this week! yay!) to Williamsburg VA to meet up with the McCabe family (my best friend Angela and her hubby and daughter Molly).
Such a fun trip! Sharon was incredible in the car, my traveling buddy!! She was great company and was patient as a 3 year old can be after hours and hours of driving!!!
And the reward was playing with Molly. They are so cute together! Both have special needs and they just seem to "get" each other. Molly would chatter away and then Sharon would babble with her made up words and Molly would say "now, i didn't get that Sharon, please say it again", and would then translate.
In a store last night Sharon wanted to show Molly a rocking horse and shocked us all as she called out "Moddy!!" She's also been chattering quite a bit since we got home, she must have been inspired.
We did a lot of geo caching, saw Colonial Williamsburg, took the girls putt-putting (first time for each), swam, and Sharon ate lots of ice-cream! yay!!
We're home now and counting the minutes until Daddy finishes this darn semester!!!

We had a lovely weekend celebrating RJ's b-day. He was able to take some breaks from studying (thanks to being stuck in an airport all day Thursday and having time then to get a lot done!). It was very relaxing and just nice to be around Daddy for an extended amount of time!
Sharon took some time by herself to sit alone and blow some bubbles...(check out the crocs!!! I decided that i can't always listen to her therapists and make her wear "good" shoes all the time...she LOVES her purple sandals!!)
And she and her daddy had a little "discussion" about one of his birthday presents (see the t-shirt). She's not sure she agrees with it, but was willing to go along with it for now since she got some cake...(yet another winner made by Rose...a soccer ball!!)

daddy day

Sharon's school had a "daddy day" yesterday where daddy got to spend an hour there. They got to eat snack, do some exercising, and then make paper airplanes (RJ apparently has quite a knack for this, something i never knew! ) and blow bubbles. I came at the end to get some pictures. I'm not sure which of them was having more fun...And here's a big brag moment: I was standing watching all over Sharon's class mates with their bubbles, and realized that Sharon is the ONLY one who could actually blow bubbles (and she blows them WELL!!). So many times she is the last to catch up or catch on to something, so to see her doing this first was AWESOME! I had to stop myself from yelling to the playground: "LOOK AT MY DAUGHTER ALL OF YOU!!!" (RJ said he felt the same way!! We decided we could brag here though...)
And then i had to throw in another couple daddy shots. This weekend she helped Daddy hang a quilt in her room (see her hammer), and also got her very first piggy back ride!!!

Big girl

So this week has had lots of viedo-tape worthy moments (not that i've caught any of them...).
Sharon has started "singing"!!!! She is actually having words and song come out instead of just lip-syncing!! Yay!! She's so proud of herself! (the first song she consistently sings to is my solo from the show i'm rehearsing for right now...she loves it and asks me to sing it multiple times a day! Great practice for both of us!!)
Also, she went pee pee on the potty yesterday! yippeee!!
And today, she shocked both of us by wandering off into the grass! (her biggest goal in PT right now is to learn to walk on uneven surfaces such as playgrounds, grass, mud, etc.) We were watching a friend of hers ride a horse and Sharon was wandering and called "help" and i looked and she was over on grass! She came back to me all on her own and then decided to try it again a few times! Yay!
Oh, and so far so good with the dairy. We're going slowly, but she's handling what we're giving her!! YAY!

Thanks for checking in! And say some prayers for RJ as he continues to work his way through a truly grueling semester. He's finishing up his MBA and this is by far the toughest semester yet. I'm not sure how he's doing it, but somehow he's still working full time and managing his 3 classes...

got milk?

So today i took Sharon for a "food challenge" to see if she could handle dairy.
She reacted significantly to dairy when exposed to it as an infant and baby and so we have kept her away from it. She has been testing negatively to it at the allergist and i took her for blood work a few weeks ago so they could test for sure to see if she reacts. That test also came back negative. To most people, this would mean "give her milk!!"...but i'm hesitant because of family history. So, today she spent an hour being watched by nurses and drinking milk. She did really well and now we wait a couple of days to make sure she doesn't have any delayed reactions. If all goes well, we can begin to introduce dairy into her diet in a couple of days. Lots of kids do grow out of dairy allergies, and for Sharon this would be HUGE! Sharon is a 20 lb 3 year old, not even on the growth charts for her weight. And growth and weight directly affect brain function so we want to give her brain as many chances as we can!
So, here's hoping! I'm trying to resist a trip to the grocery store to stock up on foods that we've never been able to feed her (mac and cheese! ice cream! cookies!...the list is endless!)until another day or two goes by...
Thanks for checking in :)