God Is So Good :)

In case you weren't aware, Ryan and I have had concerns over Karys's speech for months now. Well before she turned 2, we realized that she was not progressing in ways typical for kids her age. It's not that she's not intelligent, it's that the words that she does have are very hard to understand. Back in the spring we were referred by our pediatrician to ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) and we had a lady come out and do a developmental assessment on her and she said that she was going to get in touch with the speech therapist and they'd come back together because she had a feeling she would qualify. The time that she called with a speech therapist available we weren't going to be available and then I never heard from her again.

At Karys's two year check up I told the doctor about this and she referred us to a private therapy center. The problem was going to be that our insurance wasn't going to kick in for it for awhile and it's quite pricey. So Ryan told me he wanted me to get back in touch with ECI again. I called their main office a couple of weeks ago and was told they'd get me a new referral and someone would call back in a few days. This past Monday I hadn't heard back yet so I called again and this time someone actually put the referral into the computer while I was on the phone with her. I was told I'd hear back from someone in 7-10 business days. The NEXT DAY I got a call from the lady we worked with previously who said that she was going to get in touch with the speech therapist and call me the next day with whatever times she might be available. This morning I got a call at 8 saying that the speech therapist had a cancellation for today...could they come over and do her evaluation at 11:30. I was so psyched!! Getting things going this quickly is pretty much unheard of!!

They came over and asked lots of questions about development and language (things like: Does she play make-believe?...Answer: yes. Will she ask me "What's that?"...Answer: no.). They determined that she's right where she should be developmentally, but she's definitely lagging behind in speech. One thing the therapist noticed was that she doesn't open her mouth very much when she talks (which I've already noticed) and said she was a little advanced in her language, as far as what she knows...she just can't articulate the words herself.

The next cool part in the story is that Karys will probably be working with the speech therapist's assistant, who just so happens to be someone I know!! Her son was in one of the classes I worked with at a daycare I worked at here in town several years ago. I don't know if she'll remember me, but she's a really nice woman and I'm so excited that we'll be getting to work with her!

I'm just seeing God's hand so clearly in this situation...the quick timing (which is almost unheard of), the availability of the speech therapist so quickly, and now getting to work with someone I'm familiar with. We've been praying about this situation and I can definitely testify that He answers prayer. God is good...all the time. :)

Baby Boy Has A Name!!

After lots of deliberation, we FINALLY have a name picked out for our little boy!! I'll tell you the story about how it came to be, but for those that aren't interested in that, I'll go ahead and give you his name first. :)

Zane Elliott Magan

Wow, it actually feels kind of weird to write it and realize that yes, this will be our son's name forever! :) I found the name "Zane" in a baby names book that was passed down to me by my sister-in-law, Misty. In the book it said that it was an English variation of the name "John" so it means the same thing, which is, "God is gracious." Elliott is also Biblical and means "The Lord is my God." Love both of those meanings!!

As most of you know, we've been going back and forth about names for months now. I'd make a list of names I liked; Ryan would look at the list and then tell me to keep searching for names; I'd search for more names and add a couple at a time to the list; they'd get shot down again by Ryan. ;) And so on and so on. Eventually we had it narrowed down to either Zane Elliott or Reid Elliott. (Although Ryan liked to spell it "Reed.") Then it dawned on me one day last week that if we went with Reid, I'd be saying this sentence a lot: "I've got to go feed Reid." And the thought of rhyming like that multiple times a day turned me off of that name!! But I still didn't feel quite sure about Zane. Then the name "Evan" came to me and I REALLY liked that one. But Ryan told me he knew someone growing up named Evan and the guy was weird so Ryan totally didn't want that at all.

All along, I've been waiting for a name to feel "right" to me and felt that God had led us to Karys's name and I knew He had the perfect name for this little guy as well. I was just waiting for that "this is it" feeling. Yesterday I was watching an episode of "The Little Couple" (a show on TLC). The couple in that show is in the process of building a house and this episode involved them trying to pick a color for the exterior of the house. They got it narrowed down to two choices. He liked a greenish color, and she liked a blueish color. So they're back at the house they live in now trying to hammer it out and decide which color to go with. And finally she says, "Let's paint the house green." Her reason? Because she loves her husband and he wants green so she wants to do something he'd love. All of a sudden I got my "this is it" feeling because I realized that we were in a similar situation. We both had a name that we felt drawn to...I actually liked both names, but was favoring Evan (Ryan, hated Evan, but still...similar scenarios. ;). I started thinking about how Karys's name was my idea and it just happened that Ryan liked it so that's what we went with. This time around, we're having a boy and I just felt like I wanted to let our little boy's name be the one his daddy wanted him to have. So now it's set...he has a name! :) (If you hate it, try to get used to it...maybe you'll like it. ;) If you love it, feel free to say so. :)

**Disclaimer: For those of you who know Jaime, I promise I found the name "Zane" in a book before I knew that's what they would be using as a middle name. I promise I didn't just rip it out of the name they chose!!

Life With A Two-Year-Old

(The first picture was taken at the park last Friday and the second was after AWANA one night. :)

Recently I've started noticing how much Karys is maturing and growing up, even just compared with how she was a few months ago. It's so neat to see her start to become more independent and actually want to do things that she sees us do (i.e. housework) that I know in a few years we'll be hard-pressed to get her to do!

Last week at MOPS our speaker topic was Time Management and the thing our speaker said that really stuck out to me wasn't even something she probably intended to be useful to anyone. She said something along the lines of: A two-year-old can be expected to put shoes away in a bin, and even to pick out a match to a shoe from the bin. They cannot, however, be expected to line up their shoes in a nice little row. Back in the summer when I redid Karys's room I took out the dresser and put in its place a tall bookshelf with different bins for onesies, bibs, etc. I don't think I took into consideration that she would soon start wanting to get her own shoes out of the closet, so I did line them up neatly. That system is definitely not working and I am now on the lookout for the perfect shoe bin!!

This morning I saw some of that helpfulness come out when I REALLY wasn't expecting it. I was refilling our dog's food bowl and about to take it outside to him when I heard Karys say his name. (His name is Leon, she says something like "Yee-yah".) I turned around to see what she was doing and saw her carefully carrying his water bowl!! Thankfully, it wasn't very full! I got it from her quickly and gave her the food bowl to take out to him. She looked so proud of herself carrying that food bowl outside and putting it down on the ground for the dog. It made me proud of her and showed me that she's eager to be given more responsibility. Guess I'll be asking for more help with chores!! :)