Summer Fun Working on Gross Motor Skills & A Medical Update

I love these moments when these two love being brother and sister. Trust me, they are balanced out with moments of fighting over toys and invading each others personal space by poking, splashing in the bathtub and hugs that turn into boa constrictor squeezing.

I am really working on getting us outside as much as possible. Sophia has amazing fine motor skills, but is way behind Elijah's abilities with gross motor. She goes very slowly down stairs, she takes them one at a time..making sure that two feet are on each step before moving on to the next. She doesn't have a lot of muscle tone in her bottom and legs. So we are working on outside play to improve this.
The slip and slide is a huge hit. She doesn't slide down it, but she splashed in the water and runs around in it.


I am taking them to the park. The one nearest our home has a big wooden play structure with all sorts of activities. Eli leaves Sophia behind on this because she is so slow, but I am hoping that by the end of the summer she will be climbing around and moving at his speed.



You all know that we love to fish out here at the lake and Sophia loves it too. She has a little Barbie pole that she can cast out (Tyler taught her how to cast) and she reals in the rubber butterly tied to the end of her string. She loves it and repeats it over and over.

We went to visit our pediatrician this week and everything looks good. He said that she still has a slight murmur in her heart but that it is normal and he thinks her surgery was successful. He said no one can repair a heart to the perfect condition God makes them in. Her TB test came back negative and her urine test came back clean. I am working on collecting 3 separate stool samples to check for parasites (not a lot of fun). And I have to take her to have her blood drawn to be tested for pretty much everything. My pediatrician wants her immunizations re-done. He said there is a type of ramp up schedule for children who start their shots at a later age. I hate having her poked while I am trying to build up her trust in me, but I have no choice. I still need to get her into our cardiologist. Then we will know for certain that her heart repair was good and we can move on with her childhood.