Ellie's Neurologist Appointment. January 25th 2011

Today we took Ellie to her Neurologist appointment in Tacoma via the request of Ellie's pediatrician. This appointment was made because Ellie's gross motor skills and fine motor skills are delayed. In a family with average kiddos the doctors wouldn't worry, but in Ellies case having 3 older siblings with different developmental disabilities and a mother with Dystonia the pediatrician didn't want to overlook something.

At the Neurologist's appointment today they weighed and measured Ellie. Ellies weight was 15lbs 3 oz not much bigger then her well baby check up a few months ago, Ellie's height was 27 and 3/4 inches. Again not much taller then her last check up. ( Ellie can wear some 3 to 6 month outfits and alot of her 6 t0 9 month outfits at almost a year.) After being weighed we were sent back out into the waiting room to wait for the doctor. The wait seemed like forever, finally they called us back to the room. Just Ellie and I went in. ( Daddy thought it would be too much to take everyone back, not only for the kid but the doctor as well) We sat back there and of course it was the normal, asking questions, " why did you bring her in today?" and ect... After asking the questions he looked Ellie over, Ellie was not to thrilled with this and was happy as well as he was at a distance. As soon as he came near Ellie's bubble it was no longer happy girl but a screaming lets climb Mommy girl. After the doctors exam he could see no reasoning why Ellie isn't developing average gross and fine motor skills and suggested we wait until her brothers testing comes back to see if it reveals anything that would effect Ellie's development. We are due to see him in May to discuss Adriels results and the next steps we need to take for Ellie if there is any. Also to check her progress. He would like to see her pulling up and doing a bit of crusing while hanging on to something by May. heres hoping. Only time will tell.

Either way we have a healthy beautiful baby girl, for all we know she may just want to be doing things her way. Maybe scooting on her butt is her ideal of moving.

Adriel and Mathias Genetisist appointment. January 19th 2011

In the midst of the Autism diagnosis we have been on the hunt to find out why the boys have Autism in this hunt genetic testing was done to see if there were any added or deleted chromosomes. In the boys case the test came back with a missing chromosome 10, we were told by the doctor that this was normal, but he would refer us to a geneticist if we liked. I insisted that we see one because even a portion of something in the boys genes missing doesn't seem right to me. So after a long awaited call from Dr Hood, we got things set up and running.

At the appointment again the normal weights and heights. I don't remember the boys heights but I do remember there weights. Adriel was 32lbs and Mathias was 29lbs. Then in to talk to the doctor and get questions answered. The doctor explained to us about genes and how they worked, she examed the boys and we talked for a bit. The doctor informed us that the reason why they consider the piece of the choromsome that the boys are missing normal is because they don't really know enough about it to know if it does actually cause health problems that the boys are having. They are still learning, so we proceeded to ask why the boys have Autism. The doctor explained to us some of the possible reasons but said that only about 25% of the population that has Autism know why. Most of the time it's unknown to why someone has it. With knowing those statics she asked if we wanted more tests ran, blood and urine to test for metabolic differences or vitamin deficiencies. She again reminded is this might be a wild goose chase. Josh and I agreed though and requested the testing be done. They asked if we could do it on just one and we agreed this would be acceptable, if something come back on Adriel ( the one we had the tests done on) then they will test the other. In the discussion with the geneticist she did notate that the missing part of the chromosome was the same in both kids and asked if we knew for sure that they were fraternal twins. We just assumed they were, we couldn't remember being told otherwise. So we thought they were. The geneticist is now question that as it is very odd for the exact same piece be missing in 2 different individuals. ( Keep in mind fraternal twins are basically 2 separate eggs/ separate people. Where identical is basically 2 copies of the same people or one egg that split into 2 of the same egg. ) So she believes they might be identical. I'm not sure what I think as Mom. I believe they are fraternal, but only time will tell.

So after a long discussion with the doctor the lab tests were ordered and we started the testing. They took blood from Adriel who was a trooper and then wanted us to get a urine sample. We meant to get it sooner rather then later but frantically ended up getting it a few days later during Ellies appointment, but thats a story for Josh to tell. Anyways we got the urine sample and now we wait. We were told that the tests will trickle in one by one at different intervals. But we will know the results on all of them in three weeks. We are honestly hoping to be that 25% that knows why. With all of our kiddos have developmental delays or motor delays we feel theirs something going on we don't know about and we need to know what. No matter what the results are we are a family and we are in this better or worse. We will take it as we always do, one minute at a time and keep praying.... I mean, God already knows the answers, so why worry.

Ellies Moving!!!

Thats right folks I can move, don't you wish your baby could move like me?! *lol*

Ellie blowing zoobers as she's moving along.


Right around December 31st or so Ellie started crawling real well, the army crawl. But it's progress. Her most recent development is scooting on her butt while in sitting position. Though it's not what the OT (Occupational Therapist) wants to see her do, it's an improvement to what she's been doing, which is not moving at all. Ellie for some odd reason is delayed in her gross motor skills ( crawling, pulling up ect...) and also fine motor skills ( picking stuff up with her figures and any use of her hands), the doctors and teachers arn't sure why Ellie seems to be developmentally advanced for a baby girl her age, already using 2 signs, not regularly but signs non the less and her social skills before her most recent stranger anxiety have been advanced. Ellie has an appointment with a pediatric neurologist January 25th to double check theirs nothing neurological going on with her or that she hasn't developed my dystonia, which could be genetic we arn't sure. Non the less I don't let anything the teachers say about her or the possibility of health problems still my joy in this event, watching your kiddo develop and make progress in any situation is always a joyous moment and well Ellie is a joy to have as a baby. I'm a lucky Mom and excited to see what 2011 holds for her development. I'm excited to watch her run and play pretend and my even be down on the floor playing dolls with her soon. Praise God for my little girl Ellie.

First Hodges Game Night!!

In this New Year Josh and I decided that Elijah was old enough to start playing a family game night and face it playing games with just two people, board games anyways is very boring, so having Elijah now as an added player is way more fun. For our very first Hodges game night we decided start out simple and we decided to play jenga. We played two rounds and in both Elijah knocked down the towers, in his defense our dinning room table isn't very stable. It was agreed by all of us that the next game be played on our coffee table, well at least the jenga game. The Hodges family game night soon will include board games as well as Wii games. I look forward to plenty more special family game nights with my two big boys, Josh being one of those. This New Year is bringing tons of positive changes and one is every Tuesday night I get to look forward to awesome fun with Josh and Elijah. What a great way to ring in the new year.

Hodges Christmas Chapter six, wrapping it up.

After all the toys were unwrapped and paper and packaging sorted and thrown away it was time for the yummy food, For the most Christmas was pretty good, Though a bit rougher this year due to other things going on, but good. To be truthful it didn’t really feel like Christmas this year. We are hoping at least next year it may feel more like it and the twins will be able to enjoy it more. Though this year is definitely a year to remember and we are thankful for all the things we were able to buy our kids. Merry Christmas 2010 we will see you in 2011. Happy Birthday Jesus.

Hodges Christmas Chapter five, Ellie’s Christmas

We decided to wait on opening Ellie’s gifts until the twins were down for the nap and Elijah his quiet time. Once everyone was down it was time to help Ellie unwrap her presents. She had help, but did a bit of tearing herself. We helped her open all of them and put them in a pile, she seemed to enjoy it and the look on her face when she saw the pile of toys was classic. The look on her face just was almost like she was saying; all of those are for me? It was cute and really did make Josh and I’s day. Ellie got tons of stuff, including her first doll house, a play tea set, a play jewelry box, a pillow pet, and a lot more. Pictures will follow so everyone can see what she got. She also got to open Grandma Chris’s present and loves the baby doll she got.

Hodges Christmas Chapter four, Opening the gifts, the twins!!!

After we opened all our gifts we decided to let the twins out and send Elijah upstairs to his room to play with some of his new toys. At this point Ellie was napping so the twins for a little while were our center of attention while opening gifts. We tried to let the kids open there one at a time starting with Mathias because Adriel wouldn’t hold still. Mathias was a bit interested in his gifts but nowhere as much as we wanted him to be, he would unwrap them with a lot of assistance from Mom, glance at them and soon become uninterested in the one opened. He did this with nearly every one. It was a bit disappointing but this is our first Christmas with Autistic twins, so it was new to all of us. Next was Adriel He was a bit harder and I had to tear through his gifts a lot quicker then Mathias’s. He didn’t really seem to notice them or care. If anything he seemed like he wanted to run away from them. After all the twins’ gifts were opened the realization of their Autism became apparent once again. I think the most awesome thing for a parent is seeing the joy in your kid’s eyes as they open them if anything we were frustrated because they didn’t even seem to notice them. If anything Mathias seemed to run around playing with his told toys and Adriel seemed overwhelmed by the new ones. It didn’t help that we didn’t really know how to shop for them and probably bought toys that were a bit too hard for them to play with. All and all we did the best we could and that’s all we can do. It’s difficult having boys who seem to be frozen in time. Josh’s Mom sent the kids some money so we will be getting the twins and Elijah one more gift. We are not sure what it will be but are leaning towards one big gift for all their boys. We are thinking a trampoline. But we will see. When we get the last gifts we will be sure to blog about them.

Hodges Christmas, Chapter Three Opening the gifts, three down, three to go.

After everyone ate then we let the twins open one gift each at the table so they would have something to play with while we let Elijah open his first. The twins opened up some stuff called Moon dough. At the time it was purchased I thought it was a good ideal due to the texture, but after letting them play with this soon learned it wasn’t, more of it went on the floor, it didn’t hold together well, awesome texture but all together not a good gift for their age. Anyways while this mess and craziness was going on behind us we were busy allowing Elijah to tear into his gifts. We let him open up a lot of them then later on Josh and I began opening ours in between him opening his. Elijah got tons of stuff almost too much for me to list, but I will include photos later. Then we finished opening our gifts. Josh got a popcorn tin, sausage, cheese, mustard, and back massager. I got a Kerug coffee machine that makes coffee in under a minute, a food processor and some coffee. We did promise each other a few other gifts once we get our tax money. Some things we needed and wanted, but didn’t get a chance to get because we wanted to get the kids all their gifts.