Finally a finished update with lots of pictures and a video

There are all these abandoned, unfinished updates sitting in my blog post list, failed attempts to keep you updated about the usual craziness going on around here. We've been very busy this past month with the various meetings, evaluations, assessments, appointments, phone calls and emails that accompany Izzy's transition into the school system, not to mention that they piled upon the regular doctor's visits, insurance dealing and miscellaneous medical fun that normally fills up our calendar. Well, actually, before you feel too sorry for us, for two weeks around Christmas we were mostly just busy having tons of fun with Phil's parents who spent the holidays with us. We had a wonderful Christmas with Mom and Dad, without any hospitalizations, medically induced comas, intubations or other medical dramas that seem to pop up around their visit. They departed last Wednesday morning (if you can call the ungodly hour of 4 a.m. such) to return to Hungary, and left a sad Bean and lots of homemade goodies in their wake. Izzy seemed a bit confused for a while and probably wondered whatever happened to the party and all the extra grandparental love and spoilage that she was showered with.

The Bean loved having Grandma and Grandpa in her immediate vicinity and had a blast hanging out with them. She wasn't alone, Phil and I shared her excitement about Mom and Dad' presence: it was the first Christmas in 4 years that we spent with family and we didn't take any of it for granted. Shortly after their arrival, my wonderful Mom-in-law quickly took over the kitchen, which met zero resistance from me, and not even 24 hours had passed before the fridge was overfilling with home made chocolates, cookies and various goodies. The only party that was unhappy about this arrangement was my butt: I think I gained a shameful 3 pounds in two short weeks. However, I'm not overly worried about it since I've spent the last couple days taking Izzy to different appointments, most of which entailed lots of uphill pushing of a remarkably tall almost-three-year-old. My little string Bean is 39 inches/99 cm tall and 34 pounds/15.5 kg, and pushing her uphill or lifting her a hundred times a day makes for a heck of a workout.

Yesterday the Bean and I had a durable medical equipment meeting to have the wheelchair adjusted to fit her super long physique and to confirm that the wheelchair has all the appropriate parts that make it suitable for transportation on the school bus. Izzy was also measured to determine what size of bath chair we need to order for her, since she can't fit into commercially available baby bathtubs anymore. Medical equipment needs to last for 5 years due to Insurance regulations so physical and occupational therapists have to possess psychic power to predict a 2-year- old's future measurements at age 7. Considering the fact that Izzy was 4 pounds 10 ounces and 17 inches at birth and somehow made it from not-even-on-the-chart into the 95th percentile, psychic power is not an overstatement.

A months or two ago, when we first measured Izzy for a bath chair, the Bean's occupational therapist thought that in order to be on the safe side, we should go for the medium size. She was understandably flabbergasted as she was gaping at Izzy's feet dangling off the medium sized demo chair yesterday, clearly needing a size LARGE. "Oh my other little guy still uses a medium" - Izzy's nurse cheerfully informed me when I told her about the freakish outcome of the bath chair fitting meeting. Her "other little guy" is a 14-year-old boy whom she's been taking care of since he was a baby. Izzy is not even 3 yet, for crying out loud.

So far Izzy has had assessments with the school's speech therapist, psychologist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, nurse and transportation guy and they were all lovely people. The big IEP (individualized educational program for special ed students) meeting will take place at the very end of January when we will discuss the results of the assessments and the IEP team will make their recommendations for placement and services. What else is new? We are getting more nursing hours, we get to keep our current Regional Center worker who is an angel and whom we love dearly, and Izzy is doing marvelously well lately with very few seizures. Since she's been on a break from the godforsaken seizures, she's been consequently making some good progress in physical and occupational therapy. She has also become more vocally expressive and opinionated and she starts crying and yelling when you take away a toy she is playing with or when you transition her against her will. I like it and I'm not one who discourages female feistiness.

Here are some new pictures for ye faithful, who haven't unfollowed or unfriended me yet despite my lousy blog keeping:

Bundled up during whale watching. Not because it was cold, but because she has a Hungarian mother.  Let's see if you can spot the child under all the layers.

Retaining three objects like a pro

Izzy wearing mommy's hat. So there, take that microcephaly. 

Izzy stuffing two pacifiers into her mouth, like a goofball. 

Izzy in her swing. The best Christmas gift ever. Thank you Grandma and Aunt Ann!