Family Updates!

We have a busy next few months for the Hostert family! We have tons of doctor's appointments and tests to be done!

Sophia is officially registered for kindergarten at the Assumption BVM Catholic School. Sophia misses the cutoff to go to first grade next year. Although she is academically ready to go to first grade, she still needs that extra year to mature. It is hard to believe she will be in school all day next year! I am going to miss her so much! She has an appointment with a new developmental pediatrician on April 18th! We are hoping to get a third opinion on helping Sophia overcome her selective mutism. As much as Sophia talks at home, she still hasn't said a word to her two fabulous teachers!

Graham is officially registered for kindergarten at his current school. He will have the same teachers that Sophia has this year! He is so ready for the challenge of kindergarten work! He will also go to kindergarten again the following year like Sophia because he also misses the cutoff by a day. Graham is coming up on his one year anniversary of being diagnosed with cancer. He has to give blood this month and he has his CT scan on April 17th. His AFP levels have been in the normal range and we are hopeful that the cancer will continue to stay away!

Parker will be starting special ed preschool in the next two weeks. It has taken me a year to finally get him into a special ed classroom. Nothing like fighting for your baby and finally getting the results! Parker and I went to see Dr. Napoli and Dr. Vallino last week. Dr. Napoli said Parker's palate has healed beautifully!!! Dr. Vallino is the speech thearpist on the palate team. She was happy to see that Parker was able to make some sounds and that most of his articulation errors are a result of not having the correct tongue placement. She feels that if he gets tons of practice for placement of the sounds we should start to see some real progress. Parker's speech is still considered unintelligible! Parker also had a hearing test and the tube in his left ear has fallen out. He has mild hearing loss in his left ear since the tube is out. He will be having surgery in April to put new tubes in his ears. Hopefully, this will correct the mild hearing loss in his left ear. Parker is still not potty trained and really has no interest in using the potty. UGH!!!! I talked to the urologist when I went to see her with Piper. She asked if we ever had his kidneys scanned. We didn't so she suggested we get his kidneys scanned to rule out any abnormalities. We discovered he has fused kidneys that are shaped like a horseshoe. We have a VCUG with sedation scheduled on April 3rd. This should give us a better look at his kidney functioning. If this shows any problems, he will have an MRI of his spine on April 12th to check for a tethered spinal cord. I have also scheduled an appointment at Kennedy Krieger in Baltimore for Parker to have developmental testing done. We want to be sure we are not missing anything regarding Parker's developmental delays. Parker will be having psychological testing done at A.I. on May 8th. I sure do worry about my little man!!!

Piper continues to show us her lively personality. She is definitely into the terrible twos stage! She is into everything! This morning she put a cup in the toilet! I have Piper's IEP ( individual education plan) meeting on March 20th. Piper will also be starting special ed preschool. The genetics doctor wanted Piper to have her kidneys scanned since she has a complex heart defect. Dr. Gripp told me that many times there are kidney abnormalities associated with complex heart defects. Piper had her kidneys scanned and one kidney was swollen. She is also her VCUG done on March 29th to see if she has any kidney reflux. Piper is having her cadiac MRI done on April 16th. She will also have another echo and EKG done on the same day. The MRI will give the doctors a more in depth look at her heart. This will help them to determine how they will fix her heart. She is scheduled for her open heart surgery on April 24th. She will be in the hospital for seven to ten days! Piper also see the developmental pediatrician on the same day as Sophia on April 18th.

Oliver is growing. He is six months old now. That is still hard for me to believe! Sometimes I feel like he has been with us forever. I guess that is because I can't imagine my life without him!!! He is a sweetheart and we love getting to know him a little more each day.

After a very busy April, we get to go on a two week vacation to Disney in May!!! The children are looking forward to going to Disney with Mom Mom and Dziadzi. Parker keeps asking if we are going to Disney today every day. Then, he says see Mickey May! I think Parker and Piper are going to enjoy their first visit to Disney. We are not sure how Parker will like the characters, but hopefully, they won't scare him too much!