Tuesday, January 28, 2014

What Is Going On Around Here?!?!?

Scott was able to get up early enough to get Judah's reflux med in him 30 mins before breakfast. He has to take it 30 minutes before eating. The plan is to continue this routine. Scott is not a morning person by any means, I'm a bit shocked that he was able to do this. But he's also able to handle different events in the middle of the night that go along with having 3 children. He does this with determination - seeing middle of the night events as equally important as to what happens during waking hours. He has stayed up with our children in the middle of the night for hours.. he probably hasn't set a record, but he would be up there for sure. His ability to get up 30 mins early to give Judah a med really shouldn't surprise me. Although I would find it extremely difficult!

Today I got the kids to school, arriving 3 minutes before Sebastian's class was to start. When we were getting in the van this morning Sebastian announced that he had no car seat. It was still in the other car due to the weekend activities. This screwed up our perfectly timed schedule, but he still got to class on time, barely.

We got to school, I told Sebastian to, "Run!!" and he did, but not without doing his dance & blowing me a kiss first. Seriously, how did we create this boy?? Willow & I took Judah to his classroom, all of the aides were heading out the door. They pointed out the mass of ducks/geese walking in the field nearby. Judah wasn't too interested - he wanted to go to class. Willow didn't want to go in though, she wanted stand outside in the cold and say, "quack, quack". Once inside Shelley greeted us. She didn't seem her usual self, maybe she was anticipating a negative IFSP meeting? Judah hung his bag & threw his jacket into his cubby. He was handed his chip (which is never in his cubby cup where it is supposed to be) and went to check his schedule, grabbed his "motor room" cue at the top and headed in that direction. I stopped him to give him a hug & kiss and say "bye!" He said, "bye!!" He said this again as he walked away, even saying "love you" at the end like I had just done. He turned the corner & then popped his head back around, waving & saying "bye!" to me. I think he wanted to watch me leave? He did this for a little bit & then his friends arrived (as we were leaving). He ran back into the main room and yelled, "Hey!!!", jumping up with his hands in the air. He loves school.

I grabbed a large coffee at McDonald's and raced home to read through the OARS website before our IFSP meeting. Willow needed a lot of attention, so this was no easy task. We picked up the boys & raced home. I got lunch out faster than I ever have & printed up my IFSP notes. Dave arrived & I raced away, making it right on time for the meeting

This happened when we got home from school - In under 15 minutes.. 4 year old blasting car horn in the garage, 2 year old having a meltdown over something I can't figure out, 4 year old runs into house.. 6 year old runs out to find me & yells, "Mom Judah spilled the eggs on the floor!!", while I'm cleaning up said eggs the 4 year old steals the 6 year old's sucker.. fight between all 3 kids ensues over a blue Dum Dum.

I should add to that story that when I saw the splattered eggs on the kitchen floor, I also saw Judah standing over them, pointing at them saying "egggg", clear as day. So that's good, I guess.


IFSP meeting was today - some thoughts on that/and thoughts on Judah's change:
2 hour meeting - compromising happened & everyone was decent, even nice, almost friendly? It's bizarre how people can change so drastically & so quickly, with no explanation at all. The progress that blooms with human change can be breath-taking. Human change can be miraculous. And it doesn't matter how these things happen - it just matters that it happened, and that we share that hope with others. I am thankful more than anything for change right now, more than absolutely anything.

We had the meeting - came home & discovered the fridge had broken - It's been leaking for months. The leak turned into more of a small lake recently, and yesterday it began to shut down periodically. A man came to fix it today. He defrosted it, but I'm not sure what else he really did?? Sebastian stood near him the entire time - he would know better than anyone. He let the worker know that he had turned on the water supply recently & that he knew how to get the ice tray out, etc. He's been obsessing over our freezer for much time. The refrigerator repair man coming was a hugely exciting event for him. Sebastian asked many questions. "Is that going to be loud? Where are you going to put that big chunk of ice? (the repair man told him he was going to throw it in the yard, haha) I never thought a worker would use a broom to fix a freezer (he was cleaning)." Sebastian doesn't hold back. Kids are honest. We paid the worker. Hours later the fridge isn't working - at all. Unfortunately our day was so busy that this wasn't noticed until early this evening when Scott arrived home. Scott is much more focused on the refrigerator issues than I am. My head is swimming with IFSP, capturing Judah's dramatic changes & trying to take care of, entertain and keep the peace among 3 children.

Tonight we got ice, filled coolers & put the food on the porch. Very, very thankfully we have a deep freezer in the garage. We did lose some food & all of the milk. And there's is probably more bad stuff in the coolers that we haven't discovered.

Rachael said Judah said another sentence today - although she wasn't there so someone must have told her. Shelley said she heard more new words & 2 word phrases then she could even count! A lot of "want.." Sebastian was the one who asked her about this! Otherwise I wouldn't have known!

I sat in the room with everyone at the meeting. Scott was in the bathroom & my mom had not arrived yet because she had gone to a different location (poor communication on our part). Luckily she was able to get to the meeting really quickly. Anyway, while I was the only family member in the room someone asked me how my day had been going. That's when I told the story about Judah blaring the horn, throwing eggs, a 3 child fight over a Dum Dum, etc. They weren't expecting THAT answer, haha. Add to that a broken refrigerator ladies.

Everyone was cordial at the meeting. The "higher up" that was present this time took control of the meeting. She was there to get this thing done. Shelley (Judah's teacher) was at the first meeting - her supervisor was at the next - and that lady's supervisor was at this one. We were getting frighteningly close to the top of the chain of command. That's likely what prompted the determined "Let's get this DONE!" attitude from the new lady. We did introductions & I told them what we needed to get done in this meeting. I asked them to explain how they measure developmental progress to determine service. For example, if the 4 year old is regressing but still much above another 4 year old's level, the less developed 4 year old gets no extra services, but the regressing 4 year old does. It all goes back to goals. If the kid isn't making his communication goals - more speech. If he is regressing with no apparent recouping  - more class time. Otherwise the focus is on making sure goals are appropriate & service time is appropriate, taking into account his level of development, the rate at which he learns, & progress on the goals.

We never got to the point of us feeling like we had to say, "Show me the policy". They compromised & with that we were satisfied. Judah needs more than what he gets there as far as speech, but Rachael also works with him more than she is required to - I saw that this month. That means a lot. We at least have what's on the IFSP but we could even be getting more help from staff who just want to do more. Because of the regression rules the amount of service can't be changed, the only way around that is having staff who go the extra mile. Remind me to send her a Christmas card. :)

The new lady said he needs more speech therapy since he had not accomplished any of his speech goals. The therapy he has now (30 mins a month) is the MINIMUM. So I said, "What's the maximum??" It doesn't matter. He won't get more until he doesn't meet his goals again. And I'm assuming the team decides how much more he gets. We had gone in hoping to get one more speech therapy session a month, and they volunteered just that. At previous meetings that didn't seem to even be an option to them. But once the lady said it, they all seemed to think that it was very appropriate. We need to bring that lady to more meetings!! She ran the meeting well, much more organized & focused.. nobody really ran away down a different road wasting time.

I asked about the Star Program again (what Judah's class uses). Anne offered to take me on a tour of their main school & let me see the Star Program in action. After the meeting Rachael offered to help us at home with speech therapy. Shelley offered to be consistent with using wet/dry potty cues like we will be doing at home. She agreed to our daily checklist idea & writing in the communication book as needed.

What is going on around here???!

OT lady had suggested at last meeting that he needs more OT time. He got another monthly session of that. She does a food group with him (and peers), he did well in that today. Pretending to eat, holding food on a fork up to his mouth & then feeding it to her, haha. On top of that they will continue what Scott & I thought the sub goal was (not the food group)  - giving him a non-preferred food at snack every day. The therapists agreed to be in contact with his other therapists & to email them progress notes & email us progress notes & Shelley will email her progress notes to us. this will all be done monthly. We told them we were no longer requesting current speech and ot assessments to be done - they only use them for eligibility - and instead that we were confident the new therapist communication would be more than adequate.

They suggested that they email/mail the IFSP - we can add to it if there is something they missed that we agreed on - then we all sign & this thing is done!!! We will meet every 6 months to discuss his progress instead of yearly. We also suggested getting him into a class with kids who may have similar personalities that he could learn from. It's a rotating door in a lot of those classes, so moving him to a new class also runs the risk of huge change and then his new friends may leave. We are thinking about that one.

That's it for the most part!

Judah peed on the floor this afternoon and wet his underwear right before bed as well. He had a wet diaper when he came home from school. I feel like today was a step backwards with the potty training.

His progress today has been amazing though as far as understanding us, eye communication, following direction. I told Sebastian, "Judah understands you now". Hopefully the brotherly communication will progress. Sebastian said, "I just want him to talk more."

Judah took all his usual meds this morning and 1 serving of Benefiber this evening.

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