Could it be?? and other meandering thoughts

Wow, 2 full days with no posts! Well, here's catching up the weekend. First, though- today I think we got something "new" from Emma! We were at Target and she was fussing, only consoleable when held and then she was laughing, happy, giggly, until I went to put her down. We got home, I unpacked everyone and my Aunt stopped in so we visited a minute. She was fussy. Didn't want to be held, that's for sure, but also wasn't happy on the floor. I went to get her bottle ready and finally just put her in her highchair because she was just playing on the floor and crying. Well... she got in her highchair and got HAPPY! She drank a full 10 oz bottle, and I'm thinking... could it be? SHE CRIED BECAUSE SHE'S HUNGRY! If that's really it, then that is a MAJOR breakthrough for Emma! YAY! She might have learned now what it feels like to have a full tummy all the time and wasn't happy that her lunch was a little late!

Micah, on the other hand, saw her bottle and wanted one too. He still thinks that everytime he SEES food he should eat it. Luckily he drank about 1/2 oz and decided he couldn't cram any more. He'd eaten breakfast with me at 8:15 then went to grandma's house for an hour and somehow talked her into ANOTHER bottle at 9 something! So he'd definitely had his fill :) Now he's sleeping, Emma's playing, and Brianna's trying to talk herself into going to sleep.

This morning the girls and I went to Brianna's transition meeting. It ended up being a very informal assessment- what is she doing, how does she play, what skills does she use on a regular basis, how does she communicate, what health things should a teacher know about her. Pretty basic. We talked about where her "home school" is, where her "alternative school" is- since our homeschool doesn't offer any preschool services. And we also discussed the possibility of doing out-of-area further in order to keep her and Emma together if Emma needs to go to another school to have the most appropriate placement.

Oh how I wish that some of the closer schools offered services for kids with significant delays! The school that is "being discussed" for Emma is a good 20 minutes from our house with no traffic. Inevitably 30-40 min on a school morning with 20 mph school zones a few places between here and there. It is the ONLY school in the entire city that has a nurse on hand and offers services for kids with significant delays. I've never been there- yet- but will be visiting it before we place the girls anywhere.

I got the phone call today to set up the eval for Emma. It will be Wednesday morning and they'll come to the house to do it. That itself is great because it means she'll be in our HOME environment and not freaked out from being in an unusual place before even having the eval. So.. Wednesday at 9:30am we will do the more formal eval for Emma. The previous one we did just to find out whether she likely qualified for services or not put her at about a 10 month level. I have a feeling that was a "generous" estimate at that time. We'd just come home and she really wasn't doing much of anything on her own. Now I'm hoping to get a better estimate of her ability level pre-surgery.

The person that set up the eval suggested that maybe we should wait until after her surgery to do the eval. I have thought about that, but decided that if we do that then we'll be waiting for her to be back up to 100% to evaulate, and then we have to get the services in place and actually start them. Whereas if we evaluate now and have services in place for a few weeks after surgery, then the homebound services (which I've already disccused getting and likely won't be a problem) will be able to start within a few weeks of coming home. We won't have to THEN do the eval and wait.. etc etc... So, Wednesday it will be and we'll start from there to get an IEP and a placement going for Emma to begin after her surgery!

This morning at Target- while Emma was screaming- I picked up my few quick things including some hanging clothes shelves. Each hanging piece has 8 shelves. I'm going to TRY to keep these shelves with clothes in them that are matched and ready for the week. This will help with laundry- less to put away in the drawers since some will go back in the shelves (and I'm keeping the shelves in the guest room where I sort laundry!) and also will help in the mornings because I'll just need to go grab an outfit for each kiddo and not go in search of them. For now I didn't do it by day of the week, etc. I just put them in there and if there's always 7 outfits available, hopefully there will always be something that's appropriate for the day's weather and activities :) This will also help K to be able to get himself dressed in the morning when he gets up without disturbing Micah, and for days we're running out the door in the morning I won't have to be up late the night before when I remember we have an early morning and need to get things ready :)

Yesterday we visited with Dan and Debbie and saw their new house. It's beautiful! We enjoyed the visit with them and the others that came to the open house. Hopefully we'll get to have them over soon to swim and for the kids to play. Kristopher's already asked this morning if he can see them again when Connor's there.

After leaving their house we all needed things at Wal-Mart so the 6 of us ventured in. I have to say, I remember the days now when I shopped without any kids or when Mike used to grocery shop with me and how much easier it was! LOL! All the kids were very well behaved, but Micah threw up at one point (not unusual) and I had MIKE to clean it up :) And as we turned corners in the store I wasn't pushing the double and pulling the cart which really does speed things up! Also, we got out of there in just over an HOUR! I got all my groceries, didn't have any breakdowns from the kids, and even picked up a few things I hadn't had the time/energy for in the past like some sneakers that fit Micah (his fat little feet don't fit in the other ones!) and toiletries which are kept on the other side of the store. I think Mike might have just a little more appreciation for my shopping trips since he's seen how it goes with BOTH of us and 4 kids. We also got gas for the van and the kids still were behaving :)

While at Wal-Mart I picked up a bunch of fresh fruits and a few veggies too. I've wanted for a while to make some babyfood and see whether E and M would eat it. They both seem to be doing better with bigger textures (in the bottle still, but hey, it's progress!) so I picked up some plums, peaches, bananas, apples, blueberries, grapes, and a canteloupe! I made up 6 different fruit mixes for the babies- 12 oz of each- which will do 3 bottles today and 3 tomorrow. I'll supplement the other 2 bottles with jarred babyfood, but I'd also bought broccoli and carrots which I want to steam first and haven't had the time/energy to make yet. I'll also start taking whatever dinners we have which are appropriate and making up some food from them. I'm hoping that they will start eating a little more 'table-type food' and a little less Gerber :) Now if I can only get them to take it from a SPOON!

At the same time I was making things for the babies I made up 2 purees for the older kids to have in a smoothie today or tomorrow. I also made up some applesauce and added sugar and cinnamon to the batch I made for the older kids. No sugar for the babies, they don't need it yet!

That's all the 'catching up' for now!