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first, to bombard you with pictures.
amelia squishing a strawberry.
amelia squishing a strawberry.
big bear hug. check out their berry faces.
amelia, happiest near the berries.
addy giving a nice love pat to amelia who was just fed an enormous whole strawberry & didn't panic & choke, but rather chewed like crazy.
addy's berry face.
amelia & daddy before church on sunday
addy's outfit that she picked out for church! she is always so proud of her outfits.
addy & momma on saturday, going to target (then me to get my hair cut! new do folks! much shorter). anyway, addy picked out her outfit that day also & then using hand signals & gestures, told me exactly how she wanted me to do her hair...like princess laya (spelling?) but with poofy hair ribbons. what a girlie. she was smiling non stop after i was finished, though.
another look at her hair up-do of choice.
***my brain is on, all the time. well, obviously, it's on all the time, but the past few days it's thinking all the what-if questions about a mile a minute.
what if amelia is allergic to griswold?
how will we tell addy why griswold has to leave us?
where would griswold go?
how long will we have to wait for speech therapy?
when we will know if addy has a more serious problem?(called "apraxia", more about that later)
what if addy doesn't qualify for the westerville preschool, where will she go so late notice & with a severe speech delay?
what if amelia is allergic to dust? will i have to spend an hour each day cleaning? will we need to spend thousands of dollars replacing carpet, flooring, upholstery?
i could go on, filling pages of my blog with these questions. i need to stop, i know! i'm wondering if some wonderful anti-axiety meds is what i need right now. there's this appointment i have with an ENT next week to check out some problems with my ears & then more people were let go at wes' job yesterday. i can't sleep all night, even though my kids usually are sleeping all night. i just don't want to think anymore!
***
after that wonderfully positive blurb...some of you may be calling your therapists to set up an appointment for me with them, lol! really, there is just very stressful things going on here & i need to stop worrying. easy enough.
today i'm taking the girls to franklin park conservatory for a picnic lunch with their aunt kristi (who works downtown, quite the big to-do "director" at children's hospital...next week she gets to meet with this lady who used to be an african ambassador for the united nations. next week i get to meet with the westerville school district special education teacher! comparable...?). anyway, wes & i got married at the franklin park conservatory, so this will be a fun place to take them to every once in awhile & tell them how we got married there & watch them roll their eyes, like 'big deal mom & dad'. but i'm happy to torture them, i guess.
amelia is now a speed crawler! she is zooming from room to room, checking everything out. there's a path of destruction following her & adeline has taken it upon herself to be amelia's babysitter. addy will walk in front of her, picking up little pieces of paper or a tiny hair barrette or anything & say to herself "no no b a-yea" (no no baby amelia) & then place this stuff on the kitchen counter for me to dispose of. if amelia is playing with something she's not allowed to, like the remote, addy will take it away from her, saying again 'no no b a-yea' & then give her another toy. if millie attempts to climb up the slide (there are painful consequences to amelia climbing up the slide), addy will *pull* her down in some amazing wrestling move & will usually try to make amelia stop crying from her take-down by tickling her. this adeline is a very protective older sister!
yesterday i finally had enough of the 'MINE MINEMINE NONONONO' shouts from addy towards amelia about certain toys. so i told addy that if she wants to play with something alone, she has to take it into her bedroom & if amelia starts following her, addy must shut her door if she wants to play with this special toy alone. so adeline did just that! she took her animal vet clinic toy, gathered up all the pieces & *sprinted* to her bedroom, shutting the door. she then played in there all by herself, babbling away with her imaginative play for about half an hour. it just made me laugh b/c amelia looked devastated! so i compensated by playing with the singing-baaing lamb (a favored toy).
***
okay, i've distracted myself with good stories, now to tell the results of addy's speech evaluation yesterday. sigh. she was shown to be 6 months ahead of her age for speech & language comprehension. she was mastering age 4 questions with some slight deliberation, which was so cute to watch (addy would go "hhhmmm????" & raise her finger to her mouth when thinking! like i said, CUTE!). she also was tested to be at least 1 year behind in expressive speech (words that she says, or expresses). both of those we knew fairly well already. she's a smarty pants, but she doesn't talk well.
what i didn't expect was to hear that the speech pathologist suspects that addy may have apraxia...which is a neurological disorder. basically, her speech neurons are firing to her facial muscle receptors & the two are not connecting. so she know what she wants to say, but her mouth isn't getting the message, so she isn't able to say the words...causing MUCH frustration. this is a disorder that takes more than a few sessions to assuredly diagnose a kid with. if addy does have this, she has a very mild case, thankfully. kids with severe or moderate apraxia never learn to talk fully & need help with a computer to communicate.
i keep telling myself that this is just another round of a severe diagnosis hanging over our heads that will soon be proven wrong. like me with inflamed optical nerves or ms... just one more thing to worry about for a few weeks or months & then find out *poof* everything is mostly fine. so i'm really trying not to get worked up about this, especially b/c children's hospital is so backed up with speech therapists that adeline won't be able to be seen again for quite some time (months).
which brings up another frustrating thing: why can't speech people get their ass in gear & get kids in sooner?! speech delays & impediments can have life-long implications...such as introversion, low self esteem, inability to make friends, anxiety, etc etc. i keep hearing from several people that it took a very long time for someone they know to get speech therapy. why?! i know it's not life-threatening, but should that matter? i don't expect people to get up & run around in panic just b/c my daughter has a speech delay, but heavens to betsy, can't they see her before preschool starts?!
again, it was reiterated that i can look around at private speech therapists & see if our insurance will pay for their services & i will for sure do that. until then, we are going to start learning preschool versions of sign language (which has been recommended by everyone since this started), so i will get back to everyone on how that's going. apparently this speech pathologist says that addy is very receptive & even taught her a few signs yesterday in 10 minutes. i mean, i'm a trained social worker, i have the basic understanding...i guess even if i have to drop amelia off at the gym day care & then addy & i will sit in the playground/lobby area & do some sign/speech therapy...so be it.
isn't there an advocacy group for parents with kids with speech delays? a therapy group?! lol.
***
we are not wanting to think about amelia being allergic to griswold, but the more we study her snot & eye itching situation, the more it seems connected to when she's in direct & indirect contact with the dog. like i said, let's avoid talking about that so i won't cry this early in the morning.
***
so if amelia has allergies, my kids will have forced the following on me:
eating peas
eating green beans
cleaning on a daily basis
dusting on a weekly basis
not reading all day long on a weekend day
not making cinnamon rolls from scratch
having the ability to ignore a crying child for about 20 minutes (hint: amelia in her jumperoo right now...keeps her contained, but very unhappy about it)
allowing the tv to be on when i'm not watching it (addy has discovered the wonder of pbs cartoons this week. my fav is sid the science kid)
& now i'm typing with amelia on my lap & she really likes it when i sing 'the lone ranger' type songs & move my legs like she's riding a horse. she just lays her head back on my shoulder & smiles up at me like i'm the best mama in the world. & i smile & hum louder.
sid the science kid is asking right now: can you smell things that are far away? gabriella's response: my uncle's socks. see, it's a funny show!
what if amelia is allergic to griswold?
how will we tell addy why griswold has to leave us?
where would griswold go?
how long will we have to wait for speech therapy?
when we will know if addy has a more serious problem?(called "apraxia", more about that later)
what if addy doesn't qualify for the westerville preschool, where will she go so late notice & with a severe speech delay?
what if amelia is allergic to dust? will i have to spend an hour each day cleaning? will we need to spend thousands of dollars replacing carpet, flooring, upholstery?
i could go on, filling pages of my blog with these questions. i need to stop, i know! i'm wondering if some wonderful anti-axiety meds is what i need right now. there's this appointment i have with an ENT next week to check out some problems with my ears & then more people were let go at wes' job yesterday. i can't sleep all night, even though my kids usually are sleeping all night. i just don't want to think anymore!
***
after that wonderfully positive blurb...some of you may be calling your therapists to set up an appointment for me with them, lol! really, there is just very stressful things going on here & i need to stop worrying. easy enough.
today i'm taking the girls to franklin park conservatory for a picnic lunch with their aunt kristi (who works downtown, quite the big to-do "director" at children's hospital...next week she gets to meet with this lady who used to be an african ambassador for the united nations. next week i get to meet with the westerville school district special education teacher! comparable...?). anyway, wes & i got married at the franklin park conservatory, so this will be a fun place to take them to every once in awhile & tell them how we got married there & watch them roll their eyes, like 'big deal mom & dad'. but i'm happy to torture them, i guess.
amelia is now a speed crawler! she is zooming from room to room, checking everything out. there's a path of destruction following her & adeline has taken it upon herself to be amelia's babysitter. addy will walk in front of her, picking up little pieces of paper or a tiny hair barrette or anything & say to herself "no no b a-yea" (no no baby amelia) & then place this stuff on the kitchen counter for me to dispose of. if amelia is playing with something she's not allowed to, like the remote, addy will take it away from her, saying again 'no no b a-yea' & then give her another toy. if millie attempts to climb up the slide (there are painful consequences to amelia climbing up the slide), addy will *pull* her down in some amazing wrestling move & will usually try to make amelia stop crying from her take-down by tickling her. this adeline is a very protective older sister!
yesterday i finally had enough of the 'MINE MINEMINE NONONONO' shouts from addy towards amelia about certain toys. so i told addy that if she wants to play with something alone, she has to take it into her bedroom & if amelia starts following her, addy must shut her door if she wants to play with this special toy alone. so adeline did just that! she took her animal vet clinic toy, gathered up all the pieces & *sprinted* to her bedroom, shutting the door. she then played in there all by herself, babbling away with her imaginative play for about half an hour. it just made me laugh b/c amelia looked devastated! so i compensated by playing with the singing-baaing lamb (a favored toy).
***
okay, i've distracted myself with good stories, now to tell the results of addy's speech evaluation yesterday. sigh. she was shown to be 6 months ahead of her age for speech & language comprehension. she was mastering age 4 questions with some slight deliberation, which was so cute to watch (addy would go "hhhmmm????" & raise her finger to her mouth when thinking! like i said, CUTE!). she also was tested to be at least 1 year behind in expressive speech (words that she says, or expresses). both of those we knew fairly well already. she's a smarty pants, but she doesn't talk well.
what i didn't expect was to hear that the speech pathologist suspects that addy may have apraxia...which is a neurological disorder. basically, her speech neurons are firing to her facial muscle receptors & the two are not connecting. so she know what she wants to say, but her mouth isn't getting the message, so she isn't able to say the words...causing MUCH frustration. this is a disorder that takes more than a few sessions to assuredly diagnose a kid with. if addy does have this, she has a very mild case, thankfully. kids with severe or moderate apraxia never learn to talk fully & need help with a computer to communicate.
i keep telling myself that this is just another round of a severe diagnosis hanging over our heads that will soon be proven wrong. like me with inflamed optical nerves or ms... just one more thing to worry about for a few weeks or months & then find out *poof* everything is mostly fine. so i'm really trying not to get worked up about this, especially b/c children's hospital is so backed up with speech therapists that adeline won't be able to be seen again for quite some time (months).
which brings up another frustrating thing: why can't speech people get their ass in gear & get kids in sooner?! speech delays & impediments can have life-long implications...such as introversion, low self esteem, inability to make friends, anxiety, etc etc. i keep hearing from several people that it took a very long time for someone they know to get speech therapy. why?! i know it's not life-threatening, but should that matter? i don't expect people to get up & run around in panic just b/c my daughter has a speech delay, but heavens to betsy, can't they see her before preschool starts?!
again, it was reiterated that i can look around at private speech therapists & see if our insurance will pay for their services & i will for sure do that. until then, we are going to start learning preschool versions of sign language (which has been recommended by everyone since this started), so i will get back to everyone on how that's going. apparently this speech pathologist says that addy is very receptive & even taught her a few signs yesterday in 10 minutes. i mean, i'm a trained social worker, i have the basic understanding...i guess even if i have to drop amelia off at the gym day care & then addy & i will sit in the playground/lobby area & do some sign/speech therapy...so be it.
isn't there an advocacy group for parents with kids with speech delays? a therapy group?! lol.
***
we are not wanting to think about amelia being allergic to griswold, but the more we study her snot & eye itching situation, the more it seems connected to when she's in direct & indirect contact with the dog. like i said, let's avoid talking about that so i won't cry this early in the morning.
***
so if amelia has allergies, my kids will have forced the following on me:
eating peas
eating green beans
cleaning on a daily basis
dusting on a weekly basis
not reading all day long on a weekend day
not making cinnamon rolls from scratch
having the ability to ignore a crying child for about 20 minutes (hint: amelia in her jumperoo right now...keeps her contained, but very unhappy about it)
allowing the tv to be on when i'm not watching it (addy has discovered the wonder of pbs cartoons this week. my fav is sid the science kid)
& now i'm typing with amelia on my lap & she really likes it when i sing 'the lone ranger' type songs & move my legs like she's riding a horse. she just lays her head back on my shoulder & smiles up at me like i'm the best mama in the world. & i smile & hum louder.
sid the science kid is asking right now: can you smell things that are far away? gabriella's response: my uncle's socks. see, it's a funny show!
