Saturday, February 28, 2009

home once again

I am never ever doing that again without dragging Ryan along, he deserves to share in the full torture that is a therapy trip to Denver. As miserable as it was, it was beneficial. Madeline completed 10 hours of language therapy at the new center, which I love by the way. I am so proud of her. She did 2 hours each day, refusing to take breaks, behaved her age there (which doesn't always happen) and responded very well to the program. 

The main therapist is wonderful, she has been doing this for many years and is a great resource. I feel privileged to have someone with her experience guiding us. She worked with Madeline herself half the time and another therapist the rest. They used this program on Madeline: http://www.lindamoodbell.com/programs/lips.html with great success. It's the only program that focuses on the mouth piece while breaking down the phonemic awareness. We are stopping focusing on letters and instead only working with the sounds they make. In those 10 hours, Madeline went from not knowing a single one to knowing 10! Apparently children with weak route memory usually respond very well to this particular program, and that was certainly our experience. 

Once again we are home and I'm struggling to figure out what to do now. The center sent me home with a giant binder to continue working with her at home, but I'm doubtful. I consider myself an intelligent person but this program is not easy. I barely grasped it when they were explaining it to me. We also will be returning to Denver this summer for a 80-100 hour intensive program to continue the therapy. When is up in the air, it might be much sooner after this baby is born then I'd like. The center is very flexible and have told me just to let them know when we can come. After spending a week in a suite hotel with two small children, I will do almost anything not to do that for 3+ weeks. The owner of the townhouse that we have rented previously, normally only rents it out to families working through that center, but because she knows me, she will rent it out to me during her slow months if there no previous long term bookings. Those slow months are looking to be June or September. September is too far away, I'd hate to put off Madeline's therapy for that long, very early June isn't that far off from April so that part bites. We will see what happens, she can't commit to give me the townhouse, and if I don't get it then I'd rather go in July or August. This time I WILL be dragging Ryan along for part of the time, I will not ask my mom to go with me again, she is thoroughly over traveling with my children, can't say I blame her!

Friday, February 20, 2009

hopefully our last ortho appintment

I took Gabrielle in this morning for a follow up x-ray before leaving this weekend for Denver. The good news was that she is healing quickly and shouldn't have any problems in the future other then maybe a noticeable bump under skin from extra bone growth in that area. The bad news is that it was an awful appointment, poor thing screamed the entire time. Of course they were running behind so we had to wait, all she wanted to do was go home. I wouldn't stay with her while they did the x-rays, Ryan has been out of town, it took two techs to hold her down long enough to get an x-ray. She passed out quickly for her nap, that was a draining morning. 

Saturday, February 14, 2009

the last trip

Yep. I'm going to take one more trip up to Denver before the baby arrives. I'm probably insane, it was last minute. We are finished with the Star Center up there, this will be therapy at the neurodevelopmental center. She wants to spend 10 hours working with Madeline with another therapist to further evaluate and assess her skills, learning abilities, etc... I don't know if Madeline can handle more then 2 hours a day of more intensive language therapy so that is what we are going to do. 2 hours a day for 5 days and see how she does. 

My mom agreed to come up with me to watch Gabrielle so she doesn't have to sit in the waiting room with me. The townhouse I have rented in the past is booked months in advance so we'll be staying at a suite hotel. It is much pricer then the townhouse even with a great deal I found, but I don't have many other options. My children do not do well sleeping in the same room together, if my mom and Gabrielle are going to be spending 3 hours or so a day trying to stay entertained in a hotel room with no car, they need a kitchen, room to spread out a little. 

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

winter schedule

I really wasn't planning on doing too many things. We are continuing with OT once a week, Madeline has taken one gymnastics class a week for a couple years now. She really enjoys it so we added a tumbling class last month as well. She took swim lessons last spring/summer, she kept asking me when she could do it again, I've been calling the rec center trying to find another instructor. I ran into an old family friend of mine a couple weeks ago who teaches piano lessons. She doesn't teach traditional lessons but the students learn how to play songs first and then reading the music slowly comes in. I knew it would be good for her self esteem and fine motor skills, plus Ryan is an excellent piano player and I knew it would be something they would enjoy doing together. So we added piano into our week as well. The rec center finally got back to me about swim lessons so now we are doing that again as well! Somehow I don't think that we will keep up this schedule for long but it will keep us busy until April. 

Sunday, February 8, 2009

random updates

Gabrielle is doing very well now. She only says once in a while that her "boo boo hurts", and we are down to giving her Ibuprofen maybe once a day, and no more codeine! Which is so nice because we had to battle constipation for several days because of it. She is slowly starting to use her left arm more and more. I'm still going to keep her close to home next week, I don't want her injuring it. 

I've been gathering my supplies for the birth. I alternate between being excited and terrified that in as soon as 8 weeks, I could have a newborn. The terrified part mostly is because of Gabrielle, she is sensing that change is around the corner and has been refusing to let me sleep any decent amount. I ordered a fishy pool for another water birth, and the supplies for the pool. I've been resisting ordering a birth kit though. I have some supplies leftover from Gabrielle's birth, and I don't have a problem ordering some things but the midwife supplied list includes items like gloves, things that I would have no use for if I didn't have a midwife. Just the list irks me and there is nothing out of the ordinary on it, but I don't like having to gather things for someone else.