What a month. Best of times first. J is in the middle of a developmental growth spurt! It is exciting to watch. His attention span is improving, he is concentrating and holding still with less direction, he is talking talking talking. All of his teachers/therapists have commented on this over the past couple of weeks. He is initiating interactions with his little friends at school and is less shy; he's speaking up more and holding his own.
We started a new speech therapy treatment through Children's Mercy Hospital last week. Insurance doesn't cover it, and we were on a waiting list for several months. The good news is we qualified for a grant through the hospital and are paying next to nothing for therapy. Yippee! They gave him a speech assessment the first day; it was the same one they had attempted to give him last October during our annual cleft palate clinic visit. I remember in October thinking, "don't bother, he doesn't know the meaning or the context of half the words you are asking him to identify." Last week, he nailed it! I was behind a glass mirror watching, and my jaw literally dropped. The little neurons just seem to be clicking in for him all of the sudden. There is an observable improvement even with his gross motor skills (which I thought were just fine). He just bounds up the stairs with more of a spring in his step. Did I mention he is physically growing as well? He finally looks like he belongs with his peer group. These are exciting times.
I'm still trying to sort out what to do with schools for him. I'm going to attempt to enroll him in Border Star Montessori, one of the best schools in the district. I should say, one of the few really good schools. He goes there now for his school district speech therapy once a week, so we've been hanging around there, I've observed classes, spoken with the principal, and the speech therapist is strongly lobbying for him to be admitted. The catch is that there are 800 applicants for 50 student openings. Yep. We'll see. If that doesn't pan out we will continue at the Ancilla Center for another year before beginning kindergarten. I'll have another year to sort things out. I love the Ancilla Center, as does he. All the KS school districts are better than MO at this point, save for a handful of good schools on the MO side in the metro area. The KC MO district is literally in the process of closing almost half its' schools by next fall, drastic measures to save resources and improve the quality of schools that do exist. Long term, it will likely be good for schools but we are more on the short term track, so we'll see. The other moving part to all of this is that developers are moving up the street buying up properties one by one, and our house is next. So I will have an opening to decide between KS and MO soon, though the timeframe on that is uncertain. I'm just letting things fall out as they may; I used to be worried but it wasn't changing anything so now I'm just hanging with it.
O.k., now for the worst of times. Week before last, J started to have a bad cold which turned into a bad cough which turned into what they are calling "seasonal asthma." Last Saturday night at this very moment we were at the hospital's Urgent Care Dept. as J was having very labored breathing. The gave him a nebulizer treatment, discovered he also had an ear infection, put him on antibiotics and steroids. We had several nights of minimal sleep as I was monitoring his breathing and sometimes had to give him albuterol treatments in the middle of the night. Hands down, since we became a family, I have never been as tired as I was during this past week. Tonight is the first night I didn't give him any albuterol before bed, so that is a real milestone. I am so grateful he is better. I worked three days last week in the middle of all this, and everybody at work was really supportive. I got to take "cat naps" a couple of days in between clients which helped immensely. Yesterday was the first day I felt human again and today is normal. So grateful to have good medical care for him. I am hoping that this asthma business is in fact seasonal. The same thing happened last year at this time, when the weather was frigid, then warmer, then frigid. He didn't have any trouble the rest of the year last year, so knock wood, if it is predictable I will jump on it really early next time. It's just when he has the labored breathing it happens so quickly, it's a scary thing. I'm learning as we go.
Now for more best of times. Today we went to a Chinese New Year party sponsored by "Families Blessed With the World's Children." It's basically an organization of families who've adopted kids from China. J had the time of his life, I wish I had taken a camera. There was a DJ and food and a gaggle of Chinese girls dressed in red silk dresses. Then there was J in his sweat pants, running around giggling throughout the crowd. An older girl, maybe 7 yrs old, just kind of attached herself to him and they ran and played and danced for about an hour. I got to meet another family who adopted a special needs girl with one hand missing. I just love meeting these families, it has put me in touch with some remarkable people. I wish we had gatherings more often. There are many families with kids adopted from China in the metro area, but there doesn't seem to be a cohesive network established. As he gets older, we will enroll him in Chinese courses, and there is a dance troupe I've heard about as well. Mostly all girls, but some little guys in there. When he gets older, if he decides he's interested in girls, he is going to have it made in the shade. Take your pick!
I just love this little guy so much. Even during total sleep deprivation we were such a unit. I keep thinking we're well attached and then the attachment grows deeper. He's such a little extrovert. He has started recently to ask, "Mommy, let's new friends," ie. lets go meet some new folks. He just anticipates making friends wherever he goes. Love that.
His sentences are becoming more complete, though he has a fondness for leaving out the verbs: "Can I cereal?" "Can I Owen, Eli, Stella?" "I want park please."
Either that, or he'll throw in extra: "Mommy, may I have be excused please?"
He's a goofball. I'm tired. That's about the gist of it! Over and out.
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