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Showing posts with label early intervention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label early intervention. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

A House of Cards

I should have written a long time ago. Goddess knows I've had plenty to say. And anyone that knows me, or my house, knows that I have enough going on to talk about!

First things first. In the interest of disclosure, since so much was written about that time period.. my husbands oldest daughter has contacted him through Facebook. We knew it would happen when they aged out of the system. We didn't expect it to happen this soon. She is still only 17 and in state care. We also didn't except that we'd be able to so easily see his other two children connected to her Facebook page. Literally a click away. And not even a private page. There, on the other side of the most popular social networking site... were the three "missing" kids we've been searching for. We read, looked at pictures, put together pieces of the puzzle of what their lives have been like for the past decade..  I put my spying to good use and did a lot of digging. The oldest was the only one that didn't get adopted. And from what she writes on her wall, it was planned and somehow disrupted this past fall. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around why they would allow the kids to have completely public Facebook pages. I don't allow my own daughters to be that public!

So my husband and her exchanged cell numbers, because it was easier than writing inbox messages on Facebook. Of course we agreed not to say anything to the other kids that are younger, because she could lose contact with them and we don't want that to happen. They've all grown up so much. Barely recognizable from the pictures that I posted on here. And in all reality they don't us, and we don't know them. Not even his oldest.

We've also had to come to the conclusion that exchanging phone numbers might not have been the best course of action. I encouraged it, thinking they could easily write to each other here and there instead of trying to use my computer all the time. (the laptop cord fried, and Chris's computer is completely full of WoW. No really. So full that we can't play it on there because he's out of memory. Bah. New expansion just came out and we turned our accounts back on and everything. Figures.)

Where was I? Oh yes. Texting his daughter. It hasn't been easy. She texts him a lot. First thing in the morning, while we're all still sleeping.. the room lights up and I hear, "NEW MESSAGE!" from his phone on the nightstand. Oh.. its her good morning daddy message. Throughout the day there are more. Always filled with "I love you so much daddy. I miss you daddy"  Remind you of someone else you know in this family? Exactly. We have another father/daughter interpersonal issue. She hasn't changed or received the help she needed. It was that obvious. They really haven't had much of a relationship since she was 7 years old. She's 17 now. And just as dependent and immature. Whats to become of her in the next year when she ages out? The father instinct wants her to live with us. But intellectually we know that if she still has some severe issues, she can't live with us. We have 5 children and it isn't fair to them to put them in danger. Not even to reunite my husband with his child/ren.

Lest you think I'm the big green evil ogre that most step mothers seem to be. I'm not. I can just see a mental health issue when I see one. And this is a huge elephant in the room. I'm glad that Chris sees it though and for the most part we're on the same page. He's started pulling back a bit more each day. Letting more time pass before responding to her. Not getting dragged into her drama, "I made a bad choice daddy. Help me. What do I do?" type of issues that seem to be a daily occurrence with her.

I will be honest here. I can't say jealousy didn't enter my mind. And that's not right. She is his child. There shouldn't BE jealousy there. But somehow her timing, her dependency, her urgency, and her manipulation all make the situation pretty painful. For the past two weeks, she's said good morning to him first, shes' asked him about his day first, she's said goodnight first. And I'm pretty sure if you add it up, they've exchanged more "I love yous" then the two of us have. ... Its hollow. Its empty. Its a house of cards built on nothing but a fantasy of life before state custody. Nothing will ever come of it. Not even the parts that I'm alright with. Her being in our lives, and being a part of it..  I'm not sure she will be able to share her father in that way. She views her life as being her, her sister, her brother, and her father. No matter what. They stick together. But that manner of exclusion isn't going to work. It can't work like that and be healthy.

I'm waiting for the house of cards to fall down. I know it can't survive this way. He isn't able to keep up with her demands, and instead I end up texting her. She thinks she's talking to her father, and he doesn't have to try to navigate this uncertain ground. He doesn't want to mess it up, but he doesn't know how not to. Soon enough though the game will come to an end. Someone will notice she's talking to her biological family and it will be revoked. Who knows how far they'll go to stop those connections. At least if I shoulder most of the responsibility and emotional baggage, then when the cards come flying down..maybe it won't hurt him so much. Thats my hope anyway.

So as you can probably imagine, that's enough excitement to last for quite awhile. However, this is MY family! Which means there's a lot more!


Update about Ivy: Her IEP was yesterday at school. She's in second grade and this is the second IEP this year. We went to reclassify her. That meant another round of tests and observations and rating forms to fill out. In the end, it was a unanimous vote to change her primary disability status from a child with "Speech and Language Disability" to a child with "Autism."  And what that means is that she'll automatically get a lot more services. So we left the room with all her supports for the bus in place, She's on a different bus than all the other kids in the neighborhood, which is working great so far! It goes down our street anyway so it just loops around and picks her up. That way she isn't around any of the kids in this neighborhood. She plays a Leapster or watches a DVD player that the bus company bought for her. She sits in the front seat, with a seatbelt, and she also sits with a 5th grade girl and so far, no issues at all. She gets 60 minutes of a social skills group a week. Thats two separate groups. And she gets 60 minutes a week of OT. She also has accommodations in the classroom, a weighted vest, a wiggle seat, some chewy pen toppers as well. All in all it was a great IEP meeting. I think our case manager ruffled some feathers, but when doesn't she? LOL

Oh, in case I didn't blog about it before (I'm sure I did though) Ivy was officially diagnosed with ADHD combined type, Anxiety Disorder NOS, and Asperger's Disorder. She also has a mild cognitive disorder that affects her working memory.

Update on Odin:  Odin has been receiving OT and related services though Child Development Services (CDS)  since the beginning of the year. They've done nothing. To be honest it was a waste of time. However, they're going to order him a new trampoline with a bar and that will make things easier for me!

He recently had a speech and language test done, and also a Vineland. He qualifies for 3-5 services easily. His articulation alone qualified. Yep thats right, the opposite of what CDS told me. They said, and I quote "He just has too many words and he's having a hard time saying them. He'll catch up."  Well he hasn't. Its only gotten worse since he's older! So now that he's aging out of the 0-3 and headed to the 3-5 services, they are offering him a specialized preschool 3 days a week for 3 hours a day. They'll give him OT and speech right there with qualified people. Small class, no more than 6-8 kids at a time and they work on a lot of adaptive functioning, schedules, routine, etc. From what people have told me, its a great opportunity. I might take them up on that.

Theres a lot of detective work I need to do first. Putting a 3 year old into pre-school is something I haven't done since Sierra went to Headstart. But she was so much more advanced and by that time, used to separating from me because of the whole shared parenting thing. I don't know if I'm ready to let my baby boy go. It seems too early to me. Everyone talks about how important catching things early is, and how much his autism symptoms will improve.. but since I'm not in the "cure all the autism" camp I'm not really sure how I feel.


(note: This was a post that I had in my drafts and forgot to publish. Oops!)

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Spring is almost here

We've set our clocks ahead now, and I've found that the kids adjust much easier in the springtime than they do when we roll the clocks back in the fall. They're still waking up at 6 AM but at least they're still falling asleep at 7 PM. We've been going outside the past few days. Temperature wise its been above average this year. It hit 69 the other day! In March! In Maine! I'm hoping that the rest of the season is the same.

Early Intervention was supposed to come to start the evaluation process with Odin the other day. His speech was the major concern, but even some days I'm not sure I'm concerned about it anymore. I go back and forth. I think that he's a bit behind but probably not enough to qualify for services.  The house is clean and we waited for the person to come. Chris was planning on taking the other kids out for awhile to make it easier, even though is leg hurts a lot these days. (and thats another blog post) The person from EI forgot about us, so we ended up doing it over the phone. I wish he would have given me that option to begin with!

So tonight I'm sitting here at 11:30 and dreading going upstairs. I'm tired, but I'm so anxious about tomorrow that I want to keep my mind off things. And by keeping my mind off things what I really mean is, google everything I possibly can about speech and language disorders, in particular Childhood Apraxia of Speech. I'm nervous that EI is going to be in my home. Not just one person, but a few different people. :( Ugh. Chris is going to take Piper and Persephone upstairs while they're here, and hopefully they'll be gone before Ivy is home from school.

If something is going on with Odins speech, I hope that EI really catches onto it and does something. After Ivy, I feel like they've failed us.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Odin's Speech at 24 months old

Odin will be turning two years old in 17 days and I'm concerned that his speech is not progressing as it should be. He doesn't say any sentences except ones that were learned together as a phrase like "thank you" and "I love you"- He cannot copy after me when I say something, and if he manages to say a word, I might not hear it again. Its like he forgets. He also adds an "L" into his words all the time. The only question he asks is "Whatsthat" and it sounds like "wahdah" run together, no inflection at all. He doesn't actually converse at all, it's mostly just yelling at his sisters or saying random things from his favorite thing "Go Diego Go", For instance, if I ask him his name he'll say "Diego!" He has no response to asking him to make animal sounds. He can point them out if I ask him, "Show me the cow" but he doesn't imitate me saying them or tell me what they sound like. (with the exception of Llama. He does say that because he sees that one on Diego of course.)
Some examples of his speech are:

nay nup= thank you
nut= donut
ee= please
dago=diego
duh duh= anything else he doesn't know
et ee= empty
g low= playdough
et cho clats= santa clause
pone= phone
oooh= buddah
pen= money
mummy=money
klee= keys
glaa=soda
tloy=toy
no= snow
deritis= there it is
glacksin= michel jackson
ee=wee
nup= yup
woo=whale weeble=whale
ooh un=all done
ee all=snail
da=ducks
ah dun=my turn
dladdy=daddy
wee=swing
wee wee, mee mee, and winwe= windy
chloclate=chocolate (I'm actually impressed by that one)
up= help and cup
er= hair
jeb-brar= jaguar (from diego)
dop=stop
you=ewww
kliss=kiss (again an L)
jay tul= gentle
el come= welcome
tres=three in spanish 
quatro=four in spanish
poor=four
Pie po, pee po=Piper
Eye ee=Ivy
Eh a rah=Sierra
Geh=give
Do=two
Be=three
klee-dlup=clean up
et=hat
nee nah=banana
uh me=look at me
yo-k=are you okay
ah dun= my turn




If he doesn't know what something is, he responds with either something else, like exclaiming "Day go!" (diego) or by saying "Doh Doh" or making a hissing sound.
He does say some words correctly. Ball, Mama, baby, Daddy (sometimes… other times daddy is said with that "L" as in DLaddy"
He does get upset when we don't understand him, but it does no good because he simply repeats the word over and over again. If we ask him if he wants milk, he's just scream and keep saying "eeuck eeuck" which is what milk is I guess.
He says "yes" and "no" and they sound so much the same that I'm never sure. Most of the time unless its something about his tv show, I have no idea what he's saying until we go through the list of things he could want.
Am I right to be a little concerned? He is my first boy and I have 4 other girls that talked in sentences by now.Are these errors that are normal for a 2 year old?

I was reading about Apraxia and wondering if it fits that description. So instead of sitting here looking things up I decided to call CDS and set up an evaluation.