Saturday, February 03, 2007

Another Evaluation report....

A couple of weeks ago we had another evaluation done on Nicholas to determine his eligibility for special ed. services. The evaluation itself was pretty short,only lasting about an hour,as compared to his other eval at the peds office which was 3 hours. It is not surprising to us that Nick has significant delays in communication, cognitive, and social development; so I am not in the least bit shocked...but part of me still is. To see everything written down on paper is just emotional sometimes. I am usually just pretty numb when going over the results; it takes time to sink in that this is life for us, and more importantly for HIM. I guess it just reminds me that even though Nick has made huge progress in the last year, we still have a long road ahead of us. His total language score was the age equivalent to a 10 month old. In auditory comprehension he scored at a 7 month level. His expressive language was a bit better because he uses a lot of echolalia-and that was at a 14 month old level. I just feel so lost sometimes. The world of special ed. seems so daunting-we have to develop an education plan for him with goals of what we would like him to accomplish. Simple things such as being able to function in classroom activities,playing with toys appropriately, requesting food items, and cleaning up. I know he will accomplish this and so much more,but it just seems overwhelming.

They are sending copies of this report to Evergreen Preschool, and we are supposed to get a call from his team of teachers next week. We will set up yet another meeting to develop his IEP. He will attend half-day preschool, and I suppose the other half we will have to coordinate with home therapies. He is now on the waiting list to receive ABA and speech therapies in our home from the University of Wa. We have another evaluation on the 8th of Feb. with Dr. Flake at Developmental Ped. I am going to see if we can get Nick in with a feeding specialist to do something about all his issues with eating. It never ends!

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Weekend News....

This weekend I was officially another year older. Friday I had the day off of work, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I took Nick to therapy, and Michael to school. We came home from therapy around 11:30 am and basically just relaxed until it was time to pick up Michael. I picked him up from school, and then him and I headed to our new Wal-mart to spend my gift card. I went and bought picture frames(yes, that IS what I wanted) so that I could hang up all the pictures we had of the kids. I still need to get a couple more to hang up the ones of Taylor and Michael and some other family pictures,but I got a good start.

Saturday we just hung around the house and did mountains of laundry. I am not sure if some of you have seen the chore chart we made for Michael,but here it is:

The chart is a lifesaver for me!! I no longer have to "nag" him to do chores, I just ask "Have you done your chores today?" and Michael looks at the chart and does them!! Four loads of laundry goes by really quick with extra hands to help folding and putting away!! How did I ever live without my chart???

Now, if we could only get him to listen to me when I say "be home at _____"! Last night I got around to making a cake and I let Michael help for most of it. He was grounded for the last part for not listening, and told to go to bed early. He did not like that at all. In fact,both of them went to bed early because they were just being "pills".

Today was more relaxing than yesterday since most of the chores were already done as was the bulk of the laundry. I spent more this weekend than ever on food though. $186.00!!! The grocery bill just keeps creeping upwards as these boys grow upwards. Michael is in a size 1 shoe already, and Nick is not too far behind him. I also bought Nicholas a sticker board for his stickers. Since that is a big motivator for him I am going to start teaching him the alphabet with stickers. We have already done a couple of letters,and even items such as "apple" or "car" with the stickers. I am hoping it will work well for him!

Nick at his sticker board.


Both boys recieved haircuts last week!

He LOVES Michaels' swim goggles!!! :)