Evie the Extraordinary and Her Mommy: The Journey As We Go

Quarantining with a preschooler (soon to be kindergartner) is both wonderful and terrible.  Mostly wonderful. But sometimes I feel like I'm doing a terrible job as a mom and as a sudden teacher.  And then other times I feel like I deserve an award for working my full-time job and still teaching her things.  I oscillate between these feelings as fast as I find snacks throughout the day, because why not?  Here are some things Evie has learned during this time of quarantine: 1.  How to say I Love You.  As of August, she now says, "I love you SOOOOO much!" 2.  How to dance the Robot Cha Cha, courtesy of her music teacher sending along videos. Robot Cha Cha is a made-up dance, but she actually dances to Apache, by the Sugar Hill Gang .  Every single night.  3.  How to tell Daddy to dance the Robot Cha Cha, and make us all giggle.  Now Evie just points at her Dada and says, "Dada Dance." And then he has to dance. 4.  How to rea...

At Evie's graduation ceremony from her pre-K class today (she's going to the older pre-K class in the fall), she covered her eyes.  BUT she then got up and walked over to the teacher when her name was called, and then snuck a peek to see where I was, and then walked to me with her head down and threw herself in my arms.  She WALKED to me and knew what she was supposed to do!  I call that a victory!  3 months ago, she may not have done either of those things.  Evie was prepped by her teachers that this was the last day of school. She was not a happy girl when we pulled out of the parking lot and waved goodbye to the school building.  We are so thankful that she loves school that much.  Why does she love school so much?  Because she gets to do things like play dress up!  I am now scrambling to collect dress up necklaces, dresses, scarves, gloves, etc to accommodate her love for girly accessories!  We went to IKEA this weekend and bo...

Gearing up for the holidays was a whirlwind.  The week after Evie's birthday party, her class did some holiday activities, one of which was role-playing Santa and his reindeer, and climbing down the chimney (aka tunnel)!  I absolutely loved the picture they sent me of Evie, aka Santa, being pulled by 2 reindeer classmates.  This is what inclusion is!  Evie was fully included in the activity, and she was given support so she could fully participate!  I hope she understood how lucky she was to be Santa.  At least she kept the hat on.  We went to visit my parents in CA over the break, and it was nice to have warmer weather and a change of scenery.  Evie was an absolute angel on the plane going to CA and coming back.  I am so thankful for the iPad...I mean... for my angel of a daughter. Some fun family activities we found in the Riverside area were the Mission Inn, which was decorated for the holidays , Mt. Rubidoux for a quick hike ...

Hi everyone! My mommy is too busy to blog, so I have decided to blog for myself today. I had my last day of preschool last week, and I am enjoying vacation.  I wanted to tell you about my thoughts on preschool since starting in January. It's awesome. When I arrive, I meet with Miss Amanda, and she helps me walk in to the classroom. As soon as I walk in, people say hi to me.  My friends C and F are especially good at saying hi to me, and make me feel really special.  In fact, they have been greeting me at the car, ready to hold my backpack and hold the door open for me.   After I go inside, I put my name on the attendance board and then join in free play.   On Mondays, I do therapy with my speech, PT, and OT therapy ladies, and they usually come into the classroom and hang out with me.  Sometimes we go and walk down the hallway with my walker. I'm getting really good at that. When I walk down the hallway, the older kids know my name and say hi t...

Something I never thought I'd have to do when I first got pregnant was that I'd need to explain to the other kids in my daughter's class what's different about her.   And honestly, after spending a month in preschool, I don't think the other kids see too many of the differences.  The letter is more for the parents, so they won't be caught off guard if a child goes home talking about a "plastic tube that goes into Evie's stomach," or asking why Evie has a wheelchair and a walker. Evie modeling her pink wheelchair!  Insurance wouldn't cover the light-up wheels I selected (for some reason...) Our preschool team has been amazing, and one of their suggestions for the transition was to write a letter to the other families in the preschool class, explaining the g-tube in case the children asked about it.  They put me in contact with another mom, whose tubie is now in 3rd grade and flourishing. So a lot of credit goes to this mom, who gave permi...

I didn't cry.  Everyone warned me I would cry, but I think I was too busy trying to unfold Evie's walker and help Erick with her wheelchair, and forgot to be emotional about dropping off Evie on her first day of preschool.   Evie didn't even notice that I left.  She saw kids playing with trains, and I plopped her down on the rug and left.  I kissed her goodbye and she didn't even blink.  She was too busy looking at the trains. The preschool coordinator came to meet us, and took over, and that was that.  We left our precious cargo in SCHOOL! One of the moms introduced herself in the hallway.  She said that her kids were told about Evie before she came, and they were all excited to have her there.  That meant so much to me. Evie actually has a Rifton chair that has a picture of her on the back so that other kids don't take her chair.  Rifton chairs provide more support for a kid who needs more support to sit for long periods of time. ...

Today was the big day--the IEP meeting.  I've been primed to dread this day for years--pretty much once my baby was born and I started joining special needs' forums online and heard about this mysterious IEP when your child turns 3.  I hope that I can share our experience to help someone, knowing that every child's experience is different, and every town is different.  I will say that we have had a wonderfully smooth and informative experience! Here is a timeline of how things went down for Evie's entrance to preschool. 1.  6 months before she turned 2, we started hearing scary phrases like "when she turns 3" and "IEP" and "transition planning meeting." 2. Transition planning meeting : Evie's entire EI team congregated in our living room and talked about her skills and goals.  In my mind, this is probably when I made the transition from "coddle-the-NICU-baby" to "treat-my-daughter-like-a-big-girl." 3.  In the l...

When you are someone just starting on the Down Syndrome journey as a parent, you learn to dread the IEP (Individualized Education Plan).  What comes before this is the dreaded evaluation, where your child's under-developed skills are put into words all at once. Today was Evie's evaluation day.  I want to say right now that we had a great experience.  It wasn't horrible at all.  But our experience may be completely different, depending on the town, the staff involved, and the child's needs.  I thought I would jot down my thoughts here, in hopes of helping the parents who come after us. 1. You go through a ton of paperwork. Not only do you have the school district paperwork that everyone else has, but you have a packet of forms to fill out about your child's needs for each category.  This is the first achievement. 2. You hear from the schools about the date of the evaluation.  Having an actual date makes you hyper aware that something is coming, an...

Tomorrow is a big day. It's Evie's evaluation for preschool!  Our town has a great integrated preschool program, and once she has her evaluation, we will have an IEP meeting to decide what resources she needs to help her to succeed in school, and then off she goes!  *sniff* my baby *sniff* Evie has had a great 3 months in her new house!  She learned to climb stairs in the first couple of weeks.  We definitely have enough of them (3 flights!)!  Our new physical therapist had a pediatric walker to lend to us, and Evie took to it quite quickly. I couldn't believe my eyes when I took this video!  I didn't want to cheer too loudly, because cheering makes Evie cry.  But I was jumping up and down inside! Evie's eating has slightly increased in texture, and also we are trying the straw juice box again.  She is taking small sips of applesauces-water, but still not sucking on the straw.  She is also scooping up food herself from the bow...

I unexpectedly had some time during the day after Evie's doctor appointment last week, and decided to just bite the bullet and register her in the public school system for preschool (I know! I'm not ready yet either). I had no idea.  I had no idea the level of bureaucracy involved for preschool.   Just to get in the building was a challenge.  I had to walk all the way around to find the ONE set of doors I could enter (totally smart to keep our children safe), and then buzz the doorbell to be let in by the security guard. Then I had to wait for the administrators to finish chatting with each other before I could go in the office for registration.  Then the lady asked me if I had the birth certificate, utility bills, immunizations, physical, and license.  I proudly and confidently said yes.  Then she asked me if I had filled out the registration packet, and I felt deflated.  She handed me a 15 page packet and told me to tell her when she was read...