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...
While sharing our journey with Down Syndrome, we want to help other parents with our experiences, as well as spread awareness about what it means to have Down Syndrome (spoiler: it means great things!).