Fast Food

So, my smart little one who acts like a 5 year old when she is only 3, now knows her fast food restaurants. Not that we eat fast food all that much, but she is just too smart for her own good. However, she does tend to the the names confused. She calls McDonald's "Old MacDonalds". Her favorite place to get nuggets and fries is Wendy's, and let me tell you what, you can NOT pull the wool over her eyes with a fast food joint. She knows exactly where you are, if you are pulling into a Burger King, you can not tell her it's a Wendy's, she knows better! Yesterday she told me she wanted to go to "King Booger" to get a hamburger, (she meant Burger King). Silly kid, that made me laugh, which in turn made her laugh even more so now she thinks its hilarious to say King Booger!

I have been trying for some time to get her into the Child Find program in our school district. If you are not familiar with Child Find, in a nutshell, it's a free preschool program designed for "special need" children and it's nation wide. They have physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech therapists on site at the school to do therapy with the kids. The way the program is worded, Courtney should qualify because of her delays in fine motor and gross motor skills. However they have been telling me since July that she doesn't qualify, without evaluating her. FINALLY we got an evaluation done yesterday. They told us at the evaluation that she still does not qualify as her delays do not impact her educationally at this time.

They whole thing is very frustrating. The biggest reason I want to get her into the program is because our insurance only gives her 20 visits per therapist per year (a year being when you start with that therapist). That really isn't very much. So, she may end up having a huge gap in services, which isn't good! And its not like we could afford to pay for those therapies out of pocket!

Anyway, they did "bump up" her priority on the waiting list and she is now in an "at risk" group meaning her delays MAY at some point impact her educationally so they need to keep an eye on her (so to speak and in a nutshell). She should be able to get in when the school year starts again in August, however, by then she will have been out therapy for a while, which worries me.

This whole process is very frustrating. I just am really worried about her having a lag or long break from her therapy, especially her occupational therapy. We have started to discover in the last month that she is pretty delayed in the sensory area. It's hard to describe, but it's not the senses like seeing, tasting, etc, but sensory. Which is why we have trouble with potty training, and why she thinks any water that may be remotely warm is HOT. The sensory delays are also liked to her behavioral problems. Yes, the kid has behavioral problems.

Good news (and no surprise to us) is that she excels in other areas such as comprehension, math, language. She is one smart cookie and comes in at about a 5 year old level in those areas (so they say).

Going through all that we have gone through with her has taught me a lot. One thing I have learned is that there is a program for kids birth-3 that offers free therapies and help. Of course I found out about that after Courtney was 3... BUT had I known about it, she would have been a candidate for the program, and she would not be having the issues she is having getting into Child Find. So that is frustration, but there is nothing I can do about it now. However, I am sure to tell anyone who has kids under 3 that may show ANY signs of problems about it. And since Kasey is in physical therapy I called today and Kasey will get evaluated by them. I have learned my lesson once the hard way. I am not going to let this happen again and if Kasey ends up not needing the program, good! But if she does, I will be very happy to have her in it!

ANYWAY, moving on. Hubby's Uncle Paul came to visit. Well, more like he was in town on business and was able to stay with us for a night. Courtney LOVED it and immediatly was smitten with her Uncle Paul. Of couse, that could also be because Uncle Paul brought her a princess laptop... But she really loved having him around for the evening. The last time Paul saw Courtney she was about 5 months old! She has changed a bit since then. And he got to meet Kasey in person!

After the girls went to bed, we spent the evening introducing Paul to the Nintendo Wii. He mentioned that he had not experienced it and was interested in trying it. He sure ended up liking it! I wonder if there is now a Wii in Paul's future. He is a big tennis player and so he really liked playing the tennis game. I told him that now he can play tennis in the comfort of his own home! And golf!

I also recently bought a game called Little Big Planet. Our friend Kelly gave it to Tony for Christmas and I was looking at it before she wrapped it. It looked so fun and then I started to ask people about it. Lots of people have heard about it, but not played it. So, I used one of my gift cards from Christmas and bought it. Hubby has played it and he played it with Paul last night. I have not gotten a chance to try it out yet, but even just watching it is fun! It is super cute!

Let's see, what else? Oh yes, Hubby's company is going through some big changes right now. One of the owners, the majority owner, left effective Jan 1. So, now the company is going through some restructuring. AND the company is really starting to get hit by the recession so things are tight and super scary right now. Especially for us since we are currently a one income family. In fact I have been working on updating my resume and starting to look for possible jobs. Do I want to go back to work? Heck NO, but it may come to that depending on what happens with the company. I really enjoy being a stay at home mom, playing with my girls all day, making dinner, making homemade baby food, etc. I enjoy the zoo preschool and my MOPS group. All of that would be really hard to give up if I need to...

Well, it's nap time, and I think I am going to take advantage of it and go try my game out. If Kasey will go back to sleep.... Hope all you are well!!