Monkey See, Monkey Do

I just finished filling out a stack of paper work for Ella to start SCHOOL! As of next Thursday, Ella will officially be enrolled in Toddler Group. It's a 2 1/2 hour morning preschool program offered through Early Intervention. The program provides kids an introduction to the school setting, while including services such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. It also gives children the chance to be in a social setting which is exactly what Ella is lacking. We don't have any family here in New York and most of our friends have older children, so Ella's chance to play with someone her age is limited.

Ella reading to Lucy

I got a preview of how beneficial toddler group is going to be. We were visiting Woburn this past weekend and Ella had lots of time to play with Lucy (my niece) as well as some of her cousins, Sydney and Caylee. It was wonderful to see her so motivated by her peers. Ella could be considered a copy cat and that's just fine with us. She wanted to crawl just like Lucy...if you know Ella, this was huge. She never cared about crawling and still rarely gets down on all fours. She also wanted to use the "big girl" sippy cup just like her cousin Sydney. Sydney was nice enough to even let us borrow the Dora cup for our walk home! If we can just get her talking like her cousin Caylee, we'll be making big progress. Caylee has a very good vocabulary for an almost 2 year old!!!

Hopefully once school starts Ella will be copying more than Tucker!

These small glimpses of Ella's monkey see, monkey do attitude combined with her determination and an incredible group of family and friends is what makes all the difference. She is going to do so well at school. Stay tuned for the first of many "first day of school" pictures :-)

The Gift of Gab

Ella's new trick is to use the box of wipes to
climb her way up on to the couch.

It is hard to believe that Ella has already been in the New York State Early Intervention program for two years! We had our IFSP (individualized family service plan) meeting this week. We meet with our team of therapists and our service coordinator every six months. It's a good time for everyone to catch up on Ella and make sure we have a plan. Each therapist provides a written report and we talk about any adjustments to her schedule that we would like to see. I remember being so nervous for our first meeting. I am a lot more comfortable now. There are no surprises for us at these meetings. Jason and I are pretty involved in Ella's EI program. One of us is always home when our therapists are here. We try and ask lots of questions and follow through with what they work on with Ella.

This meeting was especially exciting because of the tremendous progress Ella has made in the last six months. Some of our goals in February were to have Ella moving independently (crawling or walking), feeding herself, pulling up on furniture, exploring her environment. This was the first time we were able to check multiple items off that list as accomplishments. She is still a little behind her peers in motor skills, but she is literally doing something new and getting stronger every day. We are relieved and excited....and now even more focused on her talking. Speech is the area where Ella is still struggling. This is where the biggest delay remains. Ella did not get my genes when it comes to gift of gab! She has recently started using more words and communicating better, but we have a lot of work still to get her caught up. The ear tubes have helped a lot and we are seeing really promising qualitative changes. Hopefully it's just a matter of time before we start to hear more words.

Baby Ella "practicing" her PT in August 2009.

Ella has come such a long way since that first visit for her evaluation in August of 2009. She was so tiny and Jason and I were so clueless. We have always an open mind though and I truly feel that has helped us navigate the world of EI and get the best possible services for Ella. We started off with PT every other week and speech therapy every other week....wow has that schedule changed! Ella currently has One hour of land PT, two half hour pool therapy sessions a week, and three speech therapy visits. We are also adding toddler group (a two year old preschool program) in September. It keeps us busy, but the services work and have helped Ella reach her best potential. With any luck I will have a blog post titled "Chatty Cathy" in the near future. :-)

Walk This Way

It was a big day at the pool. Ella walked across the length of the shallow end for the first time! Since we began aqua therapy, Pnut has been limited mostly to the area near the stairs. In fact, when she first started with Linda she couldn't even sit on the second step without the water being too deep. She has grown leaps and bounds recently, however (full disclosure) Linda also helped make this possible. Linda asked the pool people to drain some water....and they did! Today when we arrived...the pool had 5-6 inches less water.


Ella walking in the shallow end of
the pool for the first time!

 The now minus-two-foot shallow end is still up to Ella's chin, but she managed to walk the length just like the "big kids". She seemed pretty pleased with herself. Of course, Jason and I were thrilled! It's just another big accomplishment for Pnut. The expanded pool territory also gives Linda a chance to work on new things with Ella. I can't wait to see what she thinks of next...though I'm not sure we can top draining the pool :-) We are very grateful for Linda and her persistence, dedication, and love for Ella!

That's What Friends Are For

I have said over and over that Jason and I would not be where we are today if it weren't for all the love and support of our family and friends. It's something we never take for granted and appreciate immensely. It's the pep talk from mom, the smiling faces on Skype and that long phone conversation with a best friend that always seem to pick us up when we've had a bad day.



Kristin with a very little Ella and Addison
during a visit to New York.

 It was during a phone chat with one of my best friends Kristin this week that the subject of this blog came up. She mentioned she had read it and we talked about how I finally made the decision to begin writing. Kristin is a pediatric PT and has fielded more than a few questions from Jason and I over the past two years. Even at our "craziest" moments, she is able to talk us off the ledge and give us the reassurance that Ella is doing great. She told me about an essay she had once read. I googled "Welcome to Holland"....and instantly wanted to share this beautiful writing. It was written in 1987 by Emily Pearl Kingsley.

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Thanks for sharing this Kristin....and thanks for all the love, support, and advice. I hope that someday Ella has friends like you to celebrate the good times and to lean on when times are tough :-) xoxo