First Day of School

September 8, 2011 - Ella's "first day of school"

Thursday was Ella's first day of school...well the closest thing a 2 year old has for school! She had a successful start to Toddler Group. It was an exciting morning in our house. Ella was in a great mood and ready to go. She even cooperated perfectly for the obligatory first day of school picture. While Ella was happy and seemingly unaware of where we were headed at 8am...Jason and I were a mixed bag of emotions. In reality, you could probably say we were nervous wrecks (though neither one of us would admit it!) This was the first time we were leaving our little Pnut with strangers, outside of our house. We knew she was going to be in good hands. I had visited Unity Sunshine, toured the classroom, met the teachers and therapists, and even spoke to her teacher on the phone this week. We had good recommendations as well. Jen (Ella's PT) worked at Unity for several years. She explained the program to us and even walked me through much of the registration process.

There was no reason for us to be nervous. Ella walked into the classroom, right to the center of the room, looked around and seemed pretty impressed. There were kids everywhere. The drop-off room was busy with kids arriving and moms and dads meeting teachers and saying their goodbyes. Jason and I put her stuff in her cubby and chatted with the staff briefly. All the while, Ella never looked back! She didn't seem  concerned at all that we just brought her to this new place. She just stood there in the middle, taking everything in. We said our quick goodbyes, she waved to us and we were off. You would think that relief would set in....haha, NOPE! I even walked back to peek in the window of the classroom to make sure she was okay. Jason was worried because she was standing alone. We hashed out every situation possible during her two and a half hours in the classroom. Of course, all our worry was for nothing. Ella was all smiles and playing with another little girl when I arrived to pick her up. Her teachers said she had a good day!

We all survived day one. There were no tears (not even from me!), positive feedback, and lots of smiles and laughing from Ella for the rest of the day. I can't wait to see how well she does with all this change. Ella ALWAYS seems to rise to the occasion and impress us. I think this experience will lead to tremendous growth for Ella...and for Jason and me :-)

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. :-)