Do-Over Day

Today was supposed to be the day when I finished all my outstanding Christmas tasks.  My mom was going to watch the girls and I was going to wrap gifts and finish my shopping.  I was giddy at the very idea of such unencumberedness.

Sadly, it was not meant to be.  At 9:00 a.m., I found out my mom was sick.  Not only was she sick, but she was also babysitting my two nieces today too.  So instead of shopping, I ended up picking up my girls and my nieces too.  The only good thing about that is I had a fleeting thought about how nice it would be to have a third child this morning.  8 hours with four kids cures me of that notion, let me tell you.

As if babysitting on my day off was not enough of a bummer, in early afternoon, my 6 year old niece crashed out on the couch and when she woke up two hours later she had spiked a fever.  I fear that the chances that my girls will both be healthy for christmas after spending the past couple days with my mom and their cousin is almost nil.

THEN, when the nieces went home and I thought I was home free, M totally lost her shit.  She devolved into a colossal low-blood-sugar  tantrum in which she stomped around for 20 minutes yelling over and over that she DOES NOT LIKE SUSHI! and she DOESN’T WANT TO GO TO HALF PRICE SUSHI NIGHT! and THEY DON’T HAVE CHICKEN TERIYAKI THERE, ONLY SUSHI AND SHE WON’T EAT IT AND YOU CAN”T MAKE HER!!! (Which is completely false. They DO have teriyaki chicken and about 50,000 other things she would like, but M was too worked up to acknowledge it when I showed her on the sushi restaurant’s website.)

When we finally got to half-price sushi night(very late due to the tantrum) , we discovered that there was a line out the door.  We had to come home and eat hot dogs for dinner.

Today sucks, yo.  I am going to have a beer now.

The Eyes Have It

When L came home from China, she had a variety of delays, but didn’t qualify for Early Intervention.   I have been keeping an eye on her milestones and while she is still in the range of normal for most things, I have always wondered if maybe– just maybe– she is still struggling to catch up a little.  The problem was that I could never exactly pinpoint what exactly the problem was.  In most things she is fine, but she had a few nagging issues that never seemed to have anything to do with each other at all.

When it came time to select a preschool, we enrolled L in the preschool is run by our local school district as a developmental preschool.  Kids with all kinds of developmental delays go there, but about 50% of the kids are typical peer role models.   We thought this would be great for L.  Even though she was a peer role model, there is a lot of developmental work going on in the class for all the children.

About a month ago, I had L’s very first parent-teacher conference.  L’s teacher clearly likes her a lot.  (Maybe too much, actually.  She tends to think everything L does is charming even when  she is not doing what she is supposed to do.)  I think if you asked the teacher, she would say L’s conference was a good one.  She had lots of good things to say about L.

I, on the other hand, thought that L’s conference was a warning shot across the bow.  In particular, there was on comment that set off all kinds of warning bells for me:  “Well, L has a hard time staying on task…She is too young for a diagnosis, but she really doesn’t pay attention as well as the other kids her age.  Especially when we are doing table work.”

Huh.

Too young for a diagnosis, but clearly the teacher was implying that she thought L was leaning toward ADD.

We also looked over some developmental tests that all the children were given.  The teacher mentioned a few unusual results that came up with L.  In particular, in one she was supposed to trace a cross.  At her age, it is expected that she would trace it from top to bottom and left to right ( or the opposite).  Instead, L traced each of the four sections of the X by starting about an inch from the center and drawing outward.  She missed the middle entirely.  The teacher also told me that she evaluated L has being slightly right-handed.  I thought that was crazy because L has been favoring her left hand for eating and drawing ever since we met her.  We also discussed L’s rather unimpressive fine motor skills.

I went home from that conference quite bothered.

Armed with those test results and Dr. Google, it didn’t take more than about 15 minutes to make an amateur diagnosis.  I decided that L had a visual processing disorder which is one kind of Sensory Processing Disorder.  The information I found could explained all the random issues that had been niggling in the back of my brain and the comments from her teacher.  I was also not surprised to learn that visual processing problems can be related to a lack of tummy time and  stimulation in infancy.

I got busy finding a pediatric/behavioral optometrist who could do the full spectrum of vision testing necessary to figure out what was going on. Regular eye exams just cover eyesight.  This exam looks at how the brain processes the information the eyes are gathering.

Long story short, today L completed her eye screening and they confirmed that she definitely does have a visual processing problem.  More specifically, she has a pretty significant problem with tracking.  Her eyes skip and hiccup when she tries to follow moving things.  She also showed at least a 9 month delay in Visual Motor Integration.  Add those issues to L’s reluctance to cross her midline  and not so great fine motor skills, well, it is clear we are going to be spending time in therapy.

The eye doctor is recommending Vision Therapy. Twice a week for a minimum of three months and maybe as long as as TWELVE months.   I was shocked that the monthly cost is going to be about $575.  I was not shocked to learn that neither our vision or medical insurance will cover that therapy. (Let’s just say I am glad we aren’t going to have a mortgage payment in the near future! Yipes.)

I am also contemplating an Occupational Therapy evaluation.  I might wait until we do a couple months of vision therapy to see what kind of results we get, but I feel that sooner or later OT might be in the picture as well.

I am surprised that I don’t feel upset by the results of L’s testing (though I am decidedly unthrilled about the cost). I am actually quite relieve that we have finally put the pieces of the puzzle together.  I am also really glad we figured this out now, rather than when she started having problems with her reading skills in kindergarten.  Hopefully, we can whip her brain into shape and nip these problems in the bud.

only 11 days left???

Is it possible that there are only 11 days until christmas?

I will confess, I am not ready.  I still haven’t received my xmas cards in the mail, never mind sending them out.  I have no idea what I have purchased for gifts so far, nor do I know who else I need to buy for.

I place part of the blame on an email I received about a week and a half ago.  A couple who had seen our house when it was for sale last spring had finally managed to relocate from California.  They wanted to know if we were we still interested in selling.

That led to much discussion and finally a decision that yes, we are still willing to sell  (if the price was right).  So we had to clean and restage the house in a huge hurry.  When they saw it, they still liked it.  That kicked off several days of negotiations and now it looks like we are going to be moving.  That is, if we manage to actually sign a purchase contract (supposedly happening in the next day or two) and make it through the inspection period (the part we previously screwed up repeatedly).

If we actually get to closing, we will have to find a house or apartment to rent in hopes that the perfect house will come on the market soon.  It is a big if, but in the mean time, we will be paying down my grad school loan debt super-quickly.

Financially, it is a good plan.

Stress-wise, it is doozy.

Poor Christmas has fallen by the wayside.  I need to get back on the ball.  House sale or not, Christmas is bearing down on us.  Crappity crap crap.