glishara

So, this has been a very low-key vacation for me thus far, which is fantastic. I'm nearing the end now (Monday I go back to work), but I feel SO refreshed from 2 weeks with literally NO work contact.

We've done some fun things this week, and had some very calm days. We took Wesley to the Museum of Science last week, which was amazing. He's on the young side for it, but still got very into things like the frog exhibit and the dinosaurs. We spent around 2 hours, and used a museum pass for discounted admission, so with parking, it was only around $22 for the three of us. Lorrie stayed with my in-laws.

We also played at the park a lot, planted a garden with carrots and lettuce, went to the zoo, and, just us adults, did our parent-teacher conference with Wesley's preschool teacher and went out to The Melting Pot for our anniversary dinner. Tomorrow, we're probably going to Drumlin Farm and having an ice-cream picnic, then seeing my parents and grandparents for my birthday dinner.

We also bought a new washer and dryer, since ours died.

This weekend is supposed to be glorious, so we'll try to find some outdoor areas to explore. Maybe we'll find some good hiking paths.

I feel good.

So, we are moving again with regards to Wesley, and we have a plan for moving forward.

Thank God.

We had another meeting today with the special education group at the local school. Early this month we had an evaluation meeting, and today, we had the meeting to come up with an education plan.

The most the district offers in his age range is 6 hours a week of school, of mornings two days a week. So that's what we'll be doing. I'm not thrilled about that, but we'll keep him going to playgroup for a few hours on Wednesdays, and that will get us up to 8. It's still vastly shy of the 30 the neurologist recommended, but it's what we can get without shelling out a lot of money.

In that 6 hours, he'll have an hour with the speech therapist, broken into 2 half-hour segments. One will be in the classroom, and she'll involve other kids and have interaction be a big part of it. The other one will be more 1-on-1. The special ed classroom teacher is also going to meet weekly with the preschool teacher who'll have Wesley in her class, to recommend exercises to help him learn what they call "adaptive behavior." As far as I can figure out, adaptive behavior means "functioning in the real world." They kept repeating the phrase "classroom skills" in relation to this: sitting at a table, standing in line, interacting with other kids, joining singalongs, waiting his turn, things like that.

So this is all going to take some time to be processed. They gave us the choice of stating him the Tuesday before February break, or the Tuesday after. We said it would probably be easier to wait, rather than have it start and stop and start again. So we'll take him by the Thursday before February break, and meet the teacher and some of the other kids and have him see the classroom. We'll be with him the whole time that day. And then after the break we'll start him for real. I am nervous, but he will probably do all right.

And now we're moving forward again! Hooray.

Lorrie is getting intensely talkative these days. It is a lot of fun, and very cute.

She makes a lot of declarative statements. One-word declarative statements, repeated over and over.

"BAY."
"Yes, Lorrie, it's a bear."
"BAY."
"Bear, yes."
"BAY! BAY! BAY!"
"Bear."
"BAY."

This can go on for 5 minutes at a stretch, and frequently transitions into her other favorite conversation.

"DOE."
"Yes, Lorrie, it's a dog."
"DOE. DOE. DOE."

Other words: ZHOU (juice), MUH (milk), NANA (banana), BEH (bread), BAYBAY (baby), MOW (mouse), UH (up), DADA, MAMA, ESSIE (Wesley), DOODUH (noodle), BAW (ball).

There are others, I think, but those are the top-of-my-head words.

Also, you will note that all Lorrie words are in all-caps. This is grammatically accurate.

I love my babies. I need a Lorrie icon. And a new Wesley one, for that matter.