Our first meeting

We had our first meeting yesterday with the school psychologist and speech pathologist yesterday, along with Kinsley's Early Interventionist. It mostly consisted of me answering questions and signing paper work. They did a vision and hearing screening on her also. She failed the hearing part of it so they are send her to an audiologist to have further testing done. At a very high decibel, she could hear the bird tweeting and put the block in the box as they asked her to do. However, as they lowered it a little and changed the pitch, all of us in the room could hear it through the headphones, and she wasn't even blinking her eyes. She made no facial expressions or anything. So, I guess we will add an audiologist to our group of professionals that see her. They also noted her voice being hoarse. It has been hoarse for several months now, but I was kind of trying to wait until her 3 year old checkup. However, they want me to go ahead and take her to an ENT because of possible nodules on her vocal chords. Anyway, they all agreed she needed the full evaluation, which will take place at the end of September.

My special little girl

I have known for a very long time, probably since birth, that something just wasn't the same with Kinsley as with the twins. The twins were born 2 months early, but yet, Kinsley wasn't even reaching milestones by the time they did. She wasn't way behind in rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, and other milestones, but even so, she did it later than most. At a year to a year and a half, she never babbled, and she had very little words in her vocabulary. At 2 she still had little vocabulary so her pediatrician referred her to a speech therapist. To make a long story short, the S.T. that did her original evaluation referred her to Baby Net. Baby Net did their own developmental evaluation and starting sending an Early Interventionist out to work with her. Both her Speech Therapist and Early Interventionist refereed her to be evaluated by an Occupational Therapist. So, yes, we are currently in 3 different therapies each week. When Kinsley turns 3, Baby Net will no longer cover the expenses of her services, which is ok. They are then turned over to the public school districts and start services at an elementary school they day they turn 3 if they qualify. When I was first told about this program, I declined the package and said, "No, I had rather keep her in her private pre school." Well, last week I got her 6 month evaluation from her Early Interventionist, and it really hit home....my child is developmentally behind, more so than I thought. Here are her overall scores: Cognitive: 22 month old level (33.24% delay) Receptive Language: 26 months (26% delay) Expressive Language: 23 months (30 % delay) Gross Motor: 25 months (26% delay) Fine Motor: 20 months (41% delay) - This one really boggles my mind. She can get out of her car seat, but yet she can't do the simple task they ask her to do. Social Emotional: 25 months (27 % delay) When I saw this, like I stated earlier, it really hit me hard. I starting worrying and was a little upset. No mother wants to hear things like this about her child. I then realized that maybe private school is not the right choice for her. Maybe she does need to be in a classroom with teachers trained to teach special children. With that said, I have my first conference with the school district tomorrow and a more in depth evaluation in September. I don't know if she suffered some mild brain damage from it taking so long to get her thyroid levels into a safe zone from birth, or if she has some other type of disability, or maybe she just needs a little extra help. Everyday she is showing more and more signs of mild autism and I've never even thought she could possibly have this until I read a high school classmate's blog about her 3 year son that was just diagnosed. I then started researching, and she indeed does have a lot of the symptoms. I'm not saying that's what she has because I have no idea. I have just been trying to research and try to find out as much information as possible. No matter what the outcome of the testing, how smart she is, how delayed she is, God has BLESSED me with this beautiful and very special little girl and I am so thankful he chose me to be her Mommy:)

4th graders

Wow....I can not believe my girls started their last year of elementary school. My babies are growing up way too fast.   Kelsey will have her official first day of 4th grade tomorrow considering she was sick the first few days of school.   She had been crying because she was in a lot of pain, so needless to say, she was faking the smile.