Dubious Milestone (#microblogmonday)

C (aka Jill) has her first ear infection at nearly 10 months old. She's coping pretty well so far with the antibiotic (unlike her sister who had explosive diarrhea and nasty diaper rashes with her first couple rounds of antibotics) and it certainly seems to be improving her mood!

Trying an idea I stole from Empty Arms, Broken Heart.  #microblogmonday

Not Boding Well

Remember when I said Susan's IEP transition to high school meeting went well? (Bullet 5) Well...

At that meeting, we all agreed to make a specific change in one class that she's taking next year. (So, think of it as taking World History in 9th grade instead of US History.) There were good, long-term thinking reasons for the change and everyone in the meeting agreed to it, even though it puts her in a slightly harder academic schedule. We also agreed to remove a support class they'd inserted (without asking us. And her current teacher of that subject stated that a support class was not necessary) and talked about the elective options to replace that class in her schedule.

Last week, school got out for the summer. I happened to meet with one of the high school counselors about something else to do with Susan's schedule for next year and she read off the entire course list to me. The support class is gone and has been replaced with Susan's third choice elective (because the first two were already full by the time we got her out of the support class we never asked for or needed. Grr.). But the "history" change hasn't been made. I expressed surprise. I was told that the counselor couldn't change the schedule of a student on an IEP and I would need to follow up with the IEP caseholder (a rule that I'm sure is in place to prevent IEP caseholders being left out of the loop). Of course, we don't have a high school IEP caseholder yet and the counselor said I should contact the person who represented the high school in that transition meeting.

So, I did. He's not responding. I've also copied her eighth grade caseholder who is WONDERFUL, and she has forwarded that on to some others who she says can "hopefully get this corrected before school starts." I'm not OK with "hopefully...before school starts." I want it done before she gets her official schedule the week before school starts so she can walk her schedule and figure out how to get to each class. (We even talked in the IEP meeting about how she should do that --familiarize herself with her route and figure out the best times to take locker breaks. We can't do that if her schedule isn't right.) Today is the last day of post-planning, although the person I'm trying to reach is supposed to be working all summer as well. I tried calling today to find out when I might be able to catch him in the office. I got told that email is really the best way to reach him and he was already gone for the day.

This is not a good start to high school scheduling issues.

Counting

Lucy is learning the concept of numbers. For a long time, every time she saw a group of things, she would announce there were "two" of them. So, the collection of 5 horses in a field was "2 horses," the row of 3 birds on a telephone line was "2 birds," the long line of traffic coming the other way on the road was "2 cars."

We tried substituting "lots" for her -- "Oh, that's a lot of cars, isn't it!" -- but it didn't take. So, we took to counting them. "2 horses? Oh, I see... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 horses!"

She's getting there. Now she sits by the window in the car and "counts" with numbers in random order, but still generally ends on "two!" "One, three, five, two, three, four, one, two, three, two cars!"

Miscellaneous updates

• I still check up on the girls' birth mother periodically. Kayla went to jail in late November and stayed there until very recently. She gained a significant amount of weight while incarcerated (and complained about that on Facebook), but was so very thin before hand that I suspect she's actually closer to a healthy weight now than she was. She also commented about the weight being a result of being sober. I hope that her time in prison helped her break her addictions. What remains to be seen is whether her social circle is such that will support a lifestyle change to stay that way.
• We're half expecting a DFCS call in about 9 months telling us there's another baby. (To which we will have to say: thanks for letting us know, feel free to share our contact info with this one's foster/adoptive family. There's just no room at this inn.)
• Peter got his driver's license. There's a 15 year old Toyota Camry in my driveway that is "his to drive." Having him able to get himself (and his siblings over age 2) places has simplified life a bit. In our state, he's not allowed to drive friends for the first 6 months (and then only 1 at a time for another 6 months). (The not-driving-littles is a family rule which he is perfectly okay with obeying. They're just too distracting as passengers.)
• Lucy has learned how to say "help", which is awesome for letting her tell us when she needs us to step in and when she wants to work at it and figure something else. She's also taken to saying "helper" when she wants to do something for you that she thinks will be helpful. Like pick up the Cheerios that Jill has dropped out of the high chair.
• Susan will go to high school in the fall. We've had a meeting with her special ed team at the middle school as well as a representative from the high school to talk about the "transition plan." It all sounds pretty good. The real test will be next fall when she gets a whole new crop of teachers to work with and we find out how well the IEP gets enforced at the high school level.
• Lucy has begun saying "stop it!" Eek. I wondered and guilted myself and struggled to remember -- do I say that to her too much? I don't think I've heard others say that particular phrase much? Then, I heard it come out of my mouth. And realized I do say "stop it" quite a good bit . . . to the dog. (She jumps at the television whenever there's any kind of animal on it and I scold her to "stop it!" She barks at the UPS truck making a delivery across the street and I fuss "stop it!" She growls at the bird in the back yard and I snap "stop it!") 

Doctor's Visit

I love my pediatrician's office. Today, I was reminded why.

C, who I think I shall begin calling "Jill", had a well-child visit. We were 15 minutes early because it was the first visit since the adoption was final, so there was new insurance and a name change and I wanted to give the office staff plenty of time to get all taken care of before our appointment time.

They were running late. Way, way late. It was over 30 minutes after our appointment time before we were called back to a room. That's 45 minutes in a waiting room with a 9 month old and a 2 year old.

(That doesn't sound like a reason to love them, does it?)

Here's why I love them:

• Front office nurse apologized for the wait part way through.
• Nurse who called us back apologized again.
• Second nurse came in to help distract Lucy with crayons and a coloring book while Jill's vitals were taken and intake questions were asked.
• When the doctor came in, she apologized again.
• And -- on top of all the apologies? -- the doctor's only response to Lucy's meltdown while we were trying to get through the exam was "that's age appropriate."

I know delays happen. Appointments run long, people arrive a little late, children don't cooperate. I've always liked that they never feel like they are rushing through the appointment to get to the next one. But today, I really appreciated the total lack of judgement when I was feeling embarrassed by my 2 year old's "age appropriate" behavior.

(Jill is doing fantastic, by the way. She's on the small end of the growth chart, but staying steady on her curve; development is right where it should be. That, by itself, makes for a wonderful doctor's appointment, given the way her life started.)

Late post -- we are final!

Oops.

I just realized I never did post an update after we finalized C's adoption.

It did happen in late February, we have pictures with the judge, her name was legally changed and we are just waiting for the state to send us an updated birth certificate so we can finalize all the paperwork. (I'm hoping the attorney will manage to "accidentally" get us a copy of the original birth certificate again, too.)

The home is officially closed -- I have no more bedrooms! -- but we have asked to be notified if there is another biological sibling. Birth mom is incarcerated (and has been for about 4 months), so I'm assuming we're safe from that all for a little while. I asked the caseworker, somewhat jokingly, if there was any news of another pregnancy already; she said she sure hoped not. I'm crossing my fingers that the jail would tell DFCS if they had a pregnant prisoner with a history with CPS, so that means she's probably not pregnant right now. I really have no idea what we'll do if we get that phone call; agency caseworker said (if birth mom was pregnant already), she would go ahead and decline the placement on our behalf to save us from ourselves. We'd still want to know of the child's existence, even if we couldn't take the placement, and hope to be able to set up contact if another baby ended up adopted. But that's all a bridge to cross when we get there.

Mr D and I went away for a weekend recently -- our annual just-us trip -- and noticed that "five" is apparently the number that makes people say "wow!" when asked how many kids we have. We heard it almost every time; that happened rarely when we used to say "four." I can't imagine what people would say if we ever start saying "six." (There I go again. I will not think about another sibling, I will not think about another sibling. I will not think about another sibling!)

It's nice to be down to normal business -- no more caseworker visits, no more documenting medications, no more asking for copies of visit notes from the doctor -- and I have a little less of the time-on-my-hands feeling that I had after Lucy's adoption finalized. A busy 2 year old and a baby starting to crawl will keep me quite well occupied, thank you very much. Also, there were never family visits for C, so that was one less thing that went away, so to speak.

It's a little strange to be thinking about colleges and preschools at the same time, but the age gap is really what makes this doable for me. I can't imagine having added two little ones when my original crew were younger and less self-sufficient.