We finished our last meeting with our social worker last Friday. Now we just live in wait mode for the next 18 months of our life I think...with a little paperwork thrown in for good measure. It is up to her to write up our Home Study and send it off with our paperwork and $ for our I800A. Apparently this has been averaging 4 months. I am going to send off all of our paperwork and "stuff" for our dossier to CAWLI today. So our next step will be getting our fingerprints taken when we receive our notice.
In other non-adoption related news...
Mackenzie made the academic team at Beechwood and is very excited about it! She had her first practice on Monday. She is also getting evaluated for GT. So we shall see how things progress with that also. I have no idea how Beechwood handles their gifted and talented program but I am looking forward to finding out. She has been doing well with school for the most part. Still a big adjustment responsibility wise but she is making strides.
Ainsley is loving school. Or at least the parts of school that involve either hanging with friends or eating. Everything else is non-essential in her opinion. If she has to pick something "academic" that she likes, it's math. I am still working on learning what motivates Ainsley. She does ok in school but doesn't particularly care about all the academic stuff. She does seem to do well with math which shouldn't be shocking since her parents are math geeks. She has started to like to read a little bit more than she has in the past which is encouraging too. She really enjoys gymnastics though and is doing well.
Ellie. Where to begin with Ellie. We are in the process of getting an OT eval from Cincinnati Occupational Therapy Institute (COTI). She has had her two appts and now our formal sit down and talk about it appt is next Monday. We shall see what we find out and how we can best help her succeed academically. She is struggling in Kindergarten a bit. I am not sure what to do about it. Her teacher requested a meeting so I need to set that up today. Her fine motor skills are atrocious because we haven't had the time and/or therapy visits enough to work on OT. When we brought her home, we focused primarily on speech and PT because those were what seemed to need the most work. Speech will be a major issue for years and years. She is making progress but it is very slow and seems to take a lot of time. She also is still behind her peers socially and I think keeping in kindergarten 2 years honestly might have to be the plan. It feels like it is taking forever, but there's no way to force "catch up" that I can find. She still fusses at the teachers on occasion, gets worked up over sirens and lots of loud noises (we have the OT can help us with some of her sensory issues also) and in general is just behind her peers in how she responds to life. I wish I knew how to help her better but right now I am doing the best I can and that's all I can do. I feel that between working and her therapies, I have very little time to actually spend "helping" her work on her letters, numbers, pre-reading skills, coloring, speech, etc. Her OT will take up all the time I have on Monday before gymnastics; I work Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Wed is speech therapy before picking up the older two and Friday we usually get together with her Chinese playgroup. That leaves evenings but by then I am usually busy helping Ainsley with her school work, cooking and cleaning up from dinner and starting the bedtime routine.
And we are adopting again...why?? How do other moms make the time for everything they do and have 6 kids? I have no idea but if anyone has any helpful suggestions please let me know because I sure need them!
2 comments:
Hey! I feel like I never have any time, and I only have ONE kid! So, you are amazing to me! I guess it's all in perspective. I hope you guys can get Elly the help she needs. We are just in the process of getting PT for Ewen, but I fear we may need OT for some of his fine motor skills (like writing) in the future. I don't know; we take it as it comes.
Adopting again...why? Because Proverbs 3:27 says "do not withhold what is good from those who deserve it when it's in your power to help them". Because you know that even on your busiest most stressful day, when someone joins your family, they will sleep in their own bed, in their own home, with their own family who loves them. Because you know that though your life may be harder then you would have "wanted", the rewards will be that much sweeter. You can't do everything every day to help Ellie- but what you are giving her, and the next one who joins you, is by far the most important things. 10 yrs from now, will it really matter if Ellie was a bit behind in OT work? In the big picture of things, she is doing amazing. But if you are looking for specific things to do..I'd look at every day-to-day activity as an opportunity for OT and not stress about lacking in time for "specific" OT moments. Play, chores, eating, helping prepare food, sitting next to you doing "work" while you do your tasks, etc, etc. This is what I plan to do with Nathan and Peter- who both will need lots of OT, PT, speech, and everything else. I pester every single person who is tasked with helping my child so I can do the same thing at home. As #5 and #6 come on board, I DO NOT have time to go to 100's of extra appts. each week. That's my plan and my two cents anyway :)
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