Odds and Ends

Today means 19 days of summer vacation left for the kid. I'm not ready for it to end, none of it went the way I had planned it but somehow it worked out. We didn't get a vacation, unless you count the fact that we didn't have Occupational Therapy over the summer because we needed a break. We knew that we'd be getting a new ABA therapist, we just weren't sure when. I didn't want to risk learning two new therapists at once. I did not want to do too much therapy this summer that was forced. Instead we worked on taking turns, reading directions and auditory processing. She has done some writing, tracing actually and writing on her chalkboard. Now we are getting into a new routine on Tuesday mornings that involves getting up early, getting dressed, making sure the car is ready to go and making an 8a.m. therapy appointment. We would also be checking each week until school starts to find out if there has been a speech cancellation within an hour of our ABA appointmen...

When school begins we will lose our Friday spot for speech. It's being eliminated to prevent checking my child out in the middle of the school morning. That means that we'll have one day that doesn't have any therapy involved at all. Before that happens the speech therapist has decided to work every other Friday at some point in the near future.  I'm looking forward to it. I can remember when we didn't have five days a week of therapy and I loved those days. Little bit made faster progress after we went to five days though. I'm tired and the fact that we've reduced one therapy to every other week is a blessing to me. It's a blessing to my lack of work time too. In fact that every other week therapy session will be eliminated soon. Only one session to go.  When school starts we will likely eliminate ABA whether we want to or not. The time slot isn't going to work with a full day of school to allow the kid to socialize. We should keep four days of ...

At least it's the first day of school for the hubby, the baby doesn't go back until the 25th if I decided to leave my decision for Head Start alone. I still have time to send her back to PHP which is only a half a day. We don't have speech this week unless something happens to change that. We do have our occupational therapy and ABA therapy this week. The OT was attempting to put her permanently at 2pm on Tuesdays because we have speech at 1:30 that day which we're attempting to change. Wednesday we have ABA from 1 to 2 that afternoon. I have to talk to the ABA therapist about available schedule changes that day but she told me that she's pretty full. I now get about two hours a day alone total. Gene only works 15 hours a week and is supposed to be searching for full time work. I'm still wondering when the search will begin exactly. I'm not certain but I think he's home so much to stay up my rear so I can't have a life without him whining when I go...

The idea of placing my Autistic four year old in Head Start caused so much stress that I changed my mind half a dozen times. At one point I decided to Home School this year since she has another year until Kindergarten. Well, she quickly proved that to be a bad idea, at least for now. I decided to send her back to PHP. Well, I changed my mind about that too. They could take a look at her later in the year but they could not guarantee a spot in Head Start so I went back to my original decision to place her there. The requirement for potty training was the only thing keeping her out last year. Well, we finally managed to get it where she goes on a schedule and we haven’t had any accidents during the day. That is a point in her favor. I’ll know for sure by the 25 th of August if she’ll stay in Head Start or have to go back to PHP. I’m hoping that the 7:45 / 8 a.m. until 2:30pm long days will not be too much for her. There is still a problem with scheduling private therapy especially...

Well Theresa was going to start Head Start but I had a change of heart. I was going to keep her home but I've decided to send her back to PHP instead. I can still home school here since she isn't actually required to be at school yet and even when she is it's only a four hour day. I think I can supplement her education to prepare her for Kindergarten in just two hours a day. We have that easily, it'll just be broken up before school, after school, in the car and table time. It's not idea but with her special needs I'm going to have to take the tutor option whether I use the tutor option or umbrella school option. I found some things to work on her reading, coloring and pre-math skills. I'm still printing them out and putting them in a folder. The ones that the school sent are gone, the originals got used last week. I'm printing out some sheets that are similar to ones that her private speech therapist has already covered for reviewing. I'm going to...

Theresa was up way past her bedtime last night because she got to take a late afternoon nap that lasted into close to the evening. She didn't want to get out of bed this morning, and she only ate a couple bites of the cereal bar that I gave her. I managed to get her supplements in her and get her dressed only to have her supplements come up again because she was supposed to have a full stomach. Fun, huh? She got on the bus when it came because she wouldn't come back in, it seems that she missed the pre-school and her little friends. I made a plan for today though. First I am updating this blog where my mind wanders, editing a coupon article and searching for something new to write. This evening after therapy we will stop at the store to pick up a couple items that we need. We will also go to the grocery store to complete my list. I plan to box up a few items that no longer fit today and stack them by the door. I also intend to add another post at  Dazed and Confused  and s...

O.K. so far today I managed to get the kids up, fed, dressed and given her supplements. I even got her on the school bus without having to spend too much time out in the wind. Since I put her on the bus I’ve done a load of laundry, vacuumed up most of the floor that wasn’t too big of a fight with toys and am almost done putting the Christmas tree up for her. In my need for getting more done in a short amount of time I boiled my noodles while I was putting the tree together. I’m eating breakfast as I write this out in my word processor so that’s a simple copy and paste later today when I find the time to post it. If I’m not mistaken I get to go to the grocery store tomorrow in between appointments. First thing in the morning we have an appointment then in the afternoon we have therapy. It’s just going to get colder as the day goes on so I hope to grab a few groceries in between. At the moment I would be watching “Flirting with forty” as I eat my breakfast and write this. Sadly enough ...

When I first  figured out how much work  I would have to do without the benefit of private clients I never counted on such drastic changes in payment policies. I have to redo the entire thing. The problem with figuring it out all over again is that I'm too shocked and irritated at the sudden changes being crammed down everyone's throats. Yes, there are some cheering the changes on while those that are supposed to be answering questions are treating those with questions as if they have brain damage for wanting clarification and straight answers. I have no patience for this, in fact I stopped posting on those boards for the most part when the new moderator came in. I've always found this particular moderator to be offensive but it would appear that he would be there to stay. Strange though I almost feel sorry for him as he doesn't seem to know that he is the biggest part of the problem. I managed to watch the first Sex and the City movie all but the first fifteen minu...

Today was not a regular Tuesday and that's OK. I have clothes on the couch waiting to be folded and put away and some hanging on a line in the back bedroom that I hope will be dry by morning. By mid morning tomorrow I should have a load of toddler training pants to wash. Not particularly looking forward to that but there are some days that they help the little one to understand why she's sitting on the potty. I managed to read a little bit of my book today not much though. I'll be waiting to read more when I take my next break. At the moment I would be going back and forth between this posting and accepting gifts for various games on FB. I needed a break even though I haven't done much work today. I really need to start getting a bit more organized but the new schedule is one that I haven't adjusted to just yet. Monday and Wednesday mornings Theresa is in preschool for a half a day. Those two half days give me the chance to either get a little work done or to fr...