Since the last update. So sorry! A full update in paragraph style would take far more time than I have to write and far more than you have to read, so here are the highlights on what's new with Jack:
- Jack did 4 weeks of preschool at Twain Elementary in May. It was awesome! Teacher is amazing, we're already seeing improvements in relating and some speech progress. He starts again in the fall with the same group of 8 kids and I'm happy he'll return to something familiar.
- He started summer preschool. It's just 3 mornings a week for the next 5 weeks. A huge yellow school bus rolls up to the house to pick him up and drop him off. Though I managed dropping him off at preschool pretty well during the month of May, there's just something entirely different about putting your 3-year-old, who doesn't talk and who doesn't understand where he's going, on public transportation and watching it drive away. I cried for a bit the first day. The 2nd day was harder because when he saw it rumbling down the street he knew what was happening and had a freak out at the end of the driveway. Of course when a bus stops to pick up a kid that's screaming and kicking as we drag him, traffic backs up on both sides of the street and everyone gets a chance to reflect for a moment on the terrible parents that are making their 3-year-old ride a bus. Isn't he too young for that? Gosh they're so lazy. They could just drive him. Losers.
- He got into this selective preschool program on the grounds of having gained a functional skill, yay for Jack! He has begun to initiate communication by using a word or a sign (as opposed to just screaming or hitting you). It's so fun, I mean SO fun when he walks calmly into the room, looks me in the eye intently like he's searching for just the right thing, and says "Hep (Help)." It makes me teary every time. We are so proud of him. He is still copying words and he has a renewed interest in signs, so I've been adding a few more to our daily repertoire. He can use drink, milk, help, please, sorry, eat, story, blanket, bath, come, sleep, more, cereal...probably a few more that I can't think of off the top. We've started to add in some fun ones like airplane, horse, tree, swing, train, school, truck, sun, moon, apple, bus. We're all learning a lot! And I've noticed he's able to categorize things a bit more, something that can come a bit slower for kids with language delays. Like this morning I asked if he wanted milk and made the sign for milk. He used his word approximation for drink and made the sign for drink. So that's good!
- Insurance stuff is still a disaster. We're trying to get on two different waivers in the hopes that one will go through and we can get Jack's speech therapy covered. The waiver we thought we were getting on (Intellectual Disability) completely fell apart and now they're saying he probably isn't eligible for it if he doesn't have a MR (mental retardation) diagnosis. Because of his age it is possible that they may be able to interchange the terms PDD-NOS (his official diagnosis) with MR unspecified, which would get him on the Intellectual Disability waiver, but he needs another evaluation at the CDD before we can talk about that. I think it's going to all come down to how he performs on an IQ test. I hate the thought of making him take one. Feels really yucky. But right now it seems like our best shot at getting him the speech help he needs. The process at CDD is tricky because our insurance won't pay for any intellectual or behavioral testing of any kind, so DHS is trying to get the cost covered. In the meantime, we've filled out a detailed 15-page report for determination of disability that goes to the state, and it will be a minimum of 3 more months before we hear anything from them in regards to Jack being eligible for disability. He needs this eligibility to even get on a wait list for the other waiver (Mentally Ill and Handicapped) that would grant him speech therapy. The wait for that waiver is 12-18 months after the 3-6 month wait for determination of disability. Sigh. In the meantime he's at Wendell Johnson once a week for a speech program that we were fortunate enough to have grant funds for. You could pray that this grant would renew for us, which will get him a little more speech after the program is over in July, and buy us some more time while we wait. The short version of this narrative is that we've been sent on an impossible runaround for the last 6 months with totally unhelpful state employees that have no idea what they're talking about. I've had to do a lot of people's jobs. It's really annoying.
- Here's some more good stuff. He's in love with me. Like more than normal. He wants to snuggle, kiss, cuddle, hug, constantly. I love it so much.
- He's getting faster on his Strider bike. Hard to keep up with him now!
- He's sharing a room with Livvie. We weren't sure how this was going to go but I think it's helped him make the switch to the new house so much better. We got them bunk beds thinking that would be the ticket. He will only sleep with Livvie in her bed. It's so sweet. She lets him, and puts up with his smothering and following her to the bathroom. (Such a sweet girl, so grateful for her larger than 4-year-old-capacity tolerance and compassion).
- Best kid ever. Have I said that lately? It's still true.
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