ECI

We had our first meeting with ECI this afternoon. Our case manager, Mike, came out to the house to just do an initial "get to know you"-type of evaluation. He and I spent most of the time talking about Claire's history and the process we'll follow if she qualifies for services. He'll come back out on Nov 18 with a speech-language pathologist who will do a more thorough assessment and together they'll determine what sorts of interventions and/or therapies Claire may need. Mike is an autism specialist, and he was sent to us because of Claire's speech regression. He said that he's never seen a regression as profound as Claire's is that wasn't autism. BUT, after doing an autism evaluation today with her, he's positive that's not the problem here. (OK everyone, sigh of relief) When I asked him what he thought could be going on, he said his first thought was that there could be a problem with the speech part of her brain. (And how we'd determine that or even fix it is beyond me, and, of course, I wasn't thinking about any of those follow-up questions at the time.) At the end of our meeting he told me that based on what he had seen today, he's fairly confident that she will qualify for services, but we'll have to wait for the next assessment to determine what exactly that will look like.

3 Nights

That's how long Jason and I will be gone from Claire starting tomorrow. It's the longest amount of time both of us together have been away from her, so I should expect myself to be full of worries. But, I'm not. Instead, I absolutely positively CANNOT wait for tomorrow. We're heading out to Napa for a fantastic weekend with each other and some great friends. Katie (my best friend from the first day of kindergarten, as well as my Mexican-adventure companion--you can click here and here for that story) is getting married to a great guy on Friday. We're leaving home tomorrow morning, which should put us at the first winery around 2 PM local time. Friday will be full of wedding fun, but Saturday is ours to play with! We've got lots of reservations at some of the best wineries out there, and we'll finish the weekend off with an extra-special dinner for two. The only down side to all of this is that our plane leaves at midnight Saturday night (or would that be Sunday morning?) and lands in Houston at 5:30 AM. Yuck, yuck, yuck. But, it's a small price to pay for all the fun we're about to have. And I'm sure Claire is going to have quite a few stories to tell us when we get back--Honey and H have all sorts of adventures planned to keep her busy.

Fun with Friends

Claire's had a bunch of fun activities lately with her friends. We celebrated Brady's 3rd birthday on Saturday at a great park on a great day, then Claire got to tag along with the playgroup to the Oil Ranch pumpkin patch on Monday while I was at school. Fun, fun, fun!

Playing with the birthday boy

Happy Birthday, Brady!

Nathan and Reese enjoying their cupcakes

Hogan with his cupcake

Petting the horses at the Oil Ranch

Playing in the hay

Sweet friends

The whole gang (Reese, Hogan, Claire, Nathan, Brady)

Turns out I'm one of "those" moms

I had a full day at school yesterday for parent-teacher conferences. Amazingly, every single one of my parents showed up, but lots of them came either significantly earlier than their appointment time, or finally showed up at the end of the day. I kept thinking to myself, "How hard is it to write down what time your conference is so that you don't forget? How irresponsible!"

Well, today was Claire's school's parent-teacher conference day. I had signed up a few weeks ago for a 1:00 appointment, thinking that I would have plenty of time to finish up at school and take care of a few errands on my way over. When I walked into the school, Claire's teacher was standing in the hallway, and exclaimed "THERE she is!" Well, turns out I had forgotten that I changed my conference time to 12:30. And didn't write it down. Oops. (And go ahead, you can say it--how irresponsible!!)

(Everything with the conference went great, by the way--it's not a surprise to us that she's one of the "thinkers" in the class and behaves.)

Holding down the fort

Jason headed out of town earlier this week for a fun trip to Denver, so Claire and I got to have some extra-special together time. We spent our days playing with friends we don't get to see much anymore, shopping, and we even went on a date to Marble Slab (strawberry with sprinkles for her, vanilla yogurt with M&Ms for me-I have to fit into a bridesmaid's dress in 2 weeks-yikes!). I was really dreading being a single parent for this many days, but it's actually turned out be a great, relaxing weekend. But I know we'll both be a whole lot happier once Daddy gets home tomorrow.

Wedding Pictures are Up!

Here's a link for the photographer's site from the big day:

www.pictage.com/547922

Claire and Nathan's Birthday Party!

We had a joint party with Claire's little boyfriend, Nathan, last Saturday. We went down to the Aquarium and had a great time! We had a nice walk through the fish, then got to ride the train, ferris wheel, and carousel, and then had a fantastic dinner up in the restaurant. Everybody had such a fun time, and all the kids were so well behaved--our party coordinator couldn't believe they were only 2!

Opening up some presents at home before the party:

Putting together the train set from Honey and H

Checking out the computer from Grandma and Grandpa

She's already got the hang of the keyboard--and even the mouse!

A tricycle!!

Working very hard to make it go

At the aquarium

Having fun on the train

She insisted on riding this sea horse

Cupcakes!

And ice cream!!

Everybody enjoying the food--and a chance to sit down after our busy afternoon

Thanks to everyone who made it such a special day!!

24-Month Stats

Claire had her 24-month well-child visit today with the pediatrician. And, news flash, she's still tall and skinny: 20 lbs, 8 oz (<3%); 34.5 in tall (50%); and her head circumference is 18.5 in (25%). She's perfectly healthy, but because of the regression in her speech since a year ago, and the subsequent slow down in speech development, we've been referred to ECI (Early Childhood Intervention). We need to set up an evaluation, which they'll do here at home, to determine if speech therapy services will be necessary. I'll keep ya posted with what we find out.