EVERYTHING!

Have I told you all that I love you lately?  I do.  I love this space, and your spaces, and that my whining last night about some seriously first world problems is met with sympathy & pats on the head, not the eye rolling it probably deserved.  And, as these things often do, the moment passed and today I am filled with Yes, I can too do EVERYTHING.  All Half the laundry is folded, I ran(!), I'm here - about to gift you with some hyper adorable pictures, AND I got that work thing done today, that I'd been avoiding for weeks, that I'd lugged home for the weekend and then (obviously) felt guilty about not doing.  I swear it was like a giant evil eye glaring at me from the kitchen counter all weekend.  Never, never, never bring work home.

 Yes, sort of like this evil eye.  

[I did not get a chance to read YOUR lovely posts, fold the other half of the laundry or spend any time with the kids who were already in bed when I got home.  And I only got 6 hours of sleep, which might account for the giddy tone here.]

Miscellanea from last week ~
IEP meeting update:  I didn't want everyone's guard up and I didn't really know what I was asking for, so I requested an "information gathering meeting," to talk about The Girl's communication in class.  The Girl's teacher, who at first meet just seemed too young and waaaayyy too well put together to be spending her day with preschoolers really impressed me (proving once again my first reactions are always wrong).  She showed me some of the matching/selecting activities they do, that she can do without ASL, and it sounds like she really is trying to pick up some signs.  The SLP's office is between the two pre-K classes so she (apparently) pops her head in during circle time or at the activity tables and demonstrates the sign of the hour or something.  We talked about iPads and assistive speech apps and they're going to try out some of the iPad programs to see what works before we sink a bunch of money into something.  No one thought signing AND using a speech app was a bad idea, even though the one speaker at the NDSC conference said we should stick with one system...?  Facebook was all for "multi-modalities".  I dunno.  I can make the argument either way - we'll try it out and see how it goes.

Yup, just keep pressing buttons to see what happens.

Oh, and I brought cookies.  They never eat during these meetings which I suppose is the professional thing to do, to not smear crumbs and chocolate all over the official IEP document, but I hope they dug in later.  Somebody better enjoy them since I spent a whole seven minutes in the store picking them out.

Did someone say cookies?    

Also, since I am mom of the year, I completely forgot to ask about PROMPT training and apraxia.  Since this was just a "chat" we're going to have a formal IEP meeting in a month to touch base again, so we'll cover it then.  I still want to observe the classroom at some point too, though the logistics of that might drown me.

Did I mention The Girl is the proud new owner of an iPad?  Shortly after this post, my SIL ran into a mom and her daughter, who has Ds, and she was raving about their iPad and Proloquo2go.  My super-awesome SIL then plotted with my other super-awesome SIL and my super-awesome MIL and they all combined funds to gift The Girl with a very early, exceedingly generous Christmas present.  WOW, right?  I am terrified I'm going to break it.  I'm terrified she's going to break it.  I had also gone to dinner at SIL's home the night before they gave it to us and completely forgot to bring anything, not even a bottle of wine - I am a HUGE schmuck.

Ha!  Mommy said "Schmuck!"

And, last, right after the IEP meeting last Monday we drove for an hour into town to get labs done at the Children's Hospital.  We've had them done closer to home before but it would have been easier to lop off a finger and hold the bleeding stump over a bowl, for all the trauma and random useless needle pokes inflicted on the poor girl.  At Childrens we were in & out with only a single tear shed.  Results came back today & we're good!.

The pout.  Practicing for next year's labs. 

Actually this was right before The Boy's 8:30am soccer game and we had the unmitigated GALL to go thru McD's drive thru for coffee without getting her anything.  MEANEST PARENTS E.V.E.R.