So I thought I would take this time to give everyone a quick update on Isabella. She recently had her two year well baby visit. Doctor says that physically, she’s very healthy. She is very tall for her age, but her torso and upper body are short. She has long legs. (Dancer?) She didn't do well at the doctors office though. She has seen our doctor a lot, but not often enough to really remember him. She still doesn't do well when confronted by strangers. She squirmed and kicked the entire time. She relentlessly tried to pull his stethoscope off and didn't want him to touch her at all. To make it just a little worse, she had to get shots. One in each leg. She was already upset and verging on a meltdown… the shots definitely pushed her timer to zero. Thank goodness Cy was there with me. I had to turn my attention to Gage who was there getting his four month check-up. Cy is amazing with Bella, and did a great job of calming her down long enough to get her dressed and out of the office. It was certainly an interesting doctors visit. Our doctor is aware of her autism, and he’s absolutely amazing with her.
Bella gets to go visit her new school at the Early Intervention Center next week. My mom will be joining us since she’s very involved in Bella care as well. We’ll be touring her classrooms, meeting her teachers, her speech therapist and her occupational therapist. Bella will get to roam around and explore everything before she starts school so she can get used to everything a little bit. I will be able to attend these classes with her whenever I want. I love that they encourage parents to be a part of everything. They do have a bus that will pick her up and drop her off, but I worry that she won’t handle that well at this point in time. She does better with new things if Cy or I is there with her. I know that eventually, I will have to let her do it on her own… but until she lets me know that she’s ready, I just can’t do it.
Our goal for the first six months of Bella’s classes if for her to learn TWENTY words and to learn to productively use them. We have very high hopes that this goal is attainable. We were told by her evaluator that if for any reason we didn’t reach our goals, we could reevaluate what we’re doing and try something else. Applied Behavior Analysis, would be the next step. ABA is a rigorous teaching method that requires up to 40 hours a week of one-on-one teaching by a licensed therapist. Unfortunately, ABA programs can cost tens of thousands of dollar a year per child. So, we have a lot riding on the classes she’s about to begin.
I would like to thank you all for reading. The genuine care and comment are appreciated and I will be doing a post soon to try and answer all the question I have received via email. A thousand times, thank you for all the love and support.
