Speech, insurance, and birthday parties galore!

 Hello, all out in bloggy land! I trust that you are doing well, and I figured since it is almost Wednesday it was time for a midweek post. How are you? We are keeping it busy! This weekend we had three birthday parties to attend in the family. Yes! You heard that correctly. I've got to steal and/or get some pictures from the family this week so I can post more real pictures.

I stole these pictures from my sister's Facebook page. On Saturday morning, we went to birthday party number 1 for nephew number 1. Four years ago, my sister and Mr. C's sister were pregnant at the same time! They gave birth to our nephews two weeks apart! Funny, huh? My sister is going on a getaway for her anniversary with her hubs, so they moved Ebin's party up early.

 

She & her sister in law (Jason, her husband's sister--confused yet) decided to do a joint birthday party for CJ (Ebin's cousin) and Ebin. CJ is turning six, and Ebin is turning four.

 Keren, Ebin, CJ (Ebin's cousin), Misty (Keren's sis-in-law) in Pop's backyard. (Pop is Jason's grandfather, Ebin's great-grandfather. He graciously allowed us to crash his wonderful house in Collierville for a swim party.)

 I wish I could say that I had fun at the party. In theory, I did have fun. Honestly, I spent my whole morning chasing my very active child. I did my best to keep him from jumping off the side into the pool! Mr. C was sleeping so I was on Micah duty, and my mom was on Dale duty.

My brother-in-law Jason and my sister Keren

 My brother, Dale, is mentally disabled, and my Dad was out of town this weekend. Mom was tackling Dale while I tackled Micah. Dale had a bad seizure earlier in the week, so Mom was keeping a close eye on him. There were no free hands! Then Micah started to throw a fit around his nap time. We took that as our cue to leave.

 We did stay long enough to watch Ebin open up some presents, but we weren't able to stay for cake. =/

 

After birthday party #1, we headed south to Mississippi for birthday party #2. Our nephew Nathan turns four this week! It was a laid back family only party. My sister-in-law (and fam) live on a beautiful lake which provided quite the backdrop for such a gorgeous day!

Micah and his Daddy enjoyed jumping on the trampoline, though. Mommy was a bit nervous about this, so I did the next best thing. I took pictures instead.

 

 

 After some trampoline jumping, we took turns feeding the geese that wandered up wanting birthday food. Micah wasn't really sure what to think of the geese. He still called them ducks.

 

 Here's my fourth grade niece feeding the ducks.

 After that crazy Saturday, Micah wasn't feeling that great. He's had a cough, diarrhea, snotty nose, congestion, etc for over a week. I kept him home from church as a precaution. That's two weeks of church missed in a row! Ugh! I'm crossing my fingers we will make it this week. We spent Sunday evening with my family for birthday party #3--my wonderful mother! My sister hasn't posted pics yet on facebook so I have nothing I can steal for the blog. However, let it be said how thankful I am for my mother! She keeps Micah for me every day until my husband gets off from work--for free! She's a trooper, and she is the best babysitter around. =) Love you, Mama! ::Pictures coming soon::

Monday was a long day at work followed by a visit to the after hours clinic with Micah. By Monday afternoon, he was just in a state of not feeling well. I took him to the doctor at 5:45 pm over in Germantown. I LOVE my doctor's office. They have the most amazing hours for two parents who work some crazy schedules. I rarely (unless he is super sick or I just want to) have to take off from work for a doctor's visit.

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He was given the go ahead to come to school, but I was given a prescription for an antibiotic just in case. After finally arriving home at 8:00 last night, I started in on my student teacher's evaluation. Yes, that's right, teacher friends! I'm an evaluator myself. (Kind of.)  My student teacher has to teach five lessons, and I score her on a mock Tennessee teacher evaluation rubric. I took a ton of notes while she taught, and I spent two hours on her eval last night. I don't think I got to bed until well after 11 PM last night!

And now it's your favorite time of the blog post that I like to call:

Pictures of Micah's Creations I Don't Want to Clutter My House So I Photograph Them Instead for Memory's Sake of Future Generations

Creation #1 from MDO on Tuesday was a bird with his one lone feather. I'm not sure why Micah didn't want him to have any other feathers, and apparently he was a bit messy with his paint from our next photo below. 

 Creation #2 was the number of the week---the number two! I have to say, he did not stay in the dot lines at all, but the silver lining is how I still see a bit of a number 2 (kind of) if you look at it sideways. Great job with your numbers, Micah! 

 

 Today, I also had a message on my phone at work from the speech pathologist at Micah's school. A part-time therapist comes in and works with children a few days a week. For a nominal fee, parents could choose to have a speech screening done at school. I thought this sounded like a great idea because I have some concerns personally about Micah. Sometimes I think my concerns are "knowing too much" about children, educational milestones, whathaveyou since I have a degree in early childhood education. It's easy to become paranoid that your child isn't "normal" like everyone else.

 I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive when I heard the speech pathologist's voice mail on my phone. First of all, if he did "ok" on the "tests" then she wouldn't be calling me. We give screenings at my school all the time. I know how this works. However, I called her back promptly, and we spoke about his screenings which he did not pass. All of the screenings he did not pass. I'm freaking out at this point, but she made some valid points to consider:

1. His allergies were acting up and/or he has fluid on his ears. This can cause some significant problems with a speech screening.

2. He is a very active child, but also seemed extremely shy today. (Read: He wouldn't focus to "perform" the tasks she wanted him to do.)

3. He had a screening at a year old that showed his language skills as "emerging" with the promise to revisit this "issue" at the age of 2. His second screening (to follow up with the first one) is in December.

This speech pathologist recommended some more extensive testing to see if we could get to the bottom of his failing the language test. I'm trying not to be overly concerned because she mentioned SEVERAL things that I know Micah can do. (Such as saying and/or identifying: Mama, baby, bye-bye, hi, dog, ball, following basic directions, pointing to correct pictures, etc.) She inferred that his comprehension was off, but I also know that is NOT true. He knows exactly what you are telling him to do because he performs many of my directions explicitly. On the other hand, she mentioned a lot of things that he CAN NOT do. Those things concern me.

Many things were said in our conversation which included:

teacher concern with his lack of talking in class

giving him extra time to acclimate to his school surrounding in case he was just shy

keeping a detailed list of all words being said at home that we know he "knows"

screening him again in a month

looking into the Tennessee early intervention program if he qualifies

starting speech therapy once a week at Faith

working with him more intently on his words at home

In the end, his dad & I haven't made a decision. I'm leaning towards letting him acclimate to his school since it has only been three weeks of "class". Perhaps more interactions with the children and adults will help? Perhaps it was a bad day? All are possible, so I guess we will address this again in the future. Meanwhile, I'll try NOT to worry and work with him as much as I can.

I have to say I did think to myself: Is he suffering because I'm working? The question is nagging at me tonight, so I guess I'll give that over to the Lord in prayer.

The final problem we are having right now regarding speech therapy testing includes this pesky little thing called health insurance. Suddenly, Micah was taken off our insurance! We found out when I went to fill a prescription for him!! I got this text message today from my husband frustrated by the overwhelmingly annoying process of proving that Micah is our son. We are still unclear as to why they took him off our insurance without telling us!!! At any rate, we basically can't have any kind of speech anything until we get him reinstated. What a pain in the rear. I wanted to tell her today, sure--go for the testing. Test him away. Then I realized we can't right now. We're paying everything out of pocket.

So please pray for this situation--the speech screenings and our medical insurance. It would sure be nice if something would get resolved sooner than THREE WEEKS!!! Obviously, God's timing is not always my own--but this is ridiculous.

So that is it from here. Long blog post, but I tend to do better blogging all at once anyway. Have a great rest of your week!