March for Babies 2013

It has been a very busy month!  We had a great day walking for healthy babies at the Reston March for Babies walk to raise money for the March of Dimes.  We want to thank everyone who came to support us at the walk and all the amazing people who supported us financial and emotionally.  As you can imagine, there is always a flood of emotions at the walk for our family.  But we raised over $3,500 and are very hopeful that more babies will be born healthier because of this donation. [Remember - you can click on these pictures to see them larger.]

 

This month we also had Cole's eligibility meeting with Loudoun County Public Schools.  After the initial appointment and all the individual evaluations, we met to hear a recap from everyone who evaluated Cole to determine if he needs services.  I find these appointments cause such an internal struggle for me.  I go to the appointment having prepared like it is an interview.  And yet I am the customer right?  So why am I the one who is nervous?  As a parent, you sit and listen to each specialist walk through their assessment and list all the challenges that your child faces.  One by one they vote whether your child is challenged enough to require support.  And although you are there because you want him to be eligible for services, it's truly heartbreaking to hear one person after another pointing out all his faults.  The tears welled in my eyes as I was reminded of the uphill battle he will face in school, and yet all I could think about was how far he has come.  How much he has overcome already.  And how lucky we are to even be able to consider sending him to a special needs program at all.  I know we are blessed to have such a strong little fighter in our family, but it's still hard to hear your "case" and realize this team reviews so many of these that for some of them this is merely another check box and stamp on his paper.  So the next step in the process is to have his Individual Education Plan written to determine what services he is eligible for.  Our IEP review meeting is May 28th and we will then know what to expect for him next year.

This month I was also asked to participate in a video with Comcast News Channel 28 out of Reston.  House of Representatives Delegate Plum held an interview with Dr. Baker from INOVA Children's Hospital and me to talk about prematurity and how funding from the March of Dimes helps babies be born healthier.  The video will be broadcast the first week of June.

We also had a great Mother's Day with the Schweisthal family getting some much needed hedge trimming done.  Many hands make light work!  Reagan decided she was very good at weeding and Cole is getting very good at steering the tractor.

We have a busy month start this week with an appointment for Cole with the ophthalmologist and an appointment for Reagan with the Physiatrist.  We also have Reagan's 4 year check-up, Cole's IEP meeting, Reagan's regularly scheduled therapy six times and Cole's regular monthly occupational therapy.  Also, we have started talking about scheduling another constraint camp at UVA.  We have seen such great progress and if we don't go before school starts we would have to take her out of school again.  If we don't want to do that, we would need to wait a full year for her to go again next Summer.  Reagan has been showing so much progress - this month she started holding her toothbrush with lefty and putting tooth paste on her tooth brush by herself.  She is also flushing the toilet with lefty, has opened a door knob a few times with lefty and is able to undress all by herself!  Seeing how proud she becomes is priceless!