Saying good-bye is always hard...

Since February 2011 Cole has been visited by every month by Heather, a therapist with Loudoun County Early Intervention.  She walked into our home at one of the most difficult times of our lives.  We had just lost our daughter, our son was still not stable (he was back in the hospital twice within the first four months at home), and I was transitioning into being at home full time with my two children.  She was always patient, kind, and supportive.  She knew when to listen and when I needed direction.  I always appreciated her honesty, even when the information was something she knew would be hard for me to hear.

Our visit Friday was no different.  She provided input on activities that I should continue to do to help Cole.  We reminisced about how far he has come since her first visit.  We talked about how hard we worked to get him walking (at 21 months).  We talked about his challenges and the complexity of his delays.  He continues to struggle with activities such as a shape sorter that are usually mastered around 18 months.  It is expected that the Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) is causing a challenge in rotating the objects.  We have several activities we will be doing to try to improve his success with these tasks.  Additionally, I officially learned how to apply the
kinesio tape and I am hopeful we will see improvement.  We started our sit ups today - our goal is 60 per day.  This will help develop the stomach muscles and hopefully increase his abdominal muscles and reduce the posturing he currently has.  Given Cole will start school on Tuesday, he is required to transition from Early Intervention to the Child Find Program that is supported by the Loudoun County Public Schools.  He will start preschool at Potowmack Elementary School.  It was hard to say good-bye to Heather, but are very happy that Cole is able to start school next week.

To give the kids a little fun Johnny and I decided to overhaul both kids' rooms.  We carried the race car theme for Cole from his bed onto his walls and built a new shelving system.  Reagan was also given the opportunity to choose a new bedspread.  And although she chose it ALL BY HERSELF...mommy is very excited about her love for horses.  Another point worthy of mention....wait for it....after FOUR YEARS of loving nothing but pink, Reagan declared this week that her new favorite color is Green.  Not exactly sure how long that will last, but very fun that she is branching out.  Cole has

decided his favorite color is anything except green.

And mommy had a little fun with a get-away weekend with some girlfriends to Ocean City, MD.  It was nice having a little "me" time and relaxing on the beach.  Thanks to Patti, Ashlie and Amanda for making it a fun weekend!  We are off to Charlottesville again tomorrow and look forward to wrapping up Week 4!