Another day ...

Today Payton did a little better than she did yesterday. We gave her codeine last night and this morning again, and then motrin throughout the day today. She seemed to do well on the motrin, but definitely was hurting more tonight. I have been trying to keep her throat moist, but she is limiting it to chocolate milk and formula. No juice. No water. Nothing. Little stinker! She has barely eaten anything since surgery ... pretty much just Cheerios. She doesn't want anything else ... no ice cream, no yogurt, no baby food, nothing.

We had Payton's transition meeting today too with our Early Intervention (EI) Case Manager and some lady from the public school system (I think). The lady basically just went over the next step for us, which is for Payton to start school within the public school system in September. Yikes!! And yes, they will bus her ... if I let her ... not sure if Kyle and I are ready for our two year old to get on a bus, so my personal bus may have to do. Payton qualifies for this program the fall after she turns two, so that is this September. Basically she will no longer receive therapy from EI here at home, but rather she will be in a school setting probably two mornings per week. She will also get an hour visit from her "educator" here at home ... an "educator" is her teacher. Fancy name, eh? They will evaluate her in a few months to make sure she qualifies for this program. If she does not (which she better), then I think it gets limited to the one hour visit per week with the educator.

We had our IFSP meeting update a few weeks ago, and at that time we were getting ST two hours per month and PT one hour per month. I decided to let go of the PT and pick up OT since Payton's biggest delay is in ST and OT. And no, they won't let us have all three. GRR. So we are waiting to hear from our new OT. We also are looking into getting her private therapy. We were going to do this even before, but now in light of this cleft palate news, we will definitely be persuing this.

Early Intervention

Today we had our 6-month IFSP evaluation. She was evaluated on expressive communication and gross motor....she was ranked at 6 months developmentally in both categories. Payton is now 7 1/2 months old, so she is a little behind, according to them. She ism however, on the cusp of moving to the next range, so that is good. For gross motor, they won't increase her range until she can sit unassisted for 10 minutes. While she CAN sit for 10 minutes, she still falls over on occasion, so we have to get past that before they'll bump her up. Either way, she is doing great in the whole scheme of things!!

Up until this point we have only had PT twice per month. Although the therapists don't feel Payton needs it, we will be adding ST once per month.

WHAT WE ARE DOING IN THERAPY

ST home activity suggestions:

*Try hard/tough solids to encourage gumming/chewing on the sides - the goal is not biting and eating! This is a nice way to work on bringing food to her mouth (holding and bringing to mouth). Try using pizza crust, hard edges/pieces of bagel and/or beef jerky/fruit strips.

*Place the meltable solids towards the sides of her mouth to encourage chewing (i.e. fruit puffs).