Thank God for Early Intervention Programs! Emmie and Our Other Children Had a Good Week!

This has been an active and busy week, but I guess with all my children, each week is going to be pretty much that way. Monday morning, we had Tammy from the early intervention program come out to the house for about an hour and a half. She worked with Esther Marie in all different areas from motor skills to language. We learned some new sign language to help lower frustration levels in the area of communication. Esther Marie picks up on those relatively quickly, which helps a lot. She is still not really understanding the concept of "names" since she points to herself and says "mommy" and points to Joshua and attempts to say "Hannah" and so on. Hopefully, this concept will kick in soon for her. She is using "more" and "please" and "thank you" signs and that's very sweet watching her use her "signing manners."

On Tuesday, Jasper went to Florida early, and Esther Marie and I had two more appointments with early intervention starting at 8:45.....a speech therapist and an occupational therapist. They came to the house. We went over many things and discussed how to help Esther Marie. We are going to make her a picture book of 20 items so she can point to things she wants and start to connect names with people. We will be working on sounds and some words. Puzzles help so we can do fine motor skills and work on language at the same time....put in, take out, good job, cow says moo, etc. Esther Marie needs some help with upper body strength so we hope to borrow or buy a "sit and spin" soon to help with that. She is unable to sit up on her own from a reclining position without rolling over first. This is probably due to all of the time she spent in a very small bed for the majority of the day and night. Whatever delays she has, we feel confident with all this help, she will be catching up soon! We are VERY glad for the early intervention program. Jasper took the older children to church on Wednesday night, and Esther Marie and I stayed home. This was to give her more time to get over the trauma from last Saturday night. Thursday morning, we went to music class and she was more relaxed and seemed to participate more. They have a little crab that Tammy brings out each week...she sprays the crab with water and then sprays the children's hands. They get tickled about this. Then they feed the crab. Emmie finally got close enough to watch and get sprayed, but she practically choked me holding on so tight when Tammy held the crab and was showing it around. Guess Esther Marie is not into "critters" very much! She is learning hand motions and movements and the whole experience is definitely adding to our bonding. We are having fun!

So what's happening with the rest of the kids? Hannah continued to have training sessions after school this week for the upcoming basketball team try-outs. One of her fingers got jammed on Tuesday and she ended up getting a splint put on it by the school nurse on Wednesday. It is getting better, but if you are reading this, you could pray for her finger to heal so she can try-out next week without it bothering her. She is pretty excited about the team and looking forward to the games. Joshua made several 100s on tests this week and that was exciting news.....a states test, spelling and math! We are proud of him for studying so hard. He had a field trip to the zoo on Thursday and enjoyed that outdoor fun. This weekend, he has to do two woodworking projects and practice to lead a flag ceremony at the next Cub Scout pack meeting. Sunday he has a den meeting and pizza dinner afterwards. Scouting is something he really enjoys. MaryAlyce went to the children's theater on a field trip this week and experienced the story of Rapunzel in "living color." She was jabbering away about it telling me the story. I wish I could have gone but they limit the chaperones on those trips to one parent per class because of space limitations. Another Daisy Girl Scout meeting will be next week and she is counting the days until Thursday.

Now it's Friday and another week has zipped by. Earlier today, I took Esther Marie to the doctor's office and had a nurse remove the stitches in the back of her head. It has been six days and that's when the doctor said we needed to have them out to avoid excessive scarring. She still has a pretty good-sized bump there and it is still tender. Once again, my heart broke because she didn't really understand and she cried and cried and cried. Don't you wish you could shield your children from things like this??? (sigh) Tonight, Jasper and I watched the debate from Oxford, MS, between McCain and Obama...go Mississippi! (laugh) I was born there so I can root for the state vs. getting into politics and rooting for who I am going to vote for. Okay, okay.....McCain....it's not a secret...I am definitely conservative and a Republican. Did you watch the debate and what did you think? I think both candidates did pretty well, but didn't have enough time to really get into issues like they need to. That's the downfall of this debate process! Well, that's our week....it zipped past and now it's almost October! I am glad the weather is getting cooler and I hope to see some fall colors soon. Hope you all had a good week too!