Making Progress

We are making progress on many fronts.

Alice: She is doing fabulous at school. Her English is growing by leaps and bounds. The vocabulary she understands is impressive - both verbal and written, although the latter lags the former. Her spelling is amazing considering how crazy English can be. She continues to enjoy kung fu and loves to be busy. My only disappointment is her clear and unaltered desire to move back to China someday. I pray that in time she will develop an emotional connection to us that will survive if she does indeed move back to China.

Lucy: Her second hearing test was slightly better than the previous one. The conclusion is that she does have some mild to moderate high frequency hearing loss, but it only impacts the frequencies used for speech and language in a very small percentage of sounds. The plan is to keep her positioned close to the teacher in the classroom, monitor her performance for indications that she is/isn't missing information. If there are concerns, the audiologist recommends using an FM system in the classroom to augment her hearing rather than trying hearing aids. She will be rechecked every 6 months to see if there are any changes.

Her IEP meeting was held, but only 3 assessments were completed before the pause to check her hearing. It was determined from those assessments that Lucy does not need physical therapy to accomplish any school-related activities, she will need additional time to accomplish some tasks. Occupational therapy assessments revealed needs for her to have significant accommodation regarding writing/note-taking in class due to her slow & difficult handwriting. She can do it, but it's a slow process and the results are not easy to read. Her typing isn't much faster, but would increase legibility. Because Lucy has developed strategies to accomplish daily tasks that work for her, the occupational therapist doesn't see the need to try teaching her different strategies. The bilingual assessment determined that (no surprise), Lucy is significantly behind her peers in her English language abilities. In addition, she also has speech issues related to her CP. The speech pathologist will now take over.

The "IEP clock" was reset and we now are looking at another 60 day window to complete the rest of the assessments and meet in mid-May to go over those results and decide which areas will need to be addressed in her IEP. The final meeting where I agree to the IEP will be early June, less than 2 weeks before the end of the school year. Fortunately she is getting a lot of assistance in the classroom without the IEP. The speech pathologist is going to present me with a plan tomorrow that will allow her to provide Lucy with services while we wait for the IEP. The school is working hard to do everything they can for Lucy while we work our way through the process.

In terms of bonding with Lucy, there are very good signs. The end of my time in China with Lucy and our first weeks home were strained. I was upset. She was going through a huge transition. Our relationship suffered. Last week Lucy requested more than once that I transport her to/from kung fu instead of her dad. Our bedtime routine included "warming her feet" by rubbing them briskly. I'm rubbing through several layers of blankets, but can't leave the room until I warm her feet. This is important after going through a phase where she told me not to touch her. I fix her hair every morning (the girls race to be the first to get her hair done!) and change her earrings as needed. I actually feel like we are going through a phase where Lucy is monitoring how much attention Alice gets and trying to make sure she gets as much or more. She is enjoying our one-on-one time every afternoon when I pick her up from school early to come home and work on reading. We do math sometimes which she is also enjoying. We are seeing consistent improvement in both areas.

TMJ: The files for our yet-to-be-named third daughter from China were successfully transferred to our adoption agency last week and the paperwork indicating our intent to adopt her was submitted to China. We hope to hear this week that China has issued pre-approval (PA) for her adoption which says that our preliminary information looks good and there is no reason to think that we can't get full approval from US Immigration and China adoption authorities in the coming months.

I think that covers most everything. I need to blog more frequently! These weekly updates are too long!

Look forward to information the end of the week on the MRI results finally! We have an appointment Thursday morning. Can't wait!