Thinking Chairs

A big thank you to Grandma and Grandpa for the boys’ Christmas gifts- their very own chairs! Jack calls his a ‘thinking’ chair (thank you, Steve from Blues Clues). Poor Grandma ordered them SO long ago and because of a shipping mix up, we are only now able to enjoy them. Mairead has had her chair for a long time, and now no one has to share—they can all relax together! The boys are in the ‘wrong’ chairs because Jack decided he wanted the blue one. It’s funny, though, as soon as the blue one arrived, Ben ran to it and tried to drag Jack out of it. Somehow, he knew that the blue one was his! It does have his name on it… maybe he can secretly read. Anyway, everyone was able to relax and have a bedtime snack in his or her own comfy chair.

The bath pictures are from last night. Since we had all had such a busy day, we saved time by throwing all three kids in at once. We probably won’t be able to do this for long since one particular child is giant, but it’s really cute while it lasts!

The pictures of the boys are cell phone pictures of their activities at Early Intervention yesterday. They were having a lot of fun in their new group! Jack is in stripes, by the way.

Today I called the schools to inform them that we do have the results from the neuropsychological evaluation, and that we would be using them to move forward with mediation. They offered to reconvene the team to discuss the results, but I respectfully declined. This whole process has been going on for nine months now and they have not budged an inch. They have repeatedly disregarded recommendations from medical professionals and I fear that another meeting will be more of the same. I am tired of wasting time- Mairead has already gone without services (save for an hour of speech per week and the private OT we pay for) since August 1, and each day that goes by is a missed opportunity for her. I am waiting for a call back from the mediator and hopefully this process can move along with more immediate and positive results. I hope we are doing the right thing. I am just exasperated with the whole thing and this seems the best way to make something happen. Let’s just hope and pray that the mediator sees things as we do, and takes into account the specific and numerous recommendations of experienced and informed medical professionals.

Today, we met a new friend for our kids… a new babysitter! Stephanie is the daughter of a friend of my dad and she came today to meet the kids and to help out while I picked up Mairead at school. The kids seemed to really like her right away, so that was great! We hope to have Stephanie help us when there are family events, doctor’s appointments, or for a certain wedding that is coming up in July! She seems great and we are really happy to be adding her to the team of people who seem to be helping to raise our kiddos.

Tomorrow is another school day for Mairead and Stephanie will be back to get to know the kids better. I have a board meeting with my MoM group tomorrow night, and on Friday night, I have plans to go to dinner with two of my BFFs. Thanks to Dave for taking care of the kids so I can have some time off! Not sure what the weekend will bring since we are expecting another snow storm, but someone is having a pretty big birthday on Sunday...

Thanks for reading!