whoops

I was going to my blogs to read others and I realized, I have not posted for a while. Not since the Gladys K post, and I thought, goodness, they probably think we are holed up in a safe room...we are all fine, the ruckus of late has thankfully died down in our neighborhood, maybe because a few of us keep patrol cars coming about. I am of the mind that if you sit back and do nothing, then crime can get out of hand quickly. Then again, do I want to be the neighborhood snitch? It sure is a fine line to walk. I choose safety over that concern.

Since we posted last Kara and Amanda were evaluated by a developmental pediatrician, now I had thought this would be an intense evaluation, maybe them sitting with the girls and seeing how they played, interacted, etc. It was mostly a question and answer session, just like the other evaluations we have had.

What we determined was Amanda will need autism screening in July, we will give her a few more months here, and then she will have a two hour screening to determine whether or not she has autism. The current thoughts are, yes, there is something going on there (my words, not theirs) and yes we need to make certain we cover every base. Amanda has come a long way, but she continues to withdraw, has issues with eye contact, and her self stim behaviors remain in place despite loving attention.

Then it was Kara's turn, and beyond a doubt her lack of speech needs to be addressed. We got a script for a speech evaluation, it will be turned in to the SC after we make a copy, since they seem to get lost an awful lot. Kara is 100% non-verbal with about 8 signs, not good enough for full communication. We are looking into picture cards, but we believe she will have to learn their meaning first, and that too will take some time. How much receptive language does Kara understand? We are not certain, but she follows simple instructions. We know she is pretty smart, she just cannot communicate verbally.

Julia was in Willy Wonka on Thursday and Friday, we saw the play on Friday, it was really cute and the kids did a good job. Julia was Violet's mom. Personally I would have liked to be an Oopma Loompa! That looked like fun. Julia was pretty pooped out from the intensive rehearsals, and is probably glad to have that behind her.

Our oldest sons Fred and Terry were both very ill with the flu, this year has been brutal for all of us. thankfully they are recovering.

Eric was in a mini triathlon at the U of A this past weekend. Not sure how he did yet, but I look forward to hearing about it. It is nice that at least one of our children followed me in the fitness arena, I sure do miss working out like I used to.

We got to see Brian last week, he is taking a break from plays and has more time to visit. It was really nice to have him over for Amanda's birthday.

We are still a little bummed that the U of A basketball team is out of the basketball championships. As Tom put it, they had their butts handed to them, losing by a huge margin. We were hoping they could win again, especially since the coach of 25 years; Lute Olson, is retiring this year due to health issues.