Saturday, February 23, 2008

I need a system

Sarah is absolutely thriving on solid foods. I'm giving her water and vanilla soymilk to drink. Occasionally she has a few sips of organic juice. I'm making all of her food from scratch. I bought a food mill and a ton of storage containers. Now I just need to set up a system where I can make her lunches for the week and freeze them. I bought beautiful organic fruits and veggies for her. Dinners I can handle just making her serving on the spot but for lunch I don't want to have to cook and puree every day. The girls and I always have a quick simple lunch because we are usually really busy all week. So, I'd like to just be able to grab Sarah something out of the freezer and warm it up. So I'm thinking Sunday afternoons might be a good time. I can get Hannah and Jess to help too.

I'm keeping a food diary for her as well. Her nutritionist is coming in a few days to weigh her and I want to sit with her and go over her new diet and make sure she's getting proper nutrition. I may wind up having to buy her some type of drink similar to the Pediasure, just to keep those calories. I've been adding butter and cream everywhere I can for the time being. She seems to be tolerating the dairy alot better too. I haven't given her milk to drink though just because of how horrible it was every other time I tried. She is doing fine with small amounts of yogurt though.

She's being tested by all her therapists this coming week because we have her one year review in March. They need to get their reports in and then we can set up a time for everyone to meet here. I'm pretty ticked off at her initail service coordinator though. We had a day where Sarah had four therapies scheduled in one day. I had them spread out so that she could have her nap time and not be overwhelmed. We had to do it this way because the poor kid had therapy every day and I desperately needed a day off in the middle of the week. Hannah and Jess have homeschool activities and I have tons of paperwork to keep up with for our contracting business. So apparently, you aren't supposed to have that many therapies in one day BUT there is a special waiver I can sign and have them approve that can override that rule. Every one else was fine with it and I wanted to go ahead and keep the schedule and sign it. Well, her initial coordinator(who I met twice nearly a whole year ago) decided that it wasn't going to work out and that Sarah doesn't have "enough therapies going on" to warrant having four in one day. Um......I have nine different people in and out of my house nearly every week. She has more than one therapy every day, except Wednesday. I homeschool two other children and they have a life too. Plus I have things to do that don't involve Early Intervention. Therapy is NOT my entire life and I resent her deciding how my schedule should be. I plan to say something directly to her at the meeting. That pissed me off.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Bye-bye Pediasure

I have no idea why but Sarah is refusing her Pediasure. It's been over a week now since she's had more than an ounce or so. The one morning I decided to kind of force the issue and kept giving her bottle back. Well, she drank about 4 oz and then puked it all up fifteen minutes later. So now, I'm changing her whole diet around. I'm not sure what else to give her. She's been taking a few ounces of soymilk each day & then mostly water with a few sips of organic apple juice occasionally.

Our other issue is the baby food. She has been refusing that as well. I've been making all her food from scratch and blending it so that it is smooth but has a few soft chunks. It's almost like she has now decided that she's not a baby anymore. So I have a meeting with her nutritionist next week to discuss all of these new developments and plan some menus for her so that I'm sure she's getting proper nutrition and enough fluids.

Other than that, all seems to be well. Everyone has fully recovered from last week's stomach bug. I hope Sarah never gets sick again. That was really hard. All of these new changes with her seem to have been set off by her being sick.

I have a ton of running around to do today so I had better get moving. After the big girls finish their school, we are going to start planning our garden for this spring. I am so excited to have so much space to work with. We may stop by the property later if it's not too cold to look around some more. Now, we have a squatter living there. LOL. It's actually one of Hugh's employees and he's camping out in his RV. I like having someone there to keep an eye on things though, so it's cool.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Time for an update

Well, after a week of everyone being sick, we are all better except Sarah. I'm giving it one more day and if she's still not back to her cute little self, I'm taking her in to the doc again. She's so listless and not eating enough. Plus she is sleeping all day still. Poor little thing.

This week we have all of her therapies back on track. I have a meeting with someone from DDSO about more respite and the diaper service. If I could get a couple hours of respite every day I would dance naked in the streets of Kingston. I swear. My house would be immaculate and I'd actually get to wash my hair more than once every 10-12 days. Woohoo!

I need to reschedule her opthamology appt at Westchester yet again because they cancelled it for the second time. I have two big appts next month and I really hope we can get her in before the end of February. I'm so excited about taking her to Shriners. I hope they can help her. That would be amazing.

I also am very excited about the CdLS Conference this summer. I have my application all ready to go. I cannot wait. It is going to be a great experience.

Other than that, the property is looking better and better all the time. Most of the trees are cleared out and Hugh is getting ready to start building. Once we get some warm weather, the girls and I are going to go over a few times a week and work on some gardens. I think I'll do raised beds. We have so much space. It's going to be cool to finally have a big organic garden. We are considering buying the property right next to ours as well. Then we'll have almost six acres. There is already a rental on that property which we'll keep there and fix up (it needs work...I feel bad for the family that is in it right now and would definitely want to spruce the place up for them). I can't wait for the winter to end. So many things to do.