Don't be late, Darn it!

Ella says hi and would like you all to be impressed with her excellent skills at holding her head up.

Ella would also like you to know that her mommy woke up at 4:45 this morning to work out. Her daddy did not.

Now that we have Ella's thoughts for the day out of the way, let's move on to my frustration of the day:

I mentioned in my last post that Ella has 3 great therapists. I lied. She has 2 great therapists and 1 therapist who started out great but decided being on time wasn't important. The time we set for our appointments was 8:30. She arrived at 8:40. OK. Trying not to be a bitch, so I let it slide. Next time, 8:45. I bring it up to her. She tells me she lives in Maricopa and with traffic it isn't possible to make it here at 8:30. Hmm. Ella is your first appointment of the day and I am not asking you to be here at 6:00 AM. I decide to be nice. I move the appointment time to 8:45. The next week she arrives at 9:00. OK. Now she pissed me off. I tell her we need to keep the appointment time at 8:45. She agrees and tells me she won't be late. The next week she texts me 30 minutes before our appointment and tells me she has a funeral she forgot about and won't be able to make it. THEN, the next week she shows up at 9:15!!!! I sent her home. I don't have time for that nonsense. I get being a few minutes late every now and then but really, out of the 5 weeks you never show up on time once? Go mess up someone else’s schedule…


Today I set out on my quest to find a new therapist. Easier said than done... My support coordinator at the DDD is on vacation, no pediatric therapy office in the valley has developmental specialists, I called the state program that is supposed to be my support system and they had no clue what I was asking for. I not only wasted my mornings waiting for the therapist to show up, but now I have wasted time out of my day trying to find a new therapist with no luck. Ella will now miss 2 weeks of SI therapy and I feel horrible, but I can’t have someone 30 minutes late constantly. We have other therapies to get to, Ella is supposed to get an hour with each and her tardiness not only cut into that therapy session but her next one as well. Grr.

Today I started my new nanny search.  I seriously thought about throwing money, free laundry service, food, beer or whatever it would take to get Brigid to stop teaching and be our nanny full time but I know she likes the free meals teachers get at Chipolte and that is something I can't match, so I assume that come the end of July we will be nannyless again.  I will make sure to keep you all updated on how the search is going. I can only assume it will provide lots of great stories for the blog.

Now on to an Ella update:

Ella has been running a fever since she had her shots and it makes me sad to see my baby Ella Bella not feeling well. She is so cute when she is sick though. She tries to be her normal little baby self but it’s like at ½ speed. I also decided it is time to push for some occupational therapy.  She keeps her little hands gripped so tight and occupational therapy will help that as well as get her ready for holding a spoon and toys. I feel like I walk a thin line each day with not knowing if something Ella is doing or not doing is totally normal or Down syndrome related.  I want her to eventually have OT anyways, so I am going to start now and then I don't have keep staring at her hands to see if she opens them. I know, I am neurotic...

Something else I didn't mention last post is that we are going to start learning baby sign language in July.  I am excited for this as they say that it is really a good way to communicate with Down syndrome toddlers as their speech can be so delayed. I kept putting it off but we need to learn it.  The Dr. asked me if Ella was blowing raspberries yet or making certain sounds and she isn't so I have to assume that her speech will be delayed and get her understanding the signs sooner rather than later. My biggest fear about learing sign language?  That I won't remember it. I swear, my mind is mush these days and I am afraid I will learn it one day and the next I will be clueless.  I will be the only one in my family unable to communicate with Ella. It sounds irrational, but I mean it. I had a dream I was trying to sign to her and my hands weren't doing anything and she was crying out of frustration.  Tell me that doesn't make a mommy feel bad when she wakes up the next morning!

The boys... I haven't mentioned the boys in a while... They are being obnoxious little tornadoes and really, who ever invented summer vacation should be ashamed of themselves for thinking it was a good idea to have siblings together for 2 months. One of them might end up taking a long trip to Grandpa Jeff’s in California if they don’t learn how to get along real soon. They are cute, but challenging. Reed is into swearing and Ryan crys over any little thing.  They make an awesome pair.