Saturday of the cousins' visit

Sophia hugging the big dog. Jamies is taking piano lessons, so he played his songs for me.
Daddy and Alexa watching her new Green Eggs and Ham CD. It reads the story to her and there are some games to play too, so if she learns how to use the mouse she will be in business.
Sophia watching the same story.

Playing cars in the living room. Trying to get all three of these active kids in one picture is nearly impossible.

Indoor Park

Today was non-member day at the indoor park, so Alexa and I went to try it out. Here she is on the slide.
We had fun and we really need a way to get out of the house where Alexa can play and be social, so we joined. There is a fee to join, and it is a sort of cooperative organization, so each member has to show up and open the gym on 6 different days. Also I have to attend a "toy cleaning party" and do one other job for a month. I will be doing "wipe down" in the month of May. This should be a good thing for us. There are about 40 families who are members at this time, and this park is mainly for younger kids, so there are some really little ones there. There is another indoor park, but it is much further from our house, so I think this one is best for us. The maximum age is 5 years old. Three other new moms joined the gym today also. We are all preparing for the next few months of rainy weather, taking steps to protect our sanity.
Darren, Jamie and Sophia are coming from Seattle tonight to stay the weekend and go to special meeting with us. We will go to Salem since it will be a shorter drive home for them. We are looking forward to playing with the cousins. Anyone with ideas for fun Saturday activities?

Mommy goes to school with Alexa

Sorry for the wordy, pictureless posts lately. That is exactly what I was trying not to do with this blog. Here is Alexa in a new outfit she got for Christmas. As you can see, the pants are too big. They have the adjustable waistband, so they don't fall off, but not really a good fit.
I went to school with Alexa today. This is the first time I have been to her class with her. There are 6 kids total, 3 boys, 3 girls. Three of those students were new to that class today. The basic routine is: open play including art, circle time (everyone sits in a circle to sing songs, listen to books and play with toys) gym time (Alexa loves the swing), snack time, and circle for goodbye song. Alexa does really well with following the routine. There is one teacher and three assistants. After school today I met with her teacher, the speech therapist and the physical therapist to revise her IFSP (individual family service plan). It was really nice to get to talk to them and to see that Alexa has met many of her goals set last time. We set some new goals for the next year. We need to figure out a way for Alexa to practice her gross motor skills like jumping, climbing, walking uphill etc. Tomorrow is the one day a month non-members can go to the indoor gym here in Corvallis, so we are going to try that. Also we are considering a trampoline, and some sort of plywood mini climbing wall.
We had a bit of sunshine today, so I decided to take Alexa to the park. We did well at first. I put her on the swing which was mostly dry, and that is always good for 20 minutes of joy. Then she wanted to climb up on the slide structure, which was also OK. Unfortunately, she then went down the slide which was very wet. So her pants were sopping wet and we had to come home. I had to carry her to the car screaming the whole way, and muscle her into her carseat while she arched her back and fought me. When we got home I bribed her into the house by promising a bath. This worked well, of course she didn't want to get out of the bath, but she didn't throw a fit about it. Another mommy dilemma: Is it worth going to the park in the first place if she is going to make me miserable when we have to leave?

Temper tantrums.

Alexa has now had her first official temper tantrum. Last night when Daddy and I made her lie down and hold still so she could go to sleep, she threw a screaming, squirming fit. She was so mad at us. I could hardly hold on to her. She was so tired that after a few minutes of screaming her anger at us she fell asleep. Then today we had episode two. About 4:30 she was standing on the piano bench pounding on the piano. I told her to sit down, and she tried, but fell off the piano bench onto her back. She cried and cried, so I decided we both needed to get out of the house even though it was raining and almost dark. I put her coat on and we went outside. She wanted to play with the wagon, so I put her in it and started walking down the sidewalk. As I tried to turn the corner, she started yelling because she wanted to go down the gravel road toward the park. So I started walking that way, but I didn't have her gloves and her hood kept coming off, and even if I made it to the park it was to wet to play. I turned around to head back to the house and she got mad again and started screaming bloody murder. All the way home and into the house. Since she wouldn't calm down I put her in the van and took her to see daddy at work. She sat in his lap for about five minutes and then went to sleep. So we laid her on the couch to nap and I came home and made dinner. When David brought her home an hour later she was crying again, and she cried off and on throughout dinner, and then until it was time to go to meeting. So I went to meeting alone and David stayed home with her. Apparently, shortly after I left, she began to play happily with her toys and has been in a good mood ever since. I was really hoping we could skip this tantrum period. Alexa's speech therapist said her kids had terrible threes rather than terrible twos, and I am afraid this is proving to be the case with Alexa. It is kind of strange since I thought this kind of thing was caused by the child's inability to communicate what they want, but Alexa is doing really well with signing lately, and I certainly know what she wants, it just isn't something that she can have at that point. I am an advocate of giving kids choices, but staying awake when DH and I are sleeping, or going to the park in the rain are not choices I can give her.

Good News about my foot!

I had my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon in Eugene today to review the results of the CT scan and he says that 2 of the joints are firmly fused, including the sub-talar joint which is apparently the one he has been most worried about to date. The ankle joint has some bone formation but not enough to go without a cast boot yet. So - no new surgery for now, I go another 6 weeks in the cast boot and then we check again by x-ray to see how that joint is doing. Even if it does not continue healing the doctor said that surgery would be quite simple and not as big of a deal as the one we would have had to do otherwise. So I am very happy about this needless to say. I thought I would share the good news around!! Hope you have as terrific a day as I had!

On Insurance Companies, being stuck in the house etc

Fair warning - I need to vent some frustrations, you don't have to read about them.
I finally called our insurance company today to try and figure out why they aren't paying for Alexa's speech therapy. Now you have to understand that I have been trying to get her speech, physical and occupational therapy since April of last year. At that time there were no "in network" providers accepting new pediatric patients in this area. So I asked for a "gap exception" (I hope that is the right word), I already had one for another doctor I saw for the same reason. After waiting on hold for 30 minutes and being hung up on, they told me that I couldn't have a gap exception because I lived in Oregon. No amount of logic swayed them from this explanation. Finally I found someone accepting new patients and they called to check my benefits. The company told them that I had already paid my out of network deductible and would be covered for 70% of the cost of 20 visits. So we went for a few visits, and they billed us for them because we hadn't paid the out of network deductible (of 1500$). So we quit going, paid the bill, and the therapy providers applied for in network status. In August they became an in network provider and so we started speech therapy. We applied for pre approval for physical and occupational therapy. Then we started getting letters saying they would not pay our claims because they did not cover speech therapy for Alexa's diagnosis. We carefully read our policy and it does in fact cover speech therapy for "congenital anomalies" which presumably includes Alexa's diagnosis of "developmental delay", but they now want the speech therapist to send them her clinical notes with a diagnosis that fits that criterion. Unfortunately, they claim never to have received either of the two requests for pre-approval of occupational and physical therapy, and I expect them to reject it anyway since they only cover PT and OT for rehabilitative therapy expected to produce improvement within two months. This is so maddening to me. How can they not cover a child for a condition she was born with?? Now I have to contact Shriners and March of Dimes and any other random group of people I can think of to help, and meanwhile we have to pay out of our own pocket. We have no control over our insurance coverage since it is through David's job.

Meanwhile, Alexa is into everything today. She pulled the garbage bag out of the can and all of the new garbage bags out of their box and all over the floor. She chewed holes in her only white t-shirt. She keeps trying to pull her diaper and pants down, but will not go potty in the potty. She pulls my books and magazines off the shelves. While I tried to organize my spices today she kept stacking them, dropping them on the computer and running off with them. She does most of this while I am on the phone with the insurance company, so I have to try and carry her around without hanging up the phone. I am impatient with her and frustrated that I can't seem to get anything done. On the other hand, she is learning so many neat new things lately. She is climbing really well, signing new words and using her signs more accurately. I am really proud of her.

My silly daughter

Alexa took her pagamas off last night for some reason, and when they were down around her ankles, she tried to walk and wondered why it was so hard. It was really funny.
And then she started mugging for the camera, she is adapting quite well to her new role as film star. Note the lopsided pigtails. They were much straighter this morning when we got ready for meeting.
Most happy news of all, my cold is almost gone today. I only woke up once this morning from my throat being sore and I can breathe through my nose again. I have been such a wimp about this cold, sorry for all the whining. There is a little snow on the ground again this morning, but not enough to really play in.