Speech Therapy

I don't know if this is standard in every state, but MN requires all kids to undergo an "early childhood screening" before they start kindergarten. The idea is that it's easier to treat problems (autism, hearing problems, intellectual disability, etc.) if you catch them early.  Some school districts start the screening at age 3, although our district starts at 3.5 - which was back in October for Rose. It was also back in October that we had Rose's biannual school conferences. Overall her teachers gave her glowing praise (my favorite was when they commented on her exceptional emotional development!), but they did raise some concern about her articulation abilities. Now, I've often had a hard time understanding Rose, but I had no basis of comparison and figured all parents must struggle to understand their toddlers/preschoolers, amIright?  So to hear an experienced teacher express concern suddenly brought MY anxiety level to a whole new level! It was officially time to panic.

So I got Rose in for her early childhood screening as quickly as I could, which was Nov 12th. For the most part, she was a rock star! She passed the hearing screen, the visual screen, the gross motor test, the cognitive screen, the social screen...everything except the articulation screening. Huh.

Next (Dec 1) we got referred to the district's early childhood speech therapist, who completed a much more comprehensive evaluation of her articulation, as well as getting more details about Rose's history (social, medical, etc.). She didn't score the test as she went, but I could tell it wasn't going great - particularly when the speech therapist (whose job it is to understand little kids) had to ask me to "interpret" a couple things Rose said. Needless to say, I nearly breaking out in hives by the time the results finally came back.

But Rose, I should mention, loved all this testing! She got to spend some extra time on the test days with me and got to "show off" to these new adults. She had a blast!

And it was only a day or two later that we "finally" got the results: Rose's scores officially qualified her for speech therapy services, so we needed to schedule an IEP (individualized education program) meeting to formalize the plan for special ed.

Gulp.

Yep, my daughter needs special ed.

And clearly I was having a reaction to it - an emotional reaction.

After much reflection, talking with friends, a few unexpected tears, and a couple long sessions of journaling, I think I've come to understand where my emotions were coming from, some of which were quite a surprise to the logical part of my brain! But after much hard work, I got to a place of understanding with myself and could more fully support Rose. (I'd be happy to tell any of you, my loyal blog readers, all the details in person some time. It just feels too personal to type it all out here!)

We had her first official IEP on 12/8/15. The short story is that Rose's standard score on the Goldman Fristoe Test of Articulation was 69. The test has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, which means that scores of less than 70 are required to qualify for special ed. So, in a way, it was a good thing that she just squeaked in! This means that she is eligible for special ed for as long as she needs it throughout school, even as her articulation improves. And since her score isn't super low, she should improve pretty quickly! The optimistic side would be "graduating" in a year to 18 months, but realistically she might still need some help in kindergarten - we'll see.

But the other crazy part of the story is that Mike and I were both a bit frantic trying to figure out how we would get her to speech therapy each week since we both work. And that's when we found out that the school district would pay for her to take a special bus from daycare to the "big kid school" every week for speech class!!! (I am so grateful to pay taxes in order to make services like this possible for us and for others!)

So Rose had her first official speech class on Jan 5. Since it was the first one, I followed her in my car (I wasn't allowed on the bus) and joined her for the first half of the class. That week she was one of four kids total, with three little boys about her age or a little older. The class seemed great, and she seemed to be having a good time!

And now we've also started with weekly homework! (I thought we wouldn't have to deal with that until grade school!) The good news is that it's pretty easy and fun. The first two weeks we just had to repeat a bunch of syllable (ickee, ackee, uckee, okee, achy) and then Rose got to color something - the first week she got to color a stripe on a zebra each time she said the sounds, and the second week she got to color a kite each time she said the sounds:

She especially loves the coloring! She isn't always excited to start the homework (mostly she'd rather play Candyland - bane of my existence - instead), but once we get going I have to convince her to stop after about 15-20min (we're supposed to only have 5min practice sessions at most!). My little overachiever daughter.  ;)

So we did two weeks of the K sound, and now we're moving on to the G sound. And Mike and I are trying to enunciate even better  -- do we both mumble??  Although we did get lots of reassurance that there is no research to date identifying any specific causes for why some kids need speech therapy and some kids don't. But apparently there is at least some genetic component, and since Mike needed speech as a kid, that could be part of it.

That's the big news from the home front! But I will leave you with two photos to make up for this otherwise incredibly text-heavy blog post:

Candyland with Grandma Roles!

Rose loves art projects!

Have a great week! Hope you're staying warm out there.

Merry Christmas (part 3)

Since Christmas fell on a Friday this year, that meant we had a whole weekend left to celebrate, even after the holiday itself was over! Saturday the 26th was slated for Mike's mom's side of the family this year. We woke up early (as usual) and Rose promptly put on her new princess dress again - because what else would you wear in order to bake a cake, right?!?

While we waited for the "breakfast cake" (our contribution to the family potluck breakfast) to bake, we worked on some art projects.  Rose especially loved this mermaid mosaic!

We also shoveled the ~2 inches of snow we got, and then finally woke up Mike around 9am (!). And then we were off to Trula's!

We got to see Baby Eleanor (and her parents):

And Rose got to play with all her Rohde cousins:

While we adults talked, snacked, and drank mimosas. :)

Aunt Sara brought a fun art project for the kids to work on:

The finished product!

We opened presents:

Rose practiced "twirling":

And we all just basically looked photogenic :)

photobomb!

Rose received a set of princess dolls from Grandma Roles and Grandpa Fly that all the cousins fell in love with:

After all the festivities, it was finally time for nap. Some of the adults visited other family, then we all met up again for the big Fleischhacker Family Christmas party. I was totally overwhelmed so only got a couple photos:

As you can tell by Rose's expression here, it was getting to be past her bedtime by this point!

It was a whirlwind day, but I cherished every minute of it.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Merry Christmas (part 2)

After our Christmas Eve extravaganza at Jack and Marsha's, we hurried home to get into bed in time for Santa to arrive. The vast majority of the presents had already been set out by the tree weeks ago, but Santa did bring a couple presents for Rose. (We wouldn't want Rose to think that Mommy and Daddy buy presents for everyone else but not for her! Also, hiding a couple presents is a lot easier than hiding a big pile of them!)

On Christmas morning, I woke early to put the "Erik Estrada" (i.e., strata) into the oven. In one of our first Christmases together as a married couple, I happened to make this for Mike, and now it has become a part of our beloved holiday routine on Christmas morning.

As the strata baked, we opened presents!

Rose was thrilled with her mermaid doll from Santa, and also enjoyed the personalized princess book we got her.

She also began to spend the first of many hours with her old magiclip dolls and her new castle from Grammy and Grandpa!

Quick hot cocoa break, then back to playing!

 After breakfast she promptly changed into her princess dress from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, and began to play with her biggie beads from Trula. (Thanks for the idea, Ryan!)

We spent all day hanging around our house, watching the fire, playing games, and eating delicious food. It was wonderfully relaxing, but not the "traditional" Christmas we're used to:   a quick breakfast and gift opening at home, followed by a big Christmas Day celebration at Mary and Mike's, followed by the chaotic-but-endearing Fleischhacker family gathering on Christmas evening.  Perhaps this break with tradition was what got me thinking so much about tradition in the first place!  I felt torn between enjoying the quiet time with just our family of three, and really missing the things that I hadn't realized had become beloved tradition for us with Mike's mom's side of the family. The distance to Hayward (WI) certainly upended our routines this year! Hopefully we can find a new solution that works for everyone next year.

Part 3 will be coming soon!

peas in a pod

Last night we (me, Rose, Mike, Lucy and Mac) all watched the Packers get trounced by the Cardinals.


I, of course, was cheering for "the green team." Rose decided she was going to cheer for "the red team."


I told her, "You and Daddy are just two peas in a pod!"


She responded, "And you are one pea in a pod, Mommy!"

Merry Christmas (part 1)

For some reason this year I was thinking a lot about traditions: Christmas traditions I thought we would have had (but we don't), Christmas traditions I never thought I would love (but I do), and Christmas traditions I have always treasured.

I don't know why I always assumed that Christmas Eve would include a church service for me once I was "a grown-up," since I certainly wasn't raised in the most religious household. I do know that stockings on Christmas Eve and presents on Christmas morning was something I was raised with as the "right" way to handle Christmas presents.  But now that I'm in my mid (late?) 30's, have been married for over a decade, and we have an awesome kid of our own, I suppose what we've been doing the last several years is now the "Burcusa family traditions" that Rose will grow up to treasure, expect and savor as she herself grows up.

So our beloved family traditions now include Christmas Eve with Mike's dad and step-mom, Jack and Marsha!

Mike always spends a few hours re-doing the annual 1000-piece Christmas puzzle that Jack previously completed: he won't eat dinner until it's done!

Jack puts on old-fashioned Christmas movies, like Rudolph. These classics hold a special place in Mike's heart, and now Rose's as well.

Usually Jack ends up napping during the movie. :)

Rose is also getting the puzzle bug from her daddy! She did this one about 20 times, both before and after nap. It won't be long before she'll be able to help with the official Christmas puzzle that Mike completes.

In addition to classic Christmas movies, we also usually zone out to some "bad tv," like this Alaska show that was surprisingly interesting.

Marsha is usually pet-sitting a dog or two. Rose varies in whether she loves the dog in question, or whether she resents it taking some of the attention from her grandparents.

Yummy snacks throughout the afternoon are also clearly part of our holiday traditions with Grammy and Grandpa.

The neighbors (Bob and Ellen, Karen and Allen) come over in the late afternoon / early evening to partake in the delicious snacks and the even more scrumptious dinner: prime rib, scalloped corn, twice-baked potatoes, bread and salad, followed by Sebastian Joe's ice cream. So good!!!

After dinner the neighbors leave and it's time for presents! ("Tired eyes" also made an appearance this year.)

Trula loves Christmas too! Grammy always gets the job of distributing the gifts, and the presents always get opened one at a time, in order from youngest to oldest. Rose did a GREAT job being patient waiting for her turn this year!

Every year I say to Mike, "Your dad and Marsha are SO generous!"

This year we started a new tradition with Mike actually taking my photo instead of me being the sole photographer! :)

Some of these traditions are different from what I imagined for myself as "a grown-up," but I've come to love them all so much. Sometimes the specific elements get tweaked a bit (like the year we tried chicken cordon bleu for dinner), but we always come back to the core elements: family togetherness, generosity, the comfort of beloved traditions, and bellies filled with scrumptious food. That's the Christmas Eve I've come to love, even if there isn't a church service involved!

Merry Christmas eve!