Day 32: Extension

Another snow day. All told, this week the kids have only had one day of school. And, in my opinion, today was the ickiest snow day yet. All day long it was sort of snow-raining with the kind of frigid dampness that permeates your bones and refuses to budge until you at least ingest two cups of hot cocoa.

So, the kids stayed inside with me all day. I'm afraid that I wasn't the most fun or stimulating mom today, either. Between trying to keep work afloat (two client calls from inside the bathroom, many emails answered, plus one rush invite out the door!) and getting ready for my sister's baby shower this Sunday (3 dozen red velvet cupcakes with raspberry filling baked! 4 dozen sugar cookies rolled out and sprinkled! Decorations up! Pasta sauce made!) I was a little bit distracted. I wanted to clean the house too, but I figured that cleaning anything on a day when the kids are stuck indoors would be a bit like trying to shovel the walk during a white-out.

Fortunately, the kids kept themselves entertained. For gross motor stimulation they took down the balloons I had carefully placed as baby shower decor and chased each other around the house with them. As a fine motor exercise they stole cookies very quietly from the counter top using both a strategic pincer grasp and well planned supination (I pretended not to notice).

 

The day wasn't a total educational loss, though. This morning Brian and Simon DID make it to KKI. It turns out that today was NOT to be Simon's last day of the CIMT program. They want him to have five full days of bilateral therapy, so we have an extension through Monday. I'm not complaining. I'm hopeful that Monday will be a normal school day (please God!) and, as soon as I get Olivia off on the school bus, I will rush to KKI to squeeze as much information out of the OT and the PT as possible before we're totally finished.

Although, even then we're not going to be really totally completely finished. As soon as we can sort out our insurance's therapy benefit (Fun with Insurance! I'll save my health care rant for another post...) for continued outpatient services, we should be on board for once a week OT. Initially it will be with the same OT we are currently seeing, then possibly transferring to an OT in the KKI Outpatient Center (right now we are a part of the Specialized Transitional Program). I'm really glad we can continue on in some fashion, we've made so much progress, and learned so much about Simon over the course of the last month that I truly believe that more will be very beneficial (hear that, Carefirst?).

Speaking of things that should continue, I think that I will continue the blog. Not on a daily basis (aside from the kids and husband, I already have two jobs and when classes start next week I will be lucky if I have time to think, much less write down cohesive thoughts), but at least once a week. I had originally intended this journal to be a contained project, with a finite beginning and end. But, let's face it, life isn't like that. Our story isn't like that. As a commenter on yesterday's post suggested, I have learned a lot through this process, and I do think that I have more yet to learn. Going back and reading about Simon's progress - our progress, makes me appreciate where we have been and where we are going in a very tangible way.

Not to mention the fact that it is kind of fun.