Chill Baby!

Brrrrr.....it's chilly out here!!

Chillin' on the potty

What mess? Chill out Mom.....

This morning's wake up surprise......The Big Chill
(soooooo very tired of winter and snow)

Potty Party!

It looks like we might really be getting somewhere with potty training! The child has always loved to sit (and stand) on her potty, but that's where it ended. Sure, we'd had some lucky breaks a few times, but they were more coincidences than anything else.




But I think she might be on to something! Yesterday, after insisting to go on the potty, she peed! This morning, though I was scrambling to get myself ready for work on time, I gave in to her "ka-ka" mantra and plopped her down on her pretty pink potty. And holy cow.....she pooped!! I was so stunned...... I dropped everything and the potty party was on! We danced and jumped around, hooted and hollered and picked out a sparkly sticker as her reward.


Oh yeah, but then I had to empty it. Ewwwwwwwwwwwww.

Haircut!

Although she's almost 4, Kasia really hasn't had a haircut. Not a "professional" one anyways! Nope...mostly it's been me, hovering over her while she sits on the bathroom counter, snipping half hazardly like I have a clue about what I'm doing. (Gulp.... I realize that I'm about to take responsibility for the following photos.)

And that is how we've ended up with the raggedy haggedy

mess of a 'do she's currently sporting! It's the complete opposite of a bob - not refined enough to call itself a shag - and even too messy to try to pass itself off as grunge.

Okay,okay...but most of the time it looks pretty cute, but I'd really love to be freed from the pony tail prison we're currently in! Right now, if I brought Kasia anywhere with her hair not nicely contained in a ponytail or two, people would think she was a feral child I found running around the neighbourhood.

So today was the big day! Her first real haircut. She sure squirmed a lot but we managed to come out with a pretty decent little hairdo! Behold.....

Great (and not so great) News!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times........

And so goes my life.

Last week brought FANTASTIC news! Although we thought that Kasia had not been accepted into the Senior path preschool program (preschool assessment and therapy) at the Children's Treatment Centre, it turns out that a spot has now opened up! When I was originally told that hers was the next name on the waiting list, I didn't think much of it. After all, who in their right mind would turn down such a wonderful opportunity for their child?!?! (Imagine it: 6 kids, 3 therapists, 1 teacher, 1 co-op helper.....it's magic.) But, sometimes strange and unexpected things happen! This was the best news that I had received in a long time, and it not only made my day, it made me want to run outside, scream at the top of my lungs and jump around. Somehow I managed to restrain myself.

However, the celebration was short lived. Later that evening at my parent's house, Kasia spiked a temperature and had a seizure. Although she had been mildly ill with the beginning of a cold, the seizure took me completely off guard. It's sad to say, we're now used to these horrible seizure-things and managed to deal with the situation without having to get medical attention for her.

So, the worst was over. Wasn't it?




The Patient - Feb, 2009


All weekend Kasia was sick. Really sick. At one point we had even considered her bringing her to the ER, but convinced ourselves that it was just a really bad cold. But instead of getting better, she seemed to be getting worse and by Monday it was apparent that it wasn't "just" a cold. The fevers weren't going away, she was crying a LOT, not eating or drinking, losing her voice and coughing up mucus like crazy. Luckily she had an appointment on Tuesday at the cancer centre and her doctor noticed that she was definitely not herself. After a quick chest x-ray, he admitted her to the hospital. As it turned out, she was severely dehydrated and had viral pneumonia. So Kasia & I spent some quality time together from Tuesday to Thursday on the pediatric unit of the hospital.

But while still in the hospital, more bad news. Although Kasia had gotten in to the Senior Path preschool program at CTC, she had not been chosen for their JK classroom - something I had really really been hoping for. Once again, she's on the waiting list, but what are the chances that lightning will strike twice?


Kasia's first day of Junior Path - Sept, 2007 (pudding painting!)

I'm staying positive though! Monday Kasia will start Senior Path and I'm sooooo excited. The changes that Junior Path brought about in her were incredible so we're hoping for a little more of that magic this time.

Speech Therapy

Yesterday Kasia FINALLY began another block of speech therapy. The fact that she has had no therapy since June 2008 has me more than a little perturbed. There were the summer holidays, then the letdown of not being accepted into the Senior Path preschool program which started in September, and then..... it seemed we were just forgotten! As it turns out, the delay has been caused by the apparently totally unexpected and unplanned for (insert heavy sarcasm here) maternity leave of one of the speech therapists, which caused complete havoc to break out at the centre and overload the remaining therapists. So we waited. The promise of an October start turned into November, then December, Christmas came and went, and finally after commenting to our occupational therapist about the delay, we got the call that our block would start at the end of January. However, the news was also that Kasia was being transferred to another therapist due to the aforementioned patient overload. Hmph. The therapist that had made such wonderful headway initially would not be continuing with Kasia.


I'm keeping an open mind, though I'm honestly starting to have more and more feelings of bitterness creep into my thoughts. I mean, if a child is diagnosed as having a "severe speech delay" should the therapy not be ongoing and continuous?? Why in the world would therapy stop completely for over 6 months? Kasia has made tremendous progress in these past months, but I have to wonder how much better she could be doing had she been receiving regular therapy.

Her new therapist commented how most children are able to start putting words together once they know approximately 40-50 words. Well, at 150-200 words, Kasia should definitely be putting those words together, but so far it eludes her. I'm really hoping that this current block of therapy will help to unlock that skill for her. The idea of my little bee turning to me and speaking a sentence is thrilling! I know she'll do it one day but like the song says, the waiting is the hardest part.

New Bed!

During my last rambling post of all that's been going wrong, I failed to mention my growing dislike towards Kasia's mattress. What would I have against Kasia's mattress you ask? Well since I sleep with her every night, it's actually my mattress too and my spine has been none too happy about it.


Today we had a nice new plushy comfy cozy model delivered and I can't wait to test it out tonight. The only problem is, since we don't have a boxspring we need to add some additional support to the bedframe before using the new mattress. So, for tonight, we're all set up on the floor. For Kasia, this is like Christmas! She's been flopping around and jumping on the mattress all day.







Now for the benefit of my gal pal Barbara who is considering the floor bed idea for her son Bennett, here are some of the pros & cons:



PROS:

1. Kids like it for the same reason they like forts made out of sofa cushions and blankets. It's fun!
2. It's low to the ground so no big worries about falling out of bed.
3. Parent can crawl in at night instead of taking the child back to their bed.
4. Jumping and walking across the mattress is actually pretty good for practicing balance and in my eyes, qualifies as physio time!



CONS:

1. Visitors sometimes think you're weird when they see your child's mattress on the floor.
2. The first few nights you feel like a cross between a teenager and a homeless squatter.
3. It's a bit of a pain to make the bed.



But back to that jumping on the bed being fun point:
(Sorry the video is sideways!!)

Finally, an Update!

Wow, here we are nearing the end of January and the blog has really suffered! The hectic holidays finally gave way to the slower pace of January and then, unfortunately, that's when everything went wrong. By the second week of January I had the flu and strep throat and had used up every last sick day from work. Kasia stayed with my parents for 3 days to ensure she stayed healthy while I recovered. We thought she was fine until a just-in-case throat swab at her doctor's appointment revealed she had strep throat as well. Looking back, I guess it explained why she wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping well and was having an increase in seizure-y type stuff when she went to sleep! Duh..... you'd think I would understand this stuff by now.....

Anyways, she recovered and proved to be a much tougher little soldier than her mother. After a day or two of antibiotics she was eating, sleeping and back to normal. Which cannot be said for me. One eye infection, two kinds of antibiotics, a loss of 5 pounds (not complaining) and one bizarre case of antibiotic related arthritis later, and I'm still not back to normal. I think they've started a pool at work on what I'll be afflicted with next.

Other than all that, everything is going pretty well. Kasia is continuing to improve in so many ways. She's starting to run, to pretend play, sit on her potty and repeat every word she hears. We're even hearing more and more words put together these days, which is what we've really been working hard at. She has become such a little girl and is so much fun to be around - I can always rely on her goofy grin and crazy antics to brighten my day. Honestly, the child cannot put clothes on without modelling them in some form or fashion. Exhibit A: