Hope is the thing with feathers, right Emily?

Because right now, there are feathers EVERYWHERE.

And I am afraid of feathers. I might, might, MIGHT get to go back to work.

See, today, we met again with the folks from the local government who are going to offer services to Lucy.  They brought in a coordinator, a registered nurse, a physical therapist, and an occupational therapist.  A lot of people looked at Lucy.  The news was what we expected -- some good, some bad.  Her actual chronological age is 17.5 months. 

Social and emotional:  21 months.  Very good.
Verbal:  24 months.  EXCELLENT.
Gross motor:  16 months.  This was actually surprising, because we thought she was more delayed than that. 
Fine motor:  14 months.  Disappointing.  We thought she was not quite so delayed here. 

The physical therapist helped us understand some things about Lucy in regards to the delay, which I'll explain in a moment -- but for those of you with kids, or considering kids, I really recommend any book by Dr. Sears.  He has a philosophy of trying to get behind your kid's eyes, which can really help you understand your child.  Why does Lucy fight sleeping alone in a crib?  It's scary when I walk away -- she's never been alone in her life, EVER.  It's so much better if she can see another human being. 

That being said, Travis and I don't really understand what it's like to be in her body.  In addition to the seizures, Lucy has a condition called hypotonia.  Essentially, her muscles and ligaments are extremely loose and flexible, which doesn;t sound necessarily bad, but she can't always control them, which is bad.  This isn't a muscle thing, which we could counter with exercises, but a brain-to-body thing.  When she was first learning to walk, she would pull up and take a step and then just Bambi out. 

The PT explained that kids with hypotonia learn not to trust their bodies.  They don't trust that the messages they get will be accurate, and they don't trust that their bodies will be there for them.  Understanding this really helped me understand a lot about Lucy -- why she doesn't want to use a fork -- because she doesn't trust that she'll be able to.  That she doesn't want to stack blocks, because it's really frustrating -- but she'll stack anything with a hole on it on her wooden ring-stack toy.  She knows she's supposed to do these things, and part of her wants to, but mostly she's either afraid to or she's given up.  I'm so sad about this, but at least we know what to work on now. 

Lucy's homework: 

1. Stack blocks.

2.  Scribble with crayon.

3.  Try to walk up the stairs.

BUT, while talking with the service coordinator today, I discovered that for some reason, Lucy is eligible for medicaid.  (Just Lucy.  Not us.)  Which means that she might then be eligible for home health services.  Which might mean that the person who comes to take care of her everyday might be an LPN.

Which might mean that I get to go back to work.

I KNOW.  I'm so happy I'm sharing happyfuntimes with all of you.