Preschool in less than 2 weeks!!!

Whew!  It has been a long week.  We went to observe the school on Tuesday (without Molly) and I was completely overwhelmed by the idea of being in the classroom with 11 other students 3 and 4 years old.  I observed kids being kids, which included hitting, pushing, shoving and running and falling into furniture.  For the average kid these are just part of the day, but for Molly most, if not all, of these incidents would have resulted in a fracture.  I think it is hard for any parent to drop their child off and allow someone else to be responsible for them, but for me this is almost more than I can handle.  I have been obsessive about keeping Molly as safe as possible to minimize her fractures (which I think are now over 40).  

The teacher at the school is wonderful.  Lynn, the teacher, started the preschool program after observing some hearing impaired children in the general population and noticing that they were not required to "use their words" to communicate and were held to a different standard than their peers.   She is very passionate about customizing both the classroom layout and the curriculum to each child's specific needs.  I was overwhelmed on Tuesday trying to envision how to make this work, but today went extremely well.  The teachers had spent this morning rearranging the classroom for Molly in her wheelchair.  Lynn has also planned a unit for net week to teach the student about people in wheelchairs etc.   Jim and Lori (our neighbor) came today and helped to reassure me that this was a reasonable an appropriate place for Molly.  Lori, our neighbor, did some reading up online about Lynn, the teacher, which increased my confidence in this particular classroom.  It is hard not to have another classroom to choose from, but I am starting to feel better that this is going to be a good placement for her.

Yesterday we had a "play group" with Abby, a local 2 year old little girl with OI.  They were SO cute together.  Abby was putting her hands to her mouth and calling "Moll" and then rolling to get to where Molly was.  Abby was getting up close and cuddling in with Molly.  Molly was jealous because I was paying attention to Abby, which complicated things a little bit.  Nancy, Abby's Mom, has been so trusting of me and allowed me to pick Abby up.  I picked Abby up and "sat" her on Molly's lap (still in my hands) and Abby snuggled in with Molly and rested her head on Molly's shoulder - it was ADORABLE!!!  

Today has been a good day.  We are definitely excited about the prospect of Molly going to school and being able to play with other children her age.

Molly is Healing

There is a lot going on, but Molly is continuing to feel better by the day.  Jim woke up early yesterday morning and was unable to get a full breath.  He took a shower and then started coughing and there were streaks of blood, so we decided to err on the side of caution and headed off to the ER to get a full evaluation.  Two and a half hours later we left with no answers other than that they didn't think it was pneumonia, or a tumor, etc.  He went to the primary care today and found out it is a condition related to a recent bad cough and he was given a prescription for an inhaler.  We are all glad to have an answer and one that isn't very scary!

Molly has been crawling a few feet at a time and has not needed pain medication, which is wonderful.  She has started "tall kneeling" and when I told her I didn't think it was a good idea she said "look Mommy it's fine it doesn't hurt at all" hard to argue with that!  

We have our preschool meeting tomorrow and we are hopeful that we can all come up with a solution that will help Molly to get the peer-to-peer interaction she definitely needs.  It is wonderful and sad at the same time that she has many invisible friends that follow us around.  She has recently watched the Disney film Mulan and so as of right now Mulan is with us everywhere.  She was working with the PT today and was pretending to tie up a rope for Mulan's carriage - she has no shortage when it comes to imagination!  

Tonight as she was "falling asleep" she was singing and I had to listen closely to hear what it was she was saying - she was singing "cooperation" over and over - she is a constant source of entertainment :)

She woke up very happy today and "She was a robot" (and she uses a robot-like voice) and then we talked about what she ate as a robot.  Everything I listed she said yes to and then laughed very hard.  She loves to be teased and is definitely into finding things that are silly.  One of her favorite books at the moment is "Fluffy, by Helen Lester" which is about a porcupine named fluffy and a Rhinoceros named "Hippo" and she loves the humor in it.  She just loves games and being teased and will say "You Tease Me" or "Be Silly Again" etc.  When she isn't battling with me over every action of the day I really do enjoy her thoroughly!  

She's crawling!

Molly is one amazing little girl.  She broke her femur less than 3 weeks ago and she is now crawling!  Not very often or very long distances, but nonetheless she is crawling!

She had X-Rays last week and they showed that the bone is starting to heal and he gave us the OK to take the splint off.  She had her Pamidronate Infusion on Friday and Saturday.  About halfway through her first day of the infusion Molly became hyper and super happy, like we had just pumped her full of a bunch of sugar!  She started crawling soon after that.  Boy do we love that Pamidronate!  She has definitely been feeling better since getting her infusion.   She is not on any pain medication at this point and I think a lot of that has to do with her infusion.

We have our meeting with Wake County public schools on Friday to talk about her preschool and I am hopeful that they have found a good placement for her.  

She seems to have stopped napping at the moment, which has made for very long days.  I don't think she stopped talking for more than a minute all day yesterday - I am exhausted!!  Jim went to San Diego from Friday through Sunday to celebrate Nanno's 90th birthday, so I was going solo this weekend.  We really missed Jim and I was again reminded of my great respect for single parents!!