Snow Day!

Suited and Booted!

Inspection before eating.

Snow-eating grin!

Pics of the Place

The backyard

View of backyard  from deck

The toy room in our basement

More toy room

The craft table in the toy room

Can you tell we really like the toy room? I love it because I'm the type of personality that craves order (just like David!) and having Ethan's toys strewn all over the house has always been an "issue" for me. I compulsively pick up after him and in so doing, he hasn't learned to do so for himself. Having a room in the basement where he can make messes is good for all of us. Though I guess these pictures aren't really showing much of a mess. It's a sickness, what more can I say?

I've had the unreal pleasure of reconnecting with my two best friends from childhood. I found them (or they found me) on Facebook and we quickly realized that we live very close. One friend is only 3 miles away and the other is 9 miles from us. It's amazing seeing them again and picking up so easily after 23 years! 

Another odd coincidence that I haven't mentioned is the connection we found with the original home owner and his realtor. He has a daughter who is now a pediatric audiologist. She was delighted to hear that a little boy with cochlear implants was moving into her childhood home. To top it off, we found out at the closing that his realtor is on the board of a local nonprofit that raises money for deaf education! 

I don't actually believe in coincidences though :-)

----------Edited to Add----------

And we found another babysitter online who A) Happens to be an interpreter for deaf children and B) Lives really close to us, like a mile or something! HOW CRAZY IS THAT PEOPLE?

New Beginnings

Home.

We've been busy getting settled and finding our groove in our new location. There are days when I look around and just can't believe that we live in this house. It's such a good feeling to look out the windows into the woods and imagine Ethan growing up here. I've longed to put down our roots for 5 months and now we can begin to sink into this place. I haven't taken any of it for granted for a moment. We are truly blessed. 

Our new home is 5 minutes away from the newest (and nicest) campus of the children's hospital. They have everything there so we're moving Ethan's therapies and a few of his clinic visits with doctors to this location. I used to drive 1.5 hours each way for his speech and 1 hour each way for his OT and PT and now it's all within a few miles of our home. Unreal!

We're about 20 min. from Ethan's school. Right now we are transporting him ourselves, but in the future when he's a bit bigger we'll have our new school district do the driving. Our new school district which on Thursday agreed to pay to send him to the deaf school! Yes! That news is still sinking in. I have been in battle mode since June, so this is fairly life-changing for our family. The fight is over. For now. 

There's no question that a deaf child with apraxia should be sent to a school that specializes in teaching communication. The issue has been and will always be about money. It's sickening to me that a child born and raised in a less affluent community isn't given a fair shot to meet their potential. I could blog about my passion for school funding on a separate blog and have a new post every day! Teaching in a rural and impoverished school district made this a sore spot for me, but having a child with disabilities has turned it into a gaping wound. 

The IEP meeting was actually enjoyable. They had 3 people at the table and we brought Ethan's teacher from the school for the deaf as well as the director of the program he attends. We rewrote the goals from the last IEP as he has made so much progress since August. How about that! We only came to a impasse when I asked for a one on one aide for Ethan. They said they would look into it but that it was unlikely they would be able to provide one. I'm not surprised and I'm not going to let it take away from the victory that we achieved through this move! 

I'm off to meet an old friend for lunch. Life is pretty swell these days for this family. I hope it is for yours as well.