Annika gets a "big girl" bed

Annika finally outgrew her toddler bed or maybe we just wanted to get her something bigger so we finally made the move to the big girl bed today. Annika was very concerned as we moved her toddler bed frame out to the road to see if anyone wanted to pick it up for free. So her dad, being the jokester he is, told her that she was moving out and she could go live with Cassie (her aunt and PCA). Well, that wasn't bad news for Annika and she proceeded to go to the steps to head in the house to "pack her bags". I had to take her to van to show her that she had a new bed that we were going to put in her room. That was good news for her and even better news is that we needed to go shopping for "big girl" bedding. Because there is just the boys ahead of her we had nothing in twin sheets that would pass on the "princess" bed. She had a great time picking out her bedding. As we were putting up the bed, she got inside the bed frame and put her head down on the floor. She was very excited.

For the first night in a long time she didn't even argue about heading to bed. She was even asleep before we gave her the bedtime meds. She crawl in her new bedding, took her choice of her dolls and laid down in her "Little Mermaid" a.k.a "princess bed" bedding and was off to dreamland in less than 5 minutes. If only it worked that way every night!!!

A Day of Appointments

Wow, what a "jammed-packed" day we had yesterday. A day full of good news/bad news. First of all, we had her bi-weekly appointment with aural rehab at the U of MN. We had a change in our health coverage effective the beginning of the month and we now had to send in information for authorization of Annika's therapies. Well, for her sessions with Aural Rehab they approved visits until July 24th but in order to approve more they will need to have standardized scores sent in to show the need for her to have additional services beyond then. Well, this produce a dilemma for us because we planned for Annika to be discharged from services effective the end of August since she will start Kindergarten in the fall and it would be difficult to get her down there for services (it is about 75 miles one way) while attending full time school. So the question came to be-do we increase her services for the month of July (she only had one session scheduled because of the 4th of July ending up on her scheduled day to be seen) and just discharge her a month early or do we do the testing (and we need to make sure it was testing that she didn't have through the school district) and show proof to continue in the month of August. We would also have to schedule an extra appointment in July so we could get the information on the authorization into the insurance before the 24th of July. I was torn in the decision because really what we have for testing is speech testing and Annika doesn't go to the U of MN for speech but more for her auditory processing issues. I figured she would not qualify under the speech issue as she doesn't qualify for speech for school no longer. Well, we went ahead and just did the testing to see how she did and we did a speech test and I think she really only had 3-4 errors on the whole test and one we can count but she was being silly and wasn't saying it right. We did a receptive word test and she didn't have issues with this either. She knows a lot of information just has problems getting it out. We came up with a couple more tests we could do but we would have to come back a different day to do this. So I left with a decision to make. Do I let her go and do it on our own or do we make this work and push for just an extra month. I thought and prayed about this for a little bit of time and also made a call to a friend and we prayed together about the choice. After that I decided that it was time to let go of all my supports and let my girl fly on her own. We know what to do with her at home and we really can cover a month of services ourselves but this is the first time in 4 years that we are flying solo. It is hard for me to let go of my safety line but it is time.

So after that session, we went to have fun at the zoo for a couple of hours. Annika loves the monkeys and she told us that this day her favorite animal was the giraffes. If the monkeys were more awake they would have stolen the show but it was either nap time or lunch time for them. It was a neat day there as they had several tables set out with additional exhibits and things for the kids to touch and see. Also animals for them to see up close. A tiger even came up and laid right next to a viewing window so we could be up and close. She, of course, wanted to "pet" the tiger.

After the zoo, we headed off for her appointment at Gillette for her possible Botox injections and to see the orthopedist there. Well, for me the good/bad news is that her rotation in her upper thigh is getting worse so that means we are finally being referred to gait lab and motion analysis. I have asked for this for the past year but everyone has told me that they only do this if surgery is in the future and don't usually use this as a diagnostic tool for the therapists. So it is great we left with no Botox (she didn't need it at 3 months for the first time in the past 4 years) and an appointment with gait lab. The bad news is that her bone in the thigh is more than likely rotating more and we are possibly looking at a derotation surgery sooner than later. We will know more possibly sometime in August as we are scheduled for gait lab on July 31st. Mom know has to do more research and more reading between now and then because I am thinking we are going to have to make another decision then and if everyone else has the experienced surgeons as we have if we don't have our questions then and there and ready to fire the opportunity has just flown by.

Well, this is has almost turned into a book.