Thursday update

I wanted to expand on my few comments in yesterday's post and add a little update on Ellie's therapy situation. This morning we had our "IFSP" meeting (I need to look up what that stands for). The IFSP was basically a conference meeting between all of Ellie's therapists, the intake coordinator, and our primary service coordinator. We are really excited about the team of professionals who will be working together to help Ellie. We had been unable to find a physical therapist (PT) with any availability but our Developmental Interventionist (DI) went above and beyond and contacted a PT yesterday that she highly recommended for Ellie and convinced the PT to add us to her caseload. (We've been told that right now the First Steps program is bulging with new clients and therefore running into shortages of available therapists). We are grateful to our DI for petitioning on our behalf!

The ladies today gave the results of their assessments of Ellie and collaborated on strategies for helping her reach her 6-month goals which were also set this morning. Right now it feels like it would be miraculous if by the start of the fall semester she was eating with a utensil or running around the house gabbing (or at least speaking a few words), but they didn't seem to think it was unrealistic. Many of them expressed that they didn't want us to be concerned about what seemed like bleak results on her multiple assessments, but that they were all confident that those were due to her orphanage environment. By all indications they agreed Ellie should have no problem catching up. She (Ellie) seems like the kind of challenge with whom they enjoy working.

The other big decision to make today was to divvy up her alotted therapy credits. I knew that was going to be difficult because she obviously needs help in EVERY area. The speech therapist (who is extremely interested in working with internationally adopted clients -- which we really appreciate) was very gracious to recommend we wait another 4 months to begin Ellie's speech therapy to allow more time for her ears and brain to become accustomed to the intonations and rhythms of the English language. In the mean time she recommended a new Baby Einstein sign language video coming out next week as homework for Dad, Mom and Ellie! I think we can handle that! In spite of not beginning speech therapy until the summer, Ellie only qualifies for 1.5 hours of therapy a week between three specialties which means we will probably only see her therapists about twice a month. We're hoping that we might be able to appeal for more hours in a few months.

At one point in time after getting Ellie's referral, I was concerned she was going to accomplish all of these childhood milestones before we would get to Albania to pick her up -- that we would miss her first steps and a variety of other accomplishments. If you've been reading this blog for any period of time you know that obviously wasn't the case, but we are getting doubly blessed now to witness a variety of little advances every day. It's so much fun to be her little cheerleaders when she tackles a new skill and share with each other, "Did you see her do that!?!"

For those of you who are interested in knowing some of Ellie's recent accomplishments here goes:
1. Ellie will "pant" to get Reagan's attention -- funny she speaks his language but not ours
2. She is beginning to differentiate between people (recognizing not only Mom and Dad when we enter the room, but also recognizing her favorite student friend, much to the chagrin of the other students)
3. This afternoon Ellie had three back-to-back crawling sprees. We had been happy if she crawled once a day on consecutive days!
4. Ellie is demonstrating more balance on her legs when we hold her by her hands or when sitting unassisted on one of our knees
5. Ellie started stacking rings on the post, just after I told the therapist that she can take them off but not put them back on! Way to prove me wrong!