Sick Kiddo

Cooper is sick with H1N1:( Poor kid! He looks miserable! He got off the bus last Friday and as soon as I saw him I knew he was getting sick. By Friday night at dinner he had a fever and would not eat anything. By morning he was a hot mess! He missed school all this week with this!

Both of my other sons are sick now and of course like all mothers know.. I am too.. Cooper is by far the worst though. I was a little concerned about that so I called his DAN doctor and she told me that kids on the spectrum have a lower immunity which is one of the things DAN protocol is trying to correct so it stands to reason that he would get sicker then anyone else. Wonderful.

I have to say having been trapped in my house for more then a week straight (we had to skip church last Sunday for sickness and I am sure will not be there this week either) with four, sick, whiny kids has NOT been fun. AT.ALL. Not even a little tiny bit. I am about to go out of my mind to be totally honest. My Mom comes tonight so that will be a much needed respite! She is not looking forward to bringing home her souvenir of swine flu though.

Cooper is doing really well at school and he is still loving it. His teacher is really great and he loves her very much! Cooper is a little funny about it though because when I tell him that I love him he will say "Mommy, I don't love you I love Ms Eve! I love her not all the people!!" Crazy kid!

First Day of school!!

YAHOO!! The first day of school was Monday and it is going GREAT!! Cooper LOOOOOOVES his new school! Each day he asks me "Mommy can I go back to my X______ School tomorrow??" He always calls it "his X_______ school" and I find that super cute! His teacher is really sweet but not in that over the top annoying way. I am a Yankee through and through so I tend to not like the over the top sweet. Kind of gets on my nerves because it seems fake. Anyway, she is from Boston so she is my kind of peeps;)

Cooper has been doing so great! He has had some potty accidents but yesterday and today he was accident free! YEAH! Man that is the best thing about this school if you ask me! They can help special needs kids potty train! He still does not get the poop in the potty thing but you know I finally got the place where I just don't care. Not that I like it mind you but I just roll with it. It is not his fault and he can't help it so I need to be okay with it. Once I got there I did heaps better with it! Once I do better with it he did better with it.

Oh another cute thing is that on meet the teacher day I bought Cooper a new shirt with his school name on it. Now, when I buy Coop new clothing it is hit and miss on weather or not he will wear it. The school mascot made me wonder if he would wear it. Well, he was very excited about his shirt but when I asked him if he wanted to wear it he said no I want to put it in my drawer. Okay, so we got home and he put it in his drawer. Well, he did decide he wanted to wear it that night to sleep in so we did that. Then I had to wash it (he mega pees at night TMI sorry) and he wanted to wear it to school yesterday "because my teacher likes the mascot and I want to show her." Okay cool! So he wore it... then when it was time for bed he threw a fit. I decided it was not worth it so if you want to sleep in your clothes who cares right?? Well, I set out clothes for this morning but NO he pitched a holy fit that he wanted to wear that shirt again. I had to think and I decided you know what who cares if my almost 4 year old wears his shirt two days in a row???? So he did and he was so proud and happy. Who am I to take that away?

So that is the news about school! He loves it and even with all his food allergies and diet he can buy lunch there which is super. The bus is going to start getting him on Monday and that will be so exciting for him also!

Oh the other thing is that we have decided to stop OT for a while. Cooper qualifies for OT services through school which really just means the teacher meets with the OT once a month to come up with a plan for him. The teacher is the one who implements the OT plan. We want to see how he does with this and if he is not progressing like we expect he will we will start OT with a different therapist. I have never been totally thrilled with his therapist honestly and had planned on changing anyway. She just was not super personable and she would ask me questions all the time which sounds okay except it was always the same questions! I was thinking can you not note this in his chart?? Do we really need to have the same conversation every week?? Then to cement my thoughts she called me this week to see what we were going to do about OT (we told her we were cancelling the am apt because school was starting) and she called me Mrs. Cooper. Really lady? I know you have tons of patients but you have seen him for months and you are HOLDING the chart to get my number! For pete's sake I don't think I am asking too much here. So if we need formal OT again we are going to someone else even if at the same place;)

Meet the teacher day!

Today was Cooper's meet the teacher day! We went over to his school and turned in all the rest of his paperwork. We also bought him a t-shirt with his new school name and mascot on it which is VERY excited about! I talked to the cafeteria manager also and she was asking me what kinds of things Cooper likes and what we give him with his allergies and diet. The school is a special needs school so there are a number of kids on a gluten/casein free diet and then they will also make sure that things are okay for him with his allergies! They are great about the allergies!! It is so nice to be able to send him and not have to worry!!!

So, today we met the teacher and Cooper got to look around the classroom and play some. It is an inclusion class so there are 9 typical kids and then 5 special needs kids with the possibility of getting once more. There is the head teacher, a parapro and another teacher of some description.

Yesterday was Cooper's IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting. I went over the IEP and the goals that were set in it with his teacher. I agreed with them because I think they are important it was things like willingly take turns with one verbal prompt 80% of the time and put his things away 80% of the time. I did have them add one goal and that was to initiate and engage in play with another student. Basically I want Cooper to walk over to some kid and say "Hey, want to play dinos?" and when the kid says yes actually do it. Also when that kid comes to Cooper and says "Hey, want to play dinos?" Cooper says yes and does it. His social skills are severely lacking so that is a big thing he needs to work on.

After that part of it the school nurse came down to talk to me. Apparently the word went out about Cooper's allergies because each person I talk to tells me "Oh I heard about Cooper!" I had actually met the nurse when I was there for Cooper evaluation so this was just the formal he is coming to school now (Monday) talk. I gave her the food allergy form the pediatrician had to fill out, all the forms for his medications and a form for permission to administer the Epi Pen and one to administer his inhaler. It was A LOT of forms! I have to go get his meds filled tomorrow so once I do that I will go and drop them off and he is all set! She was also talking to me about the cafeteria and the table he will sit at. They have two tables for kids with food allergies and the kids all sit there. I am not thrilled about that but since they have open containers of milk I don't really know what else they can do. If milk spills on Cooper he WILL get hives so it is probably best to not chance it!

Cooper is going to ride the bus to school! He is really excited about it and we are excited for him. I am not sure if the bus is going to be all set for Monday or not so if it is not I will drive him until it is ready to go for him. It is a short bus with only kids going to that school so I think it will come to the front of the house.

So that is the news! We are getting everything together for school to start on MONDAY! We are so excited for him to go to this school because we know that it really is going to be the best thing for him. I however am going to cry and cry and cry once he gets on that bus!

Hello!

Sorry it has been a long time! We have been so busy this summer! I went up to my old church camp so my Mom was here with the kids prior to that I spend a lot of time getting everything ready. So, the week with Nana went well and Cooper had a great time:) He went with Jonathan and Emma to VBS at church and from what I hear it went well.

I drove back home with my Dad and when he was here we went to the aquarium and got to watch Grandad scuba dive in the big tank. We also got to do a behind the scenes tour of part of the aquarium. Cooper is REALLY into ocean life so he was in heaven!

We have him off all his supplements at the moment because we have to redo a urine test. Apparently his creatinine came back low and they think I did it wrong. I am really frustrated about that because I know we did the test the way the directions said to and it is a PAIN to get this test done! He is also a total mess off all the supplements. Ugh! It is so frustrating! We keep trying and we are not successful with this at all.

Next week I will have an IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting for Cooper at his new school. He will then start school on the 10th! YIKES! I am just going to cry and cry when he gets on the bus for the first time!

Other then that we are just doing the typical summer stuff!

VBS

Our church is having a Vacation Bible School (VBS) for children with special needs this week. I must have been living under a rock or something because I did not know anything about it until the minister said something yesterday during his announcements. So, I brought Cooper today and he LOVED it! He had such a great time!! He asked me if he got to go back tomorrow so we plan on doing that. It is hard to come up with something to do for free with the other three kids for three hours but it is worth it for Cooper. It is too far for me to want to drive home (about 30 minutes) and back there to get him plus it seems so wasteful of gas! Cooper often gets left out of things because of his special needs or food allergies or whatever so it is nice for him to have something just for himself!

It was so cute when I picked him up he was excited to show me his bag and when we got to the car he wanted to show me all the crafts he made. We have also been working on his Bible verse which is Philippians 4:19 "My God will meet all your needs."

Summer!

We have been having a fun summer! Pretty low key though at this point just lots of playing at home. Cooper has OT each Monday morning but other than that we are just kind of laying low. In July my Mom is going to come here to visit while I fly to there to work at church camp! I am so excited! I went to that camp as a high school student and then worked at the same junior high week forever! Really about 10 years or so I guess (wow!!) but I have not been able to work since I was pregnant with Emma so I am really ready to go back to it!

Other family news is that Hunter needs to be evaluated for speech therapy:( He was in speech as well as physical therapy for a while just after he turned one but he has lagged behind again. I am of course FREAKING OUT that he is going to end up having some of the same issues that Cooper does. He has some similarity to Cooper in some things but not in others, he is social for one but he has never liked to be held so that is worrisome to me. A mother never stops worrying I think!

Someone came today to fill out paperwork and then she will set up a time that someone will come and evaluate him. We are going through county services because of cost and also because they come to the house! I am so over bringing 4 kids with me to sit in countless waiting rooms and they are so over it so this will be so much easier!

When I was talking to Kevin, my sweet husband, he just said "well, if Hunter does have some of the same issues as Cooper then it will be fine because you will be a pro and you will know what we need to do." He is a sweetie:)

Oh the peppers

We went to the grocery store this morning and when we were there we were in the produce section. Cooper saw some peppers and thought that they looked fun so I told him he could pick one and we would have it for a snack after nap. Well, the choice was hard they had red, orange, yellow and green. First he said he wanted an orange one so I picked one up, then he wanted red so I put the orange back and got a red one, well then he wanted the orange one so I just said "you know what buddy let's get one of each." Phew avoided that melt down right? Nope. About two rows later Cooper started screaming "I WANT GREEN! I WANT GREEN! I WANT GREEN!" He of course now wanted a green pepper. I just told him "no, sorry you chose red and orange we are not getting a green one today maybe we can get one another day."

That makes sense right? He responded to that right? Nope. "I WANT GREEN!!! I WANT GREEN!!! I WANT GREEN!!!" Thank goodness it was time to leave so we went to check out with him screaming his head off. I just paid and we left.

Now this is the annoying part a woman who worked there said, "you are doing a good job Mom I know you want to strangle him!" Um no not really.. then a man in the parking lot said "oh I know YOU have your hands full." Um more than you know thanks. Now, my husband is MUCH nicer than I am when it comes to stupid comments I think because he does not hear them as much. I have learned to just smile and keep walking. What I really want to do is say "that is the stupidest thing I have heard today. Shut your face." That might not be kind though.....