Dear Dawn & All

[Guest guest]

Dear Dawn...Thanks so much for your word's of encouragement. You seem

to be handling the challange's wonderfully, and are obviously used to

the up's and down's of the " system " by now...coping gets tough some

times and the lack of cooperation on the part of the doctors makes it

all that much harder. Sierra is doing *Wonderfully*!!!! As of

yesterday, I am no longer " baba " , but am now ,

officially, " MaMa " ....Yay!! I am so thrilled with her progress, and

without the EFA's! I have been wanting to put her on them ..gosh, if

I were to put her on them tomorrow, I think she might be quoting

Shakespeare by the end of the month, haha! Sooo many new words coming

out of her..even hearing her scream " MINEMINE " !! is a blessing! I

just want to yell from the rooftops about her recent " explosion " of

progress It's so exciting! Sorry , don't mean to gush, I'm just

blissful, ya know? Anyway, just wanted to say thank's for the

encouragement. It helps to know that I am not alone and that others

can relate.

I am rarely ever in to check the posts, but get in when I can and

backtrack to my most recent, sorry it's taken me so long to get back

to you. God bless! , Sierra's " MaMa "

> ,

> It can be real overwhelming when you first get the diagnoses Years

of

> speech, IEP meetings, making sure child is getting all necessary

> services, am I doing everything I need to for child?, is it my

fault?,

> etc. As a Mom who has been doing this for last 2 years I can tell

you it

> does get easier. You just plug along one day at a time and suddenly

you

> wake up one morning and juggling therapies and meetings seems

normal.

> You get on a board and realize for the first time you have more

answers

> than questions. Your child can tell you for the first time what he

is

> thinking about and you realize that that by itself makes it all

worth

> while. Sending my ds to preschool at 2.10 was the hardest thing I

had to

> do. We don't use babysitters, older ds didn't start until K at 5

1/2. I

> had considered maybe one year of preschool year before K. But I

agreed

> to try under the stipulation that if I was uncomfortable I would

pull

> him out. I had to leave him crying with teacher everyday for the

1st 9

> weeks and come back and check to make sure he was happy. But by the

2nd

> quarter he was taking off so fast. You could see daily improvement

and I

> knew I was doing the right thing. Forget about looking too far

ahead.

> Just stick to next meeting, next therapy, what are we working on

this

> week, how am I going to get through today (what is working and what

> needs to be gotten rid of). And one day you will find yourself

bragging

> about how great your child is doing and wonder why you ever

worried.

> Good luck. Dawn