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It is WEIRD not blogging for two days. I think NaBloPoMo reset my brain somehow and now I post every day or at least every other day...but skipping two days felt odd. To be honest, I wrote yesterday, I just didn't post it. It was all kinds of melancholy and I just didn't have the energy to hit post.

I sit down to write and I think about insurance, because, really, I'm thinking about it all the time. I watched John Q this weekend (good decision, right?) and I found myself talking to the TV (good sign, right?), because believe it or not there are MORE uninsured people now than there were when it was made. Hilary was in the news clips they showed, way ahead of her time. It was a little trippy. When I saw it in 2002, still pregnant with BubTar, I'm sure I never imagined a future in which we'd be part of those statistics. Strange. The subject seems to be a sort of mental block for me, creating an inability to write about much else. Insurance, blah, blah, terrible, blah. Head. Exploding. Repeat.

Since that is out of the way, let's move on.

In the past week, KayTar has learned to take off her shirt and pants! When we had the Big Eval, the only thing she could take off was socks and shoes, but in just a few weeks she has learned to undress! She also learned how to put pants on all by herself, too! She's only put them on once, but I was TOTALLY shocked! I think shirts will take longer because she is terrified of putting shirts on. She screams until her head finally pops out of the hole, so it isn't really the kind of task she looks forward to doing. She seems to be finally, finally hitting that stage of "do it all byself", which can be a pain, I know...but for her it marks real growth and it is exciting. And OH! last night she stepped up a tiny step on her own! The step was maybe 1.5 inches off the ground, but she did it all by herself without holding on or even asking for help. That is a first! An inch and a half doesn't seem like much, but she's never done that before, so that 1.5 inches might as well have been a mountain to her. We're seeing a lot of exciting new things.

As far as eating goes....sigh. You get what you ask for sometimes. I think our exact plea was "Eat something! Anything!" And the ONLY foods she has been eating for weeks now are chips and Oreos. Healthy, right? But since it is the only thing she'll eat, what do we do? The next thing I'm trying is apple chips, to see how that goes. If it works, maybe we'll just start dehydrating whole foods for her. Of course, as soon as we do, the obsession won't be chips anymore, because that is how this all works. She's still getting ACTUAL nutrition from Pediasure, so I'm not too worried about that. But the medication is creating an appetite, at least. That is the goal, creating hunger and giving positive food experiences, so mission accomplished.

Last week she went to speech therapy all on her own! I waited in the waiting room while she went with her SLP. I had a bad case of mybabyisgrowingup-itis. She's going to be three this week! And she's going to start school somewhere in the near future! And she went back to ST all on her own! The therapist wanted to work on her ability to tell me things, which I appreciate, because it is probably my single biggest worry in sending her to school. Tattling is an important skill when you think about it. She can't tell her teachers "He hit me." or "I fell down." She can't tell me "My teacher made me sad today." or "My friend was mean." It is worrisome to send her to school without that skill set. When she came out, she showed me a Valentine's card she made me and the therapist prompted her to tell me things. The therapist said, "I had her stick her finger into a cheesecake bite and she licked it. The second time she stuck her finger in, she started screaming and screaming, I'm sure you know all about that, and we had to take it out of the room." Oh yeah, we know all about that unfortunately. Later, at home, when I was prompting her to tell Josh about making the card, I asked, "What did you make it with?" and she said, "Glue!" And I thought it was totally BRILLIANT, because she wasn't scripting (to my knowledge) and it was a really specific answer. I was expecting her to answer "Hearts." like she had earlier in the day. She knocked my socks off with that answer!

I'm sad we are having to give up her private therapies. I think they are such an asset and both therapists are really working on important goals with her. We are seeing such growth in her right now that I think it is a point where she would be very open to the goals in her therapies. I wish we had more time with it. It feels irresponsible to allow her to be without therapy, even for a short time (until the district gets things together) when she is clearly excited and ready for it. She asks to go to therapy these days. "Go-a ferapy? Go-a school? Go-a ferapy a-day, YES MOM. YEEEEEEES." which is such a change from a few months ago when she was fake calling them on the phone and saying "No ferapy a-day. BYE!" I think we're going to see if there is a way to keep her in these two, at least until the district is ready. We'll see.

I love this photo of her wee hand playing (what she calls) "Cheez-Its". Cracks me up. "Can I? Can I want to? Can I want to play CHEEZ-ITS?"

Post-script: As far as insurance goes, our (amazing and appalled) pediatrician referred us to our state board of insurance, because she doesn't think it is legal for KayTar to be denied coverage. I'm contacting them today and if I find anything out, I'll definitely make it known. I hope there is an answer waiting for us. Oh, and Josh spoke with HR about the possibility for a pay cut. The lady was completely shocked and had to refer the question to higher-ups because this is a first. Aren't we lucky to be the first? We're still waiting to hear if it is even a possibility.