Today was Karina's speech evaluation. It was at nine this morning, so we hurried out of the house and got there right on time. We only had to wait a few minutes, and we went back to this little conference room. I had no idea what to expect or what we were going to do. I wondered how in the world they were going to evaluate her speech when she essentially has none. There were toys in the room, and Karina started playing right away. Then our case rep came in, Robin, and she was so nice. Basically what she did was score the questionnaire I had filled out and discussed some of my concerns. Then she showed me how Karina had scored. She rocked the fine motor skills category! Everything else she was pretty on target, except speech of course. The crazy thing is, the way this questionnaire works, it lumps receptive (listening) and speaking communication into one category. Karina got all the receptive points, but none (except the word doggie) of the speaking points. But it evened out and made it look like she was okay. So Robin will include her notes for the committee that will determine whether or not she is eligible for services. She said most likely they will want to do another assessment, where two specialists will interact with Karina to see firsthand what she can do, as well as ask me more questions. Then they'll make the final determination as to whether or not she is eligible for services and what they will be. Most likely it will not be actual speech services, but developmental services. This just means someone will come in and give me help encouraging her to talk. It's not that she can't but that she hasn't yet. She doesn't lack the ability or the muscles or anything. It's probably just a combination of factors that have worked to put speech on Karina's back burner. I will be getting a call from Robin after the committee meets, and then we have a reserved date for the second assessment that she's pretty confident Karina will get. Overall, I'm really happy with everything that's going on, and I'm looking forward to getting new techniques to try out with her to help her begin to talk.
The next thing that happened was we went to my mom's for dinner. This, in and of itself, is not exciting. However, my brother also came, and then Bill showed up unexpectedly. I always park partway down the driveway in the shade, so both of them had to park in the street. Fine. Sure. Until it started BUCKETING RAIN. And the street flooded. And it flooded David's car. And it flooded his anatomy books. Oh. Crikeys. He moved his car (too late) and then Bill ran out and drove home. He scoped out the best route, and David and I followed. We immediately put his most important book into the dryer on this rack it came with for laying items flat (so they don't fly around in the machine) and put it on Air Fluff (no heat) and then stayed downstairs with it until David gave up. FYI This method doesn't work very well.
The third thing that happened was I unpacked the food Mom and Nana sent (they always send a ton of food home with me, which is good since I hate cooking). The last bag I opened was tied shut, and in it was another bag tied shut. It felt soft, like fabric or something. I had no idea what it was. Finally, I got through the third tied bag and found....trash. Oh yes. They had accidentally sent home the trash from tonight's ham dinner! Nana always ties it up and freezes it until trash day (she has a fear of bugs or something). I called Mom and we had a really good laugh. She said, "It was supposed to be fried chicken."
Well. It wasn't fried chicken, that's for sure!
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