DorrieDorrie

Daddy’s turn1

Unfortunately for me, my laziness meant that Mom posted the pictures I took of Dorrie during her trip to Pittsburgh before I could, but I do still owe a post, so here it is!

First of all, things were uneventful on the home front while Mom was away. Grammy did her usual Friday cleaning routine, we ordered our usual Friday afternoon pizzas, and then we hung out with Dorrie for the rest of the evening. As usual when Grammy stays over, she slept on the floor with Dorrie to keep her happy during the night (turning her if she wants it, patting her to keep her calm when she gets fussy, changing her if her diaper gets too full, etc.), and I slept on the couch and took care of the food and water and meds and such. My other duty of course was to help get Dorrie to sleep when she started getting tired, since she often fusses and fights sleep as long as she can. But to everyone’s surprise, she went to sleep for Grammy just fine — and not only that, but earlier than usual for her. Go, Grammy!

And it looks like it may have been the start of a trend — or at least that’s what we hope. Lately it’s been getting easier to get Dorrie to sleep, in spite of the fact she still tends to take her nap in the middle of the evening. Right now, her desired bedtime seems to have shifted to around 2:30am instead of 4am, and she has been waking up more around Noon instead of 2pm. Hopefully we can keep encouraging that trend.

Last week was our visit to a clinic with a whole bunch of specialists to try to get a grasp on just where Dorrie is at developmentally. We wisely brought along some of Dorrie’s floor mats because we knew that if we put her on the exam table, she’d tense up and freak out, and since the goal was to see her normal behavior, the whole trip would be a waste. And Dorrie was a bit tense at first, but we got out Monkey Ball and sat with her, and pretty soon she was playing and behaving normally. The specialists asked questions about Dorrie’s medical status and what she seems capable of, and we got a brief visit from an osteopath (I think) who checked her out and declared he didn’t feel anything about her skeletal structure that gave him concern, and that we would not need to x-ray her this visit. I don’t think Mom or I really learned anything we didn’t already know during the visit, but I think that the team working on Dorrie’s case has a better picture now of where we are. And of course, all this also feeds into this summer, when she is supposed to start school.

And that is another project for this month: Dorrie turns three in July, which means it is time to start school. All signs are that she will get her services at home, which is pretty much the only way we could do it without seriously inconveniencing ourselves as well as the school. Personally, I’m enthusiastic to see how she does with more intensive support — the few PT and OT visits we get each week are good, but more is always better.

Posted by dad, under our little witch, schoolhouse rock