barefootprints

We've finished our second full week of school. Dorian still seems to be enjoying things, and is telling me more details when he comes home. I take that as a good sign. One day this week, as soon as he came home, he had to re-enact what the class did for P.E that day, going on a bear hunt. We have our Meet the Teacher night this week, and we'll see if his teacher agrees that there is improvement. Faith is enjoying her school experience as well, and we're all settling into a routine.

Quinn needs to go to walking boot camp. I had made a goal to get him walking within the week, and didn't accomplish it. I'll reset it for this week. He can walk. He has walked. He won't walk. He doesn't even want to walk while holding my hand anymore. His physical therapist said we'd have to trick him into it, and she was right. I'm anxious for him to move onto the next phase. Part of my motivation is purely selfish, I admit. I'm tired of all of his pants having dirty knees. And once he does start walking, he'll look much closer to the 18 month old he actually is, than to the 12 month old he appears to be. Just standing upright seems to add several months to his age. I've tried to explain that to him, and guess how well that took. So here it is: this blog will be my accountability. Quinn will walk by next week. I will work with him everyday to help accomplish this goal. I so decree it.

Well, what a liar I turned out to be. Just when I'm saying I'm signing off until further notice, I'm finding that maybe journaling our life isn't such a bad idea after all.

Dorian finished his first full week of school. I couldn't get very many details out of him, but he seemed happy and was excited to go each morning, so I didn't worry too much. Until his teacher called me on day three and said "We need to talk." Uh oh. She detailed to me for 20 minutes how difficult he is in class, with his wandering and non participation. I went on overload within minutes, so those details are a little fuzzy. We ended up having a meeting with her, the speech therapist, the special ed teacher, and the school psychologist. We decided to have Dorian evaluated for occupational therapy as an additional help for him. Kurt and I tried to emphasize that this was still the second week of school and that we knew he would adjust eventually. We also reiterated that he is in no distress over this, and we would definitely know if he were. The supremely frustrating thing is that most of the issues going on would be eased or eliminated if the school district hadn't decided to go to full-day instead of their transitional program. We thought that transitional program was exactly what Dorian needed. Instead, he gets to be among the guinea pigs. And our options aren't great. There are no charter schools nearby, private schools aren't a good option for multiple reasons, and that leaves homeschooling and moving. I did want to homeschool at one point, but it never felt completely right. And moving presents its own problems, so we're working with what we have and praying for improvement.

Speaking of my sons' therapists, Quinn had a visit from his physical therapist this week. It went really well. She said there is no reason for him not to be walking now, that it's all in his head, and we have to build up his confidence. She then lured him away from the couch with toys, and he successfully took several steps before he realized what was going on and crawled the rest of the way. That was on Thursday and I have yet to duplicate that. But I agree with her, it's time for him to walk. He's an excellent climber.
He used to just sit at the piano and pound on the keys. But that's not good enough anymore. It's time to move on.

Faith continues to be herself. She enjoyed her first week of "preschool," although it seems like her favorite part is the special snack each day. We're looking forward to more time with just the two of us, since we've done it during Quinn's naps this week, except for our field trip to visit the cows in the neighborhood. That has worked well. I'm glad I can do something well enough.

I've taken quite a leave of absence. I doubt anyone is still reading, but on the off chance, I'll update.

Here's the deal. I'm really feeling like this blog has served its purpose. For the last year or so, since Quinn came home, I've felt somewhat obligated to keep up with it. I appreciate those who enjoy reading it. But in all honesty, keeping it up is a reminder of a very difficult time in my life, one I'm glad I'm moving away from. So I'm not even going to pretend that I'm going to update on any sort of regular basis. I tried once a week, and that lengthened into every two weeks, then every month, and now it's just become burdensome. In theory, I'm glad I have a record of our NICU experience, but I can't picture a time when I'll be willing to go back and read it. It's still too painful. So thank you to all those who read along last year, and who have checked up on us since then. I'll still be around, but not regularly. I've taken to Facebook, along with the rest of the world it seems. That's where most of my keeping up with people has been.

Quick updates: Quinn took his first step August 29. He's since taken another step and stood on his own, but has yet to officially begin walking. I've never seen a kid so thoroughly master the arts of crawling and cruising.


Dorian started school on Friday. So far, so good. I'd been dreading it for the last year, largely made more vivid by my experience with Quinn. The idea of handing my child over to an institution just did not feel good. Add to that our district's recent decision to begin full-day kindergarten, and I was a wreck over the whole situation. So I spent a lot of the summer with a feeling of impending doom. But Friday came, the bus came and picked up Dorian along with our two neighbors who are also starting kindergarten, and off they went. I waited anxiously for 3:30 when he would come home, hoping and praying for a good experience. When the bus finally came back, Dorian bounded off with a big smile on his face. I couldn't pull too many details out of him, but he says he wants to go back. That right there lifted an enormous burden from me. Let's hope we continue after that great start.


Faith and I will begin a preschool curriculum this week. I did this 2 years ago with Dorian, and we had a lot of fun with it. Faith is anxious to do something herself. She was disappointed to be left behind, wanting to go to school herself. All too soon, Faith. All too soon.