Lyric has missed 18 days of school so far as a result of being sick. She's had the flu, stomach flu, and every kind of congested gunk you could think up. Despite this, she is still doing well. Her speech is miles better than it was when she started the school year, and she's picking up plenty of other skills along with it. She knows the words and motions to more songs, and is learning new words every day. The other day I found out she knows the word "professor." Apparently, she picked that one up from Mickey Mouse Club House.
Her newest thing is "Can I try?" with everything. If I'm cleaning, she wants to try. If I am cooking something, she pulls up her stool and tries to help me cook. The last few nights we have had dinner together at the table because when I bring the food to the table, she wants to eat with us, too. When I go grocery shopping, she wants to take the things that we need and put them into the cart - which can sometimes be a problem, because she's not exactly gentle. She also wants to either push the cart, or hold onto it and help pull it, which is both adorable and kind of a pain. But at least it keeps her close to me when we're in the store, which is a far cry from the running off that she used to do.
We got her progress report back in January, and it was kind of a mixed bag. She knows all her numbers, shapes, and colors. She can recognize her name. She was learning how to cut with scissors, and draw various things. She's very good at circles. She somewhat follows along with songs and finger plays, and is relatively good at cleaning up after herself. She will tell you her name and her age if you ask her. The report on her IEP was pretty encouraging. She has met one goal 100%, one goal she has met 75%, and the other two she met at 50%. For halfway through the year, I would consider that pretty good. I try to be positive about it, because while I obviously wish it were a case of her meeting everything at 100% before she needs to, she is making great progress. Preschool has definitely been a good thing for her.
Which brings me to the future. Today I got an email about the Preschool Open House for Waverly Schools, which is where her preschool is at. Thursday and Friday they have enrollment for the GSRP (Great Start Readiness Program), and tuition based preschools. I learned that we qualify for GSRP, so I was thinking that I would go to check it out and try to secure her a spot in the program, because I know they are limited. At this point, I had in mind the fact that her teacher told me she was thinking that regular preschool with speech services on the side was going to be the "plan" for next year. Unfortunately, our IEP meeting isn't until April 1, so all of the details won't be worked out until then. I just wanted to make sure that she would have a place at SOME preschool, because she definitely needs it. I emailed her teacher to see if this was still the plan.
The response I got surprised me. Her teacher thinks that she would be a good candidate to do both GSRP AND ECSE (Early Childhood Special Education) next year. A full day program. She would go to one in the AM, and switch to the other for PM. I am now a roller coaster of emotion and questions. On the one hand, I'm a little bummed out that she thinks Lyric will still need to be in special education next year. On the other hand, I think it would work out well in terms of providing her with speech services and getting her a "regular level" education so that she could potentially no longer need services when she starts kindergarten. I guarantee that I will be going in to her IEP meeting with a list about a mile long with questions about how they would do meals, and rest time, and switching between classes, and where speech would fit in, etc. It's an exciting new prospect, but at the same time I am definitely feeling a little like a deer in the headlights right now!
With that, here is the customary "closing" photo. She likes to cheese it for the camera. I'm sure I'm going to have a lot of updating in the coming months as we work out the details of this new development.
