Sunday, August 31, 2008

Bus Update

Well, I gave the school a week's grace as they were working out the kinks of getting a new route down pat. After you see what Lauren's week was like, I think you will agree that the grace period is over.

Here is what happened bus wise each day. I am talking only about the afternoon bus route. The morning is running smoothly:

Monday:
Left school late and did not arrive home until 5:15 p.m. The bus was 25 minutes late.

Tuesday:
The bus got home at 4:55 p.m. Only five minutes late today.

Wednesday:
The bus got home at 4:55. Looks like we are on a good little rhythm. Wait! Not so fast.

Thursday:
The bus got to our house at 5:15, but only after it flew past our house and drove down into our neighborhood. It was a substitute driver and he couldn't read the notes that told him where to stop. He has a three year old student with communication difficulties that cannot tell him where her house is and he has no idea where to stop. We had to wait for him to drive through the neighborhood, turn around, and come back. I was in the driveway waving him down. He was laughing, I didn't think it was humorous.

Friday:
They did not put a Star Seat on the substitute bus and they could not put her on without one. She was at the school until 4:30 waiting for another bus to come get her. I was told that it was only going to have a few students on it and I could choose to come get her or wait for the bus. I had a thirty minute drive without traffic and my calculations would get her home on the bus faster than if I would go and get her. I was wrong. She didn't get home until 6:00! I called the transportation department, but they could not get a hold of the driver. The radio on the bus was not working. That's safe! The sub driver parked the bus in front of our house, got off, and asked to use my phone to call the transportation department. She wanted to tell them that she just delivered Lauren safely. I said sure and she proceeded to have a 10 minute conversation with a friend at the department about borrowing $10 since it was so late and she couldn't get to the bank.

I have to wait until Lauren's IEP meeting to get the bus changed. By law, it has to happen within the next thirty days. Meanwhile, I am going to be calling anyone related to the bus routes and trying to get it fixed before then. I hope this next week isn't as crazy!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The Bus

Lauren had her first day of school on Monday. Pictures to arrive later. Anyway, we had a little bit of a bus issue. She is supposed to get on the bus at 7:38 in the morning (school does not start until 9:15). She is scheduled to get off the bus at 4:49 (school lets out at 3:30). Yeah, I know. That is s ridiculous time for a 3 year old to be on the bus. That will be handled later.

Yesterday, Ty and I were waiting on the front porch at a quarter til five anxiously waiting to see how the day went. At 5:10 we were still there. At 5:20, no sign of the bus. My heart was in my throat and I could feel my blood pressure rising. I called some people and finally found out that the bus left the school 30 minutes late and the whole route was behind. I felt a little better about her coming home, but sad that she didn't reach our doorstep until after 5:30 pm. That is one long day for such a little girl.

Hopefully today will be a little better.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Trauma

Lauren got her cast off yesterday and the only word I can use to describe the event was traumatic. I had talked with her all week hoping to lessen the shock, but it apparently didn't work. Here's how the whole thing went down:

We got to the doctor's office and waited for a while to get in. They took us to a room that was obviously just used to take off casts. There was a vacuum to suck all the dust, towels, and other such things that let you know you were in the right place. When the technician came in to cut off the cast, Lauren was on the table giggling. When he left we were all sweating and exhausted. Lauren took one look at the little saw and screamed bloody murder. It got to the point where I was holding Lauren's hands and arms while Ty had to keep her other leg from kicking the technician in the head. At one point she just looked up at Ty and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" while looking at him like she couldn't understand why he was letting this happen to her. Ty is still recovering from that. The doctor came in to check her foot after the shock of the event wore off.

He said the foot looks good. I even got to take her foot and bend it back and forth. Something I haven't been able to do before. To give you an idea of what her foot was like before you will have to play along. Take your right foot and point it like a ballerina as hard as you can. Without loosening the tightness, try to bend your foot back. That's how tight her foot was all the time. Now I can bend it back and forth with no effort at all. Lauren will have to wear her regular brace during the day and her night brace when she goes to bed. In two months the doctor will check her foot again and let us know our next step. I am hoping it's that we can just wear the night brace at bedtime and wear regular shoes in the daytime. Her foot is still a little sore and has some trouble walking on it without the cast. Slowly but surely she will get back to her normal energetic self. I am just happy she can now take a bath. A foot in a cast for a month is not a great aroma.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Today!

The cast comes off today! Thank goodness! The cast looks like it has been through a war zone. The pink is wearing off the bottom. The white fabric around the top where the leg comes out and the bottom where the toes come out have reached a nice shade of dirty gray. I want to bring her home and throw her right into the tub for a whole day.

I am a little worried about what we will find when it comes off. Will it have worked? Our goal was to loosen the foot enough for her to walk with it flat on the ground. The worst thing that could happen is that she went through all of this and we didn't accomplish what we set out to do.

I want her to be a little girl and wear little girl shoes with little girl dresses. This week, I got a glimpse of what it would be like if she were able to wear "regular shoes". Since her foot was in a cast (and not in her AFO), Lauren got to wear a pink jelly shoe on her left foot. For the first time in her life, she got her shoe on each day all by herself. She was so proud and I was so happy for her. That's what I want for her every day. This surgery gave me hope that she will continue to find ways to feel good about herself. I think that's why I am hoping it turns out to be a great decision. We'll see today at 2:30 if we made the right choice!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Career Choice?



This is what I found when I peaked in on her during nap time today. She either really likes to clean or she is getting ready for a career in the janitorial field.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Sympathy

I have so much sympathy for Lauren being in a cast all summer, that I thought that I would help her feel better by getting one of my own.

I was playing softball last night when I decided that I would try to catch a softball with my middle finger and not with my glove. Turns out that it wasn't a great idea. I actually tried to catch it with the glove but lost sight of the ball in the lights. The ball came straight down on the tip of my finger and ripped a small section of my nail away from the finger. I ended up breaking the top knuckle. Oh wait, it gets better. As my finger bent to the side, the tendon was stretched. When the tendon snapped back into place, it chipped a piece of my bone off on my bottom knuckle. I was walking off the field bleeding all over the place and wondering if I would be able to drive myself to the hospital.

When I got to the hospital it was around 10:30 at night. There were 400 billion people there and no signs of anyone getting helped. That was because there was an accident a little while earlier that caused the whole ER to shut down until all the critical people were helped. It was 1:30 a.m. before I was called back to the actual treatment area. There were so many people there that I was asked to sit on a gurney in the hall since I wasn't in need of a bed. Turns out that it worked to my advantage. It only took 40 minutes to get an x-ray, have the doctor show me where the problems were on the x-ray, bandage me up, and discharge me. I guess it was hard to forget I was there when I was right next to the nurses station watching all the hustle and bustle going on.

I go tomorrow to a specialist that will look at my hand and decide if they need to remove the chip and tell me how long I will wear my splint. Right now I need to go take a Percocet and lie down.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Texting Fool

Lauren has learned how to send picture messages from Tyler's phone. We didn't teach her, just figured it out. Here's how we know:

Lauren sent a picture of a fan that we use around the house to our good friend Allison. It wasn't the whole fan, just the buttons on the front. Somehow she learned how to take a picture, find a contact to send it to, and send it.

I don't even know how to send a picture message.

Either our daughter is a girl genius or really lucky.

I vote for girl genius.