Kids update...

 We've been fighting with insurance and providers or the lack of them for months. I mentioned in another post that we had concerns about our children's behavioral/developmental/emotional well being.

Since this new journey into understanding our children's behavioral issues began, we've learned several things. I have had to literally rethink my entire childhood. I've had to contact relatives that I haven't had spoken with in years. I've read and researched quite a lot, though not to the full extent needed (family and work and sleep just demand too much).

I just want some concrete answers. My children, and probably half my extended family, need some testing and follow up.

Let me say that cop out diagnoses, especially when they're not thorough, annoys me. I also don't appreciate getting the run around by various providers who string you along but won't provide the services for which they're contracted - if you take an insurance, don't complain what your reimbursement rate is. Its hard enough to find a covered provider; many in the area are not taking on new clients, others are not taking ones that require testing. There are plenty that will do it for all out of pocket, but these aren't covered in the first place, awesome.

We are in a catch 22 with the schools, as they're bright enough to not be performing "under grade level" but have difficulties with their environment that affect their ability to do well enough in school to reach their potential. If it weren't for our efforts EVERY year (sometimes weekly) to talk with the teachers and do extra to help with the transitions or a teacher's informal 504 plan, our children would be close to if not actually failing.

With these situations, you either get the help you need or the child ends up hating school and being a disruption to others. You either end up with gifted individuals that march to their own drummer or you find drop outs, drug addicts, or criminals.

Perhaps that a bit extreme. Perhaps not.

I am in no way saying parents should not be involved with their child's education. They most definitely should, after all we are their first teachers.

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As for Pumpkin, I am still on my restricted diet. I've started to challenge soy, and we're seeing mild skin rashes. We started him on solids when he turned six months. We've taken things slow and he's enjoying his chance to eat big boy foods (yummy pureed fruits or veggies). He got rashes from bananas, so we're waiting to reintroduce that for a few months.

Pumpkin now has an inhaler from his reactions to my sister-in-law's dog over New Year's; when we visit again we are to give him Zyrtec and have the inhaler. We'll need to sleep in another location. Thankfully his reaction isn't more serious and he may outgrow it.

Pumpkin is started his physical therapy today. He has always tilted his head to the side. This diagnosis is Torticollis. Hubby was given suggestions and exercises to do with Pumpkin each day. He will go in once a week for three weeks, then the schedule will be changed again. The therapist said we are doing a lot of good things that have already helped. If Pumpkin doesn't resist our efforts this should be corrected fairly quickly.

I honestly cannot imagine how much worse my son's health would be if I couldn't breast feed him. He has reflux, and is on meds twice a day for it. He had food and environmental allergies and in tolerances, necessitating strict diet with religious label reading and an inhaler with certain limitation on activities. His neck issues are present from birth, as is his cupped ear which may never lay flat and is a cosmetic issue much less serious than his other ones.

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Thank you for reading my post. As you can see we've had a lot on our plates. I hope things start falling into place so we get a little breathing room.