{{{Cass}}} Don't google. I hope you hear good news about your grandmother soon.

I just came home from dinner with my great-aunt. She is the only one of my father's relatives who has been there for me consistently. She is a wonderful woman. She is starting to get older, and she won't drive at night anymore. So, she won't be able to join us for Christmas Eve. It makes me sad. I don't want to see the people I love getting older, and I really wanted her to meet Dave. I think we are going to have to take her out to dinner again after Christmas so he can meet her.

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I am not Googling.

Talked with 3.0, who is a nurse, and she admonished me on this as well. Since I talked with her Monday, her mom is in the hospital with siezures and her little sis just was diagnosed with a not-yet-resolved heart issue. We have decided the universe can lay the hell off for a while.

He is being so good about all this, part of me wants to just let it go, but I can't. His mouth has gotten him in too much trouble over the years that we need to make this something he will remember.

I am glad he is being good about it. Could be a sign that he is actually processing it and learning the actual lesson. I hope it need never be done again.

I think dinner with your great-aunt and Dave sounds lovely, sj.

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Cass, I'm almost glad he had to do the room clear WITH me instead of it just being done when he got home.

The girls have been the funny ones. They just can't believe the whole thing.

All three kids are working together to make Peppermint Bark. CJ is counting out the ingredients, C is smashing the peppermints, and K-Bug is readying the bags with stickers. Nice to see them all working together - does not happen often.

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Juliana, you might also want to talk to your vet and see if you can get a tranquilizer for Damian for day of flight. Some vets don't like giving them (I've had one that refused), but most will.

WindSparrow (and I) will likely suggest Rescue Remedy, a herbal calming potion for your cat. It certainly calmed Sammi and Harvey down, without knocking them out on the trip from Arizona.

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Nice to see them all working together - does not happen often.

Awwww, that is nice.

WindSparrow (and I) will likely suggest Rescue Remedy, a herbal calming potion for your cat.

I also rec this for people. But some in the water has been a good thing when I have tried it for the cats. I live by my Rescue Remedy though.

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Wow a lot of hugs needed today {{{bitches in need}}}

CJ will learn. After all - he is only in 3rd grade (I thought he was older). The whole situational behavior thing is one of the harder things to learn.

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I asked Susan if I could share this information on Bitches, and she said I could. I think she would welcome support in email, and not everybody here has LiveJournal. It also just seemed relevant to this community. This is what she posted on LJ today.

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Dylan took Annabel to the speech pathologist this morning. I was fully expecting good news--either that it was the tongue tie or something else physical, or that she's obviously a perfectly normal kid of the sort who doesn't speak until she's ready for complete sentences.

That's not the answer we got, however. We have a 20-month-old, and an obviously intelligent one at that, whose communication abilities are on a par with a typical 9-month-old. It's too early to make a definitive diagnosis, but she's showing early warning signs of apraxia (a disorder where children understand speech well, but have trouble mastering and coordinating the motor skills necessary to speak themselves) and/or an autism spectrum disorder (and sometimes the two are correlated).

She's given us some suggestions to try to encourage her to communicate and interact more (that's the big obvious problem--she's just not interactive enough, verbally or otherwise), and she's recommended an early intervention program for us to start as soon as we're back from our holiday travels.

I'm having a hard time not crying my eyes out at work. I may try to finish up one or two urgent things and go home.

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When I emailed her, she added this.

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Please do share the information on Bitches, but stress that this isn't yet a diagnosis--just a case of a knowledgeable specialist seeing enough red flags to recommend intervention now rather than continuing to wait it out. She's known cases of kids presenting with patterns similar to Annabel's where early intervention works beautifully and they catch up and develop normally from there. And that while Annabel does have enough warning signs to make her concerned, she's clearly aware and engaged with the world, just insufficiently engaged with other people. So our job for the next few months is to try to model interaction for her and encourage her to respond to us more, along with taking her to a child development program that can help us along. When we see how she responds to that, we'll move forward from there.

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I don't know if Susan even reads here anymore, but as I said in LJ, any problem with your kids is very scary. I wish a quick diagnosis and fantastic care for Annabel and wisdom for her parents. No matter what the diagnosis, I think Annabel will be okay.

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Where is everyone this morning? Ellie and I are headed to the gym shortly.

eta: Should I have cake for breakfast? I made one yesterday and it is calling me. I am on my way to the gym, after all.

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Stephanie, absolutely have cake for breakfast. It will make me feel less guilty about all the Twizzlers I've eaten since I got up.

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