Faith's Mom's Blog

Lately I've been inundated with paperwork so that Faith can continue to receive SSI and Medicaid. Just recently I had to fill out forms to prove to the good  people at Social Security that Faith still has a disability and is still eligible to receive funds. It was a lot of paperwork considering I had to verify all of her doctor's appointments within the last 12 months and also to prove she had been seeing a physical therapist, occupational therapist and speech therapist.  Faith went to the SSI office with me on Monday since she didn't have school. The little waiting room was packed but we thankfully didn't have to wait long. When we left Faith yelled out, "Bye guys!" She was pretty happy to get out of there. Most people who know Faith knows she has a slight obsession with cupcakes. She always wants cupcakes for her birthday and for Christmas we make and give out Happy Birthday Jesus Cupcakes . She has had a pair of pink cupcake pajamas and now has green on...

Had it not been for the one fateful day that I had a craving for Little Caesar's pizza, I might not ever have known that Barney was coming to town. But there I was at the counter waiting for my medium pepperoni pizza when I noticed a flyer with a picture of the big purple dinosaur. He was coming live to Bismarck with his friends, BJ, Baby Bop and Riff - I couldn't wait to tell Faith. Barney and friends appear live at the Bismarck Civic Center I don't know how old Faith was when she saw Barney for the first time. A receptionist at pediatric therapy gave us a Barney VCR tape and Faith loved it. I started letting her watch Barney on PBS and then we started collecting the DVDs.  All the while, I couldn't believe I was letting my daughter watch Barney - me and my friends made so much fun of him when he first came out on TV. But as I watched along with Faith, I discovered all of the cute songs and some of the good things that Barney had to share. I will admit though tha...

Second graders at Centennial Elementary get to enjoy a program called SPLASH that gives them a chance to go swimming once a week in September. Instructors at the YMCA teach the kids different swimming strokes, water safety and survival skills. The kids are in the water for about one hour. Since Faith loves swimming, I thought she would be very excited. Unfortunately, though she seemed more nervous about it than anything. We skipped out on the first week but made it this week and she had a blast! It was hard to tell who was having more fun - Faith or her instructional aide that was with her in the pool. Faith kicking her feet up in the water Faith tries to touch the bottom Faith tries to do a back float

This past weekend we took a trip that was sort of spur of the moment. We have been wanting to take a little trip to see what road trips are like in our van, so we decided to venture to Aberdeen, South Dakota. It took us a while to get out of our parking lot because we kept having to run back upstairs for things like maps, plastic bags, and water. Of course, Faith also needed her personal PlayStation (PSP) so she could watch her videos and listen to her music. Since we were going to be in southern North Dakota, I wanted to go through Ashley on our way to Aberdeen. I used to live and work there so I just thought it would be kind of fun to see the little community 13 years later.  We ended up missing the turn to Highway 11, and then we had to detour because of road construction which led us to Eureka, South Dakota. Rob was thrilled because he is a big fan of the Sci-Fi TV show , Eureka , which actually takes place in Oregon but is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia. We have...

Today we met with nine members of Faith's IEP team at school this morning. The meeting was at 8:00 a.m. so we had one of our respite care providers come get Faith ready for school and take her there, which all worked out very well. The purpose of Faith's IEP is to set goals for her to work on throughout the school year. The whole team works together to ensure these goals are met. I must admit that probably the hardest part of the meeting was discussing the fact that she is not making any progress with learning words and having the ability to read.  I discussed this in a blog post from this summer after an eye appointment in which the doctor told us she is probably having trouble getting her eyes to track left to right. It is somewhat disheartening, but as the doctor told us we should keep trying and finding new ways to help her eyes "attend" as they called it. One person on Faith's IEP team is a vision specialist who works with the students at school, and sh...