early intervention

I have learned so much today. My brain will probably take a few days to catch up. A Dr. through the county and her (and my new) coordinator came to our house to evaluate Sparrow. I was one nervous Mama. Is my house clean enough? Will they deem me unfit and take her away? Will they scold me for not being more proactive or call me a hypochondriac???? Well, none of my fears were founded. It was a pleasure relaxed, down to earth, and thorough! In fact they were here from 9am till 12:30pm. Lots of interacting with her and seeing what she can and can't do physically, socially, emotionally, cognitively... A Dr. who took hours to watch her and and study her at home to get a really good picture. There is so much involved that it would take another 3 and a 1/2 hours to put it on here.
In the end it comes out like this... Sparrow is ABOVE average except physically. WOOOHOOO on the smart girl!
Physically, she has low tone and her muscles are weak. This shows up in the way she can't sit but she is so determined to be stimulated mentally that she pulls herself to stand. Low tone is a vague term to me. I learned that it's all about the ability of muscle to resist and stretch. The example that She gave me was this: if you have 3 rubber bands one may be very tight, one may be very loose and the other may be in the middle. the tight one is high tone or hyper tone, the loose one is low tone or hypo tone the middle one is average or normal tone. Her muscles don't have the range of expand and contract like others. This is different from weakness. Her Muscles are weak, she can't do anything for more than a few seconds then she gets wobbly in whatever muscle she is using and needs to stop and rest. Because of her bleeding when she was young and eating problems, nutrition is really something to get fixed first. Obviously she needs calories and nutrients to build strong muscles and be able to use them.
we have 5 goals for Sparrow to achieve in the next 6 months (likely, at least some of these will be met in way under that time).
1) feeding herself finger foods
2)sitting up
3)crawling
4)sleeping though the night
5) I can't remember what #5 was (she got up at 4am today, forgive me for being a little foggy?)
I will get a written report of all the things we did and went over today as well as a follow up on the suggestions. Such as a complete Physical Therapy evaluation and continuing her Feeding Therapy (this will transfer into my home though).
As a family we have a lot of work ahead of us! But what better job is there than raising a child for the Lord?
I'm changing the font because I'm changing the subject... we had two really special visitors come to our house today. One of them is being held prisoner against it's will... but only for a short time. :)
We had the pleasure of being visited on our back deck by a large box turtle and a toad. Sparrow has been fascinated by frogs from day one, so I am keeping her first real live frog captive until husband can see her with it. She doesn't know it's sunning itself right in her very own living room. She wont be able to touch it but wow to see your favorite critter up close and personal for the first time. FUN!