Mia odds-'n'-ends

On Monday the 7th we attended Mia's second parent-teacher conference. Mia is doing very well in school, although she still has a lot of work to do. She can sign her name somewhat well, which is nice. You have to hold her hand, but she knows how to make the letters and she knows how to spell it. Her problem is that she's holding the pencil so tightly and concentrating so much on the "M" and "i" (she does fine with the "a," for some reason) that she can't lift the pencil off the paper. She gets to the end of the "M," for instance, and stops. Occasionally she keeps going and makes a scribble, but she has gotten better at stopping when she should. However, she stops and can't do anything, because she can't lift her pencil. It's weird, but we're working on it. She's working on writing the alphabet and picking specific letters out of several, and it's slow work. She can do it one day and fails the next day, which is to be expected from all children, not just brain-damaged ones. We're hoping that these things can get into her long-term memory, because that's pretty good. She can name books she hasn't read in six months and then "read" along with Krys perfectly well. So we know she'll remember it once it sticks, but we have to get it to stick!

She's doing fine in other aspects of school, too, and apparently eating fairly well, trying new things and actually getting quite a bit of food into her. That's always good to hear.

This past Monday we went to Phoenix Children's Hospital to see her neurologist. He wanted to check her out after she had been in school six months. He hardly looks at her anymore, because he's never terribly concerned about her. I told him that she startles very easily when she hears a loud noise and that we were wondering if it was a seizure, but it's not, apparently. We wanted to know because it's been well over two years since she had a seizure and we were hoping we could cut back on her medication. He said we could start lowering the dosage on one, which was cool. Maybe soon she won't need any at all. Other than that, nothing new came out of her appointment. We'll see what he says in a year!

Finally, Krys came home on Tuesday night. She went to Pennsylvania for a few days to visit her grandmother, who had a stroke the week before Thanksgiving. It was her third trip back since, and the kids always miss her. On Wednesday morning she went into Mia's room before she left for work to say hello. I had just woken Mia up (it was about 6.45, and she needs to eat breakfast before going to school, so I get her up about then) and she was a bit groggy, but she said Good Morning to me and told me she was ready to go to school. Krys came and said hello and gave her a kiss, and Mia ignored her. She actually looked around her at me impatiently, as if to say she wanted Mommy out of there. Krys was very sad because Mia seemed mad at her, and I was sad for her, but again, it's a perfectly normal reaction for a kid to have when her Mommy goes away for a few days, and anything about Mia that's normal is a good thing, even if it's a negative thing. Krys came home last night and read to her and spent some time with her, so all appears forgiven for now. I know Krys felt bad about it, but I always like when Mia acts like a regular kid.

Norah, of course, is fine. And by fine I mean she's two and a pain in the butt. But that's why we love her!