Dysgraphia

Cami is 9 years old.  She loves animals.  She loves music.  She loves to play with friends. She has dysgraphia.  Here is a link for understanding dysgraphia:
http://www.interdys.org/ewebeditpro5/upload/Understanding_Dysgraphia_Fact_Sheet_12-01-08.pdf

Cami didn't crawl until she was 13 months old.  She didn't walk until nearly 18 months.  She didn't speak until she was 3.  She was born c-section after hours and hours of labor where the monitors stopped several times.  The cord was wrapped around her neck and body 7 times.  She didn't really eat solid food til well past one.  Today, she is 9 years old and struggles with food issues.  She prefers baby food and only textures and tastes she is used to.  She is petrified of new food.

We've come along way.  Now she eats enough foods that I don't have to worry that she'll starve.  She loves cheese.  Cheeseburgers, cheese buns, cheese quesadillas, cheese and crackers, cheese sticks,  Cheezits and Cheetoes.  She'll eat an apple if it is cut up and peeled.  She likes mandarin oranges, packaged. Ham and bacon, sometimes chicken cut up small.  Pancakes, peanut butter.  Vanilla ice cream and Chocolate Chip cookies -- those are the only sweets she eats.  Baby food.  Baby food fruit and baby food lasagna and spaghetti.  That's about it.  But it is progress.

So Dysgraphia.  Kindergarten, it wasn't too noticeable.  Big letters, bad spacing. It's normal.  Writing her name upside down and backwards?  She'll out grow it.  She did.  First grade.  Mrs. Barrett.  Oh, how we love Mrs. Barrett.  She'd taught Dallin and Jordon and Charli in 5th grade. Now she was a first grade teacher.  I'm not sure what's going on with Cami, she told us.  She seems to have a hard time copying from the board.  Holding a pencil seems awkward to her.  I'm going to try some different things to see if I can help her.  I don't think she has ADD, but it's like she can't focus.

I said, look at her Preschool IEP. It addresses the issues she has. That's when we discovered that her preschool IEP had been trashed.  She'd been dismissed from all services.  What a shame.  Mrs. Barrett worked with her, we tried lots of things, including a private office, where Cami could work when feeling overwhelmed with sensory issues.  (She was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder as a two year old.) Finally, we all agreed that she needed a new IEP.  To make sure she didn't get lost in the system ever again, and to see if I could get a "diagnosis", I took her to Neuro-Education, Dr. Krenz.  As first grade came to a close, she was diagnosed with Dysgraphia.  I had never even heard of that, but as I studied the information, I was convinced.  Writing was no fun for this little girl.

Second grade brought Mrs. Woodward.  Cadie was in Mrs. Woodward's 2nd grade class.  Mrs. Woodward worked hard with Cami so that she could understand how best to help her.  Instead of 20 math facts, she gave Cami one line of math facts.  Instead of having her write her spelling words for the test, she had Cami give them orally.  What a difference that made for Cami.  Seriously.  This is one super smart little girl who just has a hard time writing.

Third grade has been a challenge.  One thing we have learned from previous years is that we need to meet regularly and early on with Cami's IEP team and her teachers.  It seems like strategies for working with Cami don't really get passed from teacher to teacher.  And at the beginning of the school year, the new teacher is getting to know the kids.  And this year, the new teacher seemed to believe there was nothing wrong with Cami.  Even though Cami has a long IEP that describes the accommodations she needs to be successful in the classroom.

About a week into school this year, I popped in after class to see how things were going.  The teacher told me, Cami is doing really good, but I just don't like it at all that she just sits there and does nothing.  I give her an assignment and rather than do it, she just sits there.  It really bothers me.

Well, I say, you know she has an IEP.  Sometimes a lot of work at once overwhelms her.

Oh, she says, Cami is perfectly capable of doing the work.  She just chooses not to.

Sometimes, teachers see kids with dysgraphia as lazy and unmotivated.  I think that is what is happening here.  Just saying.

We need to have a meeting with the IEP team.  Finally a meeting is scheduled. Not everyone is in attendance, but we talk a little about what will help Cami.  The teacher still thinks that Cami needs no support.  She thinks Cami is very smart.  Well, guess what?  Cami is very smart.  She has a learning disability that hinders her ability to write, to speak and to function in an overwhelming environment.  But she can read, she can add, subtract and multiply.  She remembers everything she is taught.  Just because someone has a learning disability, doesn't mean they aren't smart.

We just want her to feel successful in school.  We want school to be a positive experience for her.  We don't want her to feel singled out, or dumb.  I've heard of many parents with children with dysgraphia who pull them out of school and home school them.  They get so frustrated with the public school process.  I get that.  I sometimes wonder if that would be better for Cami.  But we've had such a wonderful public school experience with our other children.  And this is the purpose of school, right?  We will see how it plays out.

Last week, we had another meeting with her whole team.  Everyone was there.  Everyone made me feel like I wasn't just making up a LD for my child. (Because sometimes that what I think her teacher thinks about me.)  Maybe now we will get somewhere.  But I still worry that she won't be given the accommodations that she needs when she needs them.  So I will still pop into class every week to see how things are going.

I guess I'm going to be that parent.

Leaving on a MIssion

 On February 18, 2014, this boy opened his mission call.  Illinois Chicago West mission, reporting April 16th, 2014.  We bought suits, white shirts, shoes.  He worked and saved money, sold his car and got a nice tax refund to help fund over half of his mission costs.  (LDS missionaries pay $400 a month to serve)

 Look at him, all ready to serve!  Yesterday was his mission farewell. He spoke in Sacrament meeting.  The topic was fellowshipping.  The other 3 speakers used that word a lot.  Dallin didn't.  But here is the story he told (from his talk on Sunday...)

"When I was a kid, I always said I'd go on a mission. But when I said i,t I feel like it was more expected of me and I didn't have a choice, so in Sunday school when the teachers would go "who all is going on a mission"? I would raise my hand. As I became older and I graduated from High Schoo,l the realization hit me. "I don't want to go on a mission'. Now I didn't know why It came to me all at once, but I just didn't think a mission was right for me, so I moved on. I wanted to go to school so I did what all confused Mormons do. I moved to Utah. I made this plan in 2 weeks in September, and moved out. Now I was on my own. I think in the first year I lived out there I only went to church maybe twice. One was the first Sunday I moved and the second was to see a friend sing in sacrament. Now I may have not noticed at the time, but not going to church really wasn't doing me any good. It made me feel like I couldn't associate with anybody from church and that kind of forced me to hang with the non active Mormons. Now these people were pretty depressing, always had something to complain about they didn't seem like they had any goals.  I was raised better than that, so I knew what I wanted out of life. I wanted to go to school and I wanted a family. Now after having to move out of apartments for different reasons, I decided to move in with some friends at work. I was really excited to move in with them because they both seemed to have the same personality as me and they liked to have fun. They were both Returned missionaries and still active. When I moved in with them, they still went to church every Sunday. and they asked me if I wanted to go. I still wasn't ready to go back to church and eventually they stopped asking me and we just went on with our own lives on Sunday. 

Now here's the fun part of the story. On a Saturday sometime early October or  late September,  I was doing good. I had an awesome job that was super easy, I was going to school and everything was going ok but I just felt like something was missing. I was driving home from a friends house after his birthday and I parked in the lot of our apartment and just sat there. Now I know this was the Spirit but it was crazy. I hadn't gone to church, I wasn't praying or anything, but all at once I saw what my life was going to look like in 10 or 20 years. I had a family and I had a career doing something I loved and everything was going great. But I felt the Spirit telling me your not going to have this life unless you go on a mission. I seriously felt like I was going crazy because never in my mind did I feel this passionate about going on a mission. So that morning I woke up early enough for our 8 am session of church and my roommates were confused. I still didn't tell anyone I was planning on going on a mission, but that Sunday I made a meeting with the bishop and I talked to him about what it would take to get started on a mission. I just wanted to see how a week felt in that mind set, so I still didn't tell anyone until the next week. So that next weekend is when I broke the news and it felt so good to tell people that I wanted to go.

In helaman 15:7 he says: "and behold, ye do know of yourselves, for ye have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the holy scriptures , yea, the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith of the lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them".

 So that leads us to today...... I know going on a mission is what I need to be doing. I'm so glad I figured this out before it was to late and i I wouldn't have gotten a chance. I really do think moving out to Utah was the best thing that happened and it helped me figure out who I am and what I want. It took me moving away from home for a year to figure this out, so I'm just telling all you young men and women to try to get your own testimony now, so you don't have to procrastinate."

Troy gave him a father's blessing yesterday afternoon and then the Stake President set him apart last evening.  I have felt so much peace regarding Dallin serving.  I feel like he is so ready for the adventure and that his life will be so blessed. As parents, we struggled with whether we had done the right thing in encouraging Dallin to go to Utah.  Even as we received calm reassurances that this was indeed Heavenly Father's Plan for Dallin, we would doubt and question our own faith.  What a blessing, a miracle from Heavenly Father, that dropped in our laps that October Monday afternoon. It has been in His hands all along and Dallin will continue to be in His hands.  So, I will miss him, but it is hard to shed too many tears, because I know without a doubt that this is where Dallin should be and I do not want him to be any where else.

So this morning, we took him to the airport at 4:15 am.  Sleepy eyed, we said good by, gave him hugs and wished him well.  He wanted to do his sailor man salute:

His friend Ryan met him at the Salt Lake airport.  They visited a few friends and then met grandma and grandpa for lunch. (They are also serving as missionaries in Provo -- I'll have to share more of that later).  Then Grandma and grandpa dropped him off at the Missionary Training Center, sending me the following picutre and message:

"Goodbye Dallin. He's excited!"  He looks pretty excited.  Now to just wait for that first letter!!

Why Is There a Cow in the Bathroom?

Last Monday evening, in the middle of a snowstorm, one of our cows had her baby.  I went to feed the animals around 6:30.  It was already dark, of course, but I could see that there was a baby.  I assumed it must've just arrived, as it was still wet and not standing.  At 8:30 pm, I went back to check on the Mom and baby.  I wanted to make sure the baby was standing and eating and that everything was OK.

The snow was still falling.  The Momma cow was still in the same spot, next to the driveway, about half way up.  The baby was lying in a puddle, a nearly frozen heap, her head tilted back.  The mother had laid down next to her.  Gathered around her were the other cows.  Red, Maryjane Sunshine, 63.  Red was licking the mother's face.  They were all softly mooing, almost as if they were comforting the mother and offering condolences.Like they knew the baby was not going to make it.

I backed down the driveway and sped to my neighbor's home.  Lyle jumped on his 4 wheeler and came over.  He held off the momma cow (she did not want me to take her baby) while I scooped up the baby and put her in my van.  Yes, my van.  My new van.  I did lay an old coat across the seat before I put her on it.  We drove to Lyle's, where he carried her in the house. (When we weighed her at the vets, she was 70 pounds)  His wife and daughters started a hot shower for the baby, while I got on the phone to find an emergency large animal vet.  Apparently, Spokane no longer has one for livestock, only horses.  Dr. McKinley made the disclaimer... "I haven't worked on cows in 20 years, but..." He encouraged us to try to get some kind of milk in her.  Whole milk, evaporated.  We looked up a recipe for Electrolytes.

Meanwhile, the girls were blowing the calf dry.  It still couldn't stand up, but was mooing a bit.  We got a syringe and started shooting Electrolytes and then evaporated milk with Karo syrup down its throat.  The calf was not interested.  Finally at 10:30 pm, I told Lyle to put the calf back in my car and I would take it home.  I couldn't thank them enough for all the help they'd given me. None of us had much hope that she would make it.

When I got home, I called Dallin to help me carry up the calf.  I yelled to Jordon to go find an old sleeping bag to put on the floor in the bathroom.  We got the calf set up in the bathroom, turned on the heat lamp, plugged in a space heater and turned the thermostat up to 73.  I got 3-4 more syringefuls of an evaporated milk mixed with karo syrup down her, but then she just let it dribble out.  She was freezing to touch.  No warmth at all.  The inside of her mouth was like ice. (I later learned that this is one way to know if a calf has eaten.  The mouth is warm if it has, cold if it hasn't).  I thought for sure she would die.

I went to bed, but it was hard to sleep.  She was thrashing around, banging her head on the tub.  I got up about every hour, to check on her, move her away from the tub again.  She couldn't lift her head, it was her legs that were just kicking, kicking, almost in a reflex to try to stand.  Except she couldn't stand. Just kick out and kick out.  The last time I checked on her, it was three am.  The bathroom was so warm... Probably about 75 degrees.  I went back to bed and prayed, "Heavenly Father, if she is just going to die, take her now, so that she doesn't have to suffer any more.  I really need to sleep."  I fell immediately asleep.  I remember being slightly conscious at about 5 am and thinking, well, she must be dead, because I haven't heard any thrashing.

I woke up at 6:15.  I was dreading going into the bathroom, but finally decided I better go so that I could remove the dead calf before the kids woke up.  I walked into the bathroom, and darned if that baby wasn't sitting up, looking around! I was SO surprised!

The girls were all in bed when I had arrived with the calf the evening before.  That morning, the big question was, "Mom, why is there a cow in our bathroom?"  You know, really, how often do people say, "Yeah, we had a cow in our bathroom once..."

As soon as I got the kids off to school, I loaded the little calf back in the car and drove her to Ponti's Vet Clinic.  She quickly endeared herself to the staff.  They named her "Norman" after the cow on City Slickers. They tube fed her three times and finally got her standing.  When I picked her up at 4, she was wobbly, but could stand on her own if you put her in a standing position.  She still had a very weak sucking reflex, so we were worried that she wouldn't get be able to eat.  I had purchased a bottle and colostrum supplement to help her.

I brought her back to the farm and called her momma up to the barn.  The poor mother had been crying for her all day.  She sniffed the baby and mooed at her, but didn't seem to know what else to do. She was a first time mother, so had no experience.  The baby fell to the ground and then... another miracle! She stood back up. On her own!

After much coaxing, we got the Momma in the barn and put the baby in the stall with her. The Momma let Troy milk her (glad he knows how to do this...) and we tried to give her the colostrum in a bottle, since she still couldn't nurse.

 The next morning, the baby did not look very good at all.  Her ears were down and she seemed weak. She hadn't eaten. Troy milked the momma, and then we put the calf in the car again and took her to Ponti's for another tube feeding.  After bringing her back to the barn, I drove to the feed store and purchased a tube feeder so that we could tube her ourselves. We didn't know how long it would take for her to learn to suck. We'd read of one guy who had to tube feed for 10 days. The vet told me of another product:  Orphan No More!

We tubed her again at 1 and then at 5.  I sprinkled the Orphan No More powder liberally over her back.  This product has a taste the cow likes and has minerals in it.  It entices the cow to lick the calf, which then stimulates the calf to look for milk!

 Miracle again!! The next morning, that baby was nursing on her mother!!  (I think the mother told her "You better nurse the minute they come up here or they'll stick that tube down your throat again!!")  I attribute this to prayer.  When we left Tuesday night, I prayed and prayed that the baby would figure out how to nurse.  I love that Heavenly Father cares about the animals, sustains them and gives us hope through them.  I am thankful that He loves me enough to answer my prayers and take care of my minor emergencies... Allowing a calf to live, when it looked like there was no hope.  ... Allowing the mother to bond to the calf and the calf to the mother.  ... And the allowing the baby to nurse so that I wouldn't have to bottle feed...  What a blessing.

Her official name is Miracle of Brilliance.  Cami is calling her Rosie.  We now have all 5 calves born, healthy and eating good.  Again, what a blessing.