IEP? What IEP?

This morning, I was very pleased to wake up having a hive-free Raquel. She slept all night long and the hives slowly started to fade last night. Besides a few scratches on her neck and tummy - and perhaps her being a little pale - you never would have known she had such a horrible reaction yesterday. On Wednesday we have her medical evaluation and I am going to ask the pediatrician to refer us to an allergist. I need to find out what things she is sensitive to so I can prevent these from happening in the future.

We had an outing at the mall today in place of her morning ABA session. She did really well - wasn't too happy playing in the "rubber room", but I contribute that mostly to the mall Christmas decorations being taken down at the same time we were there. There was a lot of machine noise and Raquel would cover her ears at times. Once we left the area and went up to the top floor away from the noise, she was walking all over the place until her little legs became jello and I had to put her back in the stroller.

Besides Cari being there, Janine also overlapped - along with a very missed familiar face:



Elizabeth! As many of you remember, she was my initial Behavior Therapist who I was given the most hours with during the start of Raquel's therapy year. She helped me get through some of the really brutal behaviors that were occuring in the beginning, and she's also the one that pushed for Raquel being in the ABA Program. And look at how well she's done. Thanks, Elizabeth! It was great seeing you and we think of you all the time. We hope you can come for her farewell therapy on Monday.

After ending a nice outing at the mall, I came home to find a voicemail from Regional stating that Raquel's IEP had been cancelled. WHAT??!!! Cancelled? How does that happen hours before it's supposed to take place with so many people scheduled to be in attendance? Apparently the District Psychologist had jury duty. Needless to say, I was beyond upset. How can such a critical meeting that was scheduled so far in advance be cancelled on the day it's supposed to take place? Not good - and so unfair to Raquel. Remember, I'm only given one week to visit classes and schools and meet teachers before she is supposed to start the school itself. Today, I used up my weekly respite hours to accommodate the IEP meeting and was unfortunately not able to cancel it because of short notice. So, when the IEP does take place (hopefully this week - right now it looks like possibly Friday), I will need to take Raquel to the meeting. Lorraine said she'd provide childcare for her during the meeting because of the cancellation. Nice, but besides the point.

Since the IEP was cancelled and our therapists' had already set aside the time for it, I asked Janine if they wanted to do an ABA Session. Since this is her last week, I figure the more the better. And Raquel was hilarious. I don't know what got in to her, but she was very happy and playful - and making all of us laugh. Maybe she senses that it's almost over, too.