Messy Smiles and Constant Battles

Today was an exciting day in our house.  Kennedy made her first real attempts at feeding herself.  Of course, I had to help by putting the yogurt on the spoon, and putting the spoon in her hand.  But she did amazing getting the spoon into her mouth!  Of course, I should add that in the process, we ended up with yogurt E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.  She was so stinking adorable though.  I could not have been any more proud, as always. 

I normally have really good captions for her photos.  But these tell it all.  She's so proud of herself when it was all said and done.  That smile could not be any bigger, and I could not get enough of it.

She also had pasta for dinner.  She had a little more trouble feeding that to herself, since it kept sticking to her hand and getting wrapped around her fingers. 

And here is a video of her showing off her skills!

Notice the towel over her high chair.  The cover was being washed after the yogurt incident earlier in the afternoon.  It's a really good thing Kennedy likes bath time too!

Things have been going amazing.  Kennedy has made a great recovery from surgery and is just nailing her milestones lately.  I couldn't be more proud of her.  Of course, I'll admit, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop.  After all, things can't just go smoothly, can they?  Well, today it dropped.  I finally got a return call from our service coordinator for Early Intervention.  I left her a message, explaining that while we feel we're benefiting from the services our Early Interventionist provides, I wanted to discuss the integration of speech and occupational therapy.  To make a long story short, and in an attempt to prevent my blood pressure from skyrocketing again, I'll give you the highlights.  

• She told me that Kennedy's scores on her evaluation were so good, that she doesn't need services.  This is the same eval that was done when she was 6 weeks old.  She's 7 months old now.  I see something wrong with this.
• When I asked about a reassessment, I was told, "Well, we could bring you back in.  Or I could come out to you and do an assessment.  I'm not really sure what to do."  
• She offered to give me an Early Interventionist.  When I asked her what Amanda was, she asked me "Who is Amanda?"  (I know I don't frequently discuss Amanda any more, but she is our Early Interventionist!)
• She asked me how to spell speech.  Yes.  Speech.  You didn't read that wrong.  I almost fell over laughing.  I know that not everyone is the best speller, but when you work with children who have delays in speech, and you work with speech therapists, you would think you could spell the word!    

So the fight is back on.  They don't want to provide additional services because she doesn't need them.  Down syndrome is a qualifying diagnosis.  It doesn't matter if she "needs" them.  We have a meeting to discuss it next week.  Stay tuned.  I'm sure there will be some sort of fireworks.