Dress Shopping

Dad had to go fix something at work, We had Hanna with a PCA from sun up to past her usual bedtime, and we left Rene` and Paul in charge of coloring some Easter eggs while Karre, Trevor, and I took Lauren Prom dress shopping last Saturday.

Dress shopping for Lauren is a bit tricky. She seldom wears a dress because her CP, AFO`s, and wheelchair are not very well suited for dresses. Lauren is our princess and if she had her way she would dress up all the time. I have found that we can generally dress her very nicely in slacks and a nice top or sweater, but for the Prom she will get to wear a dress. She gets to go without the AFO`s, too.  However, the wheelchair goes to Prom. Paul says he is going to give it a car wash. (He remembers helping Karre clean the car before Prom last year). The only requirement for the dress according to Lauren was that she wanted it to be purple. Mom had a few other things on the list. 1. It could not be floor length since she could not stand or walk at all in that and it would get messed up in the wheels of her chair. The best option would be a tea length dress.  2. It needed to have straps or sleeves or something to keep it where it belonged on top. 3. It needed to be in the budget.

There are lots and lots of dresses at the Mall of America. We looked at hundreds of them. There were dresses that weighted 20 pounds with all the rhinestones and beads on them. Most of them were floor length so they were quickly eliminated.  We had found six that we thought would work, lucky for us 3 of them were at one store so we went back there and had her try them on.The first one she tried on was the one Trevor picked out. She tried on the other two there as well, but the first one was going to be the one.

Now just for a little suspense I am not going to post photos until the big day. I will say that Lauren did not get purple and Mom did not exactly get what she had in mind either, but she will look gorgeous anyway.  She is so excited just knowing that she gets to go that I don`t think she really cares what she wears.

It`s A Date

The Prom date is set. He asked Lauren to go and you know what she said "I have to ask my mom".

That is predictable Lauren. Even though we have been talking about what to do when a boy asks you to Prom, even though she knew who was going to ask her, and even though we had already given her permission to go she thought she should ask her mom.

I have got to give the girl credit, she does have boundaries. She needed a little coaching, but she did say "yes" so it`s a date.

Prom Plans

It`s that time of year when things really get busy for the teenagers. The school year will be winding down in a couple of months, but before we get to that there has to be a Prom, right. Lauren is going, and she is sssoooooo excited about that! I don`t know if the boy asked her yet, but he was so sweet last night demonstrating how he was going to do that. He said that he was going to get his hair cut and wear a suit and Lauren was not going to wear a red dress.   
               
This year all the juniors and seniors in their special education classroom are going except for Allen (we will do this next year with him) and maybe one other kid. This is a great opportunity for all of them to practice social skills both in the classroom and out. They will practice doing the Grand March during the school day in the gym. We will have pizza at our house before Prom since going out to eat at a nice restaurant would likely send some of them over the top before the big event even started.

We have 2 PCAs who will tag team (since one of them turns into a pumpkin after midnight). One will go to the Prom and the other will go to the After Prom Party.

Last evening the moms and the teacher who has been communicating with the school personal and the committee chair of the After Prom Party, got together to go over the logistics of this. It takes a whole lot of planning to do things like this with teenagers like Lauren. My neuro-typical kids would be the ones telling me who they were going with and what they were doing, instead we need to make the plans for them.

Now all we have to do is get the dress figured out and decide what to do with her hair.Lauren will be on top of those details for sure.

Going To Celebrate!

We are going to have a party for Lauren since she does get to take part in commencement with her class! Okay, we had already decided that we were going to party no matter what happened with that because she deserves to have a party just as much as all the rest of the high school seniors do.

This does not mean that the drama of this affair is over though. It simply means that the school district has agreed to let her participate and we do have a transition plan that I think will work for her. We may need to make some adjustments along the way, but that is okay. We have a place to begin.

It has taken 10 months to get where we are now, that is far to long and she has missed out on things. When we decided to take on this issue it was not only for Lauren, it was for all of the students and families who will be in this place down the road. I do not want other students and their families to be stuck in limbo or having to choose between inclusion and transition services. I do not have anything in writing to help families, all I got was "we will have to look at this individually". That is not going to work here. This will all happen again so I guess I am going to have to look into getting the law changed in this state to deal with this. Getting that done is a long process so I guess I will have plenty to do for quite some time and then maybe we will have to have another party when we succeed.

Sven and Ole

These are Karre`s cats Sven and Ole. I gave them those great Norwegian names. They are very friendly cats. Paul who does not usually like animals at all has even gotten used to playing with them. He told his class that Ole is his friend and Sven has short, soft fur and scratchy feet.

Sven

Ole and Sven

Here We Go Again

Our neurologist thinks Paul is the sweetest kid around and being his mom I am in agreement with her on that. This morning we had a very long appointment where we were discussing the recent changes in how his brain is working. He was playing with some little cars on the floor while we talked. She was asking about his diet. I explained that he has some sensory issues with textures and we work around those and that he does not like any kind of vegetables. Paul says "I like that yellow pineapple one Mom".

Today for the first time I got to see the damage that has been done to his brain. Basically the back 1/3 of his brain is missing and what is left of it is very fragmented. It is clear that at some point (likely shortly after he was injured) he had a major stroke. That is why the right side of his body is so much weaker then the left. It was also noted that there is significant pressure around the area of the brain where what he sees is processed. That pressure is the reason we have noticed significant decreases in his functional vision.

Now what ? The neurologist and neuro-surgeon get together and have a discussion that involves all the medical lingo and then the neurologist, Dad, and I have a discussion where she translates all of that into something that we can understand. It looks like we may end up with 2 kids with shunts. Does that sound like fun or what?

These kids are amazing! They have survived severe physical trauma to their brains. They have no idea how much I am learning from them. When I see them succeeding I am in awe of their courage, strength, and adaptability.

The Crazy Princess Crown

We had to leave early Friday morning to get Lauren hooked up to her circuit board for the weekend so we could do a 72 hour EEG. She had wires of all the colors of the rainbow all over her head. Paul told her that she had a crazy princess crown on. I guess he really does not have any idea what a princess crown looks like.

I got to watch her every minute of the time she was awake so that I could record what she was doing, for how long, when, where, with who, and every detail in between. There were many pages before we were done. It clearly shows her cognitive decline, dementia or whatever you want to call it.

We have a conference call scheduled for late Wednesday afternoon to decide how to best proceed. Lauren got to take a shower this morning. She was really excited about that. Since she could not get wet for the entire weekend she was a little confused. I think she found it hard to believe that Mom was not telling her to shower. Hanna thought it was not fair because she still had to shower.

I hope we do not have to do any more crazy princess crown wearing for awhile now.