Princess Butterfly Helmet and her EI Assessment

Miss Isla is officially the proud owner of a beautiful purple butterfly helmet. The weather today was absolutely amazing, one of those gorgeous June days that skipped us this year I guess. Not such a good day to be fitted for a helmet that you do not want on your head though. She was so worked up during the fitting, I have never seen poor Isla sweat so much...in this way she takes after daddy of course!

We were told to come prepared because the appointment would be at least an hour long, which it was at least. The helmet is sent in set to cover her head more then needed and then the doctor cuts it back, puts it on her makes some more marks, repeat, repeat, repeat. So, we brought snacks and toys and hung out in the doctor's office which we are completely used to by now. Isla despised the helmet. Each time the doctor returned to the room Isla would scream at the sound of the door swinging open. She would crawl up our chests to get away from the evil butterflies and reach out for whichever one of us was not holding her at the moment in hopes of an escape.

The helmet has it's own introduction schedule which means tomorrow she will wear it for an hour 3 times, the following day 2 hours 3 times and progresses slowly in that way until day 7 when she will begin wearing it 23 hours per day.

Isla had calmed down by the time we were ready to leave. We thanked the doctor and made our appointment for next week and Isla turned and gave doctor evil the stink eye! HAHA! She was so mad at him! Luckily he is a great doctor that comes with a great sense of humor. Through our travels we have see great doctors and doctors that should have their licenses revoked, he is one of the good guys and has been very helpful.

Isla also had her Early Intervention Assessment today. It was a very strange experience to be on this side of things for once. Professionally, I am usually the one entering the homes of worried parents armed with a big bag of toys and a mess of paperwork. Today I was the worried parent. I sat back as the therapists tested Isla in different areas as I silently cheered her on. Knowing the response they were looking for was difficult, I would imagine it might be easier to think that they were simply playing with her and that there was not intention in each activity they presented. When she didn't "pass" the first activity I became shaky. My fears leading up to today's appointment were that she would be assessed far below her age level. I know what she can do and she seems developmentally appropriate to me but that fear is there that they will come in and tell me otherwise.

No need to worry! That first activity was just about the only one she could not do. Overall she is presenting as a typically developing 9 month old! In some areas she is even presenting ahead! GO ISLA! Her strongest area was social emotional with receptive and expressive language following right behind! They were trying some scenarios just to see how she would respond knowing that they were above her age level. She did have 2 areas where she was behind, gross motor and fine motor. This did not surprise us in the least. Following her lip repair she wore arm braces for 3 weeks. During this time she could not bend her arms or practice tummy time, our pediatrician warned us that we might see some temporary delays in these areas. Also, the initial reason we were referred for Early Intervention services was for her left side weaknesses also in these areas.

So, long story short...if the services were provided based on this assessment alone she would not have qualified. But her cleft qualifies her for 1 year and the hemifacial microsomia qualifies her for 3 years. So, we decided to go ahead and continue with the therapy. We will have services 1 time per week for 1 hour.

Nate and I are so proud! She had a long day with basically no nap but still managed to rock her assessment! They would not stop commenting on how socially aware she was. She would follow the conversation by looking at each person talking and turned all the way around to look straight at Nate when we said "da-da". So proud of my girl!