Chilly

Its a chilly day here in Texas. I'm mean REALLY chilly! So chilly in fact that I had to start my own fire in the fire place just to function and if you know anything about our house you would know I'm not the one who starts our fires. Dave? a pro at it. Blake? falling into a close second behind his dad. Allie? Love to start and tend to the fire place. Ashley? Of course she's not allowed to play with matches or starter logs or pokers and the like, but she sure does enjoy the warm glow( and I sure do enjoy watching the glow reflected in her eyes.) Anyway, I did attempt to start my own fire and it was going ok for a while. That is until I got completely distracted during Ash's first hour of therapy and forgot to tend to it. Now we sit here shivering as we wait for Dave to show up and build us a real fire.

So on this chilly day in Texas I have NO plans. I LOVE those kind of days! No where I have to go. Nothing I HAVE to do(other than the usual put away toy kind of things, watch Cars and Nemo hundreds of times in a row with the gherkin, and fold laundry).

Ash does have three hours of therapy today. Not sure how that happened, but it did. Somehow we had lots of reschedules this week and they landed on Friday which is usually an almost empty day. Oh well, such is her life. Therapy, therapy, therapy. To add to her schedule of nine hours a week we got a card for a new speech and feeding therapist here in town and think we are going to take the plunge. One more couldn't hurt? Right? A nice even 10 hours a week should round out her work week. Why not? To date we haven't found anyone who has made much progress with Ash in the areas of speech or feeding. Oh the new therapist can also sign which makes her all the more appealing to us.

We are leaning hard toward the idea of having her receive her education along the line of deaf education. We watched a documentary a few weeks ago and the results were amazing! We of course are not thinking she'll never speak. We want to give her both. Verbal teaching along with sign. At this time she is four years old and does not speak. Her only way of communicating with others is through sign. This is not a novel idea for us. We had started our fight for it when she first began in the Longview school system only to be told she didn't qualify for the teacher who was fluent in ASL because she was a hearing child. Again we are being told the same things in the Pine Tree district, but are looking for solutions and ways around that. We FIRMLY believe that Ashley's education needs to be taught both verbally and in sign. I know she would progress and benefit greatly from seeing her main language (which happens to be ASL) used fluently while being instructed in her school work and play. The tools are in the community and in the school system they are just being shut off to us at this time. It is very frustrating to know there is something available that would benefit and yet not be able to access it. We are not giving up though. Actually we are just beginning. Our team of teachers and therapists haven't given up either. My request was that they help us find a way into the system or solutions to get around this problem. Ashley's teachers NEED to be fluent in sign regardless of whether or not she is a hearing child.

Wow, what a tangent! My intent was to blog about the chilly weather and my opportunity to stay inside with our little one today. OH well, sometimes this blog has a life of its own.

So again I say, I have the opportunity to NOT leave my house today, to spend the day with one of my very favorite people in this world(Ashley Kate=), and enjoy every minute of it. I suppose I'll push play to start Cars one more time and switch the laundry. Then I'm off to put a pot of yummy soup on the stove for lunch. Yeah, me. Its chilly in Texas and I'm loving it. Have a blessed day.

By the way my girls won last night 22-16. I'm really, really proud of this team and how very hard they work! Way to go girls. You make me smile!