That Time the Physical Therapist Did Her Job Too Well

and now we have to say good bye.

At four months of age, our youngest started receiving physical therapy in our home through our state’s early intervention program. His muscles were so tight, we had to physically bend him to help him sit on our laps.

In the early weeks of his prenatal development, a part of his brain didn’t form quite right. When the neurologist told us about the finding on the MRI, she couldn’t tell us how or if that damage would affect him.

What we learned is that he needed help meeting EVERY milestone. Rolling. Sitting. Crawling. Walking.

Everything. We’re still working on speech.

BUT, he hit every single one, just in his own time, and not too far out of the normal range. But he was resistant  to them all. Our best guess is that the challenges are a combination of the brain abnormality and our autism diagnosis. But you can’t tell how much work it took to get him to this point because he overcame all of those challenges and most of his success is because of a WONDERFUL physical therapist.

She’s the one that first saw and noted the autism red flags. And when my son needed a break from the PT, she addressed some of those issues. She wrote letters outlining the team’s concerns over these red flags. These letters were so helpful in a number of areas, but especially in his autism diagnosis.

He’s 28 months now…she’s been part of our family for the last 24 months. For two years she showed up each week and worked with him. She explained things to me so I could help him. She found just the right mixture of concern and calm. She listened when I was worried and cheered with us when we saw progress. I think she may have been almost as eager as we were about the adoption 🙂

For two years, my son was her son for an hour a week. I couldn’t have asked for a better woman to work with him.

But now, it’s time for her to go help another little one. So I made her a dozen roses and a card as an inadequate thank you. It took a week, but it was well worth the time.

I cut the roses out of white paper. I used ink and a water brush to watercolor the rose pieces before I put them together. What you can’t see, is that I sprayed them with glimmer mist to give them a little sparkle.

I happen to know she likes humming birds, so I included a little tiny one on this card and used a sketch pen for the greeting.

Thanks for stopping by.

xoxo

Signs That Adoption is Close

During the last 21 months or so, the baby has been visiting his bio mom twice a week.

In the beginning, there’s always a parent aid involved. When parents make enough progress toward reunification, the parent aid role diminishes until parents finally get unsupervised visits which lead to over nights and even whole weekends with their child.

Our parent aid was involved until the very last visit. This woman, who was a stranger in the beginning, now feels kind of like family. She’s a woman who has been part of my son’s life since the beginning. A woman who made a tough, scary situation for me so much easier. A woman who likes hummingbirds.

So when I decided I wanted to make her a thank you gift for our last visit, I knew I wanted it to have hummingbirds 🙂

Because I still want to vinyl all the things, I knew vinyl would be part of it.

Here’s what I came up with.

I liked the tile, but it’s big and bulky. Also, I wanted to color. So I took the image I put together for the tile and made it work for a card, too. My Silhouette cut out the vinyl for the tile then I tried really hard not to cuss (I was successful) while I tried to get the transfer tape to work for me. It finally did- mostly.

For the card, I printed the images and card design. I then had my Silhouette cut all the pieces out. I love dimension and knew I wanted it in this card. I used my markers and pencils to color bird and flowers then affixed the images on to the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxo

Thank You Veterans

Those I know and those I don’t.

Those from the past and those in the present.

Those who have taught me through selfless service to appreciate my freedoms and my county.

You are the flag I look to; the poppies in the field that remind me of the sacrifices made on my behalf.

I thought of you all as I made this.

THANK YOU

Link: poppy shadow box

Because Kindergarten Teachers are Saints

Really. They are. They deserve more than this box card, but I feel a need to express my gratitude 🙂

I used a few different embossing folders as well as adding slight shadows and such with copics and pencils.

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxo

Links to items used: box card

Preemptive Thank You

If you’ve read the last few entries on my blog, you know I’m pretty nervous (an understatement) about my 5yo starting kindergarten – it’s not the normal nervous.

With his history, we understand why change is hard, but that doesn’t make the process easier. So, I made a small batch of 3×3 cards pop-up cards. I plan to send one each Friday to tell his teacher thank you.

I still have to think of something cute to send the principal and the guidance counsellor – also, a preemptive thank you and just a regular thank you for all the help they’ve already given me.

Here’s the collection of cards to use for his teacher. It’s a little thank you for a big job 🙂

I went a little pop-up cray-cray. I upgraded to the Silhouette’s 4.1 (and some other numbers, but I think those two are the important ones right now). It has a new feature that allows easier design of pop-up cards. I’m a little obsessed with it 😉 I also think, it would have been easier to start on bigger cards instead of these little ones, but it all worked out 🙂

Thanks for stopping by! And don’t forget to say thank you to the people in your life 🙂

Tea cups, swan, tags

 

A Thank You from a Mouse

Working on a few thank you cards for a friend 🙂

These were nice and simple and both items can be found in the Silhouette Store ( Thank You and Mouse).

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

xoxo