A Special Thank You...

When you have a child with special needs, you have a team of people working together with you in order to accomplish goals set forth for your child. Within Colin's 1st four weeks of life (and after only having his diagnosis confirmed for 3), we already had his Early Intervention meeting accomplished and the 1st therapist that came to see us was Miss Darlene.

Miss Darlene is Colin's developmental therapist. For those of you who are not familiar with that type of therapist, she is essentially, the "teacher" who covers Colin's overall development. She works on imitation, structured play, receptive and expressive language, gross motor, fine motor, etc. all lumped into one. Colin sees her 1 hour per week. She was the first therapist to come into our house and she came when we had no idea what to expect, and without having any idea what the road ahead had for us. She has been there for Colin, and most importantly, for us as well. We found out today that Miss Darlene will no longer be working for Early Intervention, and when I found out, I literally started crying. Not only is she great for Colin, but she has become a friend to us, and we truly value her opinion and support. We are thrilled for her and what her journey contains for her and for her family, but we couldn't help but feel a little selfish in not wanting to see her go....If you have any type of connection with your team, I am sure you can relate to how we feel. We love you Miss Darlene!

The second person to come into our home was Miss Kathy, Colin's physical therapist. She has a very different personality than Miss Darlene, and although she pushes Colin in a different way, she also is very lovey and caring and supportive. She originally started with just two one hour sessions a month, and has since increased to an hour a week, and then finally, to two one hour sessions a week. She has a unique skill to push Colin past his limits when the time is right, and to back off and take it easy when Colin's demeanor says so. She also has been a wonderful listening ear for Chris and I and has helped us transition to where we are now in terms of accepting Colin's progress without harping on numbers and test results. She has played a large role in helping us to understand that when the time is right, Colin will accomplish skills. She also believes in all the little steps that build up to the big ones. Before she would even be happy with Colin being able to independently sit, he had to accomplish the little skills that led to it. We are so happy with what she has done for Colin (and us!)...we love you Miss Kathy!

Miss Amy is Colin's speech therapist and she sees Colin once a week for an hour per session. She is newer to our team as she started when Colin was about 16 months old. We only started speech therapy with Colin when he was a year old, and the first therapist that was in the home was not able to accomplish some of the goals, even on a short term basis, that we had set forth for Colin. Miss Amy came into our home completely organized (she had called prior to our first session to learn more about Colin and what we were hoping to accomplish), she had experience with children with Down Syndrome, and you could tell from the first minute that she would make changes with him. In the past two months, Colin's communication skills have taken off and he completely warmed up to her. She has a plan each session, and she doesn't move forward until Colin is able to accomplish the short term goals. We like her plan because they are goals that are realistic. We really like the way she works with Colin and we are so happy with Colin's progress because of her joining our team. Most importantly, we feel comfortable with her. We love you Miss Amy!

Finally, last but not least, is Miss Regina. She is the newest member to our team as she only started in September (that was when we finally got occupational therapy added). I, unfortunately, have not had the privalege to meet her in person, but have spoken to her many times on the phone. Colin has done really well with her, and my favorite thing that has happened so far is that when Miss Regina showed up for Colin's session at school, he crawled right over to her. She is working really hard on the challenges that we face with Colin (primarily, his fine motor skills related to eating) and has been trying to get to the bottom of those challenges. She works really hard at building Colin's upper body strength and has developed a sensory-motor program to help overcome some of his issues. We couldn't be happier and again, we feel comfortable with her and enjoy watching Colin's relationship with her flourish. We love you Miss Regina!

We are extremely grateful to Colin's team. We can't forget to mention our case manager, Nancy (not pictured) for all that she does behind the scenes to make sure Colin is taken care of. They have done extraordinary things for an exraordinary little boy. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for taking care of Colin and helping us to achieve his goals.

Love, Kelli, Chris, and Colin xoxoxxoxoxo