Het Gaat Lijk Lukken Bakken

"You could say this advice is priceless," she said. "Are you listneing?"

"Yes," said Tiffany.

"Good. Now... if you trust in yourself.."

"Yes?"

"...and believe in your dreams...."

"Yes?"

"...and follow your star..." Miss Tick went on.

"Yes?"

"...you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye."

Heh. It gives me hope that someday all the blood, sweat, and tears may still pay off.

Today? Well, got part of the front room scrubbed, pulled a muscle in my back. An intercostal, I think - hurts to take a deep breath. Rori has been videotaped. Apparently this is their way of monitoring THEIR progress. In a year, they tape again, run them side by side, and pat themselves on the back about how much they've helped this kid.

Oh, and the State of Michigan, in it's idiotic typical fashion is now attempting to yank almost a third of the money from the program and ship it to Detroit. MI residents who feel like weighing in, go here:
http://www.oaisd.org/oaisd/departments/earlychildhood/earlyonfundingsupport/

There may not BE funding for Rori to keep receiving services. Grrrr.

Oh, and I have a batch of John Besh's recipe beignets started. We shall see. No white Belgian candi sugar in the house, so no sugar bread today.

And other similar monosyllabics. That I wish my daughter was saying.

In other words, Rori had her 18 month check up today, and it was noted that her language skills are delayed. *sigh* Which I sort of knew. She OUGHT to be using a few words. And she isn't, really. Or not that you can really make out clearly.

So, it's off to see the audiologist (not the problem), and then probably Early On.

I HOPE it's just that she lives with Anneliese, and maybe can't distinguish Boo-chatter from actual language. Not sure what I'll do if I end up with TWO PDD-NOS kids on my hands. One is hard enough.

Though it must be noted that Rori IS walking, and seems much more socially and motor-developed in general than Anneliese was at the same age.

Glurb.

I outsmarted myself yet again, yesterday. I offered to take the girls out of the house so that John could clean, reasoning that since he had let the house get into that state, he could get it out.

So, I put Anneliese up front in the van with me, where she couldn't pull out Rori's pacifier, and off we went. Thus far, the plan worked well. Rori napped, Anneliese watched her DVD player, all was well. We arrived at the mall, and I unpacked all the baby gear necessary for an outing, then the baby, then Anneliese. As we walked into the mall, I thought to myself that I ought to have packed a spare outfit for Rori - the last two trips I'd taken with her in the stroller had gotten.... messy.

Sure enough, about 20 minutes later a massive baby blow out necessitated a complete change. *sigh* I changed her diaper, removed her adorable little leg warmers, and rolled up the soiled portion of her romper. Then upstairs we went to Gymboree, where a clearance sale was underway (lukcy for me). $4.79 later I was changing her into a clean, cute onesie. Soiled outfit went into the shopping back for biological containment.

Then to the bookstore, where I sent an elderly clerk in search of the Liffey Rivers series of books, to no avail. I wanted to shoulder her away from the screen and do the search myself - as search results are closely related to what you put into each field. *sigh*. I found them on line when I got home, here.

Still killing time, we wandered down to the Dairy Queen. I got a cone for Anneliese (who wants the cone, but not so much the ice cream). And a Blizzard for Rori and I. I frog-marched them over to a table, set down the ice cream, and went to sit the baby upright for easier feeding. Anneliese, not knowing the meaning of the word "patience," grabbed her cone, pulled it to her, and let go again - knocking it on the floor. I sighed, and picked it up to put in the trash. Cue Anneliese sobbing, as she only knew Momma had thrown away her treat - not understanding really that I was going to go get her another. So I picked up the other cup of ice cream - which I had set down in front of Rori - and she started sobbing - also deprived of ice cream. So the Parade of Woe hiked back to the DQ for another ice cream cone amid much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Rori launched her pacifer, which was retrieved and returned, with significant trepidation, by a kind gentleman. By the time the interlude was over and everyone was again content, I had spent a slid 5 minutes - that felt like an eternity - being "that" mother with the weeping children that everyone looks askance at in silent horror and pity.

I shoulda stayed and cleaned the house!