Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Change is in the air

Many of you have followed my stories about Zeke and his speech delays and such and now we are finally going to see some much needed change!  I believe the last I had wrote was that I was done, done fighting and getting no where with every avenue I was trying... that was in July.  Here we are the first of September and we have finally come across change.  Ultimately God's timing is the final call - and for that I am glad.  After struggling in my own power and then sitting back and giving it all to God - wha-la!  LOL!
Monday was Zeke's first day of preschool at Foothills Christian Preschool.  We went and met his teacher and got to meet the other kids in his class.  After that we headed over to ChildFind South and Zeke had a speech, OT and special education evaluation.  After an hour of games and playing for Zeke the evaluators asked me if I was ready for him to move to four half days at one of their preschools.  Being a little low blood sugar, tired and somewhat overwhelmed I did not ask questions but simply nodded.  Once being home and getting food I realized what they were saying - Zeke is indeed in need of their services! 
Monday night Michael and I spent some time talking about this new information.  We decided that until we got more information that we would have Zeke continue with summer vacation and then see what took place.  We discussed the tuition for the preschool which is much more than we currently pay for FCP and Michael said that he will just start working nights which will bring in a little more money.  Michael and I discussed that we would not make any concrete descions until we had more information, therefore Zeke would keep his spot at FCP and we will just hold that spot while he spent the next two weeks (until our follow-up appointment on the 14th) on summer vacation. 
Yesterday with all the information I made a call again to the evaluator and left a message and then called the director at FCP as she had as a parent gone through ChildFind for her son and talked with her.  After talking with Sandy the director at FCP I felt much more at ease about our decision to hold off on making any hasty choices.  Not ten minutes after getting off the phone with Sandy I got a call from the evaluator stating that yes Zeke is accepted into ChildFind as an IEP Speech and OT student.  Her recommendation is that he attends four days a week for two and half hours each day.  Of those school hours one hour a week will be directed to one on one attention to Zeke and his specific IEP needs and then two of those additional hours will be IEP directed in a group setting.  Equaling out to a total of three hours a week out of the ten hour school week.  The teacher to student ratio is eight : one and there is a maximum of three IEP students per class, so out of 16 max students only two others will have IEPs like Zeke.  The biggie for us is that since Zeke is qualifying for the ChildFind services all tuition will be paid at 100%! 
After all of that - all the worrying, tears, frustrations, and anxiety... God had it all under control and although His timing was not my own He loves Zeke more than even me! 
Oh and here is another one... While we were at the evaluation for Zeke the evaluators were asking me if I have noticed any speech delays with Ki.  I simply chuckled and said, "Yes, he is 16 months and says nothing."  They went on to explain to me that speech delays are actually a genetic thing and that not only does a speech delay effect the language but also the child's visual and spacial discrimination.  They told me that I can Ki tested and if he qualifies he will be given in home care once a week until he turns three at which time he will then be eligible to enter ChildFind preschool program, that of which Zeke is now entering. 
So here I am now sitting back and wondering why as a mommy to I ever think that everything has to sit on my shoulders?  God is in control and even though I had little faith - He still saw it through for the perfect time for us.