Ahhh the Fun of the Annual IFSP

For those folks whose main focus for their two to three year old toddlers is which pre-school to apply to and how your child will score on his or her ERB, well you probably have never heard of an IFSP and please do count yourself lucky! The Individualized Family Service Plan ("IFSP") is the plan that Early Intervention("EI") establishes for your child for the next twelve months. The annual IFSP meeting is time for paper gathering, prescription writing, updating of medical data, report writing by the team of therapists and a little begging on the part of the parent, moi.

I do try to refrain from reading the evaluations by the physical therapists (Eliza has two! one at home and one at the rehab center), occupational therapist for sensory issues, the occupational-feeding therapist, the speech therapist, the speech-feeding therapist and the nutritionist (perhaps I should call her the nutrition therapist for consistency?). So until I have enough xanax in my system to sit down and read these reports I delude myself into believing that Eliza is really acting quite close to her corrected of two.

But those scraps of paper call me to them to read them over and over and over again. So although the developmental pedi, who sees Eliza a few times a year seemed to think she was pretty spanky except for feeding, the folks who see her each day have a different tale to tell.

Now I do love that each of these evaluations is based upon some Scale/Quotient/Index or Profile, kind of like the Richter Scale for earthquakes. So here is a brief summary of how Eliza fared in the last 12 months:

Gross Motor: Eliza scored a 70 on the "Peabody 2" (an apparent improvement over the old Peabody 1 Scale). This puts her in the 2d percentile meaning, in layman's terms, that 98% of the kids in the playground can kick her ass.

Fine Motor: Eliza did not score so well on the Michigan Early Intervention Development Profile. She scored in the 16 to 19 month age range, or a 30% delay. Personally I think we would have fared better on the Saban Early Intervention Development Profile, but no one asks for my opinion.

Sensory: Apparently there is no profile named for a person or state for this one. But despite the secrecy of the author of this test, Eliza scored with a 50% delay ... translation: You average 14 month old can deal with the world way better than Little Miss can.

Speech: Now this is more complicated since there are two sets of tests. One for Language Comprehension Skills and the other for Language Expression Skills. Fortunately Mr. Rossetti designed one big scale for both, the "RITLS" or Rossetti Infant-Toddler Language Scales. On the receptive side of life Eliza scored at a 21 month old, giving her a 25% delay. The expressive side, not-so-much. Eliza only made it to the 15 month old level putting her at about a 40% delay.

Feeding: I have saved the best for last. According to the Developmental Pre-Feeding Checklist from Morris and Klein, your average 9 month old can nosh on a hamhock better than Eliza. We had quite a bit more than a 50% delay.

So overall a super day for assessments!

But Eliza is cute....at least according to the Richter Scale.

The Village Idiots (not to be confused with the Village People)

The past few weeks have been just chock-full of run ins with people who are just plain dumber than rocks. Perhaps my nerves were a bit frayed, what with the anniversary of Eliza's due date and her coming home date, both not-so-subtle reminders of my complete inability to keep Eliza safely in my uterus for 9 stinking months. Then again, maybe my recent runs really are proof that the village idiots have taken over the village.

In an effort to help Eliza "socialize" with other toddlers I have enrolled her in a few toddler classes. Now when Eliza is overwhelmed by life, in particular by certain sounds, she sort of moans repetitively. So here we are in one of these toddler classes when lo and behold some sound set off Eliza's sensory overload button and the moaning began. As I was trying to soothe her I heard this whiny-Carmella-Soprano-style voice say "Oh she's retarded isn't she?" I slowly turn my head to the metallic sound of this voice and am barely able to utter "what did you say?" Carmella (who also looked as if she had a taken a page from the Amy Whinehouse school of make up) advised that the only children she had ever heard make such a moaning sound were "retarded." Now I am no shrinking violet but I was so shocked by her commentary that I picked up Eliza, left the class and walked the half mile home crying like a blithering idiot.

It did take me several days to recover my senses and to realize I was not going to let this overdone Carmella win. So I took the photo of Eliza at 8 days old, by then weighing less than a pound, in the palm of the nurse's hand, with me to the next class. I asked for a moment of everyone's time before we began. This generated an exaggerated eye-roll from Carmella. I told the parents what had happened the week prior and why Eliza and I had left so abruptly. This was met with a resounding "who the hell said that" from everyone ... except Carmella. I told the group I was not interested in publicly humiliating the offending parent. Within a few seconds though it was pretty apparent that Carmella was the village idiot. The rest of the class was awed by the progress Eliza has made and stood in disbelief that she ever could have been so tiny. We were welcomed by the group, moaning sounds and all.

Oh and the following week ... Carmella was no where to be found. Hopefully she is back under the rock where she came from, surrounded by her cadre of village idiots and that she will never darken my door again.

Now really... who would you rather spend the afternoon with: