Thankfulness

This is the time of year we are supposed to remember what we are thankful for. I sometimes have trouble with this as I am thankful for things but it reminds me of all the challenges Joshua has. So I think rather than make this about all the things I have to be thankful for I will just write an update about Joshua. His progress is something I am thankful for.

Unfortunately, the foundation that provided funding for Joshua's 6 months of music therapy has decided he will not be receiving any more. They did agree to let him continue for another month so he could finish out the year. That gives me more time to try to find funding elsewhere. I have already applied to two other foundations and I am waiting to hear back from them. Also a possibility is that with a job Jamie is doing he may receive a small payout, personally, and if it's anything substantial it can go to pay for music therapy.

The biggest strides, I am happy to say, have been verbal and cognitive. Of course he is still working on gross motor and fine motor but since he started walking the gross motor goals have lessened. He works on balance a lot at PT and he does really well with fine motor. He is on a waiting list for OT near where we live since for the longest time he has gotten OT out of town at a great place but we are looking to move it closer to home because he will be getting ABA therapy soon! We just found out that his number came up on the PDD Waiver which means for the next 3 years he will get ABA therapy. We had to say goodbye to his early interventionist who had been with us for almost 3 years because he has to move to service coordination because of the PDD Waiver (ABA therapy). We meet with our service coordinator next week to start the paperwork and process of him receiving ABA therapy.

On to the progress as I said he has been doing well verbally. He is actually saying some words now! I am constantly hearing from preschool about words he says, he doesn't do as much of it at home but he is doing a lot at school and hopefully that will transition to his new school next year. He is counting at preschool, one note said he counted to 15 with help from a teacher! I have not been able to get him to do this yet but they said to try with him on the potty, that's usually the best time for him to count for some reason. The one thing he is doing consistently everywhere is saying go. It started with us saying ready set and he says go and now he will imitate go from the tv, from music and from us!  He is also doing really well with music therapy which is why I hope he can continue. He is doing a lot of verbalizations there, a lot of copying and filling in the right sounds in songs.  It has been really great for him! I love it when something like this works. I just knew from that workshop on music therapy that it would be great for him and it has been.