Good-byes

This afternoon we had Emma's annual review for Early Intervention Services. It seems like forever ago that we had her first evaluation soon after she came home from the hospital, to see what services she qualified for. She got all three - speech, occupational and physical therapies.

In the two years since then we have seen her grow and make incredible progress. During the review the therapists score Emma's abilities against standardized milestones. In order to qualify for therapy she would have to be 20 or 25% behind.

In the past year she has caught up a great deal and is doing really well. In areas like cognitive, social and emotional she's way ahead. In speech and occupational she's still catching up and will continue to get therapy. In the "physical" category, or gross motor, now that she's walking and doing so well she's only about 17% behind. That means she no longer qualifies for Physical therapy.

We knew this to be the case and so today we had a little gift for Merle, her therapist. It was a framed picture, the picture above and the one below of Emma and Merle. What's so significant is that Merle has seen Emma every two weeks for two years now. she has seen her go from a lump that hated to be on her belly, to a ball of energy running around the house.

When we were trying to get Emma to walk, Merle came every time with a new trick to try and get Emma to walk unaided. Every time Emma resisted!! I would not have the patience to keep trying the way she did.

After Emma presented Merle with her gift and a card Merle told her "This is awesome." To which Emma exclaimed "Yes!" That's Emma for you. It was sad saying goodbye.

We hope Merle will stay in touch and keep up with Emma.