Me-Ming!!

We finally got to go ME-MING!! (swimming) Molly is so funny. She NEVER gets excited about ANYTHING. That morning, she was not wanting to get up for school, as usual. She was laying in her bed, looking at the iPad, but only had one eye open. 

I told her what today was...TODAY we get to go SWIMMING at SCHOOL! TODAY we get to ride the BUS and go to the POOL!!

Well lemme tell you...miss always calm tossed that iPad, JUMPED up off the bed and YELLED.."DAD, BACKPACK!"  Daddy usually prepares her backpack while I get her dressed, then she yells at me "I, (she calls me "I" not mommy...thank you very much, daddy) "I, Tow-well"  and I might add, she was verbalizing all of this, which again, is something that rarely happens.

 I was trying to get everything together but evidently not fast enough and daddy and I both laughed as we watched her run to get into my vehicle with only one shoe on, and her hair not brushed.  I would say she was excited.

She had a blast..and thank goodness for the number of teachers that volunteer for this outing, because at one time, as always, she made a move that was too fast for me. She always seems to wait for that moment when she thinks I'm not paying attention, being the sly little skunk that she is. 

She slipped away from the little kids area of the pool, to the section of the pool where there was deeper water. Molly is comfortable in the water, and we have a pretty big above-ground pool, but it's all one level and she can't float.... but she doesn't understand yet that she can't float. She's been getting her dog-paddle and freestyle 0 stroke down, so she thinks she can swim and has no fear.  For some reason, and to the dismay of all parents of children on the spectrum, she is drawn to the deep water with this lack of fear. 

I have purchased a flotation belt for her, and had it in my swim bag, but wasn't given the option to put it on her. Bee-line girl had made her move through the pool, while I had to run AROUND the pool. 

We have been trying to teach her how to jump into the pool, but she doesn't like that. At the pool that day, I decided that we would NOT try to teach her to jump anymore. THAT would have been disastrous. She made the bee-line for the ladder, and started to back down into the pool.

 I was running, but not fast enough and hollered ahead at the teachers closer to 'GRAB HER!!'  All we could do was hang on though...that 120 pounds of water-balloon-down-syndrome flop&drop-body wasn't coming out of the water. Three adults couldn't pull her out. (UGH) Then one of the teachers ran for the belt, and I was able to show her the belt and use the ABA training (which was a stretch because the 1/2 panic 1/2 angry mommy just wanted to scream) and said MOLLY!! FIRST BELT THEN SWIM!! Finally, she understood we were going to let her swim, and allowed us to drag her out and put the swim belt on...and then away she went happy as a lark...she paddled over to where the boys were jumping in. She paddled over to where all the other 13 yr olds were.

After about an hour, she got out of the pool and was thinking about taking her suit off. I know, I saw the look in her eye. So I asked her if she was done. Her 1-1 was standing there...I think she knew, too! :-) No matter how much this girl loves an activity, she's only good for a short period of time. A whole hour was amazing to me...she's usually Miss 15 minutes. No Theaters for us. 

We gathered up her stuff, and instead of staying to lunch with the other students, we just came home. She did make me stop and open the back of the Tahoe, though, so she could recover her sack lunch, drink, and fruit i had in the cooler. 

Maybe...she'll take a rest this afternoon, and not destroy the house!! 

We can always hope.

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on a sad side note...our little red headed boyfriend up there? our 'bobbert' the little boy who has been molly's protector and voice this past 6 years at their little k-8 school, was recently diagnosed with AML Leukemia. Please join us as we pray for him and his family while they fight this horrible beast. 
https://www.facebook.com/PrayersForBobbertRobertEvans?ref=hl

The worst mommy EVER!

Summer school is upon us. It's a wonderful program! Molly gets to continue speech therapy, they study great topics thoroughly, and there is a field trip weekly! 

I like to go on the field trips with her, that way she's not susceptible to long bus trips and the teachers have back-up...mommy back up. Her teacher for the year is one on one, and her 5th grade teacher AND a friend, Miss L, and we are VERY happy about this. Miss L started facebook messaging me one week before the onset, EXCITED to be getting to work with Molly. I CANNOT emphasize enough HOW wonderful it is to have a teacher EXCITED to GET to work with your kiddo!! 

If they attend all days of summer school, they get to go to Silver Dollar City at the end of the session. They go free, family members get reduced ticket prices, and since 3 of my babies are born in June (Aubrey Jo on the 7th,  Little Bill on the 11th and Molly Kate on the  22nd) we are making it an annual family day! (plus, I'm really cheap cheap!!)

Friday, the field trip was swimming. It's still chilly here, and I'm not ready to have her swim.  I'[m a little apprehensive about taking her to swim by myself anyway...she's bad to run and jump in deep ends (I have a belt...I've seen her take the belt off at motel pools and go jump in the deep end) and there is the 'too much excitement-maybe leak' aspect to worry about (ordered special garbs to cover that) and then there's always the "I don't want to leave and am gonna melt" aspect..which is impossible to deal with at her body weight and with the limber 'flop&drop' body our kiddos with DS have, which just takes patience. Now mind you, NONE of things would happen, as a parent, though, we tend to let our minds wander to the worst case scenarios  so that we can be ready...or sometimes we just talk ourselves out of joining in the fun.

On this particular day, daddy and I both had appointments, so would be unable to attend....BUT I didn't want her to be counted absent, so we agreed to attend school up until the time they went to the buses to go to the pool in Willow Springs.  I just figured she wouldn't know, anyway...and we could go get pedis and have a girl day in between our appointments. 

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!!

When the kids started to line up to get on the bus, I went to pull Miss Molly out and she gave me 'the look' ?????? WHAT ?????? are YOU freakin' KIDDING ME?? WE'RE going ME-MING!! (that's how she says swimming) ON THE BUS!

OMG! How did she figure this out??? okay..okay...I can talk her out of this...Lets promise...ummm...ICE CREAM!! yea...lets go get ice cream! 

NO!! ME-MING!!!

Ms L tried her best...she offered her a sack lunch. It had an apple in it. Ms L is regretting that as Molly hauled off and LAUNCHED it at her...Ms L ducked in time, but i think that apple may have glanced off her forehead. MOLLY NO! 

She then figured out she had gone too far, and she really was trying to reign in a full melt-down, so she took off running and screaming for my Tahoe. It was horrible. I made apologies to our wonderful teacher, assuming all the blame for this one as I, yet again, had underestimated my girl.

Driving home, she cried...she cried and kept verbalizing "Me-ming" but settled a little. I think she was holding out hope that I was going to drive her to the pool, because when I put on the left blinker to head down our highway home she let out a war hoop, and then a new word. 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! ME-MING, DAMMIT!!!

Yea, I'm blaming the sarge on that one. The sarge and the KC Chiefs losing football season. I WAS impressed that we have a new word.. I'm relatively sure it DIDN'T come from the therapist and THRILLED that it was used in context...but...well....you know. 

To make matters worse, after having the electrician out to fix the power to the pool, and the Spa people out to rebuild the motor to the pool, it turns out that the motor isn't going to hold. OUR pool is still not up and running. The new motor is sitting here in the living room, Spa girl is coming in the morning to get it fired up, and hopefully Molly will have her OWN pool within the week....but that's just not soon enough.

 Maybe she'll just forget all about it if we have a nice, fun, relaxing weekend. 

Yea, that's right..she has Down Syndrome, she is on the Autism Spectrum. Surely I can make her forget about a little mishap that happened 3 days ago. 

This morning? As we were leaving for school? She ran back into the house. She forgot something. I saw her run back out to get in the truck with daddy. 

She was holding a beach towel.

Epic Fail.