We're Back!

Wow… it has been a while since I posted a daily update type post. We actually had a really good last few days now that Holly is back on the mend again.

Regional Center:

So I have been battling with them to get approval for speech therapy and respite. I was denied on both cases and went into appeal mode. Here is the thing, while I understand the policy on Respite and agree Holly probably does not present with extra ordinary care needs compared to other 11 month old children, it is the principle of the thing. Another mom in another Regional Center in this state received 22 hours of respite without even requesting it. My Regional Center said they typically do not ever give this to any children under the age of 2 unless they have a physical disability that requires special care, so I can accept this, but why is this done inconstantly from one regional center to another within the same state with the same funding issues?

I am of course very happy for this other mom, and I will try again but the way this center is I may never qualify. I think I have ranted about this before so I will move on to the goodish news. I received a call today from my case manager telling me that her and the supervisor are bringing my request to their Director to try and make a case and bend the rules and get Speech Therapy for Holly. This was another principle issue for me, because this same other mom will get Speech Therapy services starting at 12 months, and one mom even told me in her state it starts at 6 months. But originally my Regional Center said there is no benefit of Speech Therapy until 18 months old. This prompted me to email her asking what all the speech therapists were doing in other regions that was of no benefit to those kids who are younger than 18 months and if she could instead get me an evaluation and have the Speech Therapists report tell me that services would be of no benefit even though I already have a referral from a specialist and her Pediatrician.

I also wanted to know what the next step was to make an official appeal of the denial of services which would most likely include the need of a mediator, so perhaps my Case Manager thought if she could make an attempt to bend on the Speech therapy I would drop my complaint about the respite and we would all be happy.

So the drama is that my new insurance basically sucks. I have been trying for months now to get in to see Aimee Bord the Speech therapist who works with Randi Hagerman. My Insurance changed before I could get in to see her and then the person who does the scheduling was on jury duty for 3 months so she never got our new insurance and Aimee was booked. So finally she has room to see Holly for an evaluation and they were trying to get authorization but were being delayed. So when I called the insurance company they said that my Primary Care physician has to submit the request for Authorization first.

I realized this would affect three upcoming appointments, Holly’s X-ray, Her Speech Evaluation, and our visit to see Dr. Hagerman. So I called my pediatrician on her cell, she is so great, and she is trying to take care of it all. But the insurance won’t cover Aimee, so she instead gave me a referral and approval to get a Speech Therapy Evaluation Locally. She took care of the issue with the X-ray and did a request for Dr. Hagerman but is almost positive it will be denied and won’t go through by next week’s visit, so I have contacted Dr. Hagerman’s office to see if we can make the visit a research visit instead of a clinical one. They just assumed and made it clinical this time because the last three times we were there I was on different insurance and it was covered.

But the issue here is that when my Regional Center Case manager called me what she said is that she needs a report from Katie our OT recommending Speech Therapy, and from Dr. Hagerman. Also if I have a Speech Therapy Evaluation already she has a stronger case to get approval for the actual services. So hopefully I will be able to get all of this straightened out in the next week or so.

Well onto the more fun stuff. On Thursday we went to Tumble and Tea. She had a lot of fun but only enough steam to last about 2 hours and then got cranky and sleepy. When we left she fell asleep in the car within 5 minutes. I let her nap and chatted with my mom while we waited for Joel to get off of work.



We met two other little boys who were also 11 months old. Vincent was very adorable with bright blue eyes and lots of blond curly hair. He was very mellow and quiet but quite a climber. Holly had a lot of fun playing with him. He wasn’t used to other babies and this was one of his first outings so he was a little intimidated by Holly but she was friendly as ever. The other little boy Aiden had just moved here 6 months ago from Korea and wasn’t cruising yet. He had one of those toys where you push the button on the top and it spins. He wasn’t quite sure how to use it and Holly saw him playing with it so she crawled over pulled it out of his hands set it down pressed the button to spin it and then crawled off to climb on the jungle gym. It was so cute. She was showing him how it worked.

We also played in some new areas, the symbolic play room has a little kitchen set up and Holly had a lot of fun cruising around the kitchen opening the refrigerator and the stove and turning the dials and getting to play with all the appliances she never gets to play with at home. She also was quite happy to be in the middle of the big kids watching them play, but I doubt they enjoyed her getting in the way and traveling under foot. In fact she got hurt, it of course lasted about 5 seconds, but she was sitting near the stove and trying to push it in and a little boy was trying to pull it open. He won and she wasn’t happy.

She is also really starting to begin tantrum behavior. Here are two examples. She was trying to push one of the little cars and there was another little girl, older who wanted to rid it. Holly was pushing and she was holding it in place refusing to let it move. First Holly grunted at her and then growled she kept trying to push the car and was getting more and more angry then all of the sudden her face turned went to a frown and she wailed. The little girl’s mom said, Honey maybe you should let the baby play with that toy, and she did. But once Holly got her way she pushed the car for about 5 seconds and 8 inches and then continued climbing and cruising on her way.

Later she was playing with a doll in a cradle she was trying to take the doll out and its arm was stuck in a way that you would have to twist the doll to remove it. Well she tried to bruit force it out, pulled, banged, tugged, tore and dumped and had no luck getting it out at all. Then she looked at me and made the face again and before I got to her there was the wail again. I got to her and said, “Holly, are you frustrated?” Would you like some help with that?” I then removed the doll and handed it to her. She grabbed it out of my hand and immediately began to maul it chewing its arm and head with a vengeance, then tossed it aside and went on to the next toy. I tell ya, I don’t know what I am going to do with this girl when she can actually throw a tantrum if she is like this already. It is still cute though, but I am sure when she is 3 it won’t be.

The other thing we played with at Tumble and Tea was the table of latches and levers and slides. She loved this and had a lot of fun opening and closing twenty little doors and chewing on lots of little metal pieces and pushing and sliding wooden pieces around.

So even though we were there only about 2 hours we had a lot of fun.


That night Joel took me out to eat. I haven’t been out to a real restaurant for a long time. We went to Barneys which was my choice and I was craving the garlic skinny fries and chocolate Oreo shake. Holly ended up waking up as we walked into the restaurant, so our meal was quick but we put her into a high chair I gave her a bottle and then we asked for a slice of cheddar cheese and I Cut it into little bits and put a few in her reach at a time and she snacked on them through the entire meal and stayed content and happy. She is such a good baby!