New House and Preschool

With moving to a new house I was worried that it would take Becca a while to adjust, but she has done great! The whole time we were looking for a house we kept telling Becca we were looking for a house for her. She seemed to say, we finally moved to my house! She has a bigger living room to roll around in and her very own bedroom.

Becca started preschool last month and it has been an adjustment for all of us. We went in the week before she started and met her teacher. We absolutely love her. She is so good with Becca. I was excited to hear that she had a girl with rett in the past. It has sure been nice that I haven’t had to explain all about Rett. She seems to understand Becca and her needs. We’ve started with her going Mon/Wed from 9-11 and we’ll see how she does with that.
So this year we decided to send Becca on the bus. She went on a field trip last year and they took them on the bus. I was told she smiled and giggled the whole way. So, I thought this would be something she would enjoy and would give her a little more independence and lengthen her preschool time a little bit. Anyway, the first day came and I hadn’t heard anything from the bus. So I assumed they hadn’t got Becca’s information yet but I was totally h
appy to take her. As I went out to pack up the bus pulled up. I was like…oh ok so I pull her wheelchair out and assemble it (I’m getting faster at this but I’m still sort of slow). Then I ran in and got Becca, brought her out and strapped her in. I totally expected the bus driver to introduce himself and ask about Becca. But no…he actually didn’t really say anything. He quickly strapped her in while I’m chattering away about how I didn’t know if the bus was coming and about Becca. Nothing…and then he drove off. With my precious child. And then I cried. Like a lot. I had just sent my sweet daughter who has special needs with a stranger who didn’t seem to even look at her. I had no idea if Becca was scared. I hoped he took her to the right school! I truly felt like a horrible mom. My sister was in town so I could thankfu
lly leave Katie with her. I waited a little while to give Becca time to get to school and get settled and then I drove to the school to check on her. It turned out that it was good I went. Her teacher had a few questions about her wheelchair and it was good for me to be able to see Becca happy and in one piece. I also found out that the strange bus driver was actually a sub. Whew. Here’s Becca on her first day of school with her backpack that is actually my old backpack. How embarrassing! Sorry Becca :).

The second day of school Becca came off the bus crying :(. I said, oh no! She’s crying! And the bus driver told me that she actually cried the whole way there and the whole way back. Well that broke my heart. I called her teacher right away and asked her how she was coming off the bus. Again, it was good I called because her teacher said she was really upset coming off the bus and it seemed like she was aspirating. Great. She had a swallow study done last year that she passed, but I know that she is at a high risk for this. When Becca gets sad and worked up, thick mucus builds up in the back of her throat. She feels like she is suffocating because she has a hard time swallowing. Pretty scary. Anyway, this whole bus thing wasn’t ok with me if it was upsetting her. So her teacher and I came to an agreement that I would bring her to school and then she would come home on the bus. I felt so good about that because then she would still get a chance to get used to the bus. The first day of this was wonderful. I hear she was happy at school and she came off the bus happy. Apparently she has a new boyfriend on the bus too.
Becca has been in a good place lately. Though we haven’t seen any fine or gross motor improvements she has been really happy. She seems to be trying to communicate through her eyes more which has been really wonderful too. She’s finally over her cold (we all passed a cold around a couple weeks ago and like always hers lasted like two weeks longer than ours because she can’t get rid of congestions)! For the most part she has been sleeping well (last night she was awake until like 11 just chatting away, but she doesn’t usually do that). She hasn’t had any seizure activity that we’ve seen lately as well. All wonderful things!