After a process more painful than the 39 hours of labor it took to birth him, I finally have Johnny's insurance in place. We are sitting at the dentist's office as I type. Since his last visit, they have created an "Adult Lounge" for parents who either only brought one kid or who have sent all of their kids back at the same time. Is the insurance paying for the coffee and tea as well? I'll admit I'm enjoying a few minutes of silence.
Now that we have both the formal diagnosis of PDD in place and his insurance figured out, Johnny was approved for TSS services. They wouldn't cover overlap for him to transition into it and away from Dave, but at least we are getting somewhere. I am waiting on a phone call to set up the first meeting. I'm unclear of what all it entails since I'm pretty sure he's getting a case manager as well, but I'm just glad that whatever they offer is covered. We don't have the resources otherwise.
So, last week I took Johnny to his school's trip to what used to be (and to area residents will always be referred to as) Bland's Park. They've renamed the tiny theme park DelGrosso's after the family (and company) that owns it, but there is something distinctly strange about a park named after a family's spaghetti sauce empire. Never mind the fact that naming a spaghetti sauce or any other kind of food product a name that contains the word "gross" in it might not have been the greatest marketing idea... Anyway, I took the kid to the theme park with the help of his Aunt Lizzie. Boy, did that kid surprise me. I had decided to participate in the school activity because of his positive experience with the rides at the carnival a few weeks back, but never did I think that my son would want to ride a roller coaster at any age, much less at 4 years old. I guess after all of this time saying how much he takes after me I shouldn't be entirely surprised, but when it comes to the daredevil department, he usually takes after his daddy in sitting things out. Shame on me for boxing him into that mold! He rode all of the rides with ease and absolutely love the roller coaster. "Mommy, I was very scared but I'm brave and I liked it! Can we go again?" Now don't worry, I didn't stick my kid on some huge monster coaster -- it was designed for little kids. He loved being thrown around. I couldn't be more thrilled!
By the end of the day we had ridden pretty much every ride Johnny was tall enough to get on. We played some games (he really kicked butt at the baseball one!) and won some prizes. By the time we got him back in the car, he was nodding off. He was out before we even got back on the highway. Lizzie had spoiled him with extra presents and when he woke as we pulled into the driveway, he began running around with a toy microphone and singing about his "special park".
I'm taking him to Lakemont Park (in Altoona) in a few weeks with Grammy.
Coming up with summer activities we can participate in without an extra adult on hand has been hard. He's been going to Vacation Bible School all week for 2 hours in the evening, but it has taken us almost as long to drop him off and then drag him out. He doesn't wanna go, then he doesn't wanna leave. It doesn't help that the entire experience started off with a misspelled name tag (meltdown) and it took until yesterday (day 4 of 5) to finally arrive with one that was printed correctly. And you can't write it by hand on a blank one because then it isn't printed like everyone else. Which, in all fairness, is legit. I looked into other churches doing VBS other weeks during the summer, but I don't know that I trust any of them to handle him. At his current one (hosted by Grace Lutheran, the church Steve grew up in that we as a family attended until last winter) is full of enough people who I know personally. Chalk it up to trust issues on my part, but I don't think we will be attending any other Bible Schools.
Maybe his new TSS will be able do help us with some community activities? There are a ton to join in on, but I'll need an extra hand.
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