After much discussion, Jason and I came to the conclusion that unless we made some fairly significant changes to our “plan” for Ali’s education, she was not going to get the support that she needed right now. Our initial plan was to begin the process of transitioning her to academic programming through the public school board in January after her fourth birthday. We ended up deciding to begin transitioning her now rather than waiting because there was a spot available in a language enrichment program offered by the catholic school board. By switching her into the catholic school program we gained access to a local speech therapist, something that wasn’t available through the public school board. So now, Ali is registered at the Catholic School down the road from Madi’s school and this year she will be attending two mornings a week. We were able to rearrange Ali’s schedule at the other preschool so that it didn’t conflict with the language enrichment program and Ali will be participating in both programs.

This was a very hard decision for me (not so much for Jason).  I really worried that I was sending Ali into an environment that she wasn’t ready for but after lots of discussion, I can see that she’s ready. This will be so good for her! Next year, Ali may be able to go to the language program 4 days a week (depending on many factors) so that is our new goal. The school does not typically have children with multiple areas of concern in their program, typically it’s for children with speech delays ONLY so it will be a learning process for everyone.  I can’t wait to see where Ali is at the end of the school year.  I feel like this was the best possible outcome for her this year and I’m very relieved.

Now, I’m sure there are some of you who are wondering about the feeding. After taking a few days off we went back about three months and started those exercises again. She is now making progress and I am managing not to get stressed about it (it’s tricky though)!