Thank You, Help Me Grow

This morning was CutiePie's evaluation for Help Me Grow- our state's version of Early Intervention.  Three amazing ladies came over to our home and pulled out all sorts of developmental assessments to see where CutiePie was on the grand scale of things.  Although a developmental delay is not something we are worried about, it is part of the process to qualify for Help me Grow and honestly it was pretty interesting to see this side of things versus just the strict medical side of growing.  Their findings you ask?  Yep, CutiePie is pretty much a genius.  But we already knew that already! ;)  No, in all seriousness she did not show to have any developmental delays.  With most of the activities and questions she is right on target for being a normal 18 month old toddler.  However, on the more academic type activities she well exceeded what was "normal" for her age.  She even identified shapes and sorted objects by color and size - NO CLUE she could do that.  According to the representative those was a three year old tasks and they just wanted to see how far she could go.  Like I said - genius.  I mean, she is my daughter so who would have thought any differently, right?  ::wink wink::

Overall she does qualify for services through Help me Grow because of her FPIES diagnosis.  We will get a representative that will help coach us and find resources and services to help CutiePie with her eating issues. The two most amazing things that happened is #1 no one rolled their eyes or second guessed what I was telling them.  Not even when I listed asparagus and quinoa as her triggers.  And more amazing - #2  our representative is not only familiar with FPIES but has TWO other local families she works with that have FPIES and said they both have had trouble finding doctors to take them seriously in the area as well.  She took down my email address and is going to try to get us in contact with each other so I have more local support.  Talk about amazing!! 

Will Help Me Grow be a magic bullet to solve all our problems?  No.  But it will allow us to get rid of the useless (and expensive) Feeding Therapy.  It will give us a local person who will come to our home and help figure out tips and tricks and nutrition counseling to give CutiePie a more appropriate diet and help her to get back to a more normal weight growth curve. 

And it's nice to not be treated like I'm crazy for once.