Preschool

I can't even believe I just typed that out as the title of this post. It hurts my heart.

In less than 2 and a half months, my baby boy will be turning three! Jacob has been in the state's Early Intervention program since he was discharged from the hospital in July of 2008. The Early Intervention program works with children to get them caught up with their peers. This was a big undertaking in the beginning since Jacob came home when he was 4 months old, but his adjusted age was only 10 days old. It is impossible to get a 10 day old on par with a 4 month old, but the idea of EI is to help them get where they need to be for at least their adjusted age until they can catch up (usually by age 2 or 3) with their peers.

Once the child turns 3, they are discharged from the state run EI program and turned over to the public school system if they are still in need of services. This allows the child to enter preschool the day they turn 3 instead of starting the September after they turn three so they don't lose any skills or fall further behind. Since Jacob still have a very significant speech delay we are fortunate that he qualifies for the public school preschool program.

We recently met with the Director of the preschool here in town and she gave us a rundown of a what a typical day would be like for Jacob. It sounds pretty similar to the play group Jacob currently attends every Wednesday for EI and he absolutely LOVES going to group so I think we will have a very easy transition.

The classes have approximately 15 children in them and include 6-8 students like Jacob who are need of services and 6-8 "typical" peers. Jacob is very social and independent just like his Mama (must be because we are both first born) and I have no concerns whatsoever about him going. The only thing that does concern me is since we are further South in town, instead of going to the actual preschool which is a building only for preschool students, he will most likely be attending one of two satellite classrooms in a local elementary school. I am a little concerned with him entering an environment with 5th graders, but I am hoping the preschoolers are segregated enough so he will not come in contact with them at any point during the day. It is only for 2.5 hours in the morning and I drop him off and pick him up.

Jacob has his semi-annual NICU follow-up clinic (as part of the study we enrolled him in when he was born) this Tuesday. I am interested to see the gains he has made in the past 6 months. Overall, I am amazed at how far my 1 pound 7 ounce boy has come. The only way you would know he was born so early is his size (he is still short and a lightweight!) and his speech delay. The only delay he has left to conquer is the speech and I am hoping the services he receives during the day at school will help get him caught up. He has 2 and 1/4 years to get caught up before we transition to Kindergarten (please hold on while I DIE at the thought of my child going to Kindergarten) so we will get him where he needs to be!

I will have an update later this week about his NICU follow-up clinic and later this month Gracie will be turning 18 months so I will have a post all about her and what she has been up to lately. This girl is quite the talker! I am hoping some of it rubs off on her big brother. :)