It has been quite a while since I posted a blog post, I didn't realize it had been since November, and I have some exciting things to catch the blog up on. As always thanks for reading and caring for our sweet little boy!!
As Luke is edging closer to kindergarten age and time seems to be flying by we realized we had to make some choices about preschool. Preschool was something (pre-PKU) we had just assumed our child would attend. The question was how comfortable were we with the idea of our three-year-old, well almost four-year-old, attending a playschool where the kids have snack together... cue the fears and general feelings of discomfort.
Some playschools in our area do a rotating snack week where families take turns bringing group snack for everyone for the week and some playschools had each child bring their own snack each day to eat at the table all together. Well for Luke the obvious choice would be the sending a snack each day for him to eat and have them make sure that anything he didn't finish would be sent home... but what about the age old tradition of swapping snacks? I mean it was a thing when we were kids, if you wanted someone else's snack and you had something to offer up well then ya traded... right?!? Ugh!!! When I brought this fear up with a preschool teacher at an open house I attended she assured me that sharing is not permitted, and with things like food allergies being so common they are very firm and do not allow kids to swap. Great to know, but also still frightening because if Luke managed to get something like cheese or even a bag of Ritz crackers without me being told this would greatly impact his blood phe levels.
Now this is where I will talk a bit about something non-PKU related with Luke and if you bear with me you will see where this ties in to be a blessing for us in regards to his PKU.
Being that I am a home daycare provider with a licensed & registered agency they provide us access to something called the Ages & Stages Questionnaire which is a questionnaire about milestones based on your child's age. We had suspected for a while that Luke has a bit of a speech delay and when I did the questionnaire it was confirmed that he could probably use some help catching up in the speech department. This lead me on a rabbit chase around and around our medical system *cue me rolling my eyes and chugging extra coffee*
Let's just say that one doctor said they would do the referral, then another doctor said that we had to self refer, that lead to an organization that he was "too old" for, which then directed me to speech directly which then wanted to book an appointment for an assessment way in the future... frustrating to the max!
Luckily for me I have an amazing best friend who gave me the information to call Early Childhood Services at one of the schools in Spruce Grove here. I left them a message and I am sure I sounded a touch loopy as I rambled about how I was looking for help in having my son assessed for speech delays and the frustrating time we had in making progress before the 2018 school year started. I must have mentioned PKU in there as well as when she called me back she had a lot of questions to ask about PKU.
When we went in to meet Heather at Broxton Park school we were not quite sure what to expect but she and the program seemed like a dream come true when we realized the supports we would receive. It was amazing! The Early Childhood program is a support for families in the Parkland School division that has preschool programs that run in many of the schools throughout Parkland area. The classes are very small and the ratio of children-to-teacher is very very low, almost one on one. Early Childhood Services benefits children with identified needs in areas of speech-language development, fine and gross motor, social-emotional/behavioral challenges and/or a medical diagnosis. See where we got him in?!?
The crazy thing about this whole journey to playschool was that I was focused on getting Luke help for his speech in an environment where I could trust that his PKU would not be compromised, but in the end we found a program where their biggest focus will be on helping Luke (and us) navigate the coming years with his PKU while also providing speech support.
We are very much looking forward to a fun summer ahead and then starting in September Luke will be heading off to preschool! Exciting to say the least!!!!!
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