Holiday "to do" list

• Finish shopping. (Click through my link if you need a little something from Amazon! Thank you!)
• Help the kids make some presents.
• Bake cookies with Tish.
• Make some Christmas cards. Use store-bought when we run out of steam.
• Choose photo to put in cards. Have them printed.
• Purchase the holiday stamps and mail the cards.
• Put together family photo calendar. Less fun this year, as two of the five recipients have died since last Christmas.
• Make gingerbread houses. We went with the multiple mini-houses this time. I was hoping to get it over with by having the cousins make them with our kids during Thanksgiving, but the nieces were working and the nephews aren't into that sort of thing, apparently. It was a good idea, though. I thought.
• Wrap presents.

I think I'm running behind schedule.

Book club! Wooooo! Book club!

Our selection for next month is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I've already read it, but I want to read it again. There's a lot going on in this book.

Plus we'll be having our third annual (or is it fourth?) White Elephant gift exchange. I love those. Plus we bring toys and books and clothing to swap with each other. It's tons of fun, and I can't wait. I've already been weeding out some kiddie books and toys.

Yeeeah. That's not a good fit for us.

Ever feel like the world conspires against you? I've thought for awhile that Nea has something else going on other than her apraxia. Apraxia doesn't explain why it first took her forever to learn her shapes and colors (to the point where I had her tested for color blindness) and then forever and a day to learn her letters and numbers. And she is very inconsistent from day to day on what she remembers.

I'm guessing she has at least ADD (it runs in the family), maybe also a memory problem or an executive function problem. Who knows, except that she is very clearly too smart to be having this much trouble learning. And she is falling further and further behind her peers.

So I decided it was time to have her tested. Schools don't generally do this kind of testing. ADD falls in the medical realm, and schools test for dyslexia, etc. but it's not as exhaustive.

I started by asking a friend whose child just had some neuropsych testing done. Turns out their doctor is going into active military duty, so she's not taking new pediatric patients. Her office recommended another place. I called them. They gave us two appointments, but clearly didn't think one of their doctors was better suited than another other. Really? I have a 6-year-old child with a severe speech disorder and that doesn't call for a little specialization for neuropysch testing? Huh. On a whim, I googled that office. I looked at the extremely Christian mission statement and the different doctors' descriptions. One of the biographies said, "Sees adults for Biblical Conflict Resolution, etc." and "learned how to address interpersonal conflicts in a Biblically faithful manner." Yeeeah. That's not a good fit for us.

After school I saw another friend whose child was recently diagnosed with ADHD. So I asked her for a recommendation. She gave me a business card. I called them up. Turns out for only a few thousand dollars (mostly not covered by insurance) I can get my kid some very questionable woo-woo therapy! Yeeeah. No.

Who knew this was going to be so hard? Anyway, I got some recommendations from our pediatrician. I haven't called them yet, though. They'll probably end up being batshit crazy in some other unique way. I'm sort of looking forward to it.