A new aide... a new chapter

Gracie's new aide was officially hired this week. Having worked well with Gracie in the past, Robin was an ideal candidate because of her experience - - Gracie's care wasn't foreign or scary to her. (Last year she was one of her trained subsitutes and, for the five days Gracie managed to attend summer school, she was her full-time aide.) After eight straight days of her working as Gracie's aide, I can say, with absolute certainty, that she is ideal for numerous other reasons.

Robin cares deeply for Gracie - - a casual observer could easily discern that. As her mother, it's important to me that the person working so closely with my sweet girl be affectionate and loving. At the same time, it's also important that Gracie's aide not be too doting or hover over her. While she requires constant supervision and a lot of help, Gracie is not helpless. Robin has already proven herself to be loving, but firm when necessary, conscientious and an excellent communicator with me and the rest of Gracie's team. She is eager to improve her signing skills and to learn how to best work with Gracie from an instructional aide standpoint. I am so thankful (and relieved) that she applied for the job and that the district had the good sense to hire her.

One of the bigger frustrations with the whole process was the lack of open communication (once again) from the administration at the district where Gracie attends school. Thankfully, our district of residence has a wonderful team that was incredibly helpful with bridging the (rather large) communication gap caused by the administration at the district of attendance (and further complicated by three different nurses on campus during the week instead of just one). They are on Gracie's side (and thus, mine) and have, hopefully, created a plan to implement and enforce better processes with regard to communicating about Gracie's care while at school.

Thankfully, Miss Gracie had a great week at school and seems to have handled the transition rather well. At home last week, I told her that Betty Lou was all done and that she wouldn't be at school anymore. I don't think it registered. On Wednesday, knowing that Robin had been hired, Gracie's teacher gave her Betty Lou's picture and signed, "finished." Then they put her picture in Gracie's "finished" box and showed her Robin's picture, explaining that Robin was her new aide. I was told that Gracie picked up Betty Lou's picture and held it for a bit, just staring. A while later she was upset and cried for about thirty minutes. They couldn't find any reasonable explanation and concluded it had to be about Betty Lou. When Gracie stopped fussing, she grabbed Robin's face to hers and loved on her, hugging her and not letting go. I think she wanted to bond... and perhaps that was also her way of saying, "Thanks for being here for me!" So cool.


Some photo highlights of the week... (I don't dare call this "Foto Friday" for fear of failing miserably the way I did last year!)

I took the kids for haircuts and a lunch date last Saturday.
(Preston's is still shaggy, but he can see out now! Gracie was long overdue and had three inches of scraggly ends cut off.)
They were so cute with each other, I couldn't help but click away with my cell phone.

My boys working on the Jeep. Preston handed John tools and was really quite a good assistant! I'm sure I will have many pictures like this as the years go on!