39 weeks 4 days (with translations for Sam)

What was it I said right before Marika was born? It's been 20 years and I'm starting to lose confidence?

I know I have to have a baby eventually. But I've been timing contractions since LAST THURSDAY when I would have been willing to bet (a little) money that I would have a baby in the next 24 hours.

I would, clearly, have lost that bet. Because it is now Monday night and I am Still Here.

This means I'm going to have the World's Easiest Labor (TM), redux, right? Right???

Moving right along.

Had followup meeting with Iyyar's new OTs yesterday. It was good. It was informative. It inspired confidence, and I left feeling better about things, although I also left in a full-blown panic about the piece of information that the OTs had just shared with me: to wit, that the 2012 deadline for the vaadat hasama (educational placement board) meetings is MARCH FIRST. As in, NEXT WEEK.

Aaiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Because Iyyar's ganenet (kindergarten teacher) has been all wait, wait, wait about that. She did not know about the deadline and I have been relying on her to know these things. I submitted the request last month but apparently she also has to submit something and she hasn't done it yet. I spent the entire morning today trying to get through to someone, anyone, at Misrad haChinuch (the ministry of education) with about as much success as I usually experience dealing with Hitpatchut HaYeled (the child development center where they specialize in making sure nobody ever, ever, ever gets help). I have no idea what's going on with that. I need someone to tell me if all his paperwork is in or if he needs anything else. He definitely doesn't have a date (Avtalyon does--more on that in a moment). And... ow. Contraction. Ow.

Avtalyon had his speech therapy eval today. In Hebrew. He did really well. The speech therapist thought he was really cute and very bright. This is both good and bad. It's good because, great! He speaks and understands Hebrew as well as a native Israeli kid a year older than he is! But... why does he not talk at gan in more than single words? Why does he have no clue what's going on, to the extent of not even knowing which is his cubby even though it is now February? And how do we get him into a gan safa (nursery school for kids with language issues), where he will get the attention and OT he needs, without a crappy speech eval?

It seems pretty likely that if Iyyar's issues are sensory, Avtalyon's are too. Avtalyon now is very like Iyyar at the same age, and he is starting to show signs of heading in the same path Iyyar did. He is less mellow. He is less happy-go-lucky. He is acting more frustrated, less cooperative, more whiny, less eager to get out the door in the morning. I can only guess that gan is overwhelming for him on a sensory level, in the same way it is for Iyyar.

One of the things that Iyyar's first OT (who we're not going back to, because she a) works in Ramot and b) is INSANELY expensive and c) I don't like her style) suggested was that we get him to blow his nose at least four times a day. I said, uh, okay, and promptly discovered that not only could Iyyar not blow his nose, but he really didn't want to do it. A dozen chocolate chips later, he had emptied his nose of about a bathtub's worth of slime. And he's had two really good days since (at home, although unfortunately not at gan). Coincidence? I dunno. Can't have hurt though. And I want it in my Artscroll biography that I sacrified my lone last bag of Trader Joe's chocolate chips on the altar of my kid's Eustachian tubes.

The OTs we're going with want to start Iyyar on a sensory diet, and our plan is to do whatever we do with Iyyar with Avtalyon as well. OTs think this is OK as long as we see that he is OK with it and it does not overstimulate him. First appointment with them is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, after Avtalyon's speech eval part the second, and well-child visits for both Marika and Avtalyon in the morning.

Unless, of course, I have a baby. Laughable though that idea might currently seem.