Intensive Feeding Program and other stuff.

It's been a while since I have wrote anyhting here and there are some reasons behind it. One was the fact that I had to make this a private blog due to my daughter's dad's girlfriend, which he is no longer with. I couldn't post anything here with out her badmouthing me on here and not even admitting it was her. However, she is no longer an issue and I can now make this a public blog again. There for I will again be updating this with happenings in mine and Elizabeth's life. First off I want to post some pictures on here.

The first picture is of Elizabeth on her Aunt Stacey's motorcylce. I took the picture and a friend croppped. I love it and am going to use it for a poster for March of Dimes Bikers for Babies. The second photo is of Elizabeth and her sister at Michigan's Adventure. They had a great time and both got to ride a real roller coaster. Elizabeth says her favorite part of the park was the rides. Although I think she really loved the water park as well. She found a slide there that when she went down a life guard would catch her at the end before she even went underwater and she loved it!! It was a wonderful day for our family. My dad and sister aslo went.

This picture is of ELizabeth on the Frog Hopper, which she also loved. It was so funny to watch her bouncing up and down in this.

Now, on to some very exciting news for our family. Elizabeth has finally been admitted into the intensive feeding program at Mary Free Bed, ran by Devos Childrens' Hospital. She has been on a waiting list with them for a year and a half and we finally have a start date of August 3rd. It will be a 6 to 8 week program, 5 days a week, from 8 am to 5 pm everyday. The goal of the program is to make eating a postive experience for Elizabeth and to have her on a complete pureed oral diet and to be bale to remove the feeding tube. She will hopefully at the end of the program not only be eating purees but some easily dissolvable foods as well as some solids. It is going to be a very long, tiring, frustrating, exciting 6 to 8 weeks. I am under no illusion that my child will magically start eating and everything will go smoothly. It took 4.5 years to get to this point, we are not going to change her behavior and thinking over night. However, I am up for this challenge and looking at it as an adventure for Elizabeth and myself.

Her dad is no longer in her life at all and I made that decision based on his inability to hold a job or even have a place to live. He is completely unstable and will never change and she just doesn't need that in her life. I will give her the love and caring she needs as I always have. I am still dating Bill and we have been dating for nearly 8 months now and I am so extremely happy. He is so good with Elizabeth and loves her to death and she loves him as well. For me it is the first healthy relationship I have ever had in my life and is such a new and wonderful experience for me. I feel so blessed everyday to have this wonderful, loving, caring man not onlyin my life, but Elizabeth's as well.

Elizabeth is going to miss the first month of school to be in this program, but it is what is important for her and what will get her one step closer to being a "normal" preschooler. She will again this year be in the same devolpmental preschool classroom she has been in the last 2 years. She will be 5 in November, but they feel she needs one more year of preschool before starting Kindergarten and I am ok with this. She will have the same teacher she has had the last 2 years whom she absolutely loves, and who I know loves my little girl as if she were her own as well. It will be a hard day when she graduates form Melissa's classroom and goes onto Kindergarten,as I have grown to adore and repsect Melissa so much over the last 2 years. Elizabeth will be going to school in the afternoon for half a day every day once she returns to school.

So far our summer has been good. As I mentioned above, we have gone to Michigan's Adventure with her sister and my family. Elizabeth and I also went to the Sand Lake fair, where she rode rides and had a great time as well. We spent the 4th of July at home with Bill and we set off fireworks in the yard and had a great time. We have roughly 2 weeks left before our summer comes to and end and the program begins. I am hoping to do some more fun things with her before then, otherwise I hope to be able to find things to do on weekends as a treat to all her hard work during the week.

I promise to update this more often now and post more pictures here as well!! Thanks to everyone who follows this and reads it!