It's About Time!!

A year and a half ago when Matthew turned 8 we were excited he could finally participate in the Special Olympics. We contacted the person who was in charge of our local chapter and was told the team was full, but they would put us on a waiting list. Well we waited and waited. During this wait we tried to contact them again through phone calls and emails, but none of them were ever returned. We were about to give up until one day my mom got a phone call. It was a telemarketer trying to raise funds for Special Olympics. My mom said, "Why should I give any money to the Special Olympics if my autistic grandson can't even participate?" The telemarketer was quiet for a minute and then gave her the phone number for the Utah CEO of Special Olympics. My mom passed that number on to us and we called--not expecting to see much come from it. We were wrong. The CEO returned our phone call the next day and said he would look into it. Well it took about a month, but Matthew finally got to start yesterday with bowling. He was pretty excited. However, they actually made him bowl the ball instead of just throwing it down the lane like he usually does. He also had to go without the bumpers, but he did pretty well. After bowling comes track in field. I think he will do really well with that since he can run pretty fast--especially when he sees the automatic sliding doors and any store. He runs to open those doors so fast I can't even keep up. Maybe if we tell him there are the sliding doors at the finish line he would beat anybody he was racing against! Anyway, we are glad to get him going with the Special Olympics. It really is a neat program. He was so excited after every turn. He would jump up and down. The Special Olympics organizer said to me that he had lots of energy. I just thought--you have no idea! Yesterday in the mail we got Daniel's EOB (explanation of benefits) letter from our insurance. I was shocked to see the pediatrician's office billed the casting Daniel's foot as a surgery. This quadrupled our copay. We called the pediatrician's office stating our concern, but that is what the billing code says. It says a casting of foot without setting the bone and without stitches is still considered surgery even if it didn't require any cutting into the skin of any kind. The billing people thought that was pretty stupid since putting a cast on is not a surgery. In turn they did knock off 10% off our copay. However, putting a cast on is in no way surgery!!! Stupid billing codes!

Yesterday it snowed quite a bit. Daniel also had preschool. As he was getting ready for preschool he insisted he needed to wear his snow boots. With his cast on his right foot he could only wear the snow boot on his left foot. He still went out and played in the snow even with his bare toes sticking out of the cast. At least his left foot stayed warm and dry. However, he never complained about his toes being cold on his cast foot. We were talking to Matthew and Josh's piano teacher Monday. Daniel stepped in and basically told her he needed to sign up piano lessons with her. I was taken aback, but she actually found a time for him and he will be starting next month. He is not shy in any way is all I can say!!

I have finally figured out why all my silverware has started disappearing. I told the kids to clean up their dinner mess the other day. Daniel grabbed everything and just chucked it in the trash--silverware and all. I have had to get some extra forks a few months ago and now we are running low on spoons. Now I know why--dang kids!! We had a talk that not all plates, cups and silverware are not disposable. They are only disposable if it is plastic--not glass or metal. Hopefully they listen to me and I won't have to get extra spoons, forks or knives again.