IFSP

Introvert/Feeling/Sensitive/Person? No, I didn't have Emmeline take the MBTI.
Introspective First Summer Planner? Nope, not that either. (I made that up.)

This is something I have been meaning to blog about, but didn't quite know how to start. When you're embroiled in something, it's not easy to stop and explain it to others from the very beginning. So, Emmeline doesn't crawl. We know that. She commando crawled a little, before she figured out how to flip onto her behind. Since that fateful day, we have not been able to put her on her belly on the floor - she just gets up to her butt and does her cute butt scoot. For the uninitiated, she leans her weight on her left hand, behind her, while she uses her right foot to drag herself along the floor. She's become very adept at this, and it is her preferred method of locomotion. It works for her. However, she never got all that good time working her muscles (especially her leg muscles) while crawling around.
So, when we took her for her 9 month check up, Dr Martin asked about how she did pulling up or supporting her own weight when we stood her up. I told him she had no desire to do either of those things, and after he tested her out, he found I was right. He recommended I give it a month, and if she was still not supporting her weight on her legs, we would need to consider...other things. I don't remember what exactly, just that the pediatrician was telling me I had a month to get my kid to do something. Right. I felt that it was not a big deal that she wasn't pulling up at 9 months (I mean, some kids don't even crawl until 10 months, I really wasn't worried). I was slightly worried that she wasn't supporting her own weight, but she has run a little behind with all gross motor stuff.
Fast forward to December. Emmeline is now 10, almost 11 months. I realize that she is not going to work this out on her own. She is no closer to pulling up, and is downright scared if I stand her up, even leaning on something. Great. This is when I decide to call the pediatrician. He checks her out, and says he feels that her muscle tone is very low. He gives me a referral to the Early Intervention program here. They meet her, and after playing lots of games with her, chatting with me, and checking her out, decide that she is eligible for services through the county. The physical therapist we met with wrote a detailed, and somewhat depressing, IFSP - Individualized Family Service Plan. Which brings us pretty much up to date.
As of now, I'm just waiting for a call telling us who our physical therapist is, and when/where we will meet for our weekly PT date.
Of course, this all uncharted territory for us. I've worked with a few children with IFSPs before (this is the preschool equivalent of an IEP), but every one of those kids had serious special needs - autism or CP, things that aren't going to go away. This is different, in that it seems Em only needs a little push and practice before she'll catch up. The physical therapist who wrote up her IFSP said she thought Emmeline would easily meet the goals she set long before the goal date. We'll see, and I'll update things here with how the physical therapy is going.