Day +595: Parent-Teacher Conference

Lots of news to report this time. Mina had a checkup with the bone marrow team on Wednesday. Dr. Horn was attending at clinic and we hadn't seen her since the picnic in June, so that was fun. She was the one who was attending while Mina was at her sickest, and we think she's terrific. Mina was tired and not at her best, unfortunately, but they said she looks great. The rashes she's been having do not look like chronic GVHD, which is a relief. They ordered an engraftment study, where they check to see if any of Mina's own blood cells have returned (which would be an early warning about relapse), so we'll be nervous until we get those results back. But things are looking great otherwise. And not only did Mina not cry during her blood draw, but she didn't even flinch when the needle went in! She's a tough cookie.

We went to see a performance by a dance class for preschoolers, just to see if it might be something that Mina and Isaac would be interested in. They had a great time, and Mina cried at the end because she didn't want it to be over. Mina happened to wear her "princess" outfit that day, which is basically a leotard, and she's wanted to wear it every day since. And she's been going around the house doing pirouhettes.

But the biggest event of all was the parent-teacher conference we had with Mina's preschool teacher on Tuesday. Mina still hasn't had her post-transplant neuro-psych evaluation, so this was really the first chance we had to get a professional opinion about where she's at developmentally. I tried to write down everything as soon as we got home, so I'll just let it flow like it did Tuesday night. Julie started off saying that Mina is a delight to have at school. She loves school more than any other kid, she's always smiling and is always busy. She loves doing artwork and is at the art table every day, but enjoys process more than outcome, so that she keeps going even after it seems like a piece would be finished. Julie says she'd keep painting until she wore a hole in the paper. She came into a situation where some of the kids had been together at the school last year, and within a very short while identified who the two main leaders were and established relationships with both of them without offending the other. One of them, Zane, was not giving Mina her due early on, so Mina smashed what he was working on. Julie said she was nervous about how it would play out, but after that everthing was fine. Zane is apparently a little intimidated by Mina, and he often says "That girl is strong!" Julie agrees that Mina is both strong and stron-willed, and one the few occasions when Mina doesn't want to do what the group is doing has had trouble getting her to go along and wondered how we do it at home (it's not easy). Mina was refusing to use the pottie during the time when the kids are supposed to, because she didn't have to go yet. The problem was that then she would pee in her pants during outside play because she didn't want to go back inside. Julie finally solved the problem by saying she would have to call us to pick her up and take her home the next time it happened. It hasn't happened since!

Julie says that the other kids like Mina because she is very inclusive in her play and easy to be around. She's usually willing during imaginative play to take the role the other kid doesn't want, or else to suggest creative solutions: "That's OK, we can have *two* mommies!" One time another girl, Riley, was feeling ill and was not treating Mina well. She kept saying things like "That's an ugly hat!" Mina would reply "But I like your hat!" And Riley would say "your hat is ugly!", and Mina would again reply "But I like your hat!" Finally Riley got tired of trying to goad Mina and said "Stop fighting with me!" Mina also corrects other kids when they aren't treating each other well, saying things like "That's not very kind."

Other interesting tidbits: Mina always remembers her place in line, and sometimes remembers other kids' places too and corrects them. And Julie says she is the only one who will leave her place in line, go play, and then come back when her turn is up. She keeps trying to get the other kids to come play too, but they all want to stay in line for whatever the activity is. I asked if the other kids are good about letting Mina back into her place in line, and Julie gave me a "don't be silly" look and said "No one messes with Mina."

Julie says Mina is just about on par for her age as far as verbal and math skills. Julie says her reaction to math is interesting: she recognizes and will count up to four objects, which is about normal, but then she clears the objects off the table and won't repeat the exercise. No idea why. Verbally, she's using all of the 12 markers Julie looks for in kids her age, e.g., uses past tense, says things like "usually I do X but today I want to do Y", etc.

Now, I'm sure Julie is emphasizing the positive and didn't want to spend a lot of time talking about negative things, but this was still all pretty overwhelming for us. We have had so many fears about what kind of condition Mina would be in after all of her treatments and whether she would be able to relate normally to other kids after being on isolation all that time. My fears have been that she would be the oddball, the one that other kids didn't like of made fun of. It's just such a relief to know that, at this point, she's interacting normally with other kids and in fact is a positive force at school. Julie says it's pretty amazing, and she really wonders how Mina would have been if she hadn't been on isolation. I'm just so thankful for Mina that she had Isaac, because she really always has interacted with him a lot and that has probably really helped. And then to know that developmentally she's right where she's supposed to be at despite everything... Keri and I both were feeling a little teary during and after the session.

I haven't confirmed this, but I think Julie must be teaching them letters at school because Mina now knows how to spell her name and we just taught her how to spell Isaac's. She says "I, S, double A, C". She's also learning to connect the sounds like "B" and "D" to new words that she hasn't memorized.

Finally, I got a kick out of this one. She's now asking why so many of the characters in her books are boys. And when we were reading Curious George Flies a Kite one time, she insisted that she wanted George to be a girl. So I said fine, we'll call him Curious Georgia. And now, whenever we read that book, I have to refer to him as Curious Georgia, and she corrects me right away if I slip up and say "he" or "him". She says it's OK for him to be Curious George when we read "Curious George Goes to the Hospital".