Ella’s been having a pretty good time at school apparently and eveything is working out with Belle babysiting her in the afternoons. Ella comes home pretty exhausted and goes to sleep soon after. Often Belle has had to wake her up from her nap so I guess that is a good sign that she is tired from an active morning. Developmental changes/gains have been that she has pretty much transitioned to a juice box. We are now using the Rubbermaid refillable boxes which are great because she gets the benefit of a sucking the straw (the speech therapist from the school told us this is worlds better therapeutically then the sippy cup) yet it doesn’t move around and she should be able to hold the plastic box pretty well. SHOULD I write because she is on this kind of strike — even though she probably realizes that she can hold the thing herself she doesn’t want to which makes me think that she is having dependency issues especially since starting school. A regression since she started school has been the potty training. She doesn’t want to cooperate with me and has urinated very few times in the potty (with me) lately. She has been going with Belle so I guess she remembers what to do. We started doing the massage on her cheek. Dr. Bauer has recommended 3 times a day for 10 minutes. I get up early so I can stretch her and massage before she leaves for school at 7:45. The problem is that it is very uncomfortable for her and she cries throughout the whole 10 minutes. It is hard to tell if it is really painful or just bothersome. In any case, the crying makes it difficult to do. One very positive development related to the surgery has been less drooling. This is absolutely wonderful. Both Etan and I are afraid to jinx the effect by talking about it but compared to before the surgery she hardly drools at all. We can actually consider using the same shirt she wears for the following day!