Ephraim Update

Ephraim picking up a tiny bit of dirt. I think we can rule out his initial diagnosis of retinopathy.

He has learned the joys of slamming doors.

Ephraim looks evil in all his close-up pictures now. He squints each time I point the camera at him because he knows the flash is coming.

Playing with his favorite toy, the doorstop

... and quickly up the stairs he goes.

First pair of shoes

Things seem to have suddenly clicked with Ephraim. We've all acted like monkeys for months now trying to get Ephraim to mimic us. He's just looked at us like we are all crazy. This past weekend he was the monkey! If we hold our hand up and say, "give me five", he slaps our hand, he has learned to click his tongue, and if we waggle our head back and forth, he'll do the same with a huge grin on his face. In fact he'll initiate the tongue clicking or head shaking if he thinks we aren't paying enough attention to him. He'll roll or toss a ball back and forth, and he'll also pass an item back and forth and say, "thank you" when he takes it from us. Actually it sounds more like, "dang you". Other skills have suddenly clicked too. He can squat down on his heels and stand back up without support. He's standing without support now for several seconds. He's cruising the furniture and scampers up the stairs the second I turn my back. He's also just cut his four top teeth! The side teeth are coming in more quickly than his front two teeth, so he's going to look like Dracula for awhile.

It's a good thing he's suddenly making so much progress because I think we can forget help from Early Intervention. We've jumped through all their hoops for months now, filled out all the paperwork, had multiple meetings with them, and Ephraim has been tested twice already. We had his hearing screen set up for next week, and his therapy was supposed to begin right after that. Suddenly they call us today to tell us there are even more hoops to jump through.

First they need a social security number. Well we haven't gotten one of those yet because we had to wait for his Certificate of Citizenship, then file a re-adoption and name change with the Chancery Court, and wait for the paperwork to all be returned before we could even apply for the social security number in his new name.

We had told them at the very first meeting that our insurance wouldn't cover speech, OT or PT. They said that was no problem; it was covered by TEIS. Now they are telling us that before Ephraim can begin therapy, we have to get a letter from our insurance company stating they won't cover the services, then we have to go to the state to get a TennCare denial letter, and finally we have to get a denial from CoverKids. Arghh! By the time we get Ephraim's social security number and a denial letter from three different insurance companies, Ephraim will probably be too old for Early Intervention!