Longish Update

Galen had his preschool evaluation thing last week. They agreed he'd qualify. We had to turn in some more papers from Cole Therapy to them today, but should be in the works to getting him started soonish.
I'd much prefer to homeschool them both, but this seems like it could really help him in the long run, so we're going to give it a shot anyway.
We've had a pretty busy February so far. I had sinus surgery and got to experience the "fun" of having my nose bumped into by both kids multiple times during the recovery. We took Galen and Flint to their first funeral ever. Flint seemed to enjoy the church singing and fell asleep during it. Galen, unsurprisingly, did not do well. Lots of screaming, so we alternated who was outside with him during the service.
Then we went to a birthday party for a cousin's daughter and the kids had a blast. Galen took very well to that part of the family, despite having never met them before.
Last Friday, we went back to the Kool Smiles dentistry and had a crappy experience again, so we just plain walked out. We're in the process of finding a new dentist for the kids.
We've been taking Galen out on more short shopping trips lately, since he seems to be handling it better these days. After the dentist disaster, we went to Goodwill for about an hour. He wasn't particularly fond of the experience, but didn't scream bloody murder this time. And we managed to spend less than $7 on 3 gifts for the kids.
Today, we took Galen and Flint to the dollar store after we went to an OT make-up session. This wasn't actually in relation to the kinda disappointing news we received from OT today, but needs mentioning. Galen has til June to start making actual progress or Medicaid will cut him off from OT. He's just not making any progress.
We actually went to the dollar store for a different purpose, but managed about an hour before the kids were really tired of shopping. Galen's been doing considerably better at sitting in the shopping cart and not screaming. I did sit him down at the end of the trip for a minute and quickly regretted it when he ran off smiling and giggling throughout the store.
While there, we bought lots of different sensory like stuff to make our own sensory board thingie for Galen and Flint. Hopefully Galen will enjoy it and use it, but at the very least, Flint will. We got some carpet for a different texture, a hand duster thing with cool texture, a back roller, a toilet paper holder, and miscellaneous other things. We spent quite a bit, but it was far cheaper than buying it at Walmart or Lowe's and WAY cheaper than buying an already made one. Basically to put together a couple of different versions of things I've seen made by friends and on Pinterest.
I got to see the sensory room that Cole Therapy has today. It looks really freaking cool. A homemade play house with a slide on one side and a ladder on the other and a door and window to see outside it. Along with a "crash pad" which is basically a big mattress cover over styrofoam pieces. They stopped taking him in that room because all he does now is lay out on the crash pad.
We also got a piece of carpet to go on the platform swing like they have at Cole. But we haven't gotten the wood to do these things yet. It's definitely a long process cause it's so exhausting doing all these things.