Proud Mama Moment!!

Winnie the Pooh Word Game

I got this Winnie the Pooh word game from the dollar store to use for a Montessori task I saw on Pinterest.  I took it out yesterday to show Lyric because I wanted to work on the other aspect of the activity.  I let her play with it while I worked, and then I laid out all of the cards to show her that there were pairs, and explained to her that as another game she could match the pairs of pictures for fun.

Tonight while I was making dinner, I got the cards out for her because she made it known through her system of clicks and whistles that she wanted to play with it.  I figured she was just laying them out at random and looking at the pictures, because that's what she usually does when she has a deck of any kind of card.

Imagine my surprise when I came out and saw this.  Neither of us helped her with any of these pairs.  She did it all by herself.  Later on, I needed Travis to distract her while I was doing things with the food in the oven.  He scooped up all the cards and laid out a single set for her, then handed her a card one by one and told her to find it's match.  She got all but 5 of them before she got bored and decided to find another activity.  I was so proud to see her pick up this skill so quickly!

Picture Post: Week 3 and Week 4 Activities

WEEK 3: WATER TRANSFERRING 

Fairly simple - a turkey baster, colored water, and a muffin tin.  It helps develop strength in the hand and motor skills, and she LOVES water play, so it was a no brainer.

Eventually she got bored of the turkey baster and just poured the water.  She also drank some of it.  Classic Lyric.

WEEK 4: PAINTING

Travis, in a burst of creativity, decided to paint some of the bins we use to hold Lyric's toys.  While she was awake.  Of course, this made her want to paint, too.  So I found her finger paints, took a brush from Travis, got out the sponges I found at the dollar store and just turned her loose.  She definitely enjoyed it.

As you can see, she also applied war paint.

Ugh, Homework

Travis had the first official "Project Impact" session this past Tuesday.  It wasn't horribly exciting, or all that different from a normal speech session.  However, we now have an official "Project Impact" binder, and *insert ominous music* homework.  It's nothing overly difficult or taxing, but the mention of homework strikes fear into many a heart regardless.

The homework consists of putting together a specific box of 5 toys that will only be played with when we're implementing the Project Impact learning ideas.  The toys are supposed to be ones that she plays with semi-regularly, but can also be used for social engagement.  They chose a blanket for swinging, a ball, a baby doll, tea set items/eating utensils, and music instruments.

For 20 minutes a day, we're supposed to use these toys to engage Lyric and try to both encourage her to initiate social play, as well as expand on her vocabulary.  We're to directly engage her by sitting across from her, making eye contact, and putting ourselves into whatever game she chooses to play.  Some of the methods to use include "Playful obstruction" - where we prevent her from doing what she wants to do in a playful manner, to force her to request (with words) that we allow her to continue.  We're also supposed to expand on anything that she says.  So if she asks us to "Sit!" to play, we're to say "Sit down please" or "Mama sit down" to try to teach her that this is how we want her to speak and engage.

It doesn't sound like much, and we haven't had an opportunity to really test it out because everyone in the house is fighting some kind of plague, but we were told that this would be baby steps - and I'm fairly confident that it's something that will work with Lyric based on what little of it we have tried so far.  I'm anxious to really give it a go this weekend when I have more time available.

IEPs and Glow Stick Baths

PART I: IEP MEETING

Lyric's IEP meeting was today.  We had to reschedule it from Friday because she had a low grade fever, and kids have to be fever free for 24 hours for them to come visit.  It didn't end up blossoming into any kind of illness though, thank goodness.

I would summarize what we discussed at the meeting as "She's really frickin' smart - she just doesn't talk, and has no kids to interact with."  Before I arrived for the going over of things, Lyric's "teacher" (her special ed. coordinator) was talking to Travis about the fact that her cognitive, reasoning, gross motor, and fine motor skills are all off the charts.  She scored in the 110 - 120% in those categories, which puts her at 36+ months in development for them (she was 29 months old at the time of the evaluations).  She went over this again with me, highlighting some of the skills Lyric has that put her ahead.  The best part of it was when she was talking about the options as far as what will happen in the future.  I have mentioned before that there is an option for her to move in to a special preschool classroom setting when she turns three.  We were told that she likely wouldn't qualify for the classroom setting, because she is too smart to be included in it.  Talk about an ego boost.  

When going over the language parts, we had to call Melissa and put her on speaker phone because she couldn't be present for the meeting.  It was basically the same thing that she told us on the day the initial evaluation was completed.  Lyric has skills that are anywhere from 9 months to 27 months in level when it comes to speaking, and understanding language.  She uses sentences on a regular basis, she's improving on putting together phrases, she uses words in their proper social situations - she just doesn't do it up to the level that she should be at this point in her development.  She is slightly behind in some areas of engaging people socially, which is something that can impede language development.  

The sensory profile results made me laugh a bit when I looked them over.  Of the 10 categories of sensory processing, she had one "typical performance", 4 "probable difference", and 5 "definite difference".  It was actually kind of nice to get a confirmation that the things we were noticing weren't just things we were pulling out of thin air, or that we were making up.  Overall they aren't issues that affect the quality of her daily life, so the sensory integration is being put as priority #2.

We wrote up a short list of goals that involved getting Lyric to engage more socially, use more words consistently and appropriately, expand her vocabulary, and try to integrate more sensory experiences into her day to help her adjust her responses to those.  Early On will be coming once a week - we decided that twice a week would be too overwhelming.  The focus will mainly be on speech, but Hannah (the occupational therapist) will attend once a month to address the sensory concerns.

Overall I'm feeling very positive about the direction we're heading in.  It seems like it's all a matter of figuring out how Lyric learns to speak, and gear her therapies in that direction.  My fingers are crossed that we will "graduate" from the services by the time she turns 3, but I know this is also probably an unrealistic expectation.

PART II: FUN ACTIVITY - GLOW STICK BATH

In the spirit of my New Years goal, last week we scooped up glow sticks in all different colors from the dollar store, and used them to give Lyric a glow stick bath.  It's just a normal bath, at the normal time, but the lights are turned off and there are glow sticks in the tub illuminating the water.  She really enjoyed it, and I was worried she might throw a fit if we made her get out - but Travis had her help collect the glow sticks, so it went pretty smoothly.  We will definitely be repeating it at least once a month.

A normal bath?

But wait - there's more!

This is awesome!

Squishy Bags and Simple Goals

Pinterest is both a wonderful and a terrible place.  It's full of ideas, crafts, and images of basically anything your mind can come up with.  It's so full, however, that it's very easy to get sucked in to a wormhole of ideas of things to do.  It's not uncommon to realize that it's 8pm, and you haven't moved from the couch all day because you were looking for crockpot meal ideas, and got caught up in some other time space continuum vortex.

Fortunately, the good side of Pinterest is going to help me with my goals for the new year.  I hate the idea of making a "resolution," but I'm not really sure why.  I think it's because it makes them seem like something big, and unattainable.  For me, it's easier to focus on smaller goals relating to various aspects of my life.  While I have a number of them that relate only to me personally, I also have a goal in mind that relates to Lyric.

I have a friend who posts photos on Facebook on a semi-regular basis of "Sunday Craft Time" at her house. This friend has a child who is only a few days older than Lyric.  Each week she has a different craft that they work on together - sometimes they are themed for the season, and most of them have a dual purpose of helping motor skills, color recognition, counting, etc.  I love the idea of doing something new and beneficial each week for learning, and for fun.  Plus, it will give me a chance to actually put the hundreds of Pins I've wasted my time finding to use!  I'm going to make an effort to blog about them each week, so that maybe someone else can get some ideas for those boring days at home.  You know, those days where you want to just shove them in a room with a bucket of Cheerios and go to your happy place.  No?  Okay, maybe that's just me...

This week's fun was squishy bags.  They're an easy sensory play item to make, and I picked up the supplies from the dollar store on a whim.  All you need is hair gel, ziploc bags, items such as beads, noodles, small toys, etc (I used beads and small decorative rocks), and duct tape.  The bags are double layered, so hopefully they will hold up for a bit.  If they break or get too grungy looking, they were only about $1.20 or so to make, so it's easy to just toss them.  So far Lyric's favorite thing to do with them is use them as a punching bag.

So what DOES she do?

The holidays and the stress that come with it are over.  We were all beyond spoiled by our families.  I took the three days off between Christmas and New Years, so it worked out to me having eleven days off of work.  Now we are trying to get back into the groove of what our normal schedule was prior to my "vacation."

I've been giving some thought to the previous entries that I posted, and decided that I need to write one that is more positive.  While they are all hopeful, and somewhat happy, they also all focus on what is "wrong" with Lyric.  They go into detail about her weaknesses, and her delay.  So I have decided to take the time to talk about her strengths, and the things that are actually ahead of "schedule" on her development track.

The first thing I always think of when I talk about her strengths are her cognitive and problem solving skills.  These are the ones that get us into the most trouble, and the ones that we probably struggle with the most.  Part of the reason why we have a hard time getting Lyric to talk is because if she wants something, and she can't get it, rather than asking us for help she figures out how to get it herself.  We gave her small trinkets as an advent calendar, which is a German tradition.  By the third day, she had figured out where all the gifts were hidden.  When we refused to give her extra gifts, she built a ladder out of laundry baskets to reach them.  After some finagling, she figured out that she needed to open the door to the cupboard slightly, then crouch down to pull it open the rest of the way, then stand back up to be tall enough to reach them.  Essentially this means we can basically forget doing any kind of child proofing beyond putting what we don't want her to have in the basement, because she inevitably figures out how to get to things.  If she wants a glass of milk, she will get the milk and her glass and bring them to us, rather than just asking.  If she's hungry, half the time she just helps herself to what she wants from the fridge, only getting us if she can't open the package.   It took her about 30 seconds to figure out what a jump rope we gave her was for, and while she can't do it very well, she has the concept down pat.  

Along with this, she has a memory that can get a bit scary sometimes.  She'll remember how to use things after only seeing it used one time.  She'll remember where things are in stores, even if she's only been there one time.  If we turned her loose in the grocery store, she would be able to do our shopping for us - because she knows exactly where all the regular items that we get are located in the stores we go to.  She's also very good at finding things in the house when we ask for them, like her shoes or the remote.  Unfortunately for our cats, she's pretty good at finding them, too. 

Her motor skills never cease to impress me.  Her hand eye coordination is better than mine, which is very encouraging for me because I am actually essentially blind in one eye.  She can hit a baseball extremely well, both on a tee and when it's pitched to her.  She's very good at Little Tikes basketball.  The one time she's been to Chuck E. Cheese, she killed at Whack-a-Mole.  Her fearlessness loaned her a lot of skill when she was in swim lessons, and she could jump off the edge of the pool into my arms with ease.  She has gotten to a point where she can pour her own drinks (she just can't remove the caps), sweep the floors for me, and wipe off counters (and she enjoys doing it - better appreciate that while I can, right?) with ease.  I'm dreading the day when she is able to turn doorknobs and open beverages well, because we'll be in so much more trouble then.    She already knows how to lock and unlock the front door, so we'll have to figure out something new for that.  

She is extremely perceptive of people's emotions.  Particularly if they are unhappy or in pain.  If Travis or I injure ourselves in some way, she's usually the first one to give us a hug and ask if we're "awight?"  She seems to be able to understand if we're having a particularly stressful day that doesn't involve her, because she tends to tone down her behaviors on those days, making the challenge of dealing with her one less thing to worry about.  She's also extremely polite, and always says "Thank you" for things.  She has recently started saying "No, thank you" if she isn't interested in something as well.  She understands a lot more language than she can speak, and can actually follow basic directions well (like "Please go throw this away.")

Even though she has a speech delay, she does actually use quite a few words and phrases on a regular basis (I would say it's probably around 50 - 60 at this point).  She knows pizza, recognizes dogs and cats, will greet me at the door saying "How are you?" and counts from 1 - 4 actually understanding what those numbers mean.  Unfortunately for Travis, one of her phrases right now is "Get out!" when he tries to play with her in the toy room, or eat with her in the kitchen.  She has also recently learned how to "shush" us, which she thinks is hilarious.  She's very good at 'find the picture' type puzzles.  She seems to have some sense of fashion about her, and loves to pick out her clothes each day.  She will ask us questions on occasion, like "What's that?" and "Why?"  She loves to sing along with songs, and is actually quite good at hitting things with rhythm.

The point in all of this is that even though she is behind, she's still an extremely intelligent child.  I have no doubt in my mind that there will come a time when she "graduates" from needing a little extra help to find her voice.  She picks up new words and skills each day, and continues to surprise us every day with things that she's been holding back.  It's easy to get caught up in the negatives when you're dealing with early intervention and speech therapy.  I've found that taking the time to focus on the positive aspects of what she does makes the whole process much easier.