Good Fountain

The meeting is over. The anxiety is relieved. (At least until the day or two before the next meeting.)

In short, their biggest concern is Chee’s failure (such an ugly word) to interact and engage with her peers.

Later that afternoon, Chee and I went to her Art Class for SPD kids (which is pretty cool). There I witnessed the following:

We were playing with a big blue parachute pretending it was the ocean and she was “swimming” in it. P, the other child in the class, was not participating, choosing to stand against the wall and look around. Chee took the parachute over to him and she said, “Hey, P, want to come and swim in the ocean? Want to be a fish?”

That was COMPLETELY on her own … NO prompting from me. She just did it. So I guess she’s not failing…

Their other concern is what they are calling anxiety. She takes a long time to come into the classroom, choosing to stand in the doorway and observe for awhile, and then she goes through the same script everyday during the sign in process (where she practices writing her name). She takes a long, long time to choose a marker and then takes forever to write her name, whereas most other kids zip through this in just a minute or two.

The team’s feeling is that coming in the classroom is overwhelming for Chee and she is giving herself time to get acclimated to the situation. A loooong time.

I don’t know what to say about that. I don’t know what to do about that.

My gut tells me that it’s connected to the SPD and as we continue weekly OT to address those needs, we’ll see less anxiety.

My gut also tells me that it’s connected to her Language, and that as that continues to develop, and she can find the words to express her feelings, we’ll see less anxiety.

Expressing feelings is coming. Just last week, for the first time ever she told me she felt mad about something. She was upset and said, I felt mad! I felt mad! (Music to my ears.)

The last part of the meeting was about Kindergarten. Chee has a summer birthday, so she can start Kindergarten when she’s 5, or we can wait till she’s 6. They want to know which way am I leaning. Everything I have read about children with Hyperlexia says that their language really takes off between ages four and five. With that in mind, I’m reserving judgment on when she should start Kindergarten for about another six months. Let’s just see how things go.

Taking a wait and see approach is not my general modus operandi.

Right now I think it’s the only approach I can take. We’re doing all the right things, including getting together a solid game plan for social interaction this summer.

Ohm.

Tomorrow morning I meet with Chee’s team at school for a conference. It’s not the annual IEP meeting, that won’t be until December, this is a quarterly progress report.

I know Chee is doing awesome. The language development, the sensory modulation, the improved fine and gross motor skills that I see daily evidence of is reassuring (and incredible too). There is no doubt that she is progressing. I can give countless examples of conversations we have, new experiences that she handles beautifully, and successful activities that demonstrate her vastly-improved fine and gross motor skills. And let’s not forget that not-so-insignificant achievement of potty training.

(In searching for posts where I’ve recounted her language development, I can’t find any. Oh my. I have much to share. The girl amazes us every day! At the end of this I’ll share a couple of gems.)

Why do I feel anxious? Because I want her teacher and therapists to see what I see, yet I fear they don’t. Perhaps they are conditioned to focus on the deficits. After all, that kinda IS their job - to identify and support her where she needs help. Perhaps Chee doesn’t show off her true self at school the way she does at home. That can probably be said of many a child.

A note came home today with one positive sentence and three areas of concern. The positive sentence is that she continues to make progress. The areas of concern are her echolalic speech patterns, her lack of interaction with her peers, and her episodes of anxious behavior.

When we start the meeting, I think I’ll ask for them to please share with me the examples of progress they’ve seen. If the meeting starts with a litany of concerns about Chee, I will probably get very depressed. In the interest of positive mood preservation, we must start (and end) with the positive.

As for the areas of concern, I still see progress there. She is less echolalic than she was when she started preschool six months ago, although she is definitely still echolalic. As for peer interaction - it’s obvious she desperately wants to play with her peers and interact with them. Just this week the speech therapist from school shared a positive story of how she maintained appropriate peer interaction with another child without adult support. As for the episodes of anxious behavior, well, I don’t see that, so I’m relying on them to give me examples. I don’t see her being anxious at home or anywhere else we go. Unless I don’t know what anxiety looks like.

I knew that as this meeting approached I’d start to be sick with worry. Worry that all the progress I’m seeing isn’t real, it’s just imagined, that my Chee is simply not measuring up. I find myself tempering my enthusiasm about her development with a guarded so-called realism that says, Don’t get too confident, she’s still behind… If I could insert an eye-rolling emoticon here, I would. Why should I be guarded? I’m her mother, for Pete’s sake, there should be no one more enthusiastic than me. The truth is that I don’t want to go into school tomorrow and have my hopes dashed.

Into self-lecture mode I go now. Development is not a race. And if it were a race, it would be a marathon and not a sprint. The 10 hours a week they spend with Chee provides only a snapshot of who she is and how she’s developing. Ultimately Mama knows best. And no matter what they tell me tomorrow, it won’t change the truth of all the development that I have seen.

——————————————-

Language Development

Here are just a couple of examples of great language development that we are seeing with Chee. First, she speaks in first person the majority of the time now. She came home with a lovely water color of a daffodil she had painted and I asked her, What is this? and she immediately responded, I painted that. It’s a daffodil. Last time she came with a painting and I asked her what it is, I received only a one-word response. Daffodil. (I guess she likes to paint daffodils.)

Today I asked her if she used the potty at school and she said, No, I went at home. True, she had just used the potty here at home.

And it’s not just the first-person language I’m hearing. She’s telling stories about her day. She asking questions of us. She’s talking back to the television, Oh no, (Curious) George, be careful! It’s all beautiful.

One of my favorites happened yesterday. One of Chee’s favorite things to do is look for cards I hide around the house with instructions on where to find the next card. We did that yesterday and she just loves it. Then I thought to try a Scavenger Hunt so I made a list of items for her to find around the house. I handed it to her and she read it and then said, Mommy, it’s not a place. Smart girl - she was expecting more directions, and she communicated appropriately.

Typing all this does something for me. It helps ease the anxiety. No matter how the conference goes tomorrow, no matter what their perception of Chee is, it doesn’t change anything. Chee is Chee. And she’s doing better than awesome. I couldn’t be happier. And neither could she.

I suspect most of us have heard of Build-A-Bear. I suspect a gazillion of us have even succumbed to the allure and appeal that is to let your child stuff his or her Very Own Teddy Bear. The smiles and kisses and hugs that accompany the stuffing of one’s Very Own Teddy Bear are definite heart-string-tuggers. Whereas I can remember my treasured Holly Hobbie doll, the girls and boys of today will remember their Very Own Teddy Bear that they Stuffed Themselves.

Marketing Geniuses.

Yesterday my girls stuffed their Very Own Teddy Bear for the first time.

Wondering why this is blog-worthy? My husband and I own a little store, open weekends only, in a giant flea market. A Make Your Own Teddy Bear store.

Chee has been to this store many, many times over the last three plus years. I’ve written before about what a sensory-challenging place the flea market can be. Chee’s been handling it much better lately though. Yesterday was the icing on the cake. The whole experience was so utterly … typical.

Our employee was off so my husband and I split the day. He worked morning, I worked afternoon. He took the girls browsing around the flea market after I came in to relieve him. A bit later they all come back to our booth.

Brief history: Up until about 3 months ago Chee refused to even step foot in our booth, let alone come near the stuffing machine.

I asked her if she wanted to pick out a new outfit for her Teddy Bear as I steered her toward the outfits. (Dressing stuffed animals helps her build her fine motor skills, too.)

She said, No, I want to stuff a Teddy Bear for Daddy.

Okay, which one?

This one, she replied and immediately grabbed a bright lime green teddy bear off the shelf.

She followed all my directions to pick a Star and put it inside and pick a Guardian Angel Bear, too. She picked a bow for around its neck. And she put her foot on the pedal to blast the stuffing inside (not a quiet machine mind you). And then she hugged it and kissed it.

A modern day rite of passage. Extra special to me as over the years I’ve watched so many kids stuff their Very Own Teddy Bear and be excited and fully engaged in the experience, and wonder when, even IF, my own daughter would find it exciting too. Wonder whether she would engage in the experience.

Of course Ess stuffed her own bear too. A bright pink one. There was NO WAY she was going to miss out on the fun. She was afraid to push the pedal so Daddy did it, but she shrieked with laughter.

Yesterday was fun.

But who’s counting?

Not Me.

I believe we’re past the jinxing phase so it’s safe to talk about.

Chee is potty trained.

Halfway.

She’s housebroken only. We’re still working on going IN the potty and not next to it at school, and being willing to use random potties while we’re out and about (rather than waiting till buckled into the van after leaving Costco).

It started Sunday when I flippantly asked her if she’d like to wear undies instead of a pullup. And she not-flippantly said, Yes, please. (As an aside, she’s really into yes, please. Anything that warrants a yes answer gets yes, please. For example, Chee, did you play outside at school today? And she says, yes, please. I find this cute. And awfully polite.)

Sunday she had equal measure of accidents and successes.

On Monday, she was accident free at home. Same with Tuesday. Same with Wednesday (almost).

She’s got it down. There’s no prompting from me. She just goes when she needs to go. And then hollers for me to come take a look. (Nice language there, too, huh?)

I was so happy Monday I wanted to cry.

We still have some work to do (no need to get completely naked to use the potty, for example), but the fact that we are where we are makes a little random nudie-ness nothing to even blink about.

Ess, honey, you’re next.

We are going to be a diaper free house soon and very soon.

Yay!

Emily at A life less ordinary tagged me for a recent meme. I’m honored because, while hers is a favorite of mine, I didn’t know she knew I existed read mine. This is good timing for me because I’m feeling tapped out right now and I’m not sure I could muster up the necessary energy to put together a thoughtful post. Also, I think Rooster Calls tagged me as well but somehow it left my brain the minute I finished reading my name.

Five things found in your bag:

This is embarrassing. I don’t carry much in my purse, which is actually a diaper bag. When I don’t have the kids with me I carry just my wallet because I don’t have a purse I like anymore. Someday… but even then I won’t carry much in it. But here is what’s inside at this writing.

1. Change of clothes for Chee
2. Wipes
3. Diaper for Ess
4. Assorted gum wrappers
5. OT progress report

Five favorite things found in your room:

Again, embarrassing. We moved nearly a year ago and I’ve never gotten around to getting my room together. Really sad. Someday. Bedrooms are on the bottom of the priority list, and the girls rooms come before ours. Honestly, I can’t name five favorite things in my room as I just don’t spend a lot of time there outside of sleeping. I can tell you five things that are IN my room though, some of them treasured even.

1. A trunk full of all my old journals. I was a faithful journal writer from 13 till about 31. I drifted away from it about a year or so after getting married. Not sure why. It’s entertaining to read the past ones.
2. A stack of parenting books with The No-Cry Potty Training Solution at the top of the heap.
3. A picture of Chee and my grandmother.
4. A picture of Chee when she was an infant.
5. My cat. (He’s pretty much there all the time.)

Five things you have always wanted to do:

1. Visit Australia
2. Own my own (larger than I already own) business
3. Have a rockin’ hot body that I got as a reward for being a workout goddess
4. Be a philanthropist
5. Win an Academy Award

Five things you are currently into:

1. Melissa & Doug (we’re about to start selling them in our store)
2. Vitamin Water
3. Weed Eating (I just bought a new Weed Eater/Edger combo deal for our shaggy, scraggly yard)
4. Mulch
5. Researching selling special needs ‘toys’ in our store

Five people you’d like to tag:

I think perhaps I have tagged some of these friends before but, hey, what can I say, my circle is not that big.

1. Of course my dear friend BeThisWay
2. Lisa at Ramblings of a Pseudointellectual
3. Learningwoman
4. asdmommy at What We Need
5. and, last but not least, my friend Ruth, who may not want her blog linked just yet, but she knows who she is.

I’m very excited about two recent things. Very excited. Yet I know my hopes could be dashed in an instant. That is why I say I’m flying high without a parachute. If things fall through I am going to be more than disappointed.

One of two things I am using all the willpower I can muster up to refrain from talking about just yet. I don’t want to jinx anything. Let’s just cross our fingers and hope that today was not a fluke and that by Friday I will have something very exciting to share.

The second thing I will talk about, although I’m fearful when I call tomorrow they will tell me there is no room for Chee.

Chee’s SLP does not want her to be in a social therapy group with other kids that have language delays or disorders. She strongly suggests she be surrounded by typically-developing kids and that I make her social development a big focus this summer. That’s all fine and good, but it’s not always the easiest thing to have Chee in a class or something for typical kids. Especially as most classes for 4 year olds don’t include the parent. I will try and arrange play dates as often as I can, but we don’t have a huge social network. And those are at best once a week. My hope has been to get her in more stuff.

Then I stumbled across this and it seems like just the perfect thing for Chee. Dramakinetics: Performing Arts for Fun and Function. Typical kids and special needs kids mix together and, through performing arts, work on language development as well as fine and gross motor skills. Bingo! Perhaps I’ll sign Ess up for her age class too.

I’ve got the application filled out and tomorrow I’m calling to make sure there is space available.

Finding this class has me feeling elated! I’ve been looking for something for a few weeks now and keep turning up blank.

Now if Chee will keep up the good work on the other thing, this may rank as the Best Week Ever.

Stay tuned…

Today Chee had her first Art Class for kids with Sensory Processing Disorder. It was held at a children’s play center that caters to kids age birth to 5. The owner has decided to start offering classes for kids with special needs. From tumbling to soccer to art and more. Kudos to this owner/mom. I love the idea. To top it off, the cost is only $10/class for a four-week class. Cheap and not a lengthy time commitment.

There was just one other child in the class. A boy about age 4. There was a no-show, so perhaps next week there will be three kids. The theme was The Beach and they first worked with some dry beans, then rice, then sand. Colored sand even. A little progression, if you will.

For Chee, tactile defensiveness has not been an issue (outside of the problems she used to have with nail trimmings). We play with beans, rice, oatmeal and shaving cream at home regularly. The Sensory aspect of the class wasn’t what appealed to me. For me, it was the idea that we would be with other kids who might have some fine motor delays, who might need to be shown something several times before “getting it,” who might not want to be in the room in the first place, who might not want the door closed, who might flap their hands, who might need a few hugs from Mommy when first getting started.

Admittedly, I have never taken Chee to an art class so I have no basis for an apples-to-apples comparison. But if an art class were anything like our tumbling and music classes have been - then I can assure you it would have been a disaster. Picture (the cutest) girl in a room full of other kids running circles around the group instead of singing or clapping or jumping or tumbling. Granted, it’s been about 18 months since she’s been in a group class (except for preschool) and she has made some seriously tremendous changes. However, fine motor skills are still a challenge, as are large groups, as are fast paces.

Today’s class was just perfect. We look forward to next week.

Something even more interesting happened today though.

You might remember when I wrote about Chee’s first social story. And later I wrote that it was having no effect. She loved the story about the haircut. We read it often. She memorized it right away. But any suggestion of going to the Kid Salon was soundly and adamantly rejected. Eventually she allowed me to use those cheapy dull kid scissors and pretend to cut her hair. Just earlier this week I overheard her in the playroom proclaiming how beautiful Ess was now that she (Chee) had just cut her hair. (Luckily, it was the kid scissors - Ess still has her near perfect mullet).

After the art class, I told Chee we were going to get her hair cut, and she didn’t say No. I took that as hugely affirmative and off we went. There was some mild initial protesting, but I’m happy to report that she left with 3 inches less hair and looking seriously grown up. Once she was up in the chair, she was perfect. Perfect!

When we got in the van to leave she shouted, You did an awesome job getting your haircut.

Indeed.

Music has always played a big role in our family life. Even before kids came along, my husband and I used to listen to our favorite CDs or a 70s-music radio station on Saturday night while playing a rockin’ game of Scrabble. Do we know how to live, or what? We aren’t music aficionados by any stretch of the imagination. I rarely buy CDs, and my husband (thinks he) still has his high school-era Heavy Metal tape collection. (He doesn’t know it didn’t survive last summer’s move.) But I love music. Truly love it. I look forward to a time when it becomes a bigger part of my life again.

When Chee came along, I bought a CD, put out by those geniuses at Disney, of something like 25 classic children’s songs. I was in my 30s when I had Chee and hadn’t listened to kids music in well over 20 years, I couldn’t remember words to any songs. When she was a few months old, I’d pop the CD in and she’d listen.

Seriously, she’d listen. At 3 months old, certain songs clicked with her almost immediately. I remember the first time we realized the power these songs had over her. She was screaming her head off on the way back from dinner out, and my husband and I started singing various songs to see if one might calm her down. One did. This little gem.

I went to the animal fair
The birds and beasts were there
The big baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair

You should have seen the monk
He sat on the elephant’s trunk
The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees
And that was the end of the monk
The monk, the monk, the monk

For months and months, anytime she cried, we’d start singing that little diddy and she’d instantly calm down. And start laughing. She loved that odd little song.

Over time her tastes changed. For a period, she was really into a CD of children’s songs with various World arrangements (for example, an Asian version of Twinkle Twinkle). She was a huge Shady Tree fan and an even bigger Philadelphia Chickens fan. Other random CDs made it into the repertoire, with favorites such as Wheels on the Bus and Baa Baa Black Sheep each holding court as the preferred song for a period of time. Many others too.

When she gave up her nap (at 19 months) I implemented Quiet Time. It was simple. Put on a CD and she would sit on her bed staring at the CD player and just listen to the songs. She wouldn’t even play. Just listen. Once the CD was over, she’d usually play for awhile, but I knew I was guaranteed however many minutes the length of the CD as Quiet Time. (I usually chose the longest CD….)

But her true love came later and so far nothing has usurped it. Sort of. Chee loves classical music. It started with a Lullaby CD that she would request often. Eventually I replaced it with a new Lullaby CD and she was hooked. That was followed up with another classical music CD and she never looked back. Rarely did she ever ask for any of her other CDs and would usually tell me to turn them off in favor of the classical ones. Except there was a brief love affair with Baby Beluga, but it didn’t last long. A bit disappointed, I admit I kinda like Raffi.

As with her other CDs, certain songs became favorites. With the Lullaby CD, she was very fond of Number Five and Number 17. Very fond. The beauty though was that I could always count on her falling asleep during Number 17. I remember those days well, when a little Lullaby CD was all it took to lure her to sleep. Now it’s multiple recitations of her favorite books and made-up stories. But I digress.

I say sort of nothing has usurped her love of classical music. Sadly, she doesn’t want to listen to any CDs at all anymore. Ever. I hear, No CD. No listen to music. No number five. No number seventeen. No, no, no. When did this start? A few months after she began Occupational Therapy.

There is no doubt that Chee has had some auditory sensory issues. When she was soooo into music, beyond what was typical of her peers, I think she was sensory seeking sound. Noise. She craved noise. As we progressed through Occupational Therapy, Chee became Sensory Defensive- she’d put her fingers in her ears when she became overstimulated by something. Not necessarily noise, but just anything.

Eventually she worked through that, but it seems the by-product is that she no longer has an interest in listening to music. It kind of saddens me. I love listening to music. I miss hearing the Animal Fair and Cows and I’m A Little Teapot. I really miss Number 17. Although, I can bring them back out for Ess. Yes, for Ess. I must do that. While Chee is at preschool of course.

All is not lost though. A new musical direction seems to be emerging. Chee is showing a growing interest in playing music herself. She was trying to tap out Baa Baa Black Sheep on a xylophone earlier today. And this evening, at a friend’s house, she hopped up on the piano and “played” and sang Happy Birthday. We have a piano at home and she has always enjoyed plunking around on it. Lately she seems more focused and intent at her plunking.

Perhaps she will continue to show an interest in music after all. I certainly hope so. The enjoyment of music is an important part of our lives and one that I wish to be able to share with my children.

I continue to be amazed at how powerful the written word is for Chee. It’s not 100% fail-proof (what is?), but it’s certainly incredibly effective. I imagine this to be true for all Hyperlexic children.

Recently Chee’s Occupational Therapist and I had a discussion that perhaps it’s time to move on from using the Alphabet as motivation in developing those fine motor skills. There’s more to writing than the ABCs, and we decided to make a shift. Yesterday her OT presents a picture of an insect that is all jumbled up. Half the head on one side, the other half somewhere else on the page. The belly and the back and the wing and the legs all mixed up on the page. Chee’s instructions were to choose a color and then to color the face or the belly, etc. Once it was all colored, they would cut it out and piece it together. Lots of skills to work on there - coloring (holding crayon properly), cutting and gluing.

She became quite distracted and seemed unable to focus and complete any coloring. I asked her OT what does she think that’s all about and she said she thinks it’s challenging for Chee, something new, and so she’s checking out. Probably right as I’ve seen her do that before. More than a few times.

OT then flipped the page over and wrote BUG on the back and then FACE. After Chee read the words, she told her, I want you to color the bug’s face. Chee focused and readily complied. Then OT wrote BELLY on the back and repeated the above steps. Same thing from Chee - focus and completion.

This week I am going to take some similar type of coloring pages - something jumbled up - and try to repeat the project with Chee. I want to see if reading is always necessary for project completion, or just when it’s something new. My hunch is only when it’s something new.

This is on my mind right now because I get very little feedback from Chee’s teacher about how she’s doing. Which for the most part I know that means she’s doing fine - at least behaviorally. If there were behavioral problems I’m sure I’d know. The only occasional comment I’ll get is that Chee didn’t seem to understand a task, or understand the big picture of what’s going on.

We have our next parent-teacher conference in a couple of weeks and I want to have armed myself with some examples to show how simply writing down a word or two will help convey a concept, idea or direction in a way that Chee can understand.

Via our private speech therapy and occupational therapy, I see how incredibly powerful writing down a few words is to help Chee connect the dots. At home, I see how reading the words herself helps prepare her for new experiences (such as the Sesame Street outing). I’d like to see the same simple accommodations being made at school too.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out what is the typical stuff that works. I find myself reaching for pen and paper to try and help Ess out - and she just tries to eat the paper. Parenting two very different kids requires very different approaches. My parenting muscles sure are getting a big workout lately.

We had a very fun and busy kid-centric weekend. I often think those are the best kind of weekends, although they leave me completely exhausted.

Our weekend started early, on Friday, with a trip downtown to see Sesame Street Live. I admit, I liked the show. Cute songs, cute characters. More than anything though, I loved seeing my girls get into something that was designed just for them. Seeing their eyes light up, hearing them shout Elmoooo!! It was a little bit joyful.

I have to hand it to Chee - she was awesome. I had hung a few signs in the kitchen telling what to expect on Friday at the show. That it would be loud, there would be lots of clapping and singing. All things that tend to trigger an over-stim meltdown. I’m not sure if reading those signs helped her process what was going to happen, but like I said, she was awesome. She clapped, she got down and danced (to the Alphabet song of course), she waved Hi and Bye to everyone. She was awesome (did I say that already?). She did get a little upset the last 15 minutes. She cried on and off. But when I told her Five more minutes till the show’s over, she calmed right down and made it through to the end.

(Dad’s wearing the Elmo shirt. What can I say?)

Following The Big Show we did lunch out and then a shopping trip to IKEA, which is always an experience, and that was followed by an ice cream treat and cool rides.

We woke up to clouds and forecasted showers this morning which threatened to cancel our special outing today. But the clouds moved on, the sun started shining, and off we went - Horseback Riding at Chee’s teacher’s house. What a fun day! Chee has ridden a few ponies before - this was no pony. She loved it. She’s very comfortable around horses. She didn’t show the least bit of trepidation. This was completely unlike her sister who shrieked Noooooo at the suggestion she pet the horse or if a dog came too near. Ess did not like the animals. Not one bit.

Chee’s favorite part was feeding carrots to the horses.

I noticed on the way home that she was scripting scripting galore. She was going through entire Caillou episodes scene by scene, word for word. She hadn’t been doing that in the morning or while at the horse outing. There she interacted with the other kids, talked to them, seemed to be very comfortable. I wonder if the scripting is something she used to help get herself re-organized after being socially “on” for the better part of the afternoon. I have heard that kids will outgrow the scripting as their language develops, but that stress can bring it out again. I wonder.

Sunday is going to be a true day of rest for us. A lot of fun and busy stuff this weekend for two little girls. I They need a break.

Chee still seems to be doing okay despite her Shingles. I do think she’s in some discomfort, but not enough to slow her down. They are not getting better yet, and in fact each day they look a little worse. But I’m told to expect that.

I think about her managing all this stuff this weekend - a big, live show followed by a busy day and then a social outing with her peers and some ginormous horses - all the while having an assumingly very painful rash. That is pretty amazing. A testament to just how well-regulated she’s been lately.

I’m proud of both my girls.