Soooooooooooo MAD

We were just making muffins together and she told me something the pre-school teacher said to her. It came out because she had some of the batter on her hands and I told her to try to let it stay on a little while longer so she could learn to live with it for a while. This expression must have brought up the memory because she said that Mrs. XXXX told her to "live with it" when she had something on her hands. That constitutes child abuse when you know you have a child with sensory issues and tell them to just deal with it. I wonder how she would react if as an adult I told her to 'live with it". I would probably be arrested for harassment. Why aren't our children protected? How can someone purposely do that to a child? She really thought it was something she could change just by doing it. Yes, she could adapt slowly, that's the whole concept with OT. A gradual introduction of the offending item and a gradual adaptation. I can't believe I subjected her to that. They did a good job of hiding it from me. She wanted to go back each day, so I thought things were fine. I should have realized that kids go back to abusive situation because they don't know any better. After surviving neglect and abuse her first year of life, it just brought her back to the same environment. Maybe she thinks this is what to expect with all adults in charge of children. It makes me want to isolate her from everyone. She is more verbal now and so I think we are safe. She is getting much better with her emotional vocabulary. I just feel sick after hearing what I just did from her.

Tomorrow is the first day of school(I think)

Today is open house. We still don't know if school will start tomorrow because the building might not be ready. The school changed locations and they are under construction. We have 30 minutes to meet with the teacher before open house. I hope that is enough. How do you condense her life into 30 minutes? How do you prepare her without sounding like you are telling her what to do? From my past experience with teachers, they are all on the defensive. Her teacher sounded young, which to me is a good thing because she can't claim to know it all. Her pre-school teacher thought she had seen it all and that there was nothing else to learn. They are so flexible, so if they do what they say they will, it should all work out.Isn't that why you go to a private school? I hope and pray that this will work. She deserves a chance, just like any child. I wanted to write this on S's fact sheet to the teacher, but can't find a diplomatic way to write it. S is not a case study, she's not a child with a label, she's not an experiment. She has parents who are doing everything possible for her. Please treat her as an individual, unique child that she is. A sweet, smart, loving child. MY child, who I love more than I ever thought possible.

I have no idea what is going on, we didn't get half of the program done today. I am so frustrated, I don't know what to do. Something came out today that tied into something she has said the past two days in a row. It is very disturbing what I can think up with what she told me. I have no idea what is memory and what is just something random that she says. I thought the two days prior were random, but they fit in with what she said today. I don't expect I would ever be able to know for sure. I need to treat all of her delay tactics as emotional barriers instead of just trying to put off doing her exercises. We spent hours trying to accomplish it, but didn't get it done in the end. We didn't do any fetals, never even got to them, so we'll see if it makes a difference for tomorrow.

Rough Few Days

My guess is that worrying about school is the culprit. Her big sister started school on Wednesday, and she starts next week. We have been getting the same type behavior like when we start new fetals. I just don't know what to do or what to make of it, but I was hoping that things would calm down before school started. Maybe after open house she will be a little better. The unknown is scary to everyone. I'm nervous for her. We are being positive and upbeat and are using her sister's first day of school experiences to ease her fears. She cannot express her fears, she says she isn't nervous about anything. Then sometime she'll say she doesn't want to go to school. I am pretty sure it has to do with the whole potty issue. That is her biggest fear right now. Hopefully she will overcome this after a few days or even weeks. I want her to be able to stay at school for more than a couple of hours. Her teacher called today to let us know that open house had changed. She sounded really nice, I hope it works out. The right person can make all the difference for her future. I am not optimistic though, it's just too hard for people to understand. Because of her mood, NR has been difficult and time consuming.

We have another phone consult with the AT on Monday. I realized where some of her behavior is coming from. She is so afraid of being wrong or making a mistake, she will be disruptive to hide the fact she can't do something. There has never been any indication of this before. It is a common characteristic of kids with early trauma or neglect. They appear to have a perfectionist personality but it is driven by needing to be accepted. I hope to get a better explanation from the AT and what to do about it. I guess this discovery comes at a good time so I can explain it to the school. I can just see their reaction, spoiled kid! I hope they are willing to modify their correction techniques for her. I still think some of this is because of her pre-school teacher. Anyway, it doensn't matter who I can place the blame with, I just need to arrive at a solution.

The past couple of days have been a little rough, I'm not sure why. We started a little later in the day, that is usually an issue. She said she was sad today and wanted to be sad. I was patient and tried to talk her through it. I told her sometimes it's good to be sad to be able to get over what is making us sad. We have to get through the sad so we can be happy again. I told her if we talked about what was making her sad, maybe I could do something about it and make her happy again. I was shocked when she opened up about her pre-school teacher and the boy who misbehaved. She gets very upset when she sees someone else get punished. She also gets very sad when someone corrects her, she shuts herself right down. She takes it all personally. I don't know what this teacher said to her, but from what I learned from the teacher herself, it wasn't good. She had the victim share equal blame with the perpetrator. I think this contributed to her self esteem issues. I keep hearing her teachers words over and over again, "I hope too much damage hasn't been done." The pre-school is still sending me a bill for the last month of school when she didn't go there anymore. I want to send them our therapist bill and ask them to pay that because her going there contributed to her needing a therapist. I wonder what they would say about that.

Today after NR, she was playing baby with her sister again and telling me to help. It's very strange that she cries a specific cry, one that sounds like a tiny baby. She cries and then give that little cough sounding noise that babies make when they've cried themselves hysterical. She has always been disturbed by babies crying and finally was able to tell me that it was because of the babies in the orphanage. I asked why they cried and she said because they were hungry. I think it's great that she is willing to act this out through play.

I forgot to mention, she still sees her bubbles everytime she yawns. She almost always yawns during her fetals, but very seldom at any other times. Also, we used to have the teeth grinding during the fetal cross/measure, but now it starts during startle.

Developmental Optometrist

We went back to the Developmental Optometrist yesterday to finish up the last of her testing. I don't think we can get her into vision therapy yet because he is 45 minutes away and we just can't do it in conjunction with her sister's vision therapy. He mentioned that she performed better than any 5 year old he tested. This gave me the boost I needed to keep going with our NR program. It's getting to be such a chore and I'm burning out. She isn't, but I am. I guess it's easier to motivate myself than her.

One Notation

Just to let you know, we are still working on perfecting our patterns. Please remember that this is a representation of the patterns and that you should follow the advice of a NR practitioner for the exact hand/foot position/placement.

Last Night

I don't know what caused this, but last night she was constantly restless. I got no sleep. I'd like to say that adding milk back in the diet was responsible, but I don't think so. After going dairy free for so long with no results, I decided to gradually add it back into her diet. I started Saturday night. Yesterday, Sunday, she wanted to try to sit in the regular part of church instead of the quiet room. She did great!! She talked a few times, but was able to sit for an hour without being disruptive!!! This was a huge milestone for her. Her behavior was pretty much the same yesterday except when we were doing our NR. There was a bizzare turn of events. I didn't post this video, but on one of them, she tells me, "This baby is tired." I didn't know that was going on and thought she was being whiny. I was imitating the sounds she was making to try to get her to laugh and come out of it. I noticed tears and it had turned into sort of a cry. I tried to comfort her and she didn't let me. She asked her big sis(who was there to video) to be a baby and cry with her. She just looked at me and I whispered her to just go with it. I just watched not knowing what to do and she finally said, " Comfort us mom!" and so I did. She continued for a while and then it was over. I'm still not sure what to make of it.

I'm thinking it might be because of the new fetal pattern we have been doing. In the past, the new pattern has caused a reaction right away, so I'm really not sure. What makes me think it could be that pattern is that the past couple of days she hasn't wanted to do that one. Maybe we'll back off a little and do less reps. On a better note, yesterday before church she spontaneously said she loved me a bunch of times. Maybe this big growth in attachment is having a little conflict within her. I wish I could take it all away. How can a 5 year old understand all that is going on when a team of adults and her own parents can't quite grasp it?

I forgot the fetal cross and measure video

This one is the most difficult to get done with precision. I sort of have her head resting against my shoulder so I can lower her head making her chin go up to uncross and then push it back up for her chin to go down. All the while I am coaching her, chin up, chin down and cross. The positive to having her lie on top of me is that this one and the homologous stretch are a good abdominal workout for me.