Strange coincidences

S hadn't taken a nap 4 days in a row. She slept later than usual, so by the time she was at all ready to nap, it was much too late. In the past, if she naps late, she stays up really late. Once thing I noticed when we first started NR, it would energize her. I couldn't do it in the afternoon or she wouldn't want to go to sleep. So on the no nap days, she would cry when I put her in bed at night and act scared to death to be left there. She would stop crying after less than a minute, but it was disturbing just the same. Today, she got up early enough to take a nap. She started hyperventilating at the mention of a nap. I put her in bed and tried to calm her down before I left. She stopped crying right away after I left. Tonight, when I put her in bed, she cried again. I gave her some books and toys and her sister stayed with her until she calmed down. I was really confused about all of this behavior until nap time today. I realized that it is probably a result of starting up our NR again. Last time, she went through some of this when we first started. I'm glad I realized that it wasn't just random that she started this. We've been working on getting her to respond to questions. She is really responding well and talking. The past few mornings, she will just rattle of a bunch of words as if to tell me a story. I don't understand all of the words, so I don't know if she is actually trying to tell me something that she thinks is important. I love that getting back to our program is stirring things up in her, but I don't love that it seems to be stirring up some emotion that she probably doesn't even understand.

July 27, 2009

We have been away for most of the past 8 weeks. Our NR program was tailored to our travel because we knew we were going to be away. Unfortunately, we were unable to do anything because of many factors. Since S is so young, she continues to develop anyway, so she does new things all of the time. We could always make more progress by sticking to our NR, but we all just do what we can. We started back a few days ago, and there's lots to report. S was very willing to get back on her tummy to crawl, I was very excited about that. Her crawl looked like it always did, with maybe a little less leg involvement than before for the first few times. Then something disturbing happened. She stopped using her left leg completely. After a few times, she had the left leg bent at the knee and it was sticking straight up. This was a bigger concern because when she came home, she did not use her left hand or arm to do anything. There was no evidence of injury, so there was no explanation. This issue resolved with effort to get her to use it. So when it re-surfaced after so long, this time with her leg, I called Bette right away, and she reassured me that there was nothing to worry about, that sometimes there's a little backslide and then forward progress. This can happen throughout the program. Yesterday, she used her left leg again, although not the same as her right. We also started fetal patterns. They are very hard to do with alone. We do the best we can. S has problems with mouth sensitivity, so part of our fetal patterns involves touching her hands to her mouth area. When we switched positions and got to the floor, she had her hand covering her mouth. She never touches her mouth, so this was encouraging. The other great thing to report was that after we did some fetal patterns, she wanted to just snuggle chest to chest.

Last year, I discovered that leaving our house and spending the night somewhere else was benificial for S. Taking her out of her comfort zone in a controlled way such as vacations really stretched her and we saw big changes upon our return. She deals with anxiety in new and different situations. When we went away about 9 months ago, she was too scared to go in her port-a-crib. Usually, I'd have to hold her until she went to sleep and then put her in. She never would consider sleeping or even lying in my bed. Well, this time she did. So now that she conquered this some time ago, this last vacation she slept with me the entire time. Since returning home, we have a lot more eye contact. Just the other day, I realized a better way to get her to look at me when I am speaking to her. I used to ask her to look into my eyes. Sometimes, I would have to put my hands over her cheeks and turn her head to face me, then wait until her darting eyes would finally make contact with mine. I don't know what took me so long to discover this, but the other day, I said, "Let me see your eyes." She instantly made eye contact with me. Why didn't I think of this before? She's very willing to show me her big beautiful eyes.

Her speech is really coming along. She still does a lot of repeating what people say to her. Sometimes we need to re-word a question for her to answer. A speech pathologist friend of mine suggested that repeating a question is sometimes done when a child is buying some time to interpret the question and come up with an answer. I looked up repetition on the internet and came up with all kids of scary things. I'm glad I'm keeping this journal, because I can look back and see what she has done. Sometimes when you focus on what they can't do, you forget all they can do. Last night, we had a thunder and lightning storm and I asked her, "Do you like thunder and lightning storms?" She repeated, "Thunder" I said, "Yes, the thunder makes a big sound and the lightning is a big flash of light." Then she said, "Bug". I asked her, "What?" She repeated, "Bug" I asked her to say it a couple more times and repeated back to her, "Bug" to make sure that's what she was trying to say and she said in a frustrated voice back to me, "Lightning bug!" Of course!!!! Her favorite book has a page with a lightning bug! She related the lightning to what she knew, the lightning bug.

This morning, I was doing this little piggy with her. I had forgotten that a long time ago, after I did wee wee wee all the way home, I touched her nose and said, "Boop" Well, she wanted to take a turn with me, so I let her and she did the boop thing with me. I had totally forgotten about it until she did it to me. After about the fourth time, she went to touch my nose and stuck her finger right in my eye. Her nail either poked or scratched my eye and it really hurt. I made a big deal over telling her it hurt so she would know it hurt and hopefully I would get a reaction from her. Seh kept trying to pull my hand off of my eye. It really hurt, I had to keep my eye closed, so I didn't let her do it. I kept waiting for her reation, peeking at her through my hands. She had a look of concern onher face, but that's about it. I told her she hurt me and that I had a boo boo. She spontaneously said, "Sorry" I was shocked! She doesn't usually hurt people, so I've only made her say I'm sorry a few times. I was so happy that she knew the appropriate response and used it. I hugged her and we left it at that.

She's going to try going to pre-school in a couple of weeks, I hope it works out. She plays well with other children, although she likes to hug them and they really don't know what to do when she does it. Am I the only one who thinks it's strange that kids don't hug eachother? I can't remember how huggy my other kids were at the same age, but it doesn't seem like a foreign concept to me.

Overall, our vacation adventures have been a great experience, not only where we went, but S's adaptability to all of the different circumstances. She is a pro frequent flyer now, she loves buckling her own seatbelt. What were the airlines thinking when they put the flight attendant call button on the little controller that is connected to the seat? I'm sure in the dark, many people other than little kids have pushed the wrong button. What kid doesn't love a button that goes "Ding!" when you push it? One time, we were stuck in the two middle seats in a row of 4. Somehow, it seemed like S grew 3 feet bigger and sprouted a few more arms and legs. Of course the people in the adjoining seats tried to sleep the whole time. I can sleep on almost any flight, any time of day, but not for the duration that I saw the people sleep on all of our flights! My goodness, the sleeping pill industry must be booming, I can't imagine being able to sleep so much without them. She was really well behaved on the flights, I was impressed, especially for the amount of time we spent on them. When I asked her if she wanted to go on another airplane ride, the answer was an immediate, "NO!"

That's all for now, I'll try to give more frequent updates now that we are home.