Great News

We had a nap today with no tears! Hooray!! It was a really long nap, so that means a late night tonight. I think we're going to have to give up naptime because it keeps her up so late. Hopefully we'll have no tears for bedtime tonight.

It's still going on

Well, we're still having the naptime and nightime protests. When we even speak of bed, she starts crying. I'm hoping this is short lived, it's hurts me to see her upset. I know life can't be always happy, but I try to make it that way. I think some of this is separation anxiety. This is a very good thing, because it means attachment. Since returning home, I've noticed a lot more eye contact. I don't leave her often, but when I do, she never protests. Just this past week, I told her I was leaving for a few minutes, but would be back. She said, "Car seat?" I took her along with me because she asked, I was happy she wanted to be with me. The other morning, I left her for an hour with her sister. She asked for me the whole time I was gone. This is a major breakthrough in attachment. The only problem is that she will start preschool in a week. I guess it will be good that she misses me, and she'll only be gone for 2 and a half hours. I guess I'll just see how it goes. I don't know if the timing for all of this is good or bad. She is also communicating better every day. So we'll press on with our NR, and hope this emotional time willl be a time of growth and not take too long.

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.

Re-evaluation news

We had our re-evaluation a little over a week ago. I'm happy to report that things went much better then I had imagined. We've made huge neurological progress and we are moving on to the next step. We've been assigned a new set of patterns, and they are very do-able. I must admit, they look a bit strange, but we are going to do them. We know what we have been doing has caused big changes, so we're going to do everything we've been told. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but S's emotional guard is coming down and I can see her falling in love. If I look at her and smile, a change overcomes her entire face and she smiles back at me. She is giving hugs to everyone. I got my first real kiss last week. I ask her for a kiss before she goes to bed and never get one. Sometime she'll press her cheek to mine, and that's good enough for me. I get huge hugs, and I know she is dealing with oral sensitivity, so it's always been okay not to get kisses. It's a different world for her, and I'm happy to be a part of it and understand how she feels without trying to force her into anything. Well, this night was different. She pressed her little lips to my cheek and gave a long kiss. I was totally in shock, not even knowing how to react, and then she moved to the other cheek and did the same thing! I squeezed her and gave her another kiss and put her in bed. She has since given a few more, it has been wonderful. Her baby cousin who is 6 months old was over the other day. She kept walking over to her and touching her on the head. Then she touched her arms, legs, head and was labeling all of her body parts, it was so cute. The baby coughed, and she kept asking her, "Are you okay?" I finally realized that she was expecting the baby to answer, because she kept asking if she was okay. So I answered for her and she stopped. This was the first time she really took an interest in a baby for more than a second. This time last year, I remember being so excited at how far she'd come. I had no idea that she would get to this point one year later. When you have your children by birth, you always marvel over each new thing that they do. With S, each new thing that she does is cause for celebration because we see her unfolding. All of this is in her, she just lets it out very carefully and slowly. We are always in anticipation of what will come next, and it's not always in the order you expect.

We hope to be traveling in the next couple of weeks, so I'll try to keep up as best as I can. We are on an exciting adventure, and I would love to share it so others like us can experience the same joys that we have achieved through NR.

May 14, 2009

I've just got a short update because it's nearing the end of school and things are crazy around here. We have our re-evaluation in 2 days. I'm a little worried because we have lapsed with our program. S doesn't really respond to bribes or incentives, so it's been difficult to get her motivated. The good news is that doors are still being opened and connections are being made. S uses mommy and daddy all of the time now. She also uses the names of her sisters. Yesterday at OT, daddy was holding her while I went to another room. She asked, "Where's mommy?" Today, after her sisters went to school and her daddy went to work, she asked where one of her sisters were by name. I explained that she went to school and then she asked, "Where is everyone?" Her sentence structure is continuing to improve. She pedaled a bicycle last week, which the OT said was a 3 year old skill. She is doing a lot of singing, she doesn't know many of the words, but instantly recognizes the tune. Yesterday, I got some big hugs. On Mother's Day, when I put her to bed, she gave me the equivalent of a kiss. She made the sound out loud, Mwaaaa! That's the sound she says when she blows a kiss. She's letting go a little bit at a time. I'm actually really happy that she is progressing this way, I feel it's genuine and what she is comfortable with. I'd rather it come slowly than for her to go through the motions but feel absolutely nothing. One of the goals we have for her is to feel empathy. She doesn't really realize when she hurts someone and doesn't give much reaction to others being hurt. Today, she was eating Cheerios and I asked her to give me one. She answered no, which was okay, but I wondered why she said no. She usually has no problem sharing, either with me or another child. I asked her again, and she didn't say no, but she didn't give me one either. So I told her I was sad and was going to cry because she wouldn't give me one. She studied my reaction for several seconds and much to my surprise, she ran over and fed me one! After that, she kept feeding me Cheerios.

I honestly don't know what goals to set for her for our re-evaluation. There were so many thing that were completely absent that I wanted to see and she has exceeded all of my goals. We need to expand on the one's we've gained, but I just don't have the same type goals to set. I'll post after our evaluation. I've been told that this blog has been shared with people who are considering NR. I'm so happy you are reading along and I hope this is encouraging to you. I started out a sceptic and turned into a believer. When the opportunity came up to be evaluated, I needed to make a quick decision or lose out. I read as much as I could before we went, but didn't have enough info going into it. That's the main reason I was a sceptic. The remarkable thing I've found is that I can't find anyone who said it didn't work for them. The hardest part is sticking to it and finding new ways to stay motivated. From what I've read on the neuro group, my daughter is one of the youngest doing it, and I think that is the best time to do it. Right now, even with our lapses, she's young enough that this could just be a part of her life. Even if it takes twice the amount of time, it is incorporated into her life so that it will feel very natural and a part of her everyday life. If you are following along, please leave me a comment. You can keep the comments private if you don't want everyone to read it. It always helps to know others are counting on you, it will keep us motivated.

May 1, 2009

We're getting a huge expansion in vocabulary and words used everyday. The word combinations are increasing also. Yesterday, S was climbing on her swingset/play set, and she climbed to the top of one part of it. As she was getting to the top, I heard her say something I didn't understand. She repeated it several times and I figured out she was saying, "Big girl". She knows when she accomplishes something she hasn't before, we say she's a big girl. When one of her sisters is out of sight, she asks, "Where is she?" I thought this was sort of a learned repetition, but when 2 sisters left, she asked, "Where are they?" She continues to surprise me with things she has learned a long time ago but takes a while to express it to me. I had a Disney shirt with many of the Disney characters and scenes on it and she pointed to the teacup and said, "Spin" It's been a while since we've been to Disney, and she's only been on that ride once or twice. I didn't even think she enjoyed it, but she obviously remembered it. It's just so darned exciting to see her unfold. Everyday is a new surprise. She is saying, "Mommy" with a whole lot more enthusiasm, and even says it very endearingly. I got a big hug the other day where she gave me a huge squeeze. I've gotten hugs before, usually with a running start and slamming into me, but this was from a standing position and then a big squeeze. At school the other day, I told her I was leaving the room for a minute and that I'd be right back. I've done this before and she lets me leave without even watching me go. This day was different. She turned away from what she was doing and looked up at me and watched me leave. Her teacher told her I'd be right back and she still looked toward the door. The teacher turned her head away and distracted her. This was a big moment for her and I. She showed me that she cared that I left. Ever since she first came home, she would always be looking at me when I wasn't looking at her. She very secretly keeps her eye on me without me knowing. When she's at school, she glances over to make sure I'm there. She has no problem clinging to me when she is scared, so it's not like she's to proud to cling to me. All of the classrooms have one way glass so you can spy on the kids from the outside. I waited to go in to see what she was doing. They put some music on and she was dancing around the room. It was so nice to see her having so much fun. She has just started to move to music since we started the program. She really let loose this day, and she was actually dancing. At school, she did another really mature thing. She had 2 bowls she was playing with. A little girl started carrying one of them away. S took the pther bowl and started following her, spouting off a string of words I didn't understand. It looked and sounded like she was pleading with the girl to give it back. When the girl took off faster with it, she just said, "Okay, bye bye." I can tell you from being in that classroom with her everyday, if it were one of the other kids, they would have just grabbed it back from them.

She is catching up at a rapid pace and I'm so excited for her. Our last hurdle is getting her to eat, that will come. I'm just so happy with her progress, and it's so nice that I don't feel the need to get her to do anything before she's ready. Most of what she needs to know is in there already, she just isn't ready to let it out. The teacher that comes to the house once every other week thinks she can't do a lot of things because she can't get S to do them for her. She matches colors at school every time, yet she won't do it for anyone else. Now I know why some people try to mainstream their kids in regular schools. The special needs schools and providers seem to concentrate on what the kids can't do as opposed to what they can do. I thought we'd gotten further than that by now. I do have to say, our OT is S's cheerleader, always being positive and never expecting her not to do something. He always likes to be pleasantly surprised whe she does something he's challenged her with. She may be cautious, but she's also curious. Today she was stringing beads and then she realized by holding the bead and pulling the string, she'd made a pulley. She kept pulling it up and letting it down to see how it worked. She loves to see how things work, she turns all of her toys over and around to see how they work. If she can find an alternate way to make a toy do the same thing, she'll do it that way for a challenge. She's always been that way. Only 2 weeks until her re-eval, can't wait to see how she's doing.

April 20, 2009

Where does the time go? Time is moving at warp speed lately, and I don't expect it will slow down anytime soon. We're looking forward to summer, things should slow down by then. S and mom endured another day at school today. I've realized that it is a rich and rewarding experience for her and that she doesn't see the faults like I do. If it only affects me, then I don't need to worry about it. Today S put a cup up to her mouth like she was going to drink multiple times. I think she thinks she was faking us out. She looked very skilled at her attempts to drink, if you were watching from a distance, you would have never known she wasn't drinking. She did something really great today at school. a little boy was trying to take away her play plate at the play kitchen area. She held tight and wouldn't let him take it from her. She thought quickly and grabbed another plate with her one hand and gave it to the boy. This made him let go and she got to keep her plate. Way to problem solve!!!! She is the oldest in the class, and it is the most evident in her play skills. The other children come up beside her and play with the same toy as she is playing with. She always lets them play whereas they will push her away or pull the toy away from her.

She is using many 3 or more word sentences now. She'll point to something and say,"See the _____?" She is really catching on to what letters are and mean. When she sees letters, she will say some of the letters that she knows. 'Z' is her favorite letter. She loves to sing the ABC song, even though she doesn't know most of the letters. Today she heard someone say a letter and she started saying a letter and it's sound. I am really amazed at the progress she's making. She seems to be improving in the area of attachment also. The only area we still need to work on is increased eye contact, which is coming along with her increased vocabulary. I make her look me in the eyes when she is asking me something. She used to be really scared when people were clapping their hands. We were at an event the other night and she wasn't scared at all. Another thing she is doing is saying scared or afraid when she wants to be picked up. She is 34 months old today. I'm hoping that she'll be caught up developmentally by the time she's 3. There will be some areas that she'll still fall behind in, but they are due to unresolved sensory issues. We are hoping NR will repair all of that. We go for our re-eval in about 3 weeks, so I'll be sure to report on her progress.

April 11, 2009

There's so much that's gone on since I've last written. I write little notes so I don't forget, but I don't have the time to write down everything(wish I did).
She was holding this little drink umbrella that her sister had saved for her doll. I asked her, "Do you know what that is used for?" I wasn't expecting that she'd answer me, since she doesn't answer most of my questions anyway. She proceeded to lift that little umbrella right over her head! Now the remarkable part is that I don't remember when we've even used an umbrella or where she's seen it. This is an example of what I mean when I say that she shows us what she knows when we least expect it. She has been watching everything and taking it all in. I knew she was watching everything, but I didn't know she remembered everything.

The other day I left her with daddy for a short time. When I came home, she called out, "MOMMY!" I was so excited.

Probably the biggest developmental milestone is that she asked WHY? I was shocked that she asked me, not really sure she said 'why'. I answered her and she seemed satisfied with the answer. She has since asked why a couple of more times.

I have these little plastic star shaped reusable ice cubes that I have had in the bath tub with her. She dug them out the other day and when I mentioned star, she started singing twinkle twinkle. I sing her twinkle twinkle when she lets me hold her like a baby while feeding her a bottle. She hasn't wanted to be in this position for a while, but she did recently. I forgot to sing, so part way through her bottle, she said "up above" I caught on and starting singing. Since the ABC song is the same tune, she'll start singing, "Next time won't you sing with me" while I'm singing twinkle twinkle.

One of the other kids was asking me if I bought Peeps for Easter. I had showed S what marshmallow peeps were earlier at the store. I asked her if she remembered what peeps were and she didn't. She related the word to the closest familiar sounding word to her which was beep. She proceeded to tell us a story. She said car seat, drive drive, beep, had fun! That translates to: She got in her car seat to go to the park where she played with the steering wheel(she calls it a drive drive because that's what she does with it). She went beep beep on the steering wheel and she had fun! This was the first time she had told us a story.

She has communicated with us since we've been home by taking our hand and placing it on what she wants. It was a very effective method of communication, there was never any question what she wanted. If she wanted to go somewhere, she would have us pick her up. She would then lean in the direction she wanted us to go in. We felt like a horse! Anyway, the point of explaining this was to say that she tried to get her teacher to do something by grabbing her hand. The teacher didn't comply, so she immediately realized it wouldn't work and said the word instead.

At school, they are given a plastic egg and need to place it in the bowl with the same color. Since she has a 50/50 chance of getting it right(they only use 2 colors), I thought the first 2 times could have been lucky. Well, she did it a total of 5 times and got it right each time. Now if you set her down to do the activity at home, she won't cooperate at all. That's why it's so hard to know what she knows. I think in time, she will surpass her peers. Although I haven't been able to predict her timeline, I do think by the time she is done with NR therapy, she will be long caught up. The last day we went to school, her 11 year old sister was able to come with her. I knew this would be a good experience for both of them. She was much more bold and tried new things because she saw her sister doing it. In the beginning of class they sing a song. S did all of the hand motions with the song for the first time. She sang in a loud voice that we could all hear. The best part was when she sang the entire last sentence of the song, "I hope that you are too."

I've been reading on the neuro-network group about self regulation. That's an area we need to work on. She likes to have her way and do what she wants to do. She has a really hard time sitting in school. I'm having a hard time with this because I don't think that's an overly important area to be working on now when we have so much more important things to work on. I guess if this is the only thing I'm worried about, then I'm doing okay.

Progress to report

So much has happened in just a couple of days. S is using all of our names, even Mommy!!!!! Today she spontaneously called out Grandma when she spotted her. When we came in the door today from being out, she said hi to the dog using her name. I had to go to WalMart yesterday and she would only sit in the cart for a few minutes. When she got out, I told her she had to hold my hand. She will NEVER hold my hand. She protested, but I told her she had to hold my hand or get back in the cart. She held my hand the entire time. I can't tell you how happy it made me to be able to walk through a store holding her adorable little hand. Today at OT, she actually played with the moon sand. Until now, she never touched it, she hated the feel of it. Yesterday at school, she actually put one of the dollhouse people in a bed. She has never played with the people before. She ate an Oreo for the first time yesterday at school. They mixed crushed oreos and vanilla pudding. I kept them separate because I knew she would never try them together. She doesn't eat anything soft. She was really hungry, so she just grabbed a piece of oreo and put it in her mouth. I dipped a little in the pudding, and she still ate it. She wouldn't eat it when there was too much pudidng on it, but just the fact that she ate it at all was pretty huge. We are really gaining a lot of momentum, I want to keep it going. She is saying more words than I can count. There are a few sounds she can't make, but for the most part, her words are really clear. Today, she also pointed to some pictures on the wall at OT. The student intern was saying the word to what she was pointing to and then S pointed to another picture on the wall and said, "Cookie" at the picture of the cookie. I'm not sure if it's her confidence that is making her respond, or something has just matured, allowing her to express herself the way we want her to. The kids in her school class don't do much talking, so she isn't doing it because she sees and hears them. I would love to have her with older children, but unfortunately, they don't allow mommies with the older children. I wish there was a facility that allowed that. Yesterday she got hurt by another child and she was just sitting there protecting herself from further harm. She only cries when it really hurts. I saw that she was waiting to be rescued, and I was glad I was there. That's part of the reason why I will only let her go where I can be with her. Unfortunately, there are so few people familiar with the dynamics of attachment, they don't understand the need for me to be there. That's all for today.