I almost forgot!!

This one is huge, and to think I almost forgot about it! I have been sick with a cold the past couple of days and my 13 year old was helping with S so I could rest. I came downstairs and she knew I wasn't feeling well. She said to her sister, "Let's go outside 'cause mommy doesn't feel good." Did I hear that right? She understood that I didn't feel well and knew enough to be considerate. This is amazing! This is what I was talking about when I said she has increased her emotional vocabulary. Oh, I so want this to be a part of BIT because I will get her more treatment. The Listening Program can also have an effect.

When she went to the Pediatric ENT for an audiogram, they noticed a huge clog of hardened ear wax in her right ear. The ENT said it would be too risky and traumatic to dig it out and that she should undergo SURGERY for it!!! I told him I would talk with the ped about it and she suggested trying the Debrox drops first. Little did I know that everytime she dug out wax at the office, she was risking rupturing the eardrum!

I have been putting drops in her ears for almost a week. I hope and pray that it does the trick and she avoids surgery. I will look for every other treatment before submitting to anesthesia.

***occasionally I will go back and correct typos, but most of the time I'm lucky if I have time to post a new entry. So I actually do pride myself on spelling,, even though it's not obvious here!

progress

I don't know how to describe this, but S has been using more expressive words. Suddenly, she sounds more like a big kid than a 4 year old. The amount of expression in her voice has also changed, I think this is due to the Theraputic Listening program. I've also noticed more compliance. If I ask her to do something she doesn't want to, she doesn't really protest, and then will say, "Okay mom." If it's possible for her to be more pleasant, then she is. Since this week is our Spring break, we have been in underwear except for night time. she has done great. Now if we can just get her to poop in the potty. Another one of my kids refused to do that until she was about 5, so I've been through this before. We had a big thunderstorm about 5 days ago and she was scared to sleep in her own bed. I stayed with her in her bed for awhile and she was okay. Then we had another storm and she wanted to sleep in my bed. I said she could and she's been there for the past 2 nights. The difference is that she stayed close to me instead of keeping her distance. This is the same child who used to scream whenever she was placed on a bed until she was home more than a year! It has been slow going, but we're getting there. I was talking to a friend the other day and I had this big realization. What if S has expressive language problems? Is this why she doesn't express words for emotion? I really hate that sensory processing disorder, auditory processing disorder and attachment problems all have the same or overlapping symptoms. How is someone supposed to figure out what to do for their child? I can't do multiple therapies at once, she nor I can't handle that! I really don't care what the diagnosis or label is, just tell me WHAT it is and WHAT I can do about it!?!? Can't anyone at least figure that out? My goodness, I have gained 10 pounds and spent hours sitting here on the computer trying to find the answers. I'm perplexed and frustrated, can you tell? I feel like I am all alone in this, even those who have been patient are ready to give up thinking we've done all we can and that she is 'just fine/needs more time.' Well, sorry, I'm not giving up until I have done all I can. She deserves this and she's going to get all that she needs. How many times have I said this? Maybe I need to say this to keep going. I am having a hard time with it all because of the stress the school is putting me through. Better me than her. Although conditions aren't perfect where she is going, I don't think a day has gone by this week when she hasn't asked when she is going back to pre-school. We only have about 6 or 7 weeks left and then summer, yay!!!!!!

more

Last night, I got an "I love you" out of the blue, how exciting!!!! Very often, after the fetals, we have snuggle time and I get a kiss. We're starting to get a little defiant with crawling again, but we continue to do it. Everything else is going fine. We're working on learning to recognize numbers since we have letters and letter sounds down. I have been learning about auditory precessing disorder and have discovered something. Since her ears have been blocked by hardened ear wax more often thant not, I wonder how much of an effect it has had on her development. Many people have said that fluid in the ears and ear infections have had an impact on their child. Will her SPD symptoms diminish once her ears are clear for a period of time? Once we get this clog out, I will find out what it takes to keep them clear so we get some progress. I hope we don't need to go through the surgical route for this problem.

More on BIT

I forgot to wrote one important thing about BIT. When he was working on S, she sat up and asked if she could kiss him! She doesn't give out kisses freely, so this was a bit strange. As you can imagine, this made him a bit unconfortable. The other thing I forgot to mention is that he had her touch her hand to her opposite knee. At first she couldn't do it, then she progressed to doing it randomly. Eventually she got the rhythm of it. After doing her NR last night, I asked her to do this activity and she did it with ease. She was also a little more cooperative with her exercises. Today we went to OT. I didn't tell the OT about this therapy we did over the weekend. I was asking her about how much longer she needs to do the listening program and she said about 6 weeks or so. She noticed a big improvement today in her activities, of course attributing it all to the listening program. I just found out yesterday that S has grasped a new concept. I have been amazed that I have never see any manipulative behavior. She likes to control her environment because of her anxiety, but never manipulation for the usual reasons. Yesterday, her sister was watching her while I was gone for a couple of hours. She wanted to play with her other sister's I-touch, so she went upstairs. I am trying to keep her off any type of screen, so I don't let her play very much. Her sister reminded her I didn't want her playing it and she responded, "But mommy isn't home!" Under normal circumstances, this would not be something to be proud of, but I was so thrilled that she actually got a concept like that! This is a first. She has never really gotten this part of interactions. This gives me hope that she will pick up on the nuances of interactions with other children. She doesn't seem to understand when she is being rejected by other children.
She also said when she didn't use the I-touch, "I'm being so obedient!!!"

The other day she was at the park and she was playing princesses with another girl. The other girl said she was going to be one of the princesses like Cinderella and asked S what she was going to be. She answered Tinkerbell. The other girl sharply corrected her that Tinkerbell wasn't a princess. This went right over her head. Hopefully someday she will understand all of these things.

Could this be from BIT?

I'm sitting here while S is playing with magnetic dolls. She is pretending one is a mommy and one is a baby and saying, "I love you baby, kiss, kiss, kiss!" Maybe this is just a progression of what she would be pretending anyway, who knows? I guess the coming days and weeks will tell for sure. She has been a little more calm today, even though she hasn't gotten enough sleep. We were all awakened by a loud thunderstorm early this morning. She has been playing very nicely today by herself. We played a game today and she had a hard time with impulse control. On Friday, I spoke with a local mom whose child has auditory processing disorder. She described all of the same symptoms that S has with sensory processing. Could this be a wrong diagnosis? Are they that similar? All of these have some level of overlap. Who has time to research so many things? I just joined an SPD yahoo group and had to go to digest in less than a week because it generated so much email. It has a lot of good info, but I can't read all of that mail. I really hope we can get the impulse control part improved by fall when school starts. This is how bad our oral sensitivity is-we still use a bottle for feeding. She can use a cup, but only to drink a drop or 2 at a time. She refused to drink milk out of a cup. This weekend was a true test if she could go without a bottle. we forgot the bottles, so I bought the closest bottle that resembled her since they didn't have her brand. She refused it. I put it all in a sippy cup, still nothing. I put it in a regular cup and she still wouldn't drink. She went the entire day without drinking anything but a few teaspoons of water. The next day, we found her brand but it had a latex nipple instead of silicone. She tried it because it looked like the same as hers. She put it in her mouth and it made her gag. I ried to make her try it again and she gagged and threw up when it was about 6 inches from her face. So it's not just being stubborn, she is just incapable. This makes me so sad that she can't make this transition. We are going to be seeing some people we haven't seen in almost 4 years. We all adopted at the same time from the same place. Their kids never had the same challenges, and I must admit that I am afraid of being judged. They are the sweetest people you could ever meet, and they have been understanding of what they know about. But people have a really hard time with it. I told a friend the other day about it and she got hung up on asking me questions like, "What does the doctor say?" "Aren't you worried about her teeth?' They just jump to conclusions and don't hear what you have to say. We aren't babying her, she doesn't use it as a pacifier, she doesn't go to bed with it, she doesn't suck on it because she wants to be a baby. "She uses it because it is functional. Her mouth cannot control liquids any other way. The hole in it is like a straw and she drinks it down in less than a minute. It serves a purpose, that's all. It's going to be hard on her when she realizes that other kids will make fun of her. I hope she can overcome these things before she starts school in the fall. My only hope is to find a good school where they will accept her. This means the public school system and a special needs classroom. Right now, things aren't looking good. I hold out hope between NR, Listening Therapy, and possibly more BIT. I can't give up now, even though I am tired of 'possible solutions'. why can't it be more straight forward? I guess that's why we have a society that pops pills for everything, that's the quick fix. That's fine for an adult, but I'm not drugging my growing child.

Latest News

I need to catch up since it has been so long. We had some sick days lately, so we missed another couple of days. We forced our way through, even when S wasn't feeling great. I am determined to trudge through to get this done. It's sort of discouraging to not see big progress, but there have to be periods like this. We went away this weekend to explore some BIT (brain integration therapy). There were some tangible results, but not as dramatic as some who have done this. Hopefully we will see more in the coming days and weeks. We had better results with my older daughter. I think older children seem to benefit more because they can do more things and be more actively involved in the process. I really love who we worked with though, he is very good at what he does. He is equally good with younger and older children. We are working our way through the IEP process which is beyond frustrating.

A Day Off

I took a day off on Saturday, I just couldn't find the energy to do the program. S asked if we were going to do it before she went to bed, because it is now our routine. I just realized we have been nearly 100% faithful to the program since December. I never thought we would get there, but I guess I needed a deadline for motivation. Now that I crawl along with S, she is much more compliant. We do the homologous stretch without a problem now. Yesterday, she asked to do it on the floor beside me. She did a great job by herself, but I asked her to get back on top of me for the rest. If we are re-creating fetal patterns, then it makes a lot more sense to try to re-create the feeling of being in-utero, right? Our day off created some regression, I find it amazing. One day of not crawling left her left side at 50% power. Her left leg was back in the air and not moving. I did forget to do the RMT pattern, and that has made a difference in the past. It's like I have to remind her brain that her left leg is there.

I have made the leap to try BIT(brain integration therapy). I am very sceptical of this therapy, especially since it is so expensive. It uses accupressure, which has been around for ages. Maybe 10 years in the future, it will be the next big thing, and I can say that we did it before it was popular. Either that or I'll just be in debt because of it and no farther along. My only reservation is doing the listening therapy along with this. How do I know which therapy worked? Each practitioner is going to say it was their method, aren't they?

We have a meeting with the school about the IEP. I'm hoping it is not as frustrating as the first meeting.

Quick Note

Just a quick note-We were doing her NR and 2 of her big sisters were in the room. we were all talking while it was going on. She asked if we were going to do the fetals, as usual, and I told her we'd do a couple. When we were done, I was expecting to jump up and start doing other things. She rolled over and gave me a big kiss on the stomach and remembered our snuggle time afterwards. How could I forget snuggle time? She knows her routine, but I think she wanted this and the kiss was certainly optional! I'm so excited where this is going!

New Things

We started the Theraputic Listening program on Tuesday. For now, we are having her put the headphones on in the car on the way homw from school. The OT said it could make her tired, so rather than try after she gets home, we tried the car. She does great with it and seems to enjoy it. Hallelujah that she can enjoy therapy! I am already seeing some changes. The OT said she will be more emotional during the initial adjustment time. Well, this child isn't emotional on a normal basis. She is always in happy mode, sometimes frustrated, and not usally sad. That is the extent of her emotions. She never really talks about an emotional state of being, other than viocing frustration. She has given hugs and kisses all on her own the past couple of days. She had the headphones on today and announced to me she wasn't afraid. She has been going up the stairs on her own, which she is normally afraid to do. She seems more willing to do things. Every day, she asks about doing her exercises. It's more of an anxiety thing and getting it over with than a desire to do them. She asks about the fetals every time. I ask if she wants to do them, usually it's no, but I ask if she can do just one. She climbs on top of me and willingly does them. I only do a few and always stop before she asks. We do the startle with her on top of me to. We have scheduled "snuggle time" at the end. Today, I pulled up our shirts and we had belly time with our bare bellies touchig one another. She tolerated this very well. A BIT practitioner is coming to my area and I'm considering trying it out. I would love to see how the listening program is doing before I add in another thing. The listening program is very promising, so I would love to hold off. That way, I'll be able to tell which program does what. How do you know what to do more of if you are doing several things at once? If I had all the money in the world, I guess it wouldn't matter, just do more of all of it. I'm still battling with the school to allow her in a VPK program. The good news is that we have been 100% faithful to the NR program. I didn't think we would get there, but here we are! Yipee! I hope we can stick with it.

Sickness Slowdown

We had several days of sickness, so we got nothing done. We're back now and it's such a struggle. The OT said she is weak and should spend more time on her belly. This is the first I heard of that. Is that why it's so hard for her to tummy crawl? S still isn't back to her normal mood since being sick, so we'll just see how it goes. She started the listening program yesterday, I'm so excited to start. I'll try to write down any changes I see. The OT said she will be more emotional for a couple of weeks while her brain adjusts. This is the attachment and bonding CD. The OT mentioned skipping something because she was an 'orphan' Does anyone else cringe when they hear someone call their child that?