The holidays are over....back to work!

We made it through the holidays!!

This is the fun age for kiddos just starting to "come into" the notion of Santa and the whole leaving presents thing.  I can't say Nea really grasped the presents part, but she did start to call anyone in a red hat "Santa!". When we got up on Christmas morning, she was happy to see the pretty packages, but didn't really understand that they were needing to be opened.  Of course, after the 1st one, she was done.  Happy to play with a new toy and spend the rest of the day doing her normal routine.  We really let her pace herself, and even once she went upstairs to her tent and chilled in there for a few minutes.  Finally we just let her bring the presents to us as we went about our morning.  She would bring one to me and say  "Open? help?" and we opened it together.  Then she would take off and come back with a new one 30 min. later.

Big sticker book from Grandma!

At Grandma's house it was about the same, except more people and bigger cousins.  But as the afternoon got to be too much, she went up to Grandma's big fluffy bed and laid under her pillows for a few.  I'm thrilled that she knows how to meet her own needs at such a young age.  If we can avoid the meltdown situation, it's just all the better for a stress-free day.













Last week's therapy sessions were a nightmare.  OT and Speech both ended in tears and lots of emotional stress.  We all weren't sure why, but it turns out later that Nea ended up sick, so perhaps she just wasn't feeling well.  Developmental therapy was also very horrible.  I was home sick myself and watched her meltdown into oblivion as she cried and threw herself down, then started banging her head onto the floor.  That's some very painful (and could cause nasty bruising) self-stimming so we just ended up stopping therapy early.  She was far too stressed and far too "gone" to be able to do any real work in the first place.

Stressed after therapy.  Needing all comfort items.

Overall, last week....blech.

This week however was much improved.  Nea shook off whatever bug she had after a couple days, Christmas went well and we were back in therapy again today.

OT sessions are increasingly more difficult as "A" works to improve her upper body strength and core.  It seems that she's regulating well with the "where's my body in space and time" thing and so she's moving Nea on to making her way in the world much easier.  This means lots of obstacle courses  that require Nea to go over, under, through, around, carry, under, jump, tipsy, etc., etc.  It's tiring for her and she tends to face plant a lot because she lacks that upper body strength needed.  Nea does not look down or put her chin anywhere close to her chest.  Doing so perhaps makes her dizzy or makes her head spin enough that it makes her unbalanced and she falls.  So to compensate, Nea will bend her body at the waist and cock her head to one said, looking sideways.  This increases her field of vision, but in the long run, doesn't really help her.  So our homework this week is to do activities that require her to look down more and make sure her head is moving, not just her whole body.  It's one of the reasons why she plays with everything at eye level.  She kneels in front of her train table when she's playing there and she likes a desk that's nose height when she's lining things up.  But, you all know how therapy works.  Just when you start to get comfortable....you gotta stretch even more.

Speech went very well.  Nea's learning verbs and I was shocked at how many she knows.  Diana would hold action cards up for Nea and say "What is the boy doing?"  or "What is she doing?"  and Nea was right 100% of the time with answers like "reading" or "swinging" or "swimming" or "jumping", etc.  I was amazed!  One of the cards was a baby crying and when Diana asked her what the baby was doing, Nea had no idea.  She finally looked at Diana and said, "What is she doing?" and Diana explained that she was crying....she was sad.  It looked like a pretty lost concept so we'll see how that one develops.  There's a part in the Temple Grandin movie where her aunt takes pictures of different faces and has Temple write on the picture what the emotion is to help her remember.  It's that whole social nuances thing that is going to be tough.

Nea's new thing is to growl when she's frustrated or not getting her point across.  She was tired and a bit stressed as we were walking to the car, which is why I let her have her paci.  She's doing the pattern of cough, cough then growl.  FINALLY she got out what she needed to ask me.  And gave me the major stink eye when I didn't tell her what she wanted.

She'll hate me later, but I'm glad I was able to catch this moment.....