Where's October

Seriously, what on earth happened to October? I feel like I went to sleep one day and when I woke up, "BAM!" October had mysteriously vanished and we were well on our way into November. So, just to prove to myself that October did indeed happen, here's a recap of our month.

Hannah played soccer the whole month although we really must use that term loosely. It's more like she whined and complained about soccer the whole month, but refused to actually quit. Soccer is now over and we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief that we will never make that mistake again! (She sure did love her uniform though!)

The first week of the month my dad came to visit and we carted him around the whole week to all of Hannah's appointments and classes. He got to go grocery shopping, to the dentist, to OT, to soccer, to the doctor, to the museum, to a zoo class and to an animal class at the YMCA. The poor guy didn't get to do ANYTHING touristy or restful! The day my dad left, Kyle's brother and his fiance arrived for 4 days with their dog/small horse. Hannah loved Kahlua even though she outweighed her by close to 100 pounds! While our guests were here I managed to come down with an awful cough that decided to hang out for ALL of October (more about that later).

Eventually, all of our guests were gone and we dove head first into homeschool and unburrying the house after two straight weeks of house guests. Homeschooling has been going well and Hannah's flying right along with the curriculum we've chosen as well as all the extra stuff we've picked out to supplement the work and to get her social experiences.

My cough continued to build until finally one Sunday I woke up and just could not get out of bed. On top of my cough I ached all over, had a fever, and my neck was so stiff I could barely move it. The next day I tried to get a doctor's appointment, but my doctor was completely booked so I attempted to go about my business, but just could not do it. I eventually decided that I had to be seen that day and called the doctor to ask whether she thought I needed to go to urgent care or to the ER. Apparently that got her attention and they told me to come in right at closing time and they'd squeeze me in. Shortly after looking at me, the decision was made that I needed to go to the ER because she feared that I either had septicemia or meningitis. I knew I could not effectively control Hannah in the ER while I was being checked over so I called a friend to see if I could drop her off there for a few hours until Kyle would be home from work and she instead insisted on coming to pick both Hannah and I up and drove me to the ER and took Hannah back to her house. Hannah ended up staying with them for two days because I ended up being admitted to the hospital. They too suspected meningitis, but were unable to do a lumbar puncture on me. The resident tried twice and then called in the attending physician who also tried twice with no success. Apparently my vertebrae are too close together to pass a needle between them. Good thing I've never given birth because I would have been seriously ticked to have been in labor expecting an epidural and be told they couldn't do it because they were unable to get the needle in there! Fortunately it was determined that I did not in fact have meningitis, but instead a nasty case of bronchitis and a viral infection that had piggy-backed along on top of it. Since I take immune suppressant drugs for my autoimmune disease, my body was unable to fight off the two simultaneous infections and had become basically overwhelmed. They stopped my medication, pumped me full of fluids and multiple IV antibiotics and then sent me home. Since coming home I've been on bed rest for several days (although I had a hard time following those orders) and now I'm back on light duty. I'm feeling much better, but I'm not 100% yet. The bronchitis is still hanging on and I tire very quickly. Hopefully I'll kick it soon.

In the midst of all of this sickness, soccer, and visitors I also managed to make my first ever Halloween costume. Hannah is obsessed with the movie Bolt and desperately wanted to be Bolt for Halloween. Unfortunately the Disney Store doesn't sell a Bolt costume so I was left with the decision of telling her to pick something else (not something I wanted to do) or make it myself. My mother is a brilliant crafter and my sister and I always had fantastic hand made Halloween costumes (we were those kids who always won the costume contests at all the fall festivals!), but I DID NOT inherit her talent for sewing or ANY of her crafty genes. Much blood, sweat, and tears went into the making of that darn costume, but I got it done. I also learned the hard way that the words on the back of a bottle of fabric glue are LIES! ALL LIES! Just in case you ever decide to pick up a bottle and want to believe their claims that it permanently bonds two pieces of fabric together. But I digress, Hannah loved it! I thought it wasn't too bad for my first try, however on Halloween night she received many comments along the lines of, "Oh, what a cute bunny!" By the end of the night she had grown pretty testy about it and was snipping back at them, "I'm not a rabbit I'm a dog! I'm Bolt" despite my repeated lectures about being polite. ~Sigh~

We also made a big decision in October. We decided that after the first of the year we will officially jump back into the adoption process. We are very excited about it and Hannah is already asking regularly when her new brother or sister is coming. It's hard to get a 4 year old to understand the concept of waiting a year or more to get through all the paperwork and matching process. This time instead of doing a private agency adoption for an infant we plan on going through the foster care system and adopting an older child. Now, when I say older child, we are still planning on the child being younger than Hannah, but not necessarily an infant. Although you never know how God will work. We could find our selves welcoming an infant or a teenager instead of a toddler into our house. You just never can tell. We know God will point us in the right direction though.

I'm Fine With That

So Hannah totally sucked the wind right out of my sails the other day. As many of you know, she's a spirited child and we've struggled to come up with the right method to manage her discipline. "Normal" methods didn't seem to work and we were really at a loss until we discovered the Nurtured Heart method last winter. Hannah totally "gets" the system and understands that her behavior earns her her privileges and if she doesn't follow through with good behavior then she doesn't have the credits needed to purchase her privileges. Well, the other night I had reminded Hannah multiple times that she needed to hang up her coat because she had dropped it on the floor upon returning home from school and just left it laying there all afternoon for the dog to curl up on! When it was almost bedtime and I informed her that if the coat was still on the ground when we did her credit review she would not receive full points for taking care of her coat and shoes she calmly informed me, "I'm fine with that. Mommy, I'm fine with not getting all my money." I was stunned. What was I supposed to say to that? If this crops up again, and I'm sure it will, then what am I to say? What leverage do I have if she's ok with the loss of privileges for not doing her chores or displaying appropriate behavior? I relayed this story to her OT yesterday and she said, "Wow, that's the kind of snarky comment you expect out of a teenager." She's totally right. Any suggestions? I'm really at a loss here because if the Nurtured Heart credit system ceases to work then I really don't know where to turn to.

Speaking of Nurtured Heart, Hannah did the sweetest thing yesterday and I just have to tell you about it. When she woke up from her nap she knocked on her door like always to be let out and when I opened the door she was there waiting for me with her fist tightly clenched. Before I could even say "Good Morning!" (I know it's not morning, but that's just what we say when someone wakes up around here. It works for us!) she immediately launched into a flurry of words. "I have money in my hand and it's 10 cents and I want to go to the museum and it costs 10 cents so lets go to the museum." I was once again stunned. Before knocking to get out of her room she decided what she wanted to do, checked her list of privileges to see how expensive it was, checked her piggy bank to see if she had enough money to do it, counted out the correct amount and then informed me of her choice. This girl can totally plan! Unfortunately, she had taken her nap MUCH, MUCH later than usual and by the time she finally woke up it was nearing 5pm. The museum is in Providence and takes about 15 minutes to get there. It closes at 5pm. No museum for Hannah. :( The poor thing was devastated. Huge crocodile tears welled up in her eyes and began to roll down her cheeks. She pushed her head into my stomach and sobbed. I felt so bad for her. I really wanted to be able to take her to the museum, but we just couldn't. We worked out a plan though. She will save that 10 cents. She won't spend it on anything else and on Thursday (tomorrow) we will go to the museum for our Mommy-Daughter Day. She's pretty stoked about it and I'm so proud of her that she was able to recover relatively quickly from this disappointment. That's my big girl.

Today at lunch time I'm meeting with Hannah's new preschool teacher just to touch base and try to learn how things are run in her new classroom. This new teacher isn't very good about communicating what happens in the room on a daily basis so I guess I'm going to have to step up my end and do some detective work. Adding to the problem is that I drop Hannah off at school before the "preschool" portion of the day actually starts and pick her up after the academic day has technically ended so I don't even see her teacher. In fact, I've NEVER seen her teacher. This will be my first time ever laying eyes on her. Hannah adjusts much better to the transition of going to school if she is one of the first ones to arrive and can slowly adjust to the social situation one child at a time rather than being dropped off into a group of kids that are already engaged in something. We've learned that the hard way, hence the before care drop off even though it's not needed for our schedule since I don't work out of the home. She also has a difficult time with the transition from school back to home so I have to time her pick up so that she is one of the last students leaving and there is not much going on so that she doesn't think she's missing out on anything and feels a sense of closure. She can't be the last one there though or she begins to panic. Pick up can be tricky, but I've mostly got it timed well these days and we can extract her from the building without too much pain. Fridays are another story though because they get to watch movies on Friday afternoons and there is never enough time (even if she was the last one to leave) to watch the entire movie in the time period allotted so that means she has to leave mid movie and that is not easy for her. She's a finisher. She HAS to finish the things she's started before she can move on to something else and every Friday it's a given that she's not going to be able to finish that movie. We deal with it, but it's not a pretty sight. So, wish me luck that this meeting will go well. I will be interested to see if they have noticed any of Hannah's academic strengths in the new classroom. I know they were giving her extra stuff to do in her old classroom since she was so far ahead of her peers, but I don't know if that's happening in the new room or not. I'm sure she's academically ahead of the curriculum and hopefully that was shared by her previous teacher, but who knows. I haven't been able to speak to the teacher and of course I get nothing from Hannah. According to her they play on the playground-period. I'm lucky if I get that out of her. For a girl that loves to talk, she's very closed mouth about what goes on at school. That's why teacher communication is so important for me. I like to be able to talk with her about her day and if I know a little bit about what they did I can prompt her into telling me a bit. If I have nothing to go on I'm pretty much dead in the water.

Updates

Here are a few Hannah updates relating to previous posts that I never followed up on. We've finished the initial protocol for the therapeutic listening and have deemed it a fail. Hannah was compliant and we faithful about following all the rules, but it really didn't make any difference at all. The only thing we noticed was that whatever Hannah was working on WHILE she was doing the headphones, she was HYPER focused on, but that benefit ended once she stopped listening to the headphones so it didn't really benefit her if there wasn't any carry over. We saw no improvements on regulation, either sensory or emotional. We tried, but it just didn't work for us. We didn't really have anything to loose though. Our only costs were $40 to rent the equipment and buying a discman player which we can use for other things and our time. It was worth a shot.

Hannah went to the allergist last night to follow up on that suspected latex reaction she had after her dentist appointment. Apparently there is no official skin test that can be done for latex allergies so the offices make their own preparation. Hannah survived the scratch test and showed no allergies to any of the things they tested for. The doctor said that doesn't necessarily means she is NOT allergic to latex so he is sending her to have a blood test done to find out since they are apparently more accurate. I wonder why they couldn't have just done that test first, but then what do I know. In the mean time he wrote her a script for an Epi-pen as a precaution should we ever need it. That is pretty scary to me, but then I guess I'd rather be safe that sorry. She does have a lot of birthday parties coming up to attend. Apparently balloons are big culprits in latex reactions in kids.

Hannah appears to be doing well in her new classroom although I'm not as impressed by the new teacher's communication about what's going on in the classroom. Maybe I'm just one of "those" mom's, but I still like to be in the loop and know how she's doing, what they did each day, if she ate her lunch, etc. Is that too much to ask?

Lately she's been playing quite well with other children. I worried that I'd never get to say that, but it's happening! She has even on occasion joined up with random kids out in public to play. The other child always has to make the first move, but at least Hannah has agreed to play several times and not just ran and hid behind me. The other night at the doctor's office while we were waiting for her allergy testing a sweet little 6 (almost 7) year old girl started playing with Hannah. She wanted to read her a story out of a magazine, but was occasionally having trouble with some of the words. My little girl actually HELPED a first grader with reading! Together the two of them worked through the story and when they were done the other girl turned to Hannah and said, "You're a really good reader." and Hannah actually said "Thank you," unprompted. I was proud of her on so many levels for that interaction.

Hannah's imagination has really taken off lately. She likes to play with her friends when they aren't here so she turns them into imaginary friends basically. It's pretty funny. Then there's her pretending to be someone else that is equally as funny and heaven forbid if you forget to address her as whoever she is pretending to be because she just won't respond. Today while getting ready for school she was Super Girl Grape Banana Spontak and I was to address her as such if I wanted to accomplish anything and get out the door! Usually our pretend characters are Mommy __________(insert animal) , Baby_________, Grandma _________. This morning was different. She had a very specific name and by golly she was only answering to that. I couldn't even simply omit all mention of a name and just say, "It's time to brush your teeth." I had to say, "It's time to brush your teeth Super Girl Grape Banana Spontak" Eventually she was so kind as to let me leave off the Spontak part, but I still had to get the Super Girl Grape Banana! Parenting a 3 year old is a riot sometimes!

I've still been busy with the new business, but things seem to be going quite well. We are actually making some sales already and recovering a bit of our start up costs which is nice. So far I've covered 2 horse shows and my sister has done one thoroughbred race and we've sold quite a few prints from them. Now if we could just start making some sales on some of the fine art photography that is up on the website we'd be golden! If anyone's planning on redecorating a room please stop by the site and take a look. You might find something there you absolutely HAVE TO HAVE. We offer framing and matting too if you choose so are a one stop shop! http://candidcaptures.zenfolio.com/ Check us out!

Well, that's all the updates I have for now. Enjoy your weekend!

Photo Notes:

The pictures are from back in March when Hannah had her ear tube surgery. They even had portable DVD players and a selection of family movies for the kids to watch!

Sensory Swings

WARNING: Guest blogger (Kyle) at the helm. Cut me some slack... I don't do this very often.

I saw a comment on the blog today that referenced a question on how we set up our sensory swings, and I thought this could be my shining moment in the blogosphere (whatever that is). So I took a few pictures and thought I'd run through how I set up Hannah's swings. Here's the the warning: this might be fairly boring if you're not interested in swings, and don't worry, I won't be offended if you don't read on, even if I do think you'd be missing some pretty awesome swing pictures.

Two quick caveats: (1) I am not a structural engineer, nor do I play one on tv. Everything I'm about to describe is simply how I fit out the playroom. If you have any doubts about doing something similar in your home, apartment, treehouse, outhouse, etc., talk to someone who understands this stuff better than me; (2) If I use the wrong term, don't get too upset -- see caveat (1).

In our basement we have the ability to expose the joists from the floor above, so I simply slid three of the 2'x2' tiles out of the way to expose a 6' section of a joist in the right area. We were fortunate that the joist I wanted to use ran roughly through the middle of one of the tile rows. Note that I made sure there was plenty of room for swings from the spot I picked (i.e. the primary swing location is located away from walls, lolly (a.k.a. lally) columns, steps, etc.). Our joists are 2"x8" so I chose to use 2"x6" supports, and as you can see from the picture, I secured approx. 5' sections to either side of the primary joist. The idea is that the joist will not be torqued (i.e. twisted) nearly as badly since it has support on both sides. Using the additional boards also allowed me to move the swing mounts more towards the center of the tile row. To fasten the boards I used two wood clamps to hold them in place and then secured them with (3x) 5/8" carriage bolts. To spread the force I used washers (the fattest I could buy) on both sides. I then put 5/8" eye-bolts at three strategically placed locations along one of the newly installed boards. This allows us to use multiple kinds of swings. The eye-bolts I used had the longest shanks that I could find, just to add additional support. And that's about it -- pretty simple, huh?

When I told Natty I wanted to do this post she suggested I also show off our different swings, so I'll give a little description of each. In each of these the most important thing is to be as safe as possible, so I've tried to keep that in mind as we've slowly added more. The disk swing is actually a carryover from our house in Indiana. I attached a carabiner to the rope and then used a separate carabiner to attach to the previously mentioned eye-bolts to allow for a little extra swing. I hope to eventually replace this second carabiner with a swivel mount to improve this even more. We mount the disk swing to the center mount. Two quick learning points: (1) buying the thickest rope available (ours is 1") makes it easier for little hands to hold on, and will hopefully allow Hannah to climb up the rope when she gets a little older; (2) working with thick rope is a pain in the rear.

The second swing is our platform swing, and was both pretty easy and fun to build -- Hannah even helped. Without going into too much detail, the main component is a 2'x4'x3/4" piece of plywood that I rounded and sanded down. After all expenses the final cost was under $50 (let me know if you'd like additional detail on what I did). We hang the swing from the outer two mounts.

Next is the trapeze bar/ring assembly we pulled off our outside playset. I know these are available at home stores, but I would recommend going with the highest quality you can find as this is the swing that has the lowest weight rating for use (80 lbs.). Hannah actually just started using a similar swing at OT, except that they have it on a swivel, so whenever I find one we'll probably start doing the same thing.

The final swing (for now) is a hammock. We use a canvas hammock that used to be in Hannah's playroom in Indiana -- I wouldn't install a woven one as the thought of her getting stuck (or worse) really worries me. The current setup isn't ideal for this swing, but the various mounts allow us to spread out the hammock or fold it in half, depending on what we want Hannah to do. When we fold it up we typically put her bean bag or a pillow in it to spread out the sides just a bit. Again, this swing would work better with a swivel. The one other thing of note is that the hammock is suspended using nylon rope that is knotted a different heights to allow us to do different things -- when the hammock is spread out we use the lower loops and when it is folded we use the higher loops. As a side note, I learned all my knot tying skills from the following website: http://animatedknots.com/

So that's it for now. I'd be happy to try to answer additional questions if anyone has them, but it's really pretty straightforward. I should mention that I don't let adults (Natalie) do any real swinging, just in case (again, refer to caveat (1) above). However, I have tested all of the swings myself (much to Hannah's delight) and I'm about 5x her weight.

Ridiculous

Hannah seems to have a knack for making me look ridiculous. Right now her venue of choice is the public library. The last two times we have gone to library she has made me look like a complete fool. The first time, we were standing in the middle of the stacks and Hannah decided abruptly that she didn't want to wear her skirt or tights or undies anymore and pulled the whole kit and caboodle down. Shocked and appalled, I grabbed them and tried to yank them back up. Hannah pushed me away and started shouting, "NO!" I tried again to grab her and she threw herself to the ground and starting kicking wildly. By this time the whole children's library was staring at us in amazement. This was definitely something they don't see every day-even in the kid's section! I tried to calm her down and reason with/bribe/threaten/coerce her to pull her clothes back up, but still she refusesd. She was hitting me, screaming, and flailing around like a mad woman on the floor. Finally, at my wit's end, I scooped her up and awkwardly half carried/half drug her to the restroom (thanking God the entire time that the children's library has it's own bathroom) and deposited her on the floor in the wheelchair accessible stall and shut and locked the door and let her scream it out. After about 5 minutes she stopped screaming and I tried to talk to her and explain why it wasn't appropriate to take her clothes off in the library or any other public place for that matter. She still wasn't in the mood to listen and came at me wielding her arms like a Ninja assassin! I seriously considered ducking under the stall to safety! When she's in meltdown mode she can be seriously strong and there was a definite possibility I could have been injured or at the very least hurt. Against my first instincts, I stayed and managed to hold her at arms length by pressing my hand against her chest and praised God for that second time that library trip that my arms are longer than hers! After she wore herself out trying to get at me it was like someone flipped a switch inside of her. She visibly relaxed, stopped crying and screaming, and said "I'm done Mommy," Then she let me pull up her clothes and we discussed quite calmly and rationally why we have to wear clothes when we are out in public and that it's only ok to pull your pants down in the bathroom or your bedroom. It's times like these that simply blow my mind. I have no idea why she decided she needed to pull her pants down right that very second (she's never done anything like that before) and I have no idea why she went so crazy when I tried to pull them back up. Even more frustrating is that I have no idea what changed that made her willing to pull them back up and able to talk rationally with me when she was done with her hysterics. Here we have a huge meltdown that I have no idea what the trigger was and no idea what happened to bring her out of it. It's like I learned nothing from the experience and won't have a clue what to do to help manage a future situation like this. UGH!

The second incident happened on Thursday. We had been having a pleasant trip to the library and now it was time to leave so we could go home and eat lunch. Hannah started getting pretty squirrelly while we were checking our books out, but she mostly managed to keep it together. Then we had to walk through the long lobby area to get to the outer doors and head out to the parking lot. Right before the final set of doors there are two fake potted trees, one in each corner. When we were almost to the end of the lobby Hannah pulled her hand out of mine and bolted for the door. Frantic that she would run out into the parking lot and in front of a car I took off after her. As Hannah reached the doors she decided at the last minute to duck behind one of the trees and hide in the corner. Initially I was happy about this because it meant that she wasn't in danger, but my relief quickly turned into anger when I realized the little game she had up her sleeve. You know how on cartoons and movies there's the chase scene where the chasee is on one side of a large object such as a table or bed and the chaser is on the other and the chaser and chasee run back and forth like idiots, neither one making any progress at all at either catching the other or escaping? Then eventually the chaser grows so frustrated that he/she vaults over the large object surprising and capturing the chasee. Well, that was Hannah and I on Thursday. Each time I tried to reach around the tree and grab her (I was too big to fit behind the tree) she would scurry to the opposite side of the corner prompting me to move to the other side and reach around that way. Over and over we traded sides of the tree until we had gathered quite an audience hanging out in the lobby and lounging on the benches that line the hall. I'm sure I looked like a chump or the worst mother in the world who had absolutely no control over her child. I was FURIOUS, but trying not to loose it and scream at her. Unfortunately, unlike in the movies I couldn't just jump over the tree and capture my daughter (although once I considered knocking the tree over!). We were stuck in a vicious cycle and I for one certainly wasn't backing down. I don't even remember how it ended. Everything is one huge blur, but somehow I managed to get her and I tried to slink quietly outside, but all eyes were on us. I imagined that they were all watching to see what I was going to do. My face was hot, both with anger and embarrassment. I wanted to cry. Hannah was happily chattering away, already having forgotten the whole incident. I hustled her out the door (probably a little more roughly than I should have) and got her buckled into the van and launched into another lecture about how dangerous it is to run away from Mommy, how it's important that she obey Mommy because the rules I make are for her safety, how Jesus commands children to obey their parents, how this includes stopping or coming when Mommy calls. Hannah sat quietly and listened. She seemed contrite, but I knew it wasn't really sinking in. I knew it would happen again. I knew that even before we were done talking her brain would already be onto plans for what she wanted to do next, what we were having for lunch. Impulse control for the average 3 year old is pretty limited. Impulse control for a bright, curious 3 year old even worse. Impulse control for a bright, curious 3 year old with Asperger's still worse. Some days it seems like we ride a roller coaster careening along from one impulsive act to another. But then there are others that are focused and controlled and I have hope that we really can kick this problem. Those days just seem few and far between. Tuesday was a calm and controlled day. Today was a roller coaster day. Any advice for helping a preschooler with impulse control would be welcome or, if you don't have advice, at least a story or two to let me know others have been there too might help! :)

Speaking of Tuesday, at OT on Tuesday Hannah started a new program called Therapeutic Listening. She listens to specially designed CDs on special headphones designed to transmit frequencies outside the range of normal hearing and normal headphones. The goal is to see improvement in her sensory modulation, auditory sensitivity, and maybe just maybe improved impulse control. I really don't understand how it all works, but the research on the protocol seems promising and unlike some treatments it can't really hurt so I'm willing to give it a try. The only catch is that it's a pretty strict commitment, 2 30 minute sessions every day for 8 weeks. Tuesday, Thursday, and the weekend I have no problem fitting it in, but on school days it's been more difficult to fit them both in-especially the morning session. Hopefully the longer we do it we'll figure out a better way for how to fit everything we need to fit into our hectic morning routine without compromising our sleep or causing meltdowns from rushing Hannah to move faster in the morning (she HATES that!). Wish us luck that this will help Hannah.

I Have a Question

Lately Hannah's been saying, "Mommy, I have a question. . . . " and then proceeding to either ask me something or tell me something that is on her mind. Sometimes she uses it as a stalling technique to delay doing something she doesn't want to do, but other times it's just her lead in to tell me what is rolling around inside her little head. The cute part is that before each new question or thought that she wants to tell me she repeats, "Mommy, I have a question. . . " Tonight before bed she asked about an unusual sound we heard coming from the apartment next door, decided it might be either a dog or a wolf, asked where wolves live and when they live there, asked if wolves lived in apartments, if they just lived in forests at night, why they also lived there in the daytime, told me wolves were like dogs, but they were scary, that wolves howled and woke up bunnies (have no idea where the waking up bunnies part came from), and finally declared that wolves were cute and that it was most definitely a cute wolf next door that would wake up a bunny and her when she tried to sleep. All this transpired just in the space of brushing her teeth and washing her face and of course before each new segment came the words, "Mommy, I have a question. . . " She even pauses for dramatic effect which cracks me up.

Yesterday at church Hannah had a fantastic day. She sat quietly and read her Bible or colored during the whole first part of the service before they released the children for children's church and then walked by herself with the class over to the other building where their classrooms are. After church there was a whole congregation lunch and hymn sing. Kyle told Hannah to find one of her friends to sit by. She immediately said, "I want to sit next to Jasmine." I was blown away. She actually chose a child to sit next to and then when we walked over there she really did want to sit right next to her. All throughout the meal she chatted with Jasmine and colored with her and shared her books with her. At one point Jasmine turned to me and said, "Can Hannah come to my house and play?" Hannah just got asked on a play date by another child!!!! It wasn't orchestrated by me or Jasmine's grandma, JASMINE asked if Hannah could come play and then several minutes later she asked Hannah, "Hannah, will you come to my Ariel birthday party?" (Jasmine will be 5 next month) and Hannah answered, "Sure!" I was almost in tears. During the hymn sing, Jasmine asked to sit next to us and she and Hannah read her Bible and Hannah's church social story together and Hannah kept scooting over closer and closer to Jasmine and then she started giving her hugs! She must have given her 15 hugs! Then she said, "I love you Jasmine." and kissed her on the arm. Jasmine just smiled and they both giggled. Then Hannah, sensing acceptance pushed it a bit too far and kept on hugging and touching Jasmine over and over and finally Jasmine had had enough and moved to sit next to her grandma instead of Hannah. She must not have held it against Hannah too much though because when it was time to leave she waved at Hannah and said she'd see her next week. I was so happy for my little girl. I think she has a genuine friend. We'll definitely have to continue working on boundaries and appropriate touching, but it was a big thing for her to even want to touch or show affection for someone other than family and an even bigger deal for her to do it unprompted. We worked for almost 2 years to get her to hug her best friend from Indiana either prompted or unprompted so for her to just decide to hug (repeatedly) a girl she has only known a month and only seen on Sundays was a HUGE deal.

Today Hannah had both speech and OT. At speech this morning the SLP gave her a standardized language test that they need to pass along to the public school system once she transfers out of early intervention at 3 years old in July. Hannah did a fantastic job and scored well above age level on the test. It was funny because Tracy, her SLP, was giving the test without even looking at the testing booklet until she reached a certain part and then she said, "In all my years working here I've never made it past this part. I'm going to have to read the book now!" She intended to test Hannah until she hit the ceiling of the test (basically maxed out as far as what she knew), but Hannah grew antsy and needed a break before that since she'd been testing for almost an hour straight and we were also out of time for her session so Tracy just ended the test there. When she stopped Hannah was at 4 years 7 months. Tracy said that she guessed (in her professional opinion) that Hannah would have maxed out at 5 or 5 1/2 years old! She's only 2 1/2! That really blew my mind. I knew Hannah was ahead of other kids her age verbally and even had an inkling that she was way ahead of other kids, but I had no idea that she was light years ahead of the curve. Three years ahead in language skills is quite a bit ahead I would say. The interesting thing is that although verbally Hannah has such a firm grasp on language, she has very little ability to decode (or even notice) nonverbal communication (this doesn't count sign language though, she's quite good at sign). Another thing Tracy discovered that she said is very typical of people with Asperger's is that she interprets language very literally. Idioms, metaphors, sarcasm are things that she will probably have trouble with down the road. She already displays a below average grasp of idioms. For example, Hannah coughed a really nasty sounding cough (remnants of the pneumonia) and Tracy said, "Do you have a frog in your throat?" Hannah looked at her like she was an idiot and said, "No, I have a cough in my throat." She was dead serious. Tracy explained to me that while at Hannah's age she wouldn't be expected necessarily to know exactly what "a frog in your throat" meant, she should understand that Tracy did not mean did she literally have a frog in her throat. We've noticed Hannah's literal interpretation of language for a long time, but never thought too much about it. I always just figured that it was developmentally appropriate for her age and left it at that. Apparently not in all the cases.

At OT Hannah got to try out several of the swings they had in their OT room. Kyle and I had planned to buy Hannah one of the therapy swings once we got settled into our new house and had even picked out one we thought would be good for Hannah. It turns out that they had that exact swing, along with several others and they let Hannah take them all for a test drive while they did a few informal tests on Hannah to get a sense for where her sensory needs lie. Hannah swung or spun on one of 3 swings (mostly she gravitated towards 2 of them) for 50 minutes straight without ever wanting to stop! They asked me if she can ever get too much swinging or spinning input and I told them that I had never managed to give her enough that she wanted to stop. I always wear out well before she does! I had told them before that she was pretty much insatiable and I don't think they believed me. Now they are definitely believers! For one of the tests they did, the OT spun Hannah very rapidly for several minutes and then stopped her suddenly and studied her eyes. I don't remember all the technical words she used to explain it to me, but basically in a normal person your eyes would continue to shift back and forth for a little while after you stopped until your body caught up with the fact that you had stopped spinning. If your eyes either don't shift back and forth at all or shift for too long then it is a sign that there is something off with your vestibular system. Apparently Hannah's eye shifting was very delayed and minimal. The OT said this explains why Hannah craves that kind of input and can tolerate all that spinning and swinging without getting nauseous or dizzy. When we were leaving the OT's assistant said good-bye to Hannah and asked her if she could see her again next week. Hannah shook her head and said, "No, I just want to see Stacy." Stacy is the head OT. The assistant, Katie, made a sad face and said, "Aww Hannah, that's too bad I really wanted to see you again because you are very intriguing." That made me smile because I thought it was a very good way to describe my little girl. It seems like all medical professionals, therapy providers, and educators find Hannah intriguing in some way or the other and I definitely find her intriguing! She intrigues me every single day!

Yesterday we finished fully implementing the Nurtured Heart Approach to discipline with Hannah. The consequences part of the approach has been rough for Hannah. The past two nights she has managed to spend all of her credits that she had saved up for bedtime privileges (books and song) on refusing to go to or stay in time out and having to be escorted there or helped to stay in the chair. I do think her empty bag of pennies each night has been effective and quite the eye opener for her. She has known each night why there were no books or song and I haven't had to be the bad guy by taking away privileges. She simply hasn't had any credits left at the end of the day to buy any bedtime privileges. It's too soon to say exactly how this is going to work for Hannah, but I have a hunch that it's going to work quite well. I'll keep you all informed on how it goes.

On a positive note, we've had several nights in a row where Hannah has stayed in bed once we left the room. There have been no incidents of intentional wetting, pooping, or throwing up in over a week and screaming has slowed down a bit too. Again, it's too soon to say if this is a definite trend or not. She tends to cycle through rough and easier(I can't say easy, but at least easier) patches of bedtime behavior, but maybe just maybe we are starting to get a handle on this and maybe the surgery actually had the physical effect we were hoping it would have.

Now, for my autism blogger of the day, JoyMama who writes Elvis Sightings. She writes about her two daughters and their life. Her youngest daughter, Joy has autism and is mostly nonverbal although she communicates quite effectively with picture cards and a switch with prerecorded choices programmed in. Her posts are always eloquent and sometimes even heart wrenching. Please check her out. Today I also have another favorite autism blogger to give a shout out to because her most recent post today made me bawl like a big ole baby. I honestly don't know how anyone can read it and keep dry eyes. So, please also head on over and check out Rhema's Hope who writes at Autism in a Word. I can promise you that you won't be disappointed.

First OT Session

Hannah finally had her long awaited first OT session and it was glorious. I am so excited and hopeful for what is to come. The OT introduced us to a technique that she felt would be beneficial to Hannah called The Wilbarger Brushing Protocol and joint compressions. When she first did it to Hannah she visibly relaxed and just seemed more comfortable than she had been all morning (it was another rough morning!). She kept requesting that we do it more and more and gladly sat while I did it to her before nap time. Once again she seemed much more calm after the brushing. The technique uses this funny looking plastic brush with flexible bristles. What I am supposed to do is firmly brush up and down her arms, hands, legs, and back with the brush every two hours and follow each brushing session with joint compressions to her wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles. I think Hannah likes the joint compressions the best. I am really hoping that this will help Hannah and that today wasn't just about the novelty of it for her. I'll keep you all posted on how she's doing. We are also going into the OT facility on Monday to try out several of their swings. Another possible thing we might try is something called therapeutic listening. I don't know much about it at this point, but the OT thinks it also might be helpful for Hannah. I'm game to try anything that might help. I'm going to do some research on the therapeutic listening though since I've never really heard anything about it.

Here's my autism blogger for the day Good Fountain. She writes about her daughters Charlotte (formerly known as Chee) and Sarah (formerly known as Ess). Charlotte is currently in the process of receiving an autism spectrum diagnosis. She brings up many wonderful thoughts and emotions related to dealing with parenting a child on the spectrum as well as one who is neurotypical. She always makes me smile. Go check her out.