Moved In

We are finally all moved into our new house. We have been for about a month now, but we've been so busy trying to get things clean and into a livable state as well as traveling back to Indiana for a wedding that I haven't had time to post. The move went about as smoothly as I could have hoped. Hannah really likes her new room and enjoys spending time in there. Since we have no other space for her toys, they are all in her room which means that she doesn't always have a nice orderly space, but that's ok with me (mostly). Hannah probably has the coolest room in the house. The paint color and wainscoting are adorable and we've turned her closet into a little clubhouse since it's so big. One thing that I don't like about the new house is that it's impossible to keep clean. Between frequent walks down to the beach (what a shame huh?) and a driveway that is essentially completely sand, it is next to impossible to keep sand out of the house. There's no entryway, porch, or mudroom to easily remove your shoes before you enter the main living space and because all the floors on the main level are either tile or wood the sand always ends up kicked all over the house and stuck to the bottom of your feet even if the shoes stay right by the door. I would welcome any tips on sand control from those of you that have lived on a coast near sand for longer than I have because if I don't do something to contain this sand soon I just might go crazy. Other than that, the only part that has been hard to get used to is the fact that the house is smaller than what we moved from so we have too much stuff. We downsized quite a bit before we moved, but apparently not enough. We ended up having to even get rid of our mattress foundation and the guest bed mattress and box spring because the stairs are too tight to get them up to the bedrooms! We don't have a king bed either. We were only trying to get a queen up there, but these New England houses have narrow and oddly shaped and placed staircases.

Besides moving, a lot of stuff has been happening here at the Spontak house. Hannah started a social skills group through our early intervention agency and she has been doing fantastic with it. I've seen so much improvement in her socially that it's amazing. She's still pretty overwhelmed by all the activity and kids, but at least she will speak when spoken to by an adult there (she wouldn't really do that at preschool in Indiana unless the words were pried out of her) even if she won't willingly speak to or interact with the other kids. If directed to she will interact a bit with the other children although she tends to prefer the quietest and most low-key kids in the group. That's fine with me. A relationship is a relationship and we all have types of people who we tend to gravitate towards anyway.

Last weekend Hannah was the flower girl in my friend's wedding. It was a rough trip and we witnessed some pretty bad behavior (of the disobedience/brattiness type) as well as some sensory and social overload with the accompanying meltdowns, but there were also some brilliant moments in which we were able to see just how far Hannah has progressed since we moved and she started her therapies here in Rhode Island. The first was that she was totally ok with the little boy who was supposed to be the ring bearer at the wedding and they even walked down the aisle together. They didn't hold hands (Hannah would have none of that), but they walked down near each other and even played with each other during the rehearsal and reception which is a huge deal since Hannah had never met him before the rehearsal. Hannah even initiated physical contact and expressed an interest in continuing to interact (even if it was in a somewhat inappropriate manner!) with him during the reception by chasing after him when he grew tired of dancing with her and grabbing him around the waist to prevent him from leaving! The second half of our trip we spent at our friend's house and Hannah got to see her good friend Evelyn. We watched in amazement as Hannah and Evelyn played and interacted appropriately and independently for up to a half hour at a time. Hannah was even tolerant of some physical affection and over exuberance on the part of Evelyn. This was usually never allowed before we left, but Hannah was quite tolerant for her and I was impressed. Now, it wasn't all roses and butterflies between the two of them. Hannah had some of her most spectacular meltdowns there and was on a hair trigger for the better part of the second day we spent with them, but it used to always be like that before we left if we tried to coax Hannah to interact with Evelyn or if Evelyn was insistent on hugging or touching Hannah. Poor Evelyn was in a constant state of bewilderment about why Hannah didn't appreciate her affections. This visit was a definite step forward. We also got to visit with Hannah's birthmother and siblings while we were in Indiana. Hannah played with Kayla and Chase and even let them both pick her up and rough house with her a little bit which was surprising although they are both near the age that Hannah normally likes to hang out with since they just turned 6. Hannah, in a bizarre twist, was shy with Tiffany instead of the twins this visit and we really had to coax her into letting Tiffany hold her for a picture. She was pretty chatty with her on the phone a few days before the visit though which was pretty fun to hear.

This weekend we began the messy task of attempting to night potty train Hannah. She's been completely day trained for about a year, but night dryness is not something we have experienced often. I decided to just take the leap of faith and give it a try anyway. We talked it up for about a week before hand and then we double made the bed (two complete sets of sheets and waterproof mattress pads layered on top of each other), put her in big girl undies instead of just in case underwear AKA pull ups, and prepared ourselves for the onslaught of extra laundry. The first night she made it a few hours and then had an accident that woke her up. She was extremely upset by it and it took quite awhile to talk her down and get her back to sleep. About 5 minutes or less from Kyle leaving her room she had another small accident! I wasn't ready to give up and put her back in a pull up already on our first night because I was out of waterproof mattress pads so I just changed her clothes and then put a folded up towel over the wet spot since the bed wasn't that wet. This time she made it until 4am until she had her next accident. At that point I had washed the first set of sheets and pad so I was able to remake the bed and try to send her back to sleep, but she was pretty much up for the day. Last night she did much better. She made it through the whole night and didn't have an accident until 6am, but then it was a BIG one. There was TONS of pee. She did have a dry nap yesterday which was encouraging. Overall I don't think she's done too badly for her first few days. We'll see how things continue.

Today Hannah got her first major haircut. She's had her hair trimmed to remove split ends and cut to even it out several times since she was a baby, but this was the first time she really had it cut to alter the length. We took her to a place that only does kids cuts. They had toys in the waiting area and the chairs all had their own TVs to watch DVDs on and everything was sized for kids. She had a great experience and even let them wash her hair in the lay back sink. We didn't attempt the blow dry and it was probably a good idea since she's been growing more and more sensitive to sounds lately (more on that later). They took 6 inches off her hair! It looks really cute, but it was hard to see it go. Her hair was so beautiful, but she has been increasingly resistant to having it brushed and placed into ponytails and if you leave it down it gets even more ratty and is constantly in her mouth so it was something that needed to be done. Still it pained me to do it. She was quite excited about getting it done though and I think she mostly enjoyed the experience. The stylist even put glitter gel in her hair and she got to pick out a prize for being good just like at the dentist.

Now, back to her sound issues. Before moving to our new house Hannah was really only bothered by extremely loud noises such as hand dryers, garbage disposals, and the flushing of public toilets. However, since we've moved she is constantly putting her fingers in her ears and shouting too loud about all sorts of things, some of which I don't think are all that loud. Included on her hit list now are the vacuum, dishwasher, loud mufflered cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers, babies crying, people laughing loudly, radios playing in vehicles passing by, dogs barking, the sound of the wind when the van windows are down, and many, many other things.

One change that's been happening that I am very disappointed about is that Hannah has pretty much given up her nap. Occasionally if she is really tired she might fall asleep in her car seat if it happens to be early afternoon, but basically she's done. The frustrating part is that her body really still NEEDS that nap. By about 4pm she is seriously cranky and behaving poorly if she hasn't slept and this cutting out of nap hasn't corresponded with an increase in hours slept at nighttime. She still goes to bed and wakes up at the same time. UGH! On a positive note, there are many nights when she is so exhausted by bedtime that she falls asleep before we are done singing her her song so there isn't a bedtime battle that night which is nice.

A few weeks ago Hannah had a nasty rash over a good chunk of her body along with a fever so I ended up taking her to the doctor. We didn't get to see the doctor who I hope will be her new pediatrician, but we saw another doctor in that practice. Since her medical records still had not arrived from Indiana for some reason, I had to fill the doctor in on Hannah's medical history. He, like the urgent care doctor in April, was concerned about Hannah's frequent bouts of pneumonia and spoke with me about some possible causes for the chronic problem. He said the most likely culprit is asthma, but that Hannah is too young to be adequately tested for it. I agree with him that that is most likely culprit given her health history on Tiffany's side (her birthmother). The other too common causes of recurrent pneumonia he mentioned were lung abnormalities and cystic fibrosis. He thinks her lungs are probably structurally ok since someone would have surely noticed a problem on one of her many chest x-rays if there was something visibly wrong. So, he's sending her for a test to rule out cystic fibrosis. The test is called a sweat test and we are going to take care of it next week. Apparently it's fairly simple although it does take close to 2 hours to perform and only select hospitals can do it, but it still freaks me out that we even have to test for the possibility of cystic fibrosis. For Pete's sake, cystic fibrosis is fatal! Talk about a sure fire way to scare a mother to death even suggesting that the disease is a possibility in her child! As far as the rash and the fever was concerned, she ended up having some sort of allergic reaction, but we couldn't figure out what she was reacting to. Eventually the rash went away, first with the help of Benedryl which I quickly discontinued the use of after it turned Hannah into a raving lunatic instead of a drowsy child like the pharmacist warned, and then on it's own after several days of nagging Hannah not to scratch. So far it hasn't returned and I am grateful for that because trying to keep an almost 3 year old from scratching is like trying to convince a fish not to swim! It's definitely not an easy task, dare I say an impossible one.

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.

Sweet Giggles

Yesterday Hannah and I went to the library for story hour. The story time starts out with several stations of toys and activities for the kids to do as they choose. Then after the activity time comes the actual reading of the stories. Yesterday there were 17 kids plus their accompanying parents at the story time! ACK! That was a lot of people and A LOT of noise. Hannah did ok though. She mostly stayed around the margins of the group and did her own thing. She played and did activities and was next to other kids, but didn't give them much interest. Still, she shared the space without seeming too anxious and didn't automatically vacate whatever area she was in when another kid showed up to share the activity. A few times she went off to play behind the bookshelves alone where it was quieter and less crowded. I think that was a good thing. Hopefully she was self-regulating. That's what it seemed like anyway. During the stories her eyes were glued to the librarian and she shouted out the answer to every question asked. All the other kids were fussing and fidgeting and talking, but not Hannah. She only had eyes for the story. After story time officially ended, the room cleared out, but 4 parents (and their kids) stayed behind to talk. I chatted with them since Hannah wasn't quite ready to go yet. Once the room quieted down Hannah became much more animated and lo and behold she started to actually play with one of the little girls! I was practically in tears watching them. This little girl was 4 and quite shy herself so she gave Hannah plenty of space. She was interested in letters and numbers and "intellectual things" in a preschool sort of way which is also the kind of stuff Hannah likes to do. The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder at an easel discussing how to spell their names and how old they were. Hannah taught Sophia how to write the letters in her name and the two of them just stood there and wrote and drew on that board for a half hour! I could hear them giggling and see them both smiling. It was AMAZING!!!!! Hannah looked so happy and comfortable in her own skin. That's a sight we rarely see around other kids. I was thrilled. I ended up getting the contact number of Sophia's mom so that hopefully we can set up some play dates for the girls. I want to capitalize on any interest Hannah shows for another kid and this little girl seems just perfect for Hannah, just the kind of friend she needs! :)

On Monday Hannah had a really rough day. REALLY ROUGH. Hour long meltdown. Lots of hitting and yelling. Defiance out the wahzoo. Still, somehow we made it to therapy to meet with the autism whisperer. While there Hannah played with the speech therapist while I was able to talk with the woman and get some really helpful ideas about how to deal with Hannah's meltdowns and how to age appropriately teach her the consequences of those meltdowns. She behaved beautifully during my session with the whisperer, but when it was time for us to leave and everyone was gone she had another huge meltdown. She took off like a rocket away from me and I had to sprint after her down a long hallway that lead to the elementary school housed in the building. I ran past parents in the lobby waiting for their kids to get out of therapy, the receptionist, and a whole lunchroom full of teachers, aides, and students eating lunch from the elementary school. The funny thing is that in any other place I would have been getting all manner of disapproving looks and possibly mean comments as I chased Hannah down and tried to wrestle her out of the elementary school and back to our coats, but here I got nothing but acceptance. I heard comments like, "She's just making sure you get your exercise for today." "She must really love it here since she doesn't want to leave." and even a "Been there. Last week I ran down that same hallway." That just goes to show you what a difference awareness makes. Not awareness that autism and other disabilities exist, but the awareness about what it's like to live with it and manage it. I might have been in tears and possibly mortified by this public meltdown if it had been any other place, but here I didn't feel the need to explain or apologize or make excuses. I just nodded and kept on at my job of corralling my daughter. No one thought I was being rude. They just accepted. It was wonderful.

Now for my autism blogger of the day The Incipient Turvy. M is an adult living with Asperger's. He was not diagnosed until adulthood and has been spending the last several years sorting things out. He's candid about his experiences and occasionally posts transcripts of therapy sessions he's had. It's a great read and I encourage you to check him out and tell him I sent you!

What We've Learned

For those of you who are new to the blog, I'm going to give you a brief rundown of our story, Hannah's story and then I'll go into my thought for the day about autism and link to another one of my favorite autism blogs.

Hannah is 2 1/2 years old. She has Asperger's Syndrome (on the autism spectrum) and Sensory Processing Disorder. Hannah is extremely high functioning and also very bright. She began reading at 2 years old and has a crazy vocabulary. People often have a hard time believing that she has autism unless they've spent a lot of time with her and know her very well in multiple situations. Though this is wonderful because it means that Hannah is high functioning and that she is coping relatively well with her challenges, it also leads people to be less tolerant when she is having challenges because instead of seeing a child with special needs who is struggling they see a child who appears to be older than she really is (drat that big vocabulary and the 95th percentile in height!) who is behaving unacceptably in their eyes. They see a child who is spoiled and who needs more discipline. They see a child who is rude. They see parents who allow this misbehavior to continue. They see parents who coddle their child.

This leads me to what Hannah's Asperger's and SPD has taught me. I've learned to be less judgemental and more tolerant of other children and parents. I've learned that there just might be more going on than appears on the surface. I've learned that maybe that parent or that child is doing the best they can and maybe they could really use an understanding smile and an offer of help. Every time I get that "look" in a restaurant or store I think about how I used to feel before I was a parent when I saw a child in the midst of what appeared to be a tantrum and I think about how I've come full circle. I won't lie and say that I don't occasionally get angry at the "giver of the look" for thinking anything other than wonderfulness about my daughter, but in general I just feel sorry for them because they have no idea, no idea what it's like to parent a child with challenges outside the norm of a typical child and ignorance is never a good thing. That's why it's important for us to raise awareness, but not awareness in the way that the media and several high profile organizations do using scare tactics and sensationalism. Not programs and articles warning parents of the evils of vaccinations or the blame and finger pointing, instead we need awareness of what it's really like to live with autism in all of it's forms, from the mild to the severe. We need awareness of how individuals with autism (and the people who love them) feel when they are ridiculed or discriminated against. We need awareness about the fact that many families cannot afford the therapies that would most benefit their child because many health insurance companies do not cover therapy for developmental delays. We need awareness to the fact that there is little support out there for adults with autism to lead productive and independent lives. We need awareness about the fact that those with autism are often excellent employees because of their attention to detail, respect for the rules, and intense loyalty and should be sought after for employment instead of shunned in the workplace. What we need is awareness that if the world was just a little more tolerant of all kinds of differences then we'd all be blessed beyond belief through the relationships we could form if we gave them just half a chance. Now, what you've all been waiting for, another one of my favorite blogs Diary of a Mom. If you want to hear some real inspiration check out this post and this one and this one that she wrote. She frequently brings me to tears with her eloquent tales of life with her two daughters, one on the spectrum and one not.

Now, moving on to the point of this blog, Hannah! Since the move (well always really, but especially since the move) Hannah has been having a difficult time with all the transitions that occur throughout the day. Simple things (to me anyway) like just getting out of bed and getting ready for the day, stopping an activity and sitting down to eat, getting ready to leave the house, and going to bed really throw her for a loop. Because these are all things that happen pretty much every single day, it's been a huge roadblock in our life. So, we've started using picture schedules to get her through some of the rougher spots in her day. The early intervention agency printed up and laminated for me some picture symbols (affectionately called PECS by those in the special needs world) that stand for the individual steps needed to complete the routine that is difficult for Hannah. I cut them out, put Velcro on the back of each square and attached the other piece of Velcro to a clipboard. Now as Hannah completes each step of the process she pulls off the task and starts on the next step. Though Hannah is able to remember and verbalize all the steps needed to get through each routine, she has trouble actually focusing and staying on task long enough to complete them without going into a meltdown. This schedule helps her visually track what she's done and what she still has left to complete before she's "free" to do her own thing. It lets her see that the end really is in sight if she can just stay on track. If she makes it through the entire schedule (for going to bed the tasks are PJs on, brush teeth, wash face, brush hair, go potty, get into bed) and is compliant with each step and no meltdowns then she earns a penny to put in her money bag. Once she gets 25 cents then she can use her money to ride the horse ride at Walmart. So far we are seeing more compliance and a greater sense of responsibility with the picture schedules. They aren't a miracle cure, but they do seem to be helping. Tomorrow we meet with the autism specialist, whom I've been calling the autism whisperer-a term I ripped off from Mama Mara another fabulous autism mom blogger, for the first time. I am cautiously optimistic that she will be able to give us some insights into Hannah's behaviours and some ideas on how to make her more successful as well as more at ease in social situations. The bad thing is that the meeting is at 11:00am, lunch time for Hannah. The whisperer is only at the center twice a month and every other available time slot was booked for the month. If we didn't take this appointment then we'd have to wait until May to have our first meeting and I really didn't want to wait that long, especially since we only have until July (when Hannah turns 3) to make use of her services. I want to be able to suck every last bit of knowledge out of her head that might be helpful for Hannah that I can while I have the time. Please keep your fingers crossed that I have success altering Hannah's eating schedule so that she will cooperate during the appointment.

Yesterday Hannah experienced what may just be her idea of the best day of her life. We started off the morning by going to the mall. She loves to people watch. She's all about people in theory. She loves to observe them from afar and even interact with highly approachable adults. It's just kids that she doesn't want to interact with. She got to get her feet measured at the shoe store and tried on practically every shoe in the store while we waited. She adores getting her feet measured and trying on shoes. I'm not sure what the appeal is, but hey, it's good cheap fun. Then we had lunch at the food court. She got to do some more people watching and even see a birthday party in progress. The food court at this particular mall has a full sized indoor carousel. Hannah had never been on a merry-go-round before, but desperately wanted to give it a try. We decided to let her have this special treat and she was in heaven. We haven't seen her look so relaxed since we moved. The constant up and down motion of the horse and the spin of the carousel was just what her body was craving. We ended up letting her ride it twice. After the mall we headed to the local zoo. It was a free day for city residents so even though it was cold and windy we decided to give it a try. Hannah is a definite animal lover so she had a blast at the zoo and we even got to watch two snow leopards fighting and see the elephants come when they were called by name by the keepers when it was time to close the zoo for the night. After the zoo we explored the park further and found that it had an amazing playground and ANOTHER indoor carousel. Our zoo pass got us a free ride on the carousel so Hannah got another turn on the merry-go-round as well as some much needed heavy work on the playground. After the playground we came home and had dinner then headed to the pool to try out her new arm band floaties. She was cautious at first about not having something or someone to hold onto in the pool, but soon grew to like the freedom it gave her to move around in the water unassisted. All in all she had a great day and ended up falling asleep before I even left the room. I truly believe it was her idea of a perfect day.

Rhode Island Early Intervention

We finally managed to get the ball rolling here in Rhode Island to get Hannah hooked up with Early Intervention services. In Indiana, Hannah only qualified for developmental therapy through the early intervention agency. Here in Rhode Island they don't even HAVE developmental therapists. So, they did some modifications to her IFSP (Individual Family Service Plan) and what she ended up getting instead will be even better than what she had in Indiana (although it would be hard to beat Kimberly, Hannah's former DT). Here in Rhode Island she qualifies for OT (occupational therapy), speech, a once a month autism specialist, family training, custom made social stories and picture schedules, and a whole host of group therapies that we can pick and choose from at will. Some of the groups we have to choose from are music therapy, social skills playgroup, sensory playgroup, swim therapy, and a speech friendship group. ALL of these services are available to us free of charge which is amazing to me. In Indiana Hannah's DT was covered through a governmental cost share program based on income level. We had a copay, but it was pretty minimal and since Hannah only had DT we never had to pay more than $24 a month out of pocket. In Rhode Island we don't pay a dime. When Hannah's service coordinator said that she was scheduling Hannah for speech I initially thought she was crazy and wondered if she had been paying any attention at all to Hannah's vocabulary and pronunciation the two visits she had made to our house. I later learned that Hannah's SLP (speech language pathologist) is a specialist in autism and on addressing the social use of communication that causes problems in many people with Asperger's. The good news is that Hannah really hit it off with her and I liked her quite a bit too. She seemed to really love kids which is always good! We haven't met her OT yet, but we should be able to start up with her sometime late next week. Overall, I am pleasantly surprised about the services Hannah will be receiving. Hopefully it will end up being as good as it sounds. Speaking of therapy, Hannah's former DT, Kimberly, has been helping us out this week long distance (and also free of charge) to try to get Hannah through this transition as easily as possible. We already miss Kimberly dearly. She has done so much for Hannah that all the money in the world would not be enough to thank her for how much better she has made Hannah's life. We are hoping to see her again at the end of April though. She has a conference in Rhode Island (how convenient huh?) and said she'd love to hook up while she's here! YEAH!

Lately Hannah has renewed her interest in numbers. This time her fascination lies in addition, subtraction, money, and weights. She loves for me to pose simple story problems for her to figure out and she's pretty good at solving them too. The other day she sat for almost an hour studying coins and asking me to quiz her on the names and values of each coin. By the end of an hour she pretty much had them all memorized with the exception of the dime which she consistently called a diamond! I'm not convinced that she has the concept of coins mastered yet, but then I wouldn't be surprised as she's managed crazier things before. The Children's Museum here in Providence has an area with various period style rooms depicting life at various times in Rhode Island's history. One of Hannah's favorite rooms is a general store/diner that has pretend produce that you can buy. The store has a working produce scale and old fashioned cash register. Hannah loves to weigh the produce she's buying and report the weight back to me, then run around to the cash register and punch the number of pounds of produce she is buying and then watch the cash drawer pop out.

Today was a rough day for Hannah. Every little thing sent her into a crazy meltdown. By the time we made it to lunch time, both Kyle and I were about spent. We decided (who knows what possessed us?) to take her to McDonald's to eat and play in the play place. Typically a social situation like a play place wouldn't be a good idea on a day when she was already having meltdowns, but I don't think either of us wanted to take her back to the apartment and muddle through several more hours of insanity. The meal was difficult, as was expected, and we almost aborted the mission before ever letting her play, but somehow we made it through and we turned her loose on the play place. Thankfully it wasn't too crowded, but there were enough kids in there to give her some social opportunities. Hannah hung back for awhile and then latched onto some older girls (probably around 10 years old) who must have thought she was cute and were willing to talk to her and listen to her talk. Eventually the girls tired of Hannah and wanted to play with each other, but Hannah didn't know how to let them be. I felt bad for her following them around talking and them just ignoring her. I really can't blame the girls. I mean what 10 year old wants to play at a two year old's level? Still, it was heartbreaking to see the confusion on Hannah's face because she just didn't get it. A little bit later there was a little girl who we thought was younger than Hannah that was having trouble climbing up the tower platforms. She was a couple of inches shorter than Hannah and she couldn't quite reach. Kyle encouraged Hannah to help her and after some initial hesitancy Hannah really took to the task. She tried picking the girl up, pushing her bottom, hoisting her knees, pulling her hands, anything she could think of to get the little girl up. Eventually the girl figured it out on her own and the two of them climbed up to the top together. While they were still in the climbing process Hannah did a very good job explaining verbally and visually demonstrating to the girl just how to climb up and down the structure. I was VERY proud of her. Once up, Hannah, who had had her tongue loosed during the climbing demonstration, chatted happily to the little girl. They played and climbed together for probably close to a half hour. Eventually, though, the little girl tired of playing with Hannah and tried to leave. Hannah, bless her little heart, didn't want her new friend to leave. She grabbed the little girl around the waist and said, "You can't leave without me!" The little girl firmly replied, "I can go down by myself," and proceeded to go down the slide. Poor Hannah just seemed confused again. I think it was inconceivable to her that someone might be done playing with her before she was done playing with them. Though not perfect, the play place experience was one of the most successful we've ever had. Hannah got some really good social practice, exercise, and had fun in the process. YEAH! We learned later that the little girl was actually 3 1/2, a full year older than Hannah, even though she was considerably shorter and much less sophisticated and clear verbally. The funny thing is that Hannah also thought she was younger because she referred to her as the little baby! That just makes me smile when I think back about it. :)

Last week we tried out the church that we think we will make our church home (at least initially anyway). We'll be heading back there again tomorrow and with the rough day that Hannah had today I'm more than mildly concerned. First, this church does not have any Sunday School on Sunday mornings. The entire congregation, including children, meet together in the sanctuary for announcements, prayer, and worship. This lasted 30-45 minutes last week. Hannah initially enjoyed being included and liked the singing and special music (she spent quite a bit of time attempting to dance in the aisle), but got really antsy as the first section of the service progressed. I'm worried about her having a meltdown tomorrow as I try to keep her quiet and contained until they release the children for Children's Church. I'm also worried that if she does have a meltdown, besides how hard it will be to deal with in the middle of people who know nothing about us or Hannah's challenges, it will make her less likely to cope effectively on her own during Children's Church since she'll already be on edge. Last week she did just fine during Children's Church, but had a HUGE meltdown as soon as we got back to the car after picking her up after service. Please pray for us that she'll have a good experience during both services and enjoy herself so much that she'll look forward to it each week.

And the Winner Is. . . . .

Drum roll please! The winner of my first ever bloggy contest is M over at Incipient Turvy for coming up with the new name for my blog-Adopting the Spectrum. I think it fits perfectly with what I write about. I spend a lot of time talking about open adoption and it's almost impossible to blog about Hannah without some mention of her particular strengths and challenges that land her a spot on the spectrum. So, there we have it. Welcome to Adopting the Spectrum. Congratulations M! Just email me your mailing address (gnatalie77@yahoo.com) and I'll mail you your book right out. Thanks to everyone who came up with such wonderful ideas. I really had a hard time choosing one. It was quite a tight race.

Yesterday was such a good day! It started out rough, but Hannah really turned it around and we had a great day together. We both really needed that I think. We had a nice time at the library. We met Kimberly, Hannah's DT, there and we did therapy there. The youth room was packed with kids since schools were out due to Martin Luther King Day. We had planned on meeting some friends there so that I knew there would be at least one kid there for Hannah to interact with, but it turns out we would have been fine anyway. Besides our friends we had planned to meet, we also ended up running into Hannah's gymnastics teacher and her two children who we have become good friends with. Hannah really likes Miss Heather's son Dawson who is 5. He's the protective big brother type and really likes taking care of Hannah. Heather's daughter Audrey is only a few weeks older than Hannah, but as is her nature, she really doesn't interact much at all with her. She definitely likes her in theory, talks about her all the time, but in person she'd prefer to stick with the older kids. An interesting change to this preference began happening this weekend however. Our friends that we met at the library have two children, a boy Zach who is almost 4 and a little girl, Ashley who is 18 months and not very verbal at all. Hannah really likes Zach, although he's much more physical than she can handle sometimes and often pushes her personal space boundaries. Still, the two of them typically get along pretty well. Typically Hannah enjoys babies from afar, but doesn't like their unpredictability when they are moving around and screeching and such. We went out to lunch after church with Zach, Ashley, and their mom Laura this past Sunday and Hannah spent the entire meal tickling and giggling with Ashley. I was stunned. Not only was she the one initiating the interaction, but it was with a younger child who doesn't speak at all. Normally she has no tolerance for those who can't communicate on her level which really hinders her ability to get along with her age mates. Then, yesterday at the library Hannah was running around like a crazy woman chasing Ashley up and down the aisles of books (I know, not acceptable library behavior and normally I'd be putting a stop to it, but my little girl was choosing to interact with someone on her own, and someone younger than her no less!) and tickling her and giggling like mad. She had a blast. I was so proud of her. Very intrigued by the development and wondering if this would transfer to other younger children or even her classmates at preschool, but proud none the less. We also met another little boy Hannah's same age who has PDD-NOS (the alternative diagnosis the developmental pediatrician said she psychologist might come back with if she didn't quite agree with the doctor thought about Asperger's). I was really interested to talk with his parents and for Hannah to get to spend some time with another kid who gets it and shares some of her same challenges, but he was much less verbal than she is and was pretty hyper and this made her very anxious. I was not successful in getting her to interact with him at all. She wouldn't even say hi or look at him really. Her hands went straight into her mouth and she started gnawing away at them. After they left and Dawson and Audrey arrived, Hannah was able to recover and have a good time again. It was very interesting for me to see her get herself regulated again. It used to be that once she started getting anxious there was nothing we could do to stop it and now she can actually stop her anxiousness if we help her and even turn it around and get back on track. After the library we went out to eat with Laura, Zach, and Ashley at Chick-Fil-A. After eating the kids went into the play place. It was crazy in there- very loud and kids running everywhere. Hannah actually played a bit and went up in the tubes and down the slide several times. Towards the end she came over to one of the benches and laid down. I thought she was just getting tired since it was close to nap time and she had had a very busy morning with lots of kids to deal with and that always wears her out, but later in the day totally out of the blue she told me that she laid on the "blue couch" at the restaurant because the boys were too loud and she needed a break. WOW! I think that's pretty impressive. She was over stimulated, but she didn't melt down. She took herself to a quieter (not by much, but still quieter) place and did what she needed to do to keep it together. Once again I was so proud of my little one. From Chick-Fil-A we headed on to her doctor's appointment to recheck her ears. She was still pulling at them and this weekend she said her ears hurt. This time there was no infection, but her ears were still filled with fluid which the doctor said is probably causing her discomfort. He doesn't want to do anything about it though until we have her sleep study which it seems like will be soon. Riley contacted me yesterday, but of course I wasn't home, to schedule her appointment and it sounds like the wait won't be months like we had thought. Her doctor thinks her enlarged adenoids are probably preventing the fluid from draining from her ears and he wants to see the results of the sleep study before he sends us off to an ENT. I just hope she doesn't end up with yet another ear infection in the mean time. Poor things had constant fluid in her ears and several infections for 3 months straight now. Thank heavens her hearing doesn't seem to be affected by it. We'll know more about that next week though since I finally got her 2 1/2 year hearing test schedule. We've done so many of them it's hard to believe that after this one we will only have to do one more unless we notice any problems down the road.

Well, that's all for now. I'll keep you posted on the sleep study and the hearing test. I can't imagine that the sleep study will be a pleasant experience. I didn't enjoy mine when I had it done and I at least understood why they were doing the things they were doing, but who knows kids can surprise us.

PS. Here's more pictures courtesy of Hannah! You can totally tell she's spent way too much time around photographers. Now she's staging photos and laying down and moving around in creative ways to get just the perspective she wants! I suppose that's what happens when your mommy and grandpa are amateur photo freaks and your aunt is a professional photographer. In this last photo that's her foot in the way. She's laying on her back and holding the camera up in front of her to take the picture of her My Little Pony that's she's pulled out of one of her precious lines specifically for this photo op!

Name Change

I've been thinking about changing the name of my blog now that we are no longer in the process of adopting AND Hannah is no longer a baby. I'm not good at coming up with catchy titles (as evidenced by the current title of the blog!) so I was wondering if some of you out there with more creative juices had any ideas. Maybe I should have a contest to come up with a new title. I'm not sure how blog contests work. Is there any sort of formal etiquette or rules for this sort of thing? What on earth would be an appropriate prize (remember I'm a stay at home mommy, so I'm not made of money)? If any of you veteran bloggers out there want to help me develop a contest to rename my blog I'd be eternally grateful.

Interestingly enough, the fact that Hannah was adopted has been placed at the forefront of my mind over and over again recently as we have had to fill out and discuss medical history forms for a variety of specialists. It never ceases to take me off guard when people are shocked that we are still in contact with Hannah's birthparents and extended birthfamily. A woman (a social worker no less!) gasped today (at Hannah's meeting to begin transitioning out of the early intervention agency) when I mentioned that I could get any information I needed on the medical history form because I would be seeing Tiffany on Sunday. She said, "do you understand how UNUSUAL that is?" I was almost angry about her uninformed comment and popped off,"Well actually it's not unusual at all anymore. Open adoptions are quite common now." I'm sure the irritation I felt showed in my voice. I wish I had been a little bit more polite in my answer, but Jeez! She's a social worker for pete's sake. She should know a bit about adoption AND she should be sure she has the facts before she makes assumptions when talking to someone living open adoption.

To update everyone on all the medical stuff we've had going on lately. Hannah's staph infection is clearing up pretty well. It thankfully was not MRSA, but is was penicillin resistant so we did have to make an antibiotic switch mid treatment. She's still digging at her ears, but since we aren't even finished with her current round of antibiotics I haven't taken her back into the doctor's office. The visit to the orthopedic specialist went well. It turns out that Hannah does indeed have arches, but her ligaments are too loose to hold them up (this is also the cause of her over pronation). We got a prescription for an insert to put in her shoes. It turns out that we were right in thinking that Hannah is more flexible than the average two year old. She had 4 of the 5 clinical indicators of hyper mobility syndrome. Basically her ligaments are so loose that they allow her joints to move past the normal ranges of motion. Watching the doctor examine Hannah, it was really interesting to learn all the things her body can do that the normal body can't do. The thing that freaked me out the most was watching her thumb be bent back all the way until it was laying flat against her wrist and her not flinching at all. I bent my thumb back as far as it would go (granted my ligaments are extra tight instead of extra loose) and was in a lot of pain with still close to two inches to go until I even touched my wrist! Today Hannah bent herself in half (the pike position for all those gymnasts and divers out there) and then separated her feet and brought her legs on past her head until they touched the ground on either side of her head. Then she raised them back up slightly and began separating them until she was basically doing the splits while lying flat on her back. It almost made me ill to watch her. The good news is that as long as she doesn't complain of pain or start to have joint dislocations then we don't have to be worried about this at all.

Hannah has been enjoying the Christmas season thoroughly. I melt every time she mentions the word Christmas because she mispronounces it almost every time. She so rarely mispronounces anything that I have to cherish every instance of it that I can get. Instead of saying Christmas she says Crispex (as in the cereal!). Imagine how cute it is to hear, "I can see the lights of our Crispex tree in the window!" :) For me it conjures up an image of a tree made out of cereal boxes with tiny pieces of Crispex hung as the ornaments. She loves to point out Nativities when she sees them and has an eagle eye for Christmas lights. She's very excited about our family coming to visit on Christmas Day (every day she asks me if the family is coming) and to go see Tiffany (her birthmother), Chase and Kayla (Hannah's brother and sister), Uncle Robert (Tiffany's brother), and Grandma Donna (Tiffany's mom) on Sunday. Kayla is performing in the Nutcracker and Hannah is totally pumped about going to the ballet. She informed me yesterday after talking to Tiffany on the phone that she was going to dance with Kayla in the ballet! She may not make it up on stage (let's pray she doesn't anyway!), but I have no doubt that there will be much dancing going on in the audience during the performance. She also told me that she and Kayla would be wearing dresses, but that Chase was too big for a dress!! Never mind the fact that Chase is a boy, he's simply too big! Next weekend we will be delivering our gifts to the family we adopted through Family Services. I'm really looking forward to Hannah getting her first taste of what it feels like to be generous and help others in need. I think it's so hard for kids to understand what generosity means until you they can actually see how what they did helped someone.

Hannah's newest literary obsession is spelling. The other day she brutally drilled me at the dinner table about spelling. She started off spelling her name-first and middle and then moved on to cat and dog and then to other words she can read easily, but that I did not know she knew how to spell like up, is, it, me, go, the, see, and. She spelled each word just like our local hero Sameer Mishra who won the National Spelling Bee this year. She would say the word, spell it, then say it again. Up, U-P, up. It was so cute. After exhausting the words she definitely knew how to spell, she started asking me for words to spell. I'd give her a word and then she would attempt to spell it. After she tried I'd help her get it correct. She was really quite good at it. She would analyze each word and then do her best to phonetically spell it out using letter names and letter sounds. I was quite amazed. Her scissor skills are coming along quite nicely. I think I posted about her scissor project fascination awhile back. She can operate her scissors independently and cut right where she wants to cut although she can't always stay in a straight line. Now that we've figured out the mechanics of how to use the scissors we can work on fine tuning her control. Yesterday we made paper snowflakes. She got a HUGE kick out of snipping away at the paper and then opening it up to see what she had created. They are currently hanging on our window.

Here's a kids say the darnedest things funny story for you to chuckle about. The day I took Hannah to the doctor to have her sores looked at (the ones that ended up being the staph infection) I couldn't get her into her primary doctor so I took her to the walk in urgent care clinic down the street. Given it is the season for respiratory infections and stomach bugs, the clinic waiting room was packed. When we finally saw the doctor he had to do a biopsy of one of Hannah's sores to confirm that it was staph and to rule out MRSA. When he was done (Hannah was very brave by the way and didn't cry a bit!) he put a band aid on her bottom (that's where most of her sores are) over the one he took the biopsy from. When we walked back out into the waiting room Kyle was there waiting for us-he had stopped on his way home from work. The waiting room was even more packed now that it was past "quitting time." Hannah, excited to see her daddy and anxious to tell him about her experience, proudly and extremely loudly announced for the entire waiting room to hear, "Daddy, I have a band aid on my bottom!" Several people snickered and we got all sorts of kind smiles as we walked out. Though I might have been a bit embarrassed by her proclamation, maybe Hannah's antics managed to cheer up someone who wasn't feeling very well.

Some of the pictures I'm posting are from Thanksgiving. We spent the day at my aunt's house visiting with my mom's side of the family. Hannah was the only kid there except for my younger cousins who are in middle and high school and she lapped up all the attention. As many of you are aware, like many toddlers Hannah loves to be naked. She especially loves to be naked and running. You can guess what this will lead to in college! She might not even need the aid of alcohol to do it! Anyway, it's often a challenge keeping her clothed and Thanksgiving was no exception. My sister started snapping away as I tried to keep my little stripper from getting indecent. I failed miserably. None of these photos are posed by the way, so don't think I'm trying to create kiddie pornography or anything. Enjoy a good laugh while you observe my little streaker.

PS. Someone on another blog I read posted a picture of their daughter that they thought summed up how she approaches life. While I don't believe this picture sums Hannah up, it's a pretty fair snapshot of her approach to coping with her challenges. I was babysitting for a friend whose daughter is 18 months old. She's not super verbal, but VERY active and unpredictable like most toddlers. Hannah's not much for unpredictability so she was a bit stressed during the visit. Much of the time she spent placing physical barriers between herself and Scarlett and chewing on her hands. However, she's ever the observer and doesn't want left completely out of the action so she always had to be near Scarlett to know what she was doing. Notice in this picture Scarlett is busy, busy, busy chasing the cat and Hannah's placed herself on the other side of the filing box and is busy chewing her hands to stay calm. You can't tell in the picture, but she is also rocking herself back and forth which is another calming tool she uses. On a side note, you gotta love the 80's style head band and retro T shirt don't you?

Dinosaur Dreams

Today Hannah woke up from her nap muttering. I went into her room to find her stretched across her rocking chair covered up with a blanket. She turned her head when she heard the door open and whispered, "I don't like the dinosaurs." After some questioning and several serious insistences that she indeed DID NOT like the dinosaurs I have come to the conclusion that she had a dream about dinosaurs being at McCalisters (the restaurant where we eat at after church most Sundays). She's never expressed any fear of dinosaurs before. We have several books that portray them in humorous roles and have never discussed them being scary at all, BUT last week at preschool the theme was dinosaurs. I can only surmise that it was mentioned that dinosaurs were terrifying beasts (probably by one of the little boys in the class) and that overpowered all previous experiences she's had with dinosaurs. It's interesting to me that this fear manifested itself as a dream instead of her mentioning it after preschool one day. Other than recounting her dream, she has made no mention of dinosaurs after school or any other time pretty much ever. I wonder if she's been having other dreams that are scary that she hasn't told me about and this is why she has all of a sudden started insisting that she sleep with the light on. Something for me to think about I guess.

We finally got Hannah's appointment with the developmental clinic set up. It's not until February! I knew it would be a long time, but I guess I kinda hoped that somehow we'd get in sooner. We also have a meeting set up for December to begin the transition from the early intervention agency to the local school system's special education department. Tonight was Hannah's six month review with the early intervention agency and she blew her case coordinator away by reading dozens of words to her off of flash cards. Hannah's therapist just smiled one of those "I told you so" smiles and gave me a knowing look. No one ever believes us when we say that Hannah is reading. It's made even more unbelievable when they know that she's receiving special services for sensory problems. Unfortunately, this will probably continue and make our fight to get Hannah access to the services she needs and deserves difficult. Because her challenges and gifts tend to cancel each other out, it often appears that she's just average and that she has no problems and also isn't exceptional at all academically. This fact could keep her out of gifted programs AND out of special education services to ensure that her sensory needs don't prevent her from meeting her potential academically. I often worry that when she enters school she's going to be bored out of her mind, socially frustrated and anxious, and not have anyone who is willing to help her succeed. I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get there (although it could be sooner than we think!), but at least this meeting will be a good start.

Hannah's been learning more and more words lately and now has 20+ sight words. Tonight she read me another book. I'm always so proud when I see her stop at a word she doesn't know and attempt to use the context, pictures, and what she can decode to figure it out.

Last week while Kyle was in Puerto Rico, Heather came to stay with Hannah and I to keep us both from going insane. I'm so thankful that she did. Things went so much more quickly than they would have otherwise and Kyle was back before we both knew it. Heather brought her two dogs (Heinz and Maverick) with her so we had 4 dogs, two cats, two adults, and a toddler in the house! It was really quite a full house. Hannah really enjoyed having Aunt Heather stay here. Most of the time she didn't want me to do things with her. She wanted Heather instead! She even tried to convince my non kid person sister to give her a bath! That would have been a sight to see! It was pretty funny to watch Hannah pushing around and ordering around Heather's dogs too. We have little dogs, but Heinz and Maverick are dobermans (103 and 60 lbs respectively) and lately Hannah's been a bit leery of big dogs. However, after a few hours you would never know it. She'd just go up and push them right out of her way.

The other day I was eating M & M s and Hannah wanted some. I gave her my standard answer about not being able to have them until she was older. She then told me very matter of factly, "I can have them at Mamaw and Papaw's though." I guess the old saying, "What happens at Grandma's stays at Grandma's" doesn't apply with Hannah. This isn't the first time she's told us that she's done something at another person's house that she knows that she's not supposed to do or eaten something she knows she's not allowed at home. She's also started "arguing" when we tell her she can't have or do something by telling us that the other parent allows her to do it. This is usually her telling me that daddy allows her to do it. For example, she always wants to jump up the stairs or go up the stairs in some other unorthodox fashion like backwards or sideways. I don't let her because our stairs are steep, there is concrete at the bottom, and I don't have good enough balance to stop her from falling and keep myself from falling should she lose her balance and take a tumble. One day when she wanted to jump up the stairs and I told her no, she replied, "With Daddy I can do it!" and gave me a very defiant look. We're in for a real treat I'm sure once she's a little bit older and learns how to manipulate the system and pit us against each other!

Hyperlexia

As many of you know, either personally or through reading this blog, Hannah is a very special, smart little girl, with a few unusual quirks. Because of these particular quirks, Hannah's doctor sent her for specialized testing through the local early intervention program that serves infants and toddlers. Through this testing we have learned that what we believed (or rather had hoped) were just quirks are actually a medical syndrome called hyperlexia. Hannah's letter and number obsession, strong visual and auditory memory, sensitivities, and social difficulties with peers are the hallmarks of this particular syndrome. With early intervention this should have a very good prognosis-not a "cure" per se (I wouldn't want to change my little girl's personality anyway!), but the therapy she will receive should make her much less anxious in social settings, teach her coping skills for when she feels overwhelmed, and give her a much better chance at succeeding in school. One interesting thing we learned through this testing is that we received confirmation of what we believed was Hannah's exceptional intelligence but had always wondered if we were just being the typical parent who OF COURSE always thinks their child is brilliant. They did not do an IQ test on Hannah (they are considered unreliable on children of her age), but on the four cognitive development tests that they performed Hannah tested at a 4 or 5 year old level on each one! That's my smart little girl. Hannah will begin developmental therapy for 1 hour a week every week for the next year and at that point she will be reevaluated to see if she needs to continue. At 3 she will have aged out of the First Steps program (the early intervention agency), but if she still qualifies for services then we can start services through the school system. We haven't met her therapist yet, but I've talked to her on the phone and she seems really knowledgeable and nice. She has 2 other clients who are currently diagnosed with hyperlexia so that makes me feel like she knows what she's doing. We'll know soon enough. If we don't like her for whatever reason at all, we have the right to request a new therapist until we find someone we (and more importantly Hannah) click with. The therapist will do Hannah's therapy out in the community so that she can be around other kids to practice her skills and in August when she starts preschool the therapist will do her therapy at preschool. I'm very pleased about that because I have been pretty nervous about how Hannah will transition into preschool. At least this way I know she'll have support for at least one hour out of the 5 she'll be in preschool each week.

Another new development that actually goes along with her hyperlexia diagnosis is that Hannah has started trying to sound out words in her books. I guess now that she's mastered all her letters and their sounds she needed a new challenge. Besides writing the letter H, she has also taught herself how to write C and sometimes A. She is so proud whenever she manages to write a new letter. She's getting much better at recognizing some of the 2 digit numbers she's been learning and she's managed to learn to extend the number pattern of the 20's and 30's all by herself! She just started saying the number that came next when we were counting out loud one day and as far as we know she'd never even heard the numbers said out loud past 20 before! She's also really into to talking on the phone lately and has been having lengthy conversations with pretty much anyone who will talk to her. One day she was talking to Pap while walking around the house giving him a tour! It was so funny to hear him trying to make sense of what was going on without him having the benefit of seeing what she was pointing to!

I have LOTS more updates, but I'll save those for a new post so that you don't have to read a novel.