Rough Week

It's been a rough week around here. It started on Monday when Hannah's cough had reached the point that I felt like I had to take her to the doctor. We went in and found out that she had bronchitis and a double ear infection. The ear that still had the tube wasn't draining like the tubes are supposed to help it do and the doctor said the tube was crusty looking and gross. So, we went home with a script for 2 weeks of amox-clav and orders to keep her quiet. Ha! Fat chance! Hannah is one of those odd kids who, instead of becoming lethargic and restless when they are sick, goes into hyper-drive. She becomes even more active than she normally is and it's next to impossible to keep her still. Even the promise of PBS kids or a movie isn't enough to keep her still for long.

Later in the day we had to go to Omaha to pick up her new orthotics and have them fitted. Luckily, they were able to get them into her current shoes so we didn't have to buy new sneakers. I was worried about this since I had just bought her new shoes only a few weeks before we had the appointment where the doctor ordered the orthotics. I really didn't want to shell out money for new shoes this close to the holidays. Upon arriving home Hannah had a spectacular meltdown when I suggested she wash her hands. In fact, she raged. I was barely able to get her upstairs to her bedroom to chill out and once there it was basically impossible to keep her in her room. She kicked her physical and verbal aggression up several notches from normal and for the first time I was almost frightened of her. It took over an hour to get her calmed back down. To find the silver lining in this incident, I was able to video a good portion of the ordeal to take with us to the psychologist the next day.

Tuesday she was cleared to go back to school, but we had to pick her up early for our first appointment with the new psychologist. Armed with my video from the night before, her previous psych report, teacher emails, IEP, disciplinary referrals, report card, etc we marched into our meeting. After studying our paperwork, speaking with us, and watching the video the psychologist came back into the room and told us that we needed to be referred to the Autism Center's Severe Behavior unit for their outpatient partial hospitalization program. We were floored. I knew things had gotten bad, but I had no idea we were now that far from normal 5 year old behavior. She also said that her initial impression of Hannah is Asperger's Syndrome. So, yeah, we are back to that again. I'd been thinking I needed to rename the blog since the last psych took away that diagnosis, but it looks like it may be coming back. The doctor also said that she WOULD continue to see us (and Hannah) if we wanted, that she wasn't just handing us off because she didn't want to work with us, but that she thought progress with her would be much slower and that Hannah needed more intensive help than she was able to give her. We were sent home with a phone number to call and a packet of forms to fill out.

Wednesday was rough, but manageable. Thursday started off ok, but there were issues right before we left for school when Hannah tried to smuggle books to school by shoving them down her pants. A battle ensued to attempt the removal of the books and the drive to school was not happy. Swim lessons on Thursday were awesome and Hannah made a lot of progress, but then after the lesson in the locker room all heck broke loose. Hannah got angry for some unknown to me reason and started shouting mean and disrespectful things at me. If I tried to touch her she'd hit me or swat my hand away. It was SO LOUD and it echoed all throughout the locker room. Every eye was on me and I was terribly embarrassed. I know I shouldn't care what others think of me and my parenting, but seeing all those eyes on me judging it was hard to fight back the tears that wanted to come as I struggled to contain Hannah, get her dressed and just get the heck out of Dodge.

Friday morning (today) started off rocky from the very beginning and only got worse as the day wore on. Hannah didn't want to get ready for school and was insisting she had already brushed her teeth when she had clearly not done so (sink and toothbrush were both bone dry!). Instead of fight with her over it, I simply told her that I would just go over them to be sure she had done a good job. She wasn't going to have that at all and got extremely aggressive. In the end she did a number to both me and the bathroom, ripping the drawer out of it's cabinet and the door stopper off the wall and head butting me so hard that tears came to my eyes. I eventually got her calmed and ready for school. I thought it was all in the past. She seemed ready to go, but just after lunchtime I received an email from the teacher saying that Hannah had spit in another student's face at lunchtime. She was sent to the principal for another "detention" during recess. She apologized to her friend, but I fear damage may have been done to that friendship because Hannah said that the little girl told her that Hannah wasn't her friend anymore and that she wouldn't talk to her or play with her for the rest of the day. I can't say that I blame the girl, especially since she had done nothing to provoke the spitting. The thing is, Hannah REALLY likes this little girl. She talks about her ALL the time. She's calm and reliable and a good influence, the perfect friend for Hannah. I have NO IDEA why she would have done something like this to her friend and apparently neither does Hannah.

As the week has wore on I find myself wondering more and more if maybe the psychologist was right, maybe this program she speaks about really is the right place for us. Maybe, just maybe, this could be where we can finally get some help. The only drawback, it's an 8 week program and Hannah would have to be pulled from school for that time. I don't know how I feel about that. Obviously she won't fall behind academically, but I worry about the disruption to the school routine and the loss of relationships that she has started to build with her classmates. It's going to take lots of prayer to decide what to do about this.

Photo Notes: Pictures were taken in November at a park near our house. The cat in the last picture acted like a dog and followed us around EVERYWHERE we went. It even came when called. It was SO FRIENDLY. Hannah was convinced it didn't have a home and that we needed to take it home. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't have minded having it, but a cat that friendly had to have owners so we went knocking on doors in the neighborhood near the park to see if anyone knew who the cat belonged to. We eventually found the owner, but they were totally unconcerned that their cat was across the busy road wandering in the park. That made me sad. He was such a sweet cat too.

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.

School Options for the Fall

Since moving up to the 4 year old room at her preschool, we have been less than thrilled with Hannah's new teacher. It's hard to put a definite finger on what bothers us, but it's definitely not been as positive of an experience as Hannah had in her 3 year old classroom. She doesn't seem to connect with her current teachers at all. In fact, in the mornings I usually drop her off before her teachers arrive so she goes into the 3 year old room until they get there. On those days she separates fairly easily and is welcomed warmly. When we arrive slightly later and the assistant teacher is already at school Hannah has a much harder time with me leaving. She clings to my leg, says she doesn't want to stay at school, and doesn't get noticed much by the teacher. There's not even a mention of anything like, "Do you want to run an errand with me Hannah?" or "Why don't we read this book together," to distract her from my leaving. She's left completely on her own to work it out. In her old room I got the sense that the teachers truly loved Hannah. They were concerned about her best interests. I just don't get that sense in her new room. I'm sure the teachers care about doing a good job and are kind to the children, but I don't get the sense that they really care about Hannah as an individual child. She's just another kid in the class to them is the feeling I get. I spoke with the teacher about our concerns for Hannah and our hopes for how her school experience would continue to go. I even sent her a LONG follow up email with more detailed information about Hannah and some tips about what works best for us at home with Hannah. We pretty much received the standard, "yeah, yeah I know what I'm doing and I don't need to do anything differently for your child." response. She was polite, but was pretty clear that she knew how to deal with kids with SPD and that she did not feel any need to adjust the difficulty of some of her activities to appropriately challenge Hannah because her lesson plans are all open ended enough for her to get the challenge she needs. The problem is that she's not getting the challenge that she needs. She never brings anything tangible home at all. There are no products of her learning. No art projects, writing attempts, cut and paste activities, etc. She still hasn't read anything at all in the classroom that the teacher is aware of and she will not encourage her to do so. Though I know that she does occasionally read to herself and other children during free play time in the afternoons after her teacher has left. It's all just very frustrating. As Hannah's academic abilities continue to progress at lightning speed and as we learn more about the kindergarten curriculum and environment at the public school we have become very worried about what we should do with Hannah when she turns five as far as schooling options. We've actually struggled pretty mightily about what to do for her this coming fall, but I think we've finally made our decision. We've decided to home school Hannah (using a kindergarten curriculum since she's more than ready already) this fall as a trial run to see if this is even a feasible option for kindergarten when she's five. If things go well we'll home school her for kindergarten (her five year old year) as well and then reevaluate where to go from there once she's old enough for first grade. If homeschooling is an epic fail then we really won't have lost anything since she technically doesn't have to be in any kind of school yet and she could already breeze through the academic portions of kindergarten so she won't be behind in that respect. To keep her social skills progressing we plan to enroll her in several classes at the local YMCA and let her join the local youth soccer program. She might even continue to go to her current preschool one day a week so that she can keep up the relationships she has already formed with the kids there, but I'm not sure if we'll go that route or not. Of course we'll continue to do all the fun stuff we like to do like go to the beach, the museum and the zoo, library story time, etc and look for as many play dates as we can get. I really think the social aspects of homeschooling will be Hannah's biggest challenge, but I'm hopeful that we can circumvent them with some good planning and a consistent routine as far as classes, standing play dates, story times, etc. I'm both excited and nervous at the same time about starting up homeschooling. I'm excited about all I can teach Hannah now that she's ripe for learning and happy about the extra time we'll have to do fun stuff, but I'm also worried that I won't be able to replicate the institutional structure that traditional preschool/elementary school provides. I guess we'll see how it goes. Like I said before, this is why we're doing a trial run now.

Today I was hoping to kick off our three day weekend by spending time at the beach or going to the zoo, but Hannah came home from school yesterday with a fever (102.5 degrees) and it didn't break over the night. Today it's been hovering in the 103. 5 degrees range. So much for fun outings. She's pretty congested, but other than that and the fever she has no other real symptoms. It appears to just be a cold. Let's hope it clears up before the weekend is over so that we can do at least a little bit of fun stuff.

Despite feeling crummy, Hannah managed to bless me with two very interesting conversations today. The first occurred while we were getting dressed this morning. She was stalling and wallering around on the floor when all of a sudden she sat up and asked, "Mommy, do you know about silver panels?" Confused, I replied, "Do you mean panels that are the color silver?" She said, "Yes, do you know how they work?" This confused me even more. What in the heck were silver panels? So, I asked her, "Hannah where did you learn about silver panels?" "From Curious George," she replied. It was then that the light bulb immediately clicked on inside my head. I said, "Do you mean solar panels?" She brightened and practically shouted, "Yeah, solar panels!" I remembered that about a month ago we had watched an episode of Curious George where too many air conditioners caused a black out in the city, but the Professor powered a generator at the museum using solar panels. A month ago! Apparently she'd been mulling the episode around in her head and wanted to know how solar panels worked and to find out if we had any! We talked in length about what little knowledge I had about solar panels (thankfully it was more than she knew and enough to satisfy her curiosity!) and I was able to show her the solar powered calculator we had and we experimented with it by placing it in the direct light and then hiding the collection panels from the light and watching it shut off. It was really fun.

The second conversation started as a discussion about germs, spurred I'm sure by the fact that she is sick. She was asking about whether or not germs had mouths and if they were monsters (thanks to a book she has that shows a cartoon picture of a germ) and what they looked like. I explained that germs are too little for us to see with our eyes and that I don't really know what they look like, but that different germs probably each look different just like different people do. I told her that in order to see what a germ looked like you need to use a microscope. At first she didn't know what a microscope was, but after I described one she piped up with, "Oh, like at the museum. I need one of those. I wish I had a really big microscope attached to my eyes so that could see really little things really big." On and on and on she went about wanting a microscope and about how she wanted one attached to her eyes. Maybe I'll have to get her some child sized binoculars. That's not exactly the same, but it's somewhat close and probably a better choice than a microscope. I'm not sure she's quite ready for a microscope, a magnifying glass maybe, but not a microscope. I do appreciate her desire though. I had a microscope as a kid (a much OLDER kid mind you) and I loved it. I had a blast preparing my own slides and examining the premade ones that came with it.

Photo Notes: In the first picture you see Hannah proudly displaying a picture she drew of our family. Pictured are Hannah, Daddy, Grandpa and Mommy, plus a flower. I'm the person on the top left that actually has a separate head and body. Notice the baby growing in my tummy. No, I'm not pregnant. It's just wishful thinking on her part and a reaction I think to a friend who recently had a baby. There's been a lot of references to a baby in my tummy lately!

The rest of the pictures are Hannah playing in the sprinkler in our backyard.

Deja Vu

All day today I felt like I was reliving the events of a year ago. Hannah had her surgery to have tubes placed in her ears this morning and like last year (that time she had her tonsils and adenoids out as well as the tubes put in) she was a model patient and recovered much quicker than was anticipated. We were sent home a half hour after she woke up and she was doing great. We kept it low key for the afternoon, but when she woke up from her nap we could feel the heat radiating off of her body without even having to touch her. That was NOT a good sign. Her discharge instructions stated that if she got a fever of over 101 degrees then we were to call the office for further instructions. There was no doubt her fever was over 101 degrees, but we took her temperature anyway and it was 103.4 degrees. All I could think of was, "NOT AGAIN!" This was exactly what happened last year except her temperature didn't spike until the next day instead of just later on the same day. After consulting with the ENT we were told to take her to the local pediatric hospital to the ER. He worried that she had post op pneumonia again since she was coughing like crazy as well as had the fever. Off we went to the ER thinking that this was EXACTLY like last time and wondering why on earth Hannah couldn't seem to make it through a routine surgery without getting pneumonia. At the ER they thankfully determined that Hannah does not have pneumonia (at least not yet), but instead has a post surgical bacterial infection of some kind and most likely a cold as well. We were sent home with an antibiotic and orders to monitor her fever and check back in with her doctor if anything changes. Now she is sleeping peacefully and the Tylenol and Motrin seems to be keeping the fever in check. It was quite a day, but Hannah actually did great. We had many comments made to us about what a good girl she was being. She didn't even cry when it was time to head back to the operating room! They let me go back with her and hold her on my lap while she breathed in the gas from the mask until she fell asleep. That whole process was actually quite pain free for her. I was a bit nervous and it was hard to see her slip from consciousness, but I was glad I was able to be there to keep her calm. Please keep Hannah in your prayers while we hope that whatever this infection is that it is able to be treated with the antibiotic and that she is back to feeling herself tomorrow because she has a birthday party that she desperately wants to attend on Saturday and she'd be devastated if she couldn't go!

Whoop! There it Is!

I apologize for the recent quietness on the blog, but we've been under the weather here at the Spontak house-for about six weeks. It started with Hannah and a moderate cold, or so we thought, that turned into pneumonia. Surprise, surprise! Then I became sick with a cold and then a nasty cough that increased in severity and never let up. Then Kyle got sick and ended up with a cough too. Of course Hannah had a cough too. We were a fine bunch to listen to-still are in fact since we still haven't stopped hacking and barking away. Turns out what we thought was just a cold was not an innocent cold virus, but instead Pertussis or better known as Whooping Cough. Leave it to us to come down with another archaic disease straight out of Oregon Trail. Last year was Scarlet Fever. This year Whooping Cough. Now all we need is Typhoid Fever and we'll have survived the Oregon Trail trifecta! For those of you not familiar with the computer game Oregon Trail. It became popular back in the 80's. I used to play it back in the day on the old Apple IIe's with the black and green screens. It was loads of fun. Those of you who grew up in the 80s or who had children who did probably know this game intimately! Apparently Whooping Cough is making a come back due to under vaccination and since your protection from the vaccine wanes after 10 years or so after your last dose (around 4 years old) you become susceptible again to anyone infected with the disease. So, Hannah who hasn't had her full round of vaccinations for it yet caught it and then passed it on to Kyle and I with our diminished protection since we're a bit past 14 years old. Fortunately since we all have at least some protection the disease is milder than it might otherwise have been for all 3 of us, but it's still mighty uncomfortable and definitely annoying. According to the doctor it could take up to 3 months for us to fully recover. I'm praying it doesn't take that long. I could certainly use a good night's sleep well before then.


Hannah continues to thrive at preschool and is permanently going full day now. I feel so blessed that we were able to find this preschool that is so sensitive to her needs and also doesn't put up with any crap from her either. They seem to know exactly how much to push and when to lay low. Hannah is making friends and has several little boys that she is particularly fond of. She always was one to prefer men! She also has one little girl who seems to be her partner in crime. It's so good to walk into the classroom and see her interacting without adult prompting or facilitation with her peers. Unfortunately her new found social skills at school don't seem to be transferring to other places. In fact, I would venture to say that she's become even more fearful and reluctant to play with or interact with other kids outside of school. It's to the point at the play place that she won't even go up into the play structure and play by herself if there are other kids around. That's quite frustrating, but at least I know she's getting social practice at school. I just wish we could find some way to generalize those skills to other situations.

We are preparing for a two week trip, starting next week, back home to Indiana and Ohio for Thanksgiving and Hannah is seriously pumped. She can't wait to go back to Indiana. She's especially excited to see her friend Evelyn and meet Evelyn's new baby sister Vivian. It should be a whirlwind trip with little time for relaxation so I pray we all handle it well. We plan to visit with all the grandparents and some of the great grandparents, aunts and uncles, Hannah's birth family, and some friends. I hope we can squeeze it all in there. People have a tendency to get mad if they get left out, but we can't be two places at once and we only have so much time. Really we will probably be over extending ourselves as it is, but we still won't be able to make everyone happy. :(

The other day Hannah surprised me by demonstrating that she knows her ordinal numbers (at least up to the fifth place). She told me she was going to tell me five stories and then as she told me each one she said things like, "The first one is about. . . Here is the second story. . . Next is the third story. . ." and so on. I had no idea she knew those. I've never explicitly taught her them. It must either be something they learned at school or that she just picked up. She's always amazing me by the things that she just absorbs when we aren't looking. I'm sure it helps that she's got a mind like a steel trap and NEVER forgets anything. I can't remember exactly what it was, but just the other day she recounted for me with pin point accuracy something that happened last February that I'm pretty sure we hadn't discussed since it happened (or at least not recently)! I was completely shocked of course.

Night time potty training is finally going well. We had a few months of accidents almost every other day and I was starting to regret my decision to ditch the pull ups at bedtime, but all of a sudden she seems to be doing ok and we've had 20 days with only 1 accident! It's been so nice to not be washing urine soaked bedding every single day. That was getting really old. We are still getting her up when we go to bed to potty one last time for the night, but that's not too bad. I can handle that if it means no more diapers and no more (or at least very few) accidents.

Hannah seems to be adjusting well to her braces. She doesn't seem to mind wearing them at all (at least no more than she minds wearing socks in general.) The one thing she doesn't particularly care for about them is walking long distances in them. She will start saying her feet hurt. I can't really say that I blame her. After all her foot isn't on a cushy insole anymore, but instead on hard plastic. The orthotic technician that made her brace was able to trim it down significantly so that it's very unobtrusive. He cut it so her toes can hang over the end and was able to trim the top down so that it ends just above her ankle bones instead of mid shin. I am extremely grateful for that. I think that makes them much more comfortable for Hannah and she doesn't stand out wearing them. In fact you really don't notice them at all unless you look for them because they sit mostly inside her shoes.

Girly Girl

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I am NOT a girly girl. I've always been a bit of a tom boy, more into horses and books than dressing up, wearing make-up, or pretending to be a princess. In spite of all that, somehow Hannah has managed to catch Disney Princess and ballerina fever. She pines over nail polish, tutus, tiaras, high heels, and princess dresses. I don't know how it happened! I've tried for a few months to hold back the tide of girliness threatening to overwhelm our home, but it's no use. When Hannah started performing ballet moves in the living room and informed me she wanted a ballerina birthday party for her 3rd birthday I just gave up. It's pointless to fight it and obviously it brings her great joy. The huge smile on her face as she twirls around the room and the excitement in her voice as she asks to be read a princess story is proof enough. How can I deny her? Yesterday she picked out the cake she wants for her birthday. If you've been following my blog for awhile you know that I've made Hannah's other two cakes (as well as one for my friend's little girl), but these have all been fairly simple and only required basic stars and a shaped cake pan. The cake Hannah's picked will put my decorating skills to the test. It's a ballerina teddy bear and it's a 3-D cake with a lace tutu and everything! There's not a single star on the cake (really the only tip I'm any good at using!) so this should be interesting. Hannah and I went and bought the cake pan (as well as some other goodies for the party which I'll elaborate on later) today so that I can do a practice run with plenty of time for a change of plans if it become apparent that this cake is out of my league! I'll keep you posted on how it turns out, although if it's bad don't expect to see a picture! Besides the cake supplies we also picked up some ballerina (and princess) dress up items and party props to use at the big event. We came home with 2 tutus, a princess dress, 2 tiaras, 3 pairs of princess shoes and a pair of ballet slippers, a purse (a princess has to shop!), and a whole slew of ballerina wands. We also picked up a few foam soldier swords (think the Nutcracker) for the boys who resist wands and tutus! The funny thing is that so far most of the kids Hannah's age she's met that might be on the guest list for this party are boys! I'm not sure what they will think of a ballerina party (maybe at 2 1/2 and 3 you don't care?), but that's what we're doing. Anyone with any ideas for making the ballerina party more boy friendly feel free to leave me a comment. After lunch Hannah pulled out her new tutu, wand, and tiara and twirled and whirled around the living room to George Winston's tribute to Vince Guaraldi's Peanut's music which was the closest I could come to ballet music (Linus and Lucy is the name of the CD in case you are interested). She looked so happy and even graced us with a bit of real interpretive dance by sitting down on the floor and putting her head in her lap as a sad piece of music ended. It really made me smile to see her so happy even if it was in a tutu and waving a princess wand.

Besides princess mania, Hannah's also been really into drawing lately. She's finally started to draw things that have purposeful strokes and sometimes they are even fairly recognizable. She went from no interest at all in drawing people to overnight drawing the classic portrait of a head with arms and legs sprouting from it! I was actually pretty impressed since my people drawing skills aren't much beyond that (think stick figures!). Her coloring is getting much more precise and she focuses on a page for much longer. I've no clue where she should actually be developmentally in the drawing and coloring areas at her age so she may be way behind for all I know, but if that's the case don't burst my bubble of parental pride just yet. :)

Another skill that has also made a huge leap as she inches closer to the big 3 is throwing and catching a ball. Her gross motor skills are improving by leaps and bounds so now she can actually make adjustments as the ball is coming towards her and catch it much of the time as long as it's not a wild throw. Her balancing and climbing is getting quite good and she can finally alternate feet on the steps now without being prompted and does this about 50% of the time she goes up and down them. Her running is still quite odd and she falls down a lot when she runs, but it doesn't seem to bother her too much unless she skins her knees (although that's been fairly often lately since it's been warm enough for shorts). Trike riding is still an obstacle. For awhile I thought she had finally cracked the code, but alas I fear I was premature. Pedalling that darn tricycle has been the source of many tantrums lately and now she doesn't even want to try anymore.

Oh, I almost forgot! Hannah's cystic fibrosis test came back normal!!!!! Praise Jesus! The testing was fairly straight forward although Hannah screamed for 5 minutes straight as I held her while the electric current (mild I might add, like the kind they use in physical therapy) activated the sweating medicine. The tech told her it would feel tingly like when your arm goes to sleep and it was then that I knew we were in trouble. For some reason, the sensation of pins and needles for Hannah is experienced as intense pain. She shrieks and cries every single time until it goes away. You would think someone was cutting off one of her limbs. Imagine the look on her face when she realized that after the tech finished doing it to one arm that he was going to do it on her other arm!?! The poor little thing was very brave though. She bit her lip, sat on my lap, cried for 2 minutes and then silently sobbed for the other 3.

Night potty training is going pretty well. We've had a few dry naps as well as 2 dry nights in a row in our first week of trying. Unfortunately on a few of the nights she's had only one accident it's been at 5am and she has not gone back to sleep on those days. That's made for some really cranky days since she also has not napped. I'm cautiously optimistic that she'll be able to figure this out and be able to wake herself up when she needs to pee eventually (like before she's in kindergarten) even if that does mean that we have a lot of really early mornings.

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.

Pneumonia AGAIN

Yes, Hannah has pneumonia AGAIN! The poor little thing seems to be a magnet for bacterial pneumonia. This is the 7th time she's had it in the past 2 years. Her most recent case was only 2 months ago right after her surgery. UGH! Besides the pneumonia, this time she also has a partially collapsed lung. That scares the begeezus out of me. The urgent care doctor says we don't really need to worry about it unless she gets worse, but I'm worrying anyway. Scarring also showed up on this most recent chest x-ray. The radiologist said it was from past cases of pneumonia. I worry that all these cases of pneumonia are going to permanently damage her lungs and I'm also concerned about WHY she gets this pneumonia all the time. What is causing her to be so susceptible? I know that Tiffany (Hannah's birthmother) has severe allergies and asthma and Chase (Hannah's brother) battles croup and ends up in the ER for breathing treatments from it frequently, but neither of them get pneumonia. Please pray for my little girl that she recovers quickly from this and that we can get hooked up with a pediatrician here quickly and get to the bottom of all of this. On a side note, I am also sick. Somehow I managed to get strep throat and pinkeye. Thankfully Hannah didn't get either of those from me and Kyle seems to have mostly escaped it too.

Lately Hannah's defiance and sassiness has gotten out of control. She is blatantly disobedient and speaks very disrespectfully to us. It's like she's 2 going on 16! We've tried several traditional systems of behavior management and discipline, but nothing really seems to work well with Hannah so we are going to go out on a limb and give one of the more unusual methods a try. It's called the Nurtured Heart Method and was pioneered by Howard Glasser. Kyra at This Mom first introduced me to this method. At first pass I thought it sounded fine, but that it was not my kind of thing. It was way too involved for my way of thinking. However, as things slowly spiraled down hill after our moved it became apparent that Hannah needed something more. It couldn't hurt to give Nurtured Heart a try. So I checked the book out of the library and set to work reading it straight through. We are all set to give it a try as soon as Hannah is feeling better. Wish us luck. If you want to know more about the specifics of Nurtured Heart, click on the link to Kyra above. She's done an excellent job through several posts of the basics of Nurtured Heart and how they've applied it at their house.

Here's my autism blogger of the day Full Soul Ahead written by Michelle. Michelle's oldest daughter has Asperger's Syndrome. She writes about daily life as well as some of Riley's challenges. They are currently in the process of getting an autism service dog for Riley and she has written several wonderful posts about how service dogs can help those with autism. Check her out. She's a great read.

We Made It

Well, we finally made it here to Rhode Island. It was a long hard trip with its fair share of tantrums and meltdowns, but we made it none-the-less. Physically Hannah seems to be doing great and got the all clear from her ENT to resume her normal activities. Today we went swimming and she had a blast. It was really good for her to get some heavy work in, especially after 3 straight days in the car! We've been in behavior boot camp the last two days which hasn't been fun for any of us, but it's needed. She got so much leeway after her surgery and while we were packing and moving, that a huge rein in was really needed to get things back under control. I'm sure it's going to take some time. I just hope I can stay patient.

I think it's going to take some time for us all to adjust to apartment life. As far as apartments go, this is a nice one, but we are right downtown so it's loud. Hannah is constantly asking, "What's that sound?" Our view is amazing for being in the city though. Out one window we can see the whole city and out the other we have a huge view of the capitol building. There is a train station across the street that Hannah hasn't really noticed yet. Once she does, I'm sure this will be a big hit for her since she loves trains. We are totally going to have to ride on one at least once while we are here. We were pleasantly surprised with the size of the apartment. Our bedrooms are HUGE. I've never had such a large room in all my life. Hannah's bedroom here is bigger than our master bedroom was in Indiana. We also have two bathrooms which we weren't expecting. The bad thing about the bathroom is that Hannah can't reach the toilet paper while on the toilet and also can't reach the sink even while standing on a stool. I've become used to her having some independence in the toileting department so having to help her much more than I'm used to is a pain, but I'm sure we'll come up with something. An interesting side note regarding potty training, Hannah was dry all night and during her naps for 4 days/nights in a row. This morning she was wet when she woke up, but I still think 4 dry nights is a good start. I really expected a pretty big regression in potty training because of this move and all the transitions she's dealing with. I definitely did not expect the 4 dry nights in a row, especially since she's only been dry through the night once or twice before this.

Besides getting Hannah's behavior in check and her sensory diet back on track, the next big goal on this move is to get Hannah set up in the Rhode Island Early Intervention program. Hopefully we can get OT started soon and maybe find a social skills group. We also have to start the process of finding new doctors for her (and for us for that matter). That is something I am not looking forward to. We've been so fortunate thus far to have had great doctors. I'm worried we aren't going to get that lucky again.

Recovering

It's been a week and a half since Hannah's surgery and she's still in the recovery phase. The surgery itself went great. It lasted a bit longer than expected, but she came through fine. She had a rough time coming out of anesthesia and got a bit violent, but apparently that's not too unusual for kids since they are so disoriented. It was planned ahead of time that Hannah would be admitted overnight at the hospital for monitoring so we were quickly taken up to her room. Her room was awesome. It was private, had two flat screen TVs and came complete with room service for both Hannah and Kyle and I. Hannah slept for a few hours and then woke up seriously thirsty and hungry. Over the next several hours she drank tons and downed 2 bowls of jello, a Popsicle, a bowl of macaroni and cheese, and a pancake. She was doing so well that the doctor decided that she did not need to stay overnight after all. They released us and we got home about 7pm. We had only had to be at the hospital for 13 hours instead of 36! YAY!



Hannah began running a slight fever the next day, but the doctor stated that as long as it stayed below 101.5 then she was fine, but if it got higher than that then we should take her to either urgent care or the ER. Around 5pm I took her temperature again after giving the Tylenol plenty of time to take affect. Her fever was now 103.6 and she had a nasty cough. Off we went to the urgent care. There she had a chest x-ray, urine culture, and strep test. We left the office with a diagnosis of post operative pneumonia and a prescription for an antibiotic. Hannah slept fitfully that night and finally awoke at 5am on Friday with a raging fever that Tylenol once again was not bringing down. We took her temperature and it was 104.7. Off we went to the ER. We got another chest x-ray, blood tests, IV fluids, a confirmed diagnosis of pneumonia, IV antibiotics and another oral antibiotic. 7 hours later we were finally discharged.



It's been a wild ride since last Wednesday, but it could be much worse. Pneumonia is nothing new at our house, although having it right after surgery is pretty scary. Now we just wait for Hannah's little body to kick this infection and finish healing up from the surgery. She has another appointment with the ENT for this Wednesday to check out all the post op stuff and then her primary doctor wrote a prescription for a follow-up chest x-ray to be done at the end of March after we've moved to confirm that the pneumonia is gone. Thursday while Kyle supervises the movers Hannah and I will head to Riley for her psychologist appointment. Pray that she is feeling well enough that she cooperates with the testing.

Asthma

Sorry it has been such a long time since I last posted. I thought things would calm down a bit, but really they didn't! The biggest news (although not happy news) since I last posted is that Hannah has been diagnosed with asthma. We weren't completely surprised since Tiffany has pretty severe asthma and Chase also has some breathing trouble too. Hannah's had frequent pneumonia and her colds always seem to linger on well past when they should so we kinda figured it might be a possibility someday. She has what's called cold induced asthma (not cold weather, but the virus) which is sometimes also called cough variant asthma. This basically means that she only shows her symptoms when she has some sort of respiratory infection or is having trouble with allergies. The doctor said it could develop into classic asthma as she gets older, but we hope that doesn't happen. Right now she's on an inhaler and she does pretty good with it. She knows exactly what she's supposed to do although we do have obedience issues with it just like we are having in every other area of her life right now!

As far as more fun updates, Kyle introduced Hannah to running through the sprinkler yesterday and she had a blast. I got some awesome pictures! I love our camera. Hannah kept calling the sprinkler rain which I thought was funny. She'd run up to it and touch it, but then run away quickly as it started to come towards her. Last weekend we took Hannah to the Indianapolis Zoo. We decided to buy a zoo membership for Hannah's birthday gift since she loves zoos so much. She really enjoyed our trip and we had great weather for it. It was crowded since it was a holiday, but not nearly as bad as it could have been.

School continues to go well. We will be starting week 12 tomorrow. I can't believe we have been at it for 3 months. Hannah now knows all of the alphabet and all but a few sounds. She knows about half of the lowercase letters and is getting really interested in learning how to write the letters. Every now and then when she is scribbling away she accidentally makes something that resembles a letter and she gets all excited and says, "I wrote a _____" Last night she was really having fun with that. We've finally made it past the 13 hump in counting and she can now go all the way to 20. She really likes it when I pretend to get stuck while I'm counting and she tells me what number I forgot. :) One of her new things is that she has taught herself to count in Spanish. I've had people ask me if she watches Dora or Diego or any of the other kids shows that teach other languages but she doesn't. She has some maracas that count in Spanish, but that is pretty much it. She just learns things on her own. It's pretty amazing. She can go up to 7 (siete) consistently by herself and up to 10 with a little bit of prompting. I thought she was just memorizing the pattern, but didn't really know what it all meant until one day she just started counting shoes as she was moving them from the treadmill back to the entry way (vacuuming day again!) and she was doing it in Spanish instead of English. She was moving one shoe at a time and each time she would go back for a new shoe she would pick back up with the correct Spanish number. She made it to 7 before she started back over with 3 again! I was shocked. Sometimes I'll just hear her counting to herself in Spanish when no one else is around. She just really likes to practice things and has always been obsessed with numbers. I guess I'm going to have to learn the Spanish numbers past 10 so I can keep up with her once she masters 1-10!