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.

Cleaning Frenzy

Today Hannah has been on a cleaning frenzy, however she has managed to instead only make huge messes. Both incidents have occurred in the bathroom and I discovered them after I determined she was taking an awfully long time in there and went to check on her. She may soon be losing private bathroom privileges! During the first cleaning adventure Hannah decided to use lotion to scrub the lid and tank of the toilet as well as the counter in the bathroom. We calmly discussed how lotion is not soap and that she should not use it to clean anything. We also emphasized that if something needs cleaning then she should come tell me. I cleaned up the "cleaning" residue and we went on about our day. Then, during lunch she had to go to the bathroom so I let her go alone and sat and finished my lunch. When I was completely done eating and she had not returned I got worried. I entered the bathroom to see Hannah, with pants down to her knees, dipping toilet paper into the toilet bowl and scrubbing the seat of the toilet! The floor and the toilet seat were soaked and their was an unimaginable amount of paper already in the toilet bowl. I attempted to flush it down, but water went in and nothing went down! I plunged for a good ten minutes to no avail. When I asked her how all the water got all over everywhere she said she scooped it out of the toilet with her hands! UGH! We had another lengthy discussion about not taking it upon herself to clean up anything but her own toys and clothes or something Mommy or Daddy had specifically asked her to do as well as touching upon the fact that we should NEVER put our hands into the toilet water because it could make us sick (and just for those who want to be grossed out, it wasn't clean water she was sloshing around in-it had pee and poop in there along with all the toilet paper!). Her bathroom is now off limits until Kyle comes home and attempts to plunge the huge mass down or we call maintenance to fix it. I'm just hoping I can keep her from doing any more damage today than she's already managed to accomplish. If this were our own house I don't think I would be as freaked out. I'd be frustrated and exasperated, but not freaked out. However, since this is a temporary furnished apartment that rents out for an insane daily rate (one week is more than our monthly mortgage was in Indiana!) I'm terrified she's going to break something that we are going to have to pay to replace or have fixed and we just don't have the extra cash floating around right now to do that. Along that lines, we found out yesterday that someone threw a rock through our dining room window at our house in Indiana. Apparently another realtor called our realtor to tell her because she discovered it when they went to show the house. Now we have to pay to have that fixed before we can either sell the house or take the buy-out. To top it all off, the car wouldn't start for Kyle yesterday evening so Hannah and I had to go give him a jump to get him home. It looks like we need to get a new battery for it too. Everything seems to be happening now when we are trying the hardest to cut back on spending and save money until we get into our house and are able to get reimbursed for all the relocation stuff we had to pay for out of pocket. UGH! Moving really is a pain. I can't wait to get into our new house though. I am super excited for it. Provided everything continues to go as planned we should close on the 29th of this month and be able to start moving in the next day! YEAH!

Ok, so I just got interrupted while writing this. Hannah, in perfect line with her creativity today, decided that instead of sleeping during her nap time she would read. That's normal, but what's not normal is that she decided she needed to pee and instead of calling for me to let her out of her room or just peeing in her pull up she decided to pull her pants down, place a tissue on her bed, and pee on the tissue and consequently also the bed! OMG! What has gotten into this girl today! Where is she getting these crazy ideas? Now I have one more thing to worry about since the bed doesn't have a mattress pad on it. I'm not sure how I'm going to get all the urine soaked up out of the mattress or even how to get rid of the smell once it dries. I wonder if it will make a stain on the mattress. UGH! Mattresses are expensive. I sure hope we don't have to buy a replacement. This is turning into quite an interesting day.

Here is my autism blogger of the day, Christa at Hyperlexicon has a son named Ben who has hyperlexia which is considered to be on the autism spectrum. She writes about Ben's struggles and triumps and her emotions that arise from helping her little guy be the best he can be.

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.

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.

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.

Autism Awareness Month

Today is Global Autism Awareness Day and April is National Autism Awareness Month. Several of the blogs I read have already begun to post entries that highlight some of the most crucial points that the general public needs to learn in order to make life for those with autism better. As the month progresses I intend to link to several of my favorite autism blogs as well as highlight some of the things we have learned from our brief (officially) stay on the spectrum. The most important thing we have learned is that autism is a spectrum. No two individuals on the spectrum present the same way and range from mildly affected and high functioning (Asperger's Syndrome) to severely disabled and unable to perform basic self care or even communicate verbally (severe forms of classic autism). Autism is commonly referred to as ASD (autism spectrum disorder) in the medical community and is a pervasive developmental disorder. It is neurological and is not something that a person can grow out of or be cured of. With treatment, significant improvements can be made, but the individual will always struggle with the challenges of their disorder. That's all I'll say today on autism, but stay tuned for further facts and personal anecdotes from our experience living with Hannah's Asperger's. Here's my first blogger writing about autism. His name is Cale and he's a college student living with autism himself. His blog is awesome and has tons of great information about autism. So, without further ado, I present to you Spectrum Siblings.

The past several weeks have been really rough for Hannah in the sleep department. Instead of getting better the longer we stay in the apartment, Hannah is having more and more trouble getting to and staying asleep. For most of her life Hannah has disliked going to sleep and has always seemed to sleep much less than other kids her age. Starting at around 6 months of age her sleep issues started. She began resisting sleep more and more. Once she moved from her crib to a big girl bed things got even trickier. To her normal screaming and crying she added banging on her door with her hands and head. She has wonderful stamina when it comes to resisting sleep and could go on for hours (her record is 3 hours 15 minutes after which I put a end to the torture-both hers and mine!). Once arriving in the apartment Hannah added a new trick to her repertoire-deliberately wetting her pull up to get us to come in and get her a dry one and take her to the bathroom. You might say, "how can you know it's on purpose?" The reason I know is that every time she had been taken to the bathroom only minutes before, she has not had a waking accident in ages, and the accident always happened within two minutes of us walking out the door of her room without fail. It was most definitely deliberate. Once that trick ceased to get the desired response she upped the ante. Next came deliberately having a poop accident. She hasn't had a poop accident expect for diarrhea attacks due to antibiotics since she became potty trained nearly a year ago! This was most definitely deliberate as it happened right after us leaving the room as well. Finally, her most recent tactic is making herself throw up on the carpet right in front of her door! She's done this twice now. I'm pretty much at my wits end. Things absolutely cannot continue like this, but I don't know what else to try. Reasoning with her, cracking down hard, just ignoring her, we've tried them all over the past 4 weeks and none seem to help. I'm sure this is somehow rooted in the move, but I'm not sure what to do about it or what the real issue is. Has anyone had something similar to this happen after a big transition such as moving or a new sibling? I'd welcome any advice you could give me. Please, just no suggestions such as a consistent bedtime routine or soft music. We are sleep issue veterans and have tried just about everything over the past 2+ years and this is not your average sleep problem. This is new even for Hannah.

Since we've been in Rhode Island our entertainment has been a bit different than what we are used to and it's been limited to what I've managed to find in my limited exploration. We've spent the most time at the Children's Museum which Hannah calls the adventure museum. She LOVES her adventure museum and asks to go to it practically every day. We've already recovered our membership dues twice over and we've only been in the state for just under a month! Though she's being exposed to lots of kids there, I still haven't been able to persuade her to interact with any of them really. We'll keep working on it though since she really does have a ton of fun going there. Another thing we have been doing quite regularly is going swimming in the pool here at the apartment. Hannah loves watching Kyle do dives into and out of the water and really wanted to be able to do a "dolphin whale" AKA a dolphin dive herself. Since she has tubes in her ears she's not able to go under the water without ear plugs. I ordered her some plugs and a band to go over them to keep her from picking at them and we waited eagerly for them to arrive. Hannah desperately wanted to be able to go under so we checked at the front desk every single day until the coveted package arrived. Hannah was so excited to put her ear plugs in and go swimming that first day. We took her down and she immediately wanted to go under. Once she did she was not keen on doing it again. Though we prepped her extensively about not breathing in while under water and taught her how to take a deep breath before going under, she came up sputtering and flailing from her brief under and up dunk. I figured it would not be a happy experience given how upset she gets when water gets into her eyes in the bath, but we gave it a try because she REALLY wanted to be like daddy. Another fun activity that Hannah has been enjoying is helping us prepare meals. She loves it so much that losing the privilege of helping, even if it's just pressing the buttons on the microwave to heat up leftovers, is the ultimate punishment. Unfortunately it's not enough to create a positive change in behavior, but it certainly makes her fighting mad!

Hannah is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Easter Bunny. She's sent a constant barrage of questions towards me about the particulars of what the Easter Bunny does and how he does it. Since the bunny visited her last year and hid eggs around the house (and yes she does remember hunting for them even though she was only 18 months old!) she is convinced that the Easter Bunny lives in Indiana and will have to fly on a airplane to get to Rhode Island to hide her eggs this year! It made me laugh the first time she told me that, but my laughter has not deterred her from her insistence that the Easter Bunny will be arriving on an airplane. She's also informed me that the Easter Bunny is like Santa since he comes in secret at night. Since he is like Santa we will have to leave him carrots to eat like we left cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for Santa's reindeer. That little girl never ceases to amaze me.

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.

Houdini

It seems we have a little Houdini on our hands. Hannah has finally managed to thwart the child locks on the door knobs. In our old house we had a dutch door on Hannah's room. Kyle turned the bottom door knob around so that the lock was on the outside. This way we were able to keep Hannah in her room during naps and safe at night when she might otherwise be up roaming the house and getting hurt unsupervised. At the apartment none of the bedrooms have locks and even if they did, we did not have the luxury of turning the knob around since it's not our door. So, we put a door knob cover on the inside of Hannah's bedroom door to keep her in her room. She hadn't figured out how to use one yet so we figured this would do the trick of keeping her safe. I was especially concerned about her getting out of her room and then opening the apartment door and going who knows where without us knowing in the middle of the night. This worked for about a week. Then Hannah decided to start playing with the cover and accidentally got one of them off. We found her in our bedroom one morning as a friendly wake up call. We replaced the cover and considered it a fluke. Well, it wasn't a fluke. She became increasingly skilled at removing the door knob cover from the door and getting out. It got to the point that we could not keep her in her room at all. Bedtimes became an even bigger battle than they normally are. We were at our wits end. Then I decided to go down to the Lobby and ask the concierge for some help. I explained the situation and our fears and asked if it would be ok for Kyle to remove the bathroom door knob and switch it with the bedroom door knob in Hannah's room and turn it around the wrong way. I promised we would return them to their correct places once we moved out and would pay for any damage that occurred because of the switching. He said we didn't have to do it. They would have maintenance fix us right up that afternoon! They really do treat their residents nice at this place! Maintenance was at our apartment in less than an hour to do the job. When I opened the apartment door the maintenance man said, "I'm here to lock a kid in their bedroom." I about died I was so embarrassed. What if people really do think we are horrible child abusing parents who lock our child in her room for days at a time?!? Then he cracked a smile and started laughing. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Then Hannah came out from behind my leg and the guy looked mortified. He said, "I didn't know she was there. She's probably going to be scared out of her mind now." I said, "Nah, she's used to being locked in at night!" It ended up not being possible to switch the door knobs because they weren't the same type of knob so he ended up putting a chain lock on the outside of Hannah's door. Now it really does look like we are abusers! It does the trick though. Hannah can only open her door about an inch now. There have been no further escapes and I have been able to rest much easier now knowing that she's not up devising a way to beat the night lock and get out of the apartment.

Though Hannah seems to be sleeping more peacefully when she is actually asleep. There's no more snoring which is awesome. She is still having a really hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. I'm sure some of this is due to the transition to the new apartment, but I'm not sure if that is the whole reason or not. She's been taking Melatonin for awhile now and I was hoping that would do the trick. I think I'd like to increase her dose to see what that does, but I don't want to do that until I'm sure she's settled into a routine here. The problem is that as soon as we get settled here we'll be moving again to our house and the transition will start all over again. So, I'm hesitant to make any changes to the Melatonin until we are settled into the house. An interesting side note about the Melatonin, when I went to purchase it after the developmental pediatrician recommended it I discovered that it only came in pill form. The bottle stated that it needed to be swallowed and not chewed. Up until that point Hannah had only ever taken liquid medicine. I had no idea how we were going to get a pill down her. The first several times it was a big fiasco. It reminded me of trying to give a cat a pill-prying open their mouth, holding down their tongue, dropping it straight down the throat, and then clamping their mouth shut so that they can't spit it out! There was much gagging, tongue thrusting, and digging out of soggy half dissolved pills. However, it didn't take long for Hannah to get the hang of it. Within two weeks she was a pro. After a month she was even able to take the pill independently although she still prefers for me to drop it in her mouth for her to swallow. This just blows my mind. Are 2 1/2 year olds supposed to be able to take pills? Isn't that why they make chewable children's Tylenol? Hannah's always been a good medicine taker. I'm sure some of this has to do with the fact that medicine is just a routine part of our house. She sees me take many different pills each day so I guess for her taking a pill is just what people do. She's always wanted to do anything that is considered a "big girl" thing-hence her early transition to a twin bed, ditching the high chair early, and beginning potty training on her own at 18 months so maybe that's why she worked so hard to learn how to take pills. She just wanted to be like Mommy. I sure hope I'm not raising a little addict by her already having the ability to pop a pill like it's no big deal.

Hannah has finally learned how to have some independence in the new bathrooms here. She devised a way to reach the toilet paper and has perfected her balance on the large hole in the seat while tearing it off. She still can't wash her hands independently because the counter tops are just so darn high, but being able to wipe by herself is a plus anyway. Yesterday she was taking a long time in the bathroom and I went to see why she hadn't called for me to come help her wash her hands. When I got to the bathroom the door was shut. This was unusual in itself, but when I went to open the door I discovered that she had locked herself in the bathroom! I went into full blown panic mode in about 5 seconds flat. My mind was racing wondering what she might get into and how she could hurt herself and what if she wouldn't unlock the door and let me in. Might I have to leave her alone in the apartment and go down to the lobby and ask the maintenance people for help (I don't know the lobby phone number, but I'm planning on finding out today!)? Would they have to remove the door from it's hinges? Then finally I got ahold of myself and I just calmly asked Hannah to unlock the door so I could come in like it was no big deal and amazingly she did as I asked. I've never been happier in my life that she obeyed! We had a big conversation after that about how she should never lock the bathroom door because it's unsafe and while she's at it why don't' we just leave the bathroom door open or at least cracked from now on. She agreed so let's hope we don't have any further incidences of her locking me out of the bathroom.

Why?

Hannah has officially entered the "why" phase. She asks why after almost everything I say, questions, commands, and statements. It's about to drive me crazy. I was so close to saying, "Because I'm the mommy, that's why!" today. Today at lunch I ate my pasta in a bowl instead of on a plate and she asked me why I was using a bowl. I said because I just felt like a bowl today and she answered why. This cycle went on for several minutes. I thought I was going to scream by the time she finally gave it up.

Another thing that she's been doing lately is asking permission to do things that she doesn't need permission at all to do-multiple times in a row and from both Kyle and I. For example, here's a conversation that happened the other day, "Mommy, can I go get my baby doll?" "Yes, Hannah. You don't have to ask when you want to play with your doll. Just go get her." "Daddy, can I play with my baby doll?" "Yes, Hannah. Mommy already told you that you could." "Mommy, can I play with my baby." "YES!" "Okay." and then she trotted off down the hall to get her baby. I have no idea why this started. Usually she doesn't ask permission for anything and she still doesn't ask permission for the things that she really SHOULD be asking permission to do. Toddlers can be so weird sometimes. I say toddler, but she's two and a half. Is that still a toddler? When does a kid move into the "preschooler" category?

Today I took Hannah back to the children's museum and we had a great time. We stayed for 3 hours. She wanted to stay for longer, but we needed to go home for lunch and I knew she needed a nap too. She didn't really interact with any kids at all, but at least she began to get more comfortable with the museum. There were a few times when we had to go off into one of their book corners and read a book to regroup because she was starting to get overwhelmed, but I thought it was understandable since there were two different school groups there and the kids were big, rowdy, loud, and very pushy. I needed a break from them and I don't have a problem with crowds!

Poor Hannah is really missing her toys and other things from our house that are in storage right now. I think she's going into withdraw from not having her kitchen set and play food, her tools, and her barn and horses. She keeps asking me where they are. Today when I told her they were in storage she said, "Let's go get them!" She wasn't very happy when I said that we couldn't get them until we moved into our new house. She's also been asking a lot to go back to her old house. Earlier in the week she said, "I don't want to stay in the apartment anymore. I want to go back to my old house." It about broke my heart. It's hard to explain to a 2 year old about job security and why we can't just go back to our old house. She's a smart girl, but she's not THAT smart.

Hannah finally noticed the train station outside our apartment and started hearing the trains blow their whistles as they come into and leave the station. Every time she hears one she drops whatever she is doing, shouts TRAIN! and runs over to the window to watch. Yesterday we walked over to the train station to check it out. I thought we might actually be able to see the trains inside the station, but unfortunately you have to have a ticket to go downstairs to where the trains board and unboard. Hannah did get a kick out of the pigeons that were walking around inside the building, however. She really wanted to pet them, but since I'm afraid of birds I wouldn't let her get close to them.

PS. The first picture is the view out of our other apartment window!

Public Toilets, Hand Dryers, and Garbage Disposals OH MY!

Public toilets, hand dryers, and garbage disposals. Sounds like a motley crew doesn't it? They are on Hannah's current list of deathly fears. She's had an on and off fear of automatic flushing toilets flushing on her bottom and super sonic hand dryers for quite awhile, but I thought those had pretty much passed. The garbage disposal, however, is a new one. With all three evil appliances it seems to be the sound that bothers her at the moment. That's another thing that seems weird to me because although they are quite loud, she's never had a problem with loud noises before and right now it seems to only be those 3 particular loud noises that bother her. She's to the point that she about won't even go in a public restroom for fear of a loud toilet flushing or a chance meeting with a hand dryer. When the toilet flushes she runs across the stall as far from the toilet as she can get and either buries her head in my legs or squishes herself into the corner. You'd think I was chopping her hand off if I try to dry her hands with a hand dryer instead of paper towels. AND if Kyle turns on the garbage disposal in the apartment (which is REALLY loud, much louder than the one at our old house) she will run and hide and bury her face in her hands. Since all loud sounds don't bother her and two of her current fears appear to be reincarnations of old ones, I am inclined to believe that these are normal everyday toddler fears instead of a new manifestation of her SPD, but I don't really know. They are quite intense fears and the public bathroom ones are really starting to interfere with her life since she has quite a small bladder and it's almost impossible for her to successfully hold it until we get home if she happens to have to go pee when we are out somewhere. Those of you fellow SPD moms out there, what do you think? How should I handle this? We've got to get past the public bathroom phobia somehow, but I'm out of ideas. Do I be supportive or is that just enabling her fears? I don't want to be a psuedo anti-NERD (see Mama Mara's post here).

I just really want her to not be so freaked out about things she's bound to continue to come across in normally everyday life.

We are continuing to struggle with Hannah's behavior. She is so defiant it amazes me. She's always been stubborn, but she's taken it to a whole new level recently. It appears as if she almost WANTS to get in trouble or lose privileges sometimes. Her disobedience is so willful that I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that she's only 2 1/2. I've only seen this kind of attitude in teenagers before. I know defiance and disobedience are par for the course in terms of normal toddler behavior, but Hannah's current behavior seems a bit extreme to me. It always seems that everything about Hannah is just a little bit "more" than the typical kid, that she's just a lot more intense about everything-both the highs and lows if that makes any sense. She's hyper focused, while at the same time extremely distractable, extra curious, extra hard to get to sleep, more intense emotions and reactions to others' emotions, perfectionistic, obsessive about all things academic, extra set in routines, very inflexible to change, etc. The list could go on and on. For every typical toddler trait it seems that Hannah is just a little bit more of it than all the other kids. In some instances this is awesome, for example in the case of her already being able to read and do basic addition and subtraction. In other instances it's absolutely awful like when she bangs her head repeatedly off the coffee table when she accidentally writes a third "N" in her name instead of writing an "A" and she's used a crayon so she can't erase it. I repeatedly pray for patience with her every single day, but it seems as if my patience is always so thin. I know she's struggling too and that makes me feel even worse when I loose my patience or when I don't know how to handle a situation. It seems like lately there are more situations that I don't know how to handle than ones that I feel confident that I handled appropriately. The current thing that pushes me to the limit faster than anything else is this screech Hannah does when she's upset or being asked to do something that she doesn't want to do for any reason at all. She'll make it when I ask her to do something, when I touch her to guide her towards an undesirable activity, or when I ignore whining or a tantrum. That sound cuts straight to my bones because it is almost always a result of intentional disobedience and she will even make the sound again if I react to it at all. She KNOWS that it bothers me and it's almost like she enjoys pushing my buttons with it. It seems ridiculous to me to place her in time out simply for a sound she makes after she gets a warning about something, but it's basically sassing in my opinion and I don't know how else to handle it other than to use the sole weapon I have against unwanted behavior-the time out. If anyone at all has any ideas for how I could handle this another way since the time outs seem to be having no effect, I'd welcome the suggestions. I'm pretty much at a loss and could really use some help.

On a positive note, we took Hannah to the Providence Children's Museum yesterday and she had a blast. At first she was pretty overwhelmed by all the activity and kids running everywhere, but by the end of the morning she was splashing in the water, playing with the science toys, and playing house in the different "time period" houses. It was hilarious watching her cooking food in a kettle in a fire place while in the 1860's kitchen replica. She put the kettle in the fire place and then reached up to the mantle and pretended to push several buttons while saying, "beep, beep, beep!" I just about peed my pants laughing. I think we will end up getting a membership to the museum because it's super close to the apartment and only like 15 or 20 minutes from our new house once we move there. I can totally see us going there at least once a week. I could see it really being good for Hannah to be in an environment that can stimulate her academically while also challenging her socially. Maybe just maybe I could meet some new mommy friends there too.

PS. The last picture is the view out one of our apartment windows. I'll try to post the view out the other window in my next post.

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.

Rough Weekend

It's been a tough weekend in the Spontak house. Since Hannah is still at risk for bleeding after her surgery and because of her pneumonia she's not allowed to do much activity. This poses a BIG problem since most of her sensory diet revolves around proprioceptive input-jumping on the trampoline, swinging on her bar or us swinging her around, spinning, running, carrying or pushing heavy stuff, etc. These are not only on her sensory diet, but they are her favorite activities. She's such a sensory seeker that it's almost torture for her to be banned from them (for both her and us). Since her sensory needs are not being met she's been in rare form as far as behavior is concerned. We've been dealing with LOTS AND LOTS of hitting. Usually it's not hitting for any reason in particular, just a way to meet a sensory need that is normally met elsewhere. Tonight she was crawling and lunging all over me on the couch and just being wild. I felt so bad for her. It's hard to know where to place the limit. Hitting is not allowed. She knows that. We enforce that. BUT when she can't meet her needs any other way because we aren't allowing it. It's so difficult to see her struggle. It's like she simply can't control herself. After each and every time out she can easily tell us why she got the time out, but it doesn't do anything to deter future incidents. Top everything off with the fact that she feels crummy and her entire world is disrupted right now as we prepare to move and you've got a recipe for disaster. I've found myself with less patience than I should have because I'm also stressed about the move and how it is/will affect Hannah and that lack of patience is the exact opposite of what is needed right now. Please pray that after Hannah's follow-up appointment with the ENT on Wednesday she will get the go ahead to resume normal activities so that we all don't go crazy!