My Little Terrorist

While I've often complained that the airline industry took security as far as what was and was not allowed onto a plane a bit far in the post 9/11 aftermath, I now believe they were completely justified in banning toenail clippers from carry-on baggage. They can (and have now been used in my house) be used as a terrorist device. Confused? Remember this post? Apparently I should have been more specific in my post "beautification" lecture. Instead of stressing that she should NEVER cut HER hair with SCISSORS, I SHOULD have hammered into her little brain that she should NEVER EVER EVER attempt to cut ANYONE'S hair with ANYTHING. Are things becoming clearer now? Ready for the full story? Lately I've been even more exhausted than usual so Hannah has been allowed to come into our bedroom when she wakes up and watch PBS until I'm coherent enough to tackle the day. This morning I was struggling more than usual with getting myself moving so apparently Hannah tired of TV and decided to make her own fun. I felt her climbing around me, but didn't think too much of it. Then it felt like something pulled my hair. I opened my eyes to find toenail clippers poised less than an inch from my eye being wielded by a newly turned 3 year old! I was so startled I bolted upright and nearly knocked Hannah off the bed. Once I recovered I asked her what she was doing. She calmly replied, "I'm cutting your hair, Mommy." Seriously, do other people's kids do this or am I the only lucky one?

Lately I've been doing battle with the local school system (while simultaneously researching private preschools in case I lose) since they have deemed Hannah too high functioning to qualify for their preschool unless she scores poorly on their language pragmatics test they want to perform next week. The problem I have with this is that only one person on the eligibility team has seen Hannah in the environment that gives her so much trouble. Not only that, but the observation lasted only 30 minutes and was during a highly structured group circle time that required little to no peer interaction of Hannah. When I discussed my concerns that although Hannah is highly capable of using advanced language, she is unable to do so with peers even when she is distressed and wants a child to leave her alone and the only word she need utter is "NO" in order for a teacher to intervene and her therapists reiterated this concern many times over, the eligibility team assured me that if there really was a problem then it would show up on the language pragmatics test they intend to administer. Um, I'm not a speech pathologist, but I DO know my daughter and I'm positive that she'll ace whatever language test they give her if it's administered one on one by an adult. It's not that Hannah doesn't understand HOW to use language. Her problem is the practical aspect of using that language effectively (or at all) with peers or often even with adults when she's in a socially overwhelming social environment. Whether they choose to believe it or not, those who really know Hannah know this is a problem. Though the defender of justice in me wants to make them provide her with what I firmly believe that by law she is entitled to, I'm growing weary of this fight and I'm not altogether convinced that this classroom (taught by the person who observed her for 30 minutes and proclaimed to know all about her) will be the best place for her. I'm not sure that this particular teacher will be able (or possibly willing to after all the fight I've put up) to meet her needs IEP or no IEP. I've found a private preschool near our home (recommended by her speech therapist) that seems like it would be a perfect fit. It's fully inclusional, has OTs, PTs, SLPs, and a nurse on staff, and is taught by the teacher that USED to have the job of the lady who observed Hannah and who would teach her class should she qualify and attend the school system's program.

As Hannah becomes more and more willing to and interested in interacting with other kids I've begun to notice a troubling pattern. Take today for example. Hannah and I walked down to the beach to play in the sand. Shortly after we arrived a father and his two daughters (aged 4 and 5) showed up to swim. They tirelessly engaged with Hannah until they finally broke through her defenses (aided I'm sure by all the sensory input the ocean provided!). All of a sudden Hannah was playing happily with the girls. As she became more comfortable with the girls she swung 180 degrees from refusing to interact to completely being in their faces and just generally being too close and not respecting their personal space. It wasn't long before the girls who had been actively trying to get Hannah to play with them were now trying to get away from her and Hannah was clueless as to the change of events. I felt so bad for her. She really thought they were all having fun. I tried to remind her to give them space, to not shout in their faces, to keep her hands to herself, but she just couldn't understand. They wanted to play with her. They were being nice to her. Why shouldn't she play with them in the only way she knows how? I see this pattern happening over and over again. Nearly every time Hannah manages to break out of her anxiety and make an initial connection with another child, it almost always begins to go south as she becomes more comfortable and attaches herself at the hip to the other child. Right now she doesn't get it that these other kids don't want to play with her anymore, but what I'm worried about is that if we can't teach her how to sustain the initial positive interaction she will eventually begin to notice that kids don't want to play with her and be hurt by it. I just don't want to see that happen to my little girl. What I don't know is how to teach her how to do it and how long I have before she starts to notice when the kids don't want to be around her. So, for all you veteran parents out there, how old are kids usually before they start to notice what other kids think about them?

Toilet Paper

Toilet paper just may be my undoing. It really and truly may drive me into the loony bin. Every kid plays with the toilet paper roll at one point or another, or so I've heard, but Hannah seems to have taken it a step farther. For the past few months she has become obsessed with toilet paper, but she's not just randomly unrolling the roll. Instead, she's tearing off pieces, sometimes little and sometimes big, and shoving them inside things, usually bodily orifices. So far I've found toilet paper stuffed inside the fins of the radiator in the bathroom, inside the faucet, between the tube and the rod that holds the toilet paper to the wall, between her toes, inside her ears, in her mouth, between her labia, between her butt cheeks, large wads inside her underwear, shoved in the toes of her shoes, under her arm pits, and most recently 4 tiny balls shoved deeply inside each nostril.

In other news, we had house guests last weekend for Hannah's birthday party. My mom, sister, and cousin all flew in from Indiana. Hannah was in her glory with 3 extra adults to dote on her. She was completely exhausted by the end of the weekend though! They brought Hannah tons of princess/ballerina paraphernalia, her favorite of which was fingernail polish. Hannah absolutely adores having her nails painted, but I don't own any nail polish. The cutest part of the whole scenario is that for some reason she can't say toenail polish. Instead, she says paw nailish. How precious is that!?!

Leading up to my family's visit Hannah felt the need to go over and over family relationships. She wanted to know how each person related to both her and me, for example Heather is my sister, but her aunt. Mom is my mother, but her grandmother. Today she started back in on the family relationships. When we got to my sister, Hannah stated that when she was bigger she would be a sister too. I explained that she was already a sister to Kayla and Chase (Tiffany's twins). Then she noted that when my friend Sarah has her baby her friend Evelyn will be a big sister. Sensing she was getting it I said, "That's right!" Then she proved me wrong by stating very matter-of-factly, "Now I'm a little sister because I'm little, but I'm growing now and when I'm grown I'll be big and I'll be a big sister then." It's hard to argue with that kind of logic!

My Baby is Three!

It's amazing how quickly three years have gone. It seems like just yesterday Kyle and I made the decision to start the adoption process and now here we are parents of a 3 year old! The past 3 years have held more joy than I ever could have imagined my entire life containing. I feel so blessed to be chosen by God and by Hannah's birthparents to parent this amazing little girl. What a wild ride it's been! I can only imagine what the next 3 years have in store for us. I'm too tired to post much tonight, but for now enjoy these carefully chosen photos of my beautiful little girl.

The Tie-Dye Project

Last May a kindergartner named Alex Barton was voted out of his classroom based on a suggestion from his teacher because his Asperger's Syndrome made him a nuisance in the classroom and landed him in the principal's office often. His mother Melissa started the Tie-Dye project to help connect kids across the world with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Hannah received a T-Shirt from Nigel from Oregon last week and was thrilled. She wants to meet him and play with him! The way the tie-dye project works is after you receive your shirt, you make 5 more shirts and mail them out to other kids (or adults, since adults need love too) on the spectrum. Hannah has 4 t-shirts left to give out. If you or your child would like a shirt please leave me a comment on the blog with your email address and I'll contact you to get your mailing address and t-shirt size. Hannah is really excited about making shirts for other people so please don't be shy about asking for one since I'm worried we don't know enough others on the spectrum who don't already have a shirt to fulfil the 5 shirt requirement.

First House Guest

We had our first house guest here in Rhode Island this past week. My dad came to visit on Sunday and stayed until Friday. Hannah was so happy to see her Grandpa and it was nice to see a familiar face. We did lots of sight seeing and got to see a lot of neat things. Hannah loved the Mystic Aquarium which she consistently refers to as the "accordion" :) It's a smallish aquarium and we went mid week before the local schools were out for the summer so it was a much nicer experience for Hannah than it potentially could have been if it was crowded. She did quite a bit of running around and dragging us from exhibit to exhibit. We also finally checked out some of the local beaches. We've been to the beach here by our house loads, but we decided to travel to the big beaches along the coast instead of just the bay. Hannah had a blast running up and down the beach and loved the excitement of fighting to stay upright as the waves crashed against our legs. She wore herself out so badly that day that she fell asleep in her car seat on the way home with goldfish crackers in her mouth and still chewing!

Lately Hannah has been doing a fantastic job socially. She's been engaging with other kids her own age, initiating play, and responding appropriately when approached by another child. It's just been so fantastic to watch her blossom these past few weeks. She has been doing such a fantastic job in fact that I had begun to consider the possibility that she was just a late bloomer socially. Maybe the doctors had gotten it wrong when they diagnosed her with asperger's. Maybe all those people who insisted time and time again that she was just quirky and shy were right. All this fell just on the heels of our first meeting with the local school system where they pretty much told us that they didn't feel Hannah would qualify for any services because she tested too well on their academic tests and she was considered too high functioning. BUT THEN yesterday happened and I was painfully reminded exactly why the doctors have it right. Yesterday we went to our city park beach. The weather was beautiful and Hannah was pumped to be out in the sand and water. As luck would have it, there happened to be 3 other 3 year old girls near us on the beach who wanted to play with Hannah. One little girl repeatedly tried to engage Hannah with no success. The poor little girl was so confused and I think possibly a little hurt. Several times I tried to prompt/coax Hannah into playing with the girl or at least playing beside her, but Hannah could pretty much care less about the other girl. Occasionally I'd prompt Hannah to share something she was doing with the little girl and Hannah would obediently do so, but it was much more like talking at the girl with no concern over whether or not she was listening or even looking at what Hannah was showing her. There were several times when the little girl was talking to Hannah and Hannah would just start telling the other girl about something completely unrelated to what the girl had been trying to talk to her about. The thing was though that Hannah was blissfully happy. She wasn't missing this girl's companionship at all. She was perfectly happy doing her own thing. Still my heart broke. She had been doing so well socially that this felt like a huge kick in the teeth. I've been thinking about it a lot today and I've been trying to figure out why it made me so sad since Hannah was obviously enjoying her time at the beach. Was I sad for Hannah because she was missing out on a potential friendship (or at the very least playmate for the afternoon) or was I sad for myself that Hannah marches the beat of a different drum and I'm constantly having to explain that to other parents when they see their children being ignored, brushed aside, or viewed as fearful dangers by Hannah? Maybe I'm sad for a combination of both reasons. Who knows.

Hannah has been doing some amazing (to me anyway) things lately that I had no idea that she was even close to doing. Academically she had seemed to have hit a plateau and hadn't had much interest in reading or writing and I hadn't pushed it. Then, just this last week she sounded out the word "ballet" and spontaneously wrote the numbers 1-4. I know she actually sounded out ballet and didn't just recognize it from another book because she pronounced the "t" at the end. As for the numbers, it's been probably 6 months or more since we've even attempted to write any numbers and then all of a sudden she wrote perfectly recognizable attempts of all four! Then tonight she did something that was a bit odd, but slightly amazing as well. She had some fruit on her plate and one piece was significantly larger than the other. She pointed at the smaller of the two and said "muhroona" small and then pointed to the bigger piece and stated "burawnka" big. It was like she was presenting a vocabulary lesson for a foreign language to Kyle and I only this language was one of her own creation. She's always making up nonsense words, but she's never before paired them with any meaning, at least not that she's ever told us.

PS. By looking at that last picture can you totally tell that autism lives at our house?!? :)

You Did What?!?

It's been that kind of week here in the Spontak house. Hannah started the week off right by deciding to "improve" on her new haircut. On Monday while I was using the bathroom she got the scissors out of the junk drawer (not safety scissors I might add, but big, heavy duty work scissors!) and proceeded to cut close to 4 inches off of both sides of her hair while leaving the back untouched. In some areas the hair she left remaining was only about an inch long! Thankfully her hair was in a half ponytail so when her hair is down the longer hair covers the much shorter hair underneath and her handiwork is mostly unnoticeable. She announced the deed to me by coming into the bathroom and stating, "my hair feels shorter." I then noticed the tell tale hair pieces that indicate that someone has just had a hair cut all over her shoulders. I was furious. I'm mostly over it now, but every time I put her hair into a half ponytail I see those butchered locks underneath and I get a little grumpy.

Tuesday and Thursday Hannah had really rough days behavior wise. There was a lot of screaming and refusing to take her time-outs. Needless to say she didn't have a lot of credits left at the end of each day for bedtime privileges.

This morning Hannah came into our room to announce that she had had an accident. She then proceeded to explain to a very groggy Kyle that she had used toilet water (with unflushed pee in it to boot) and toilet paper to wash her legs off from her accident and had also washed her chewy toy off in the toilet and flushed her wet underwear down the toilet! OH MY GOSH! What on earth was that girl thinking?!? I absolutely cannot imagine what possessed her to do that since she has access to a sink, soap, and wash cloth. She also knows where dirty clothes go and knows that nothing besides pee, poop, and toilet paper (courtesy of the bus incident) is EVER flushed down the toilet. UGH! I just had to laugh at this one. I was so tired and just flabbergasted at the whole situation that it was all I could do to keep it together until we got her squared away back in her room. The rest of the day continued to be a struggle as Hannah was defiant all morning and proceeded to run away from us in public places twice in the span of an hour while we were out when she was told to stay close because she was being disobedient. This running away is getting to be a big problem. She's been doing it quite a bit lately, but usually it is just with me. Today she pulled it on Kyle. I'm not sure how to stop it short of keeping her in a stroller or on a leash all the time, but if we do that then she won't ever learn not to run away because she doesn't even have the option to do it so she won't need to control her urges to do so. Any ideas on how to impress upon an almost 3 year old how dangerous it is to run away in public places, parking lots, and streets would be welcome as well as some strategies that have helped you personally to deal with the behavior if you have experience with this issue.

Night potty training continues to go well. She's been dry about every other night this past week which I think is pretty good and most accidents occur in the early morning so we haven't had any more of the multiple accidents in a night incidents like we had the first night. I'm still debating on whether or not we should be waking her up when we are ready to go to bed so that she can go to the bathroom one more time. I'm sure this would help her make it through the night almost every night, but she does make it through the night about half the time without waking her up and she is SO HARD to get to go back to sleep that I can't decide if the lack of sleep it causes her is worth the benefit of her not having as many accidents.

PS. The pictures are from our visit with Hannah's birthmother, Tiffany, and her brother and sister, Chase and Kayla, over Memorial Day weekend when we were back in Indiana. Also, there's one of Hannah with her best friend Evelyn taken during that same trip back home.

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.