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!

Big Move Updates

We traveled to Rhode Island shortly after Hannah's surgery. Not great timing, but we had to do what we had to do. My mom watched Hannah and did a great job of caring for my sickly little girl, but it was so hard to be away from her for so long. I had never been away from her for this long before. While in Rhode Island we looked at well over 40 houses and ended up finding one we liked, putting an offer on it, and having the offer accepted before we got on the plane to fly back home to Indiana! It was a crazy, but productive 5 days.

The past two days have been insanely busy as we finish up the final tasks related to selling our current home and moving. The movers come to pack up the house on Wednesday and load the truck on Thursday and then on Friday, one week from today, we begin our journey East. We'll have to go to a temporary apartment for about two months before we can close on our new house, so most of our stuff will be in storage since the apartment is furnished. I'm concerned about how Hannah will handle not one, but essentially two moves in two months. Right now she's pumped for the adventure and can tell anyone who asks her about how first we'll live in an apartment that will have a pool and a shower and then we'll move to our new house, but the reality I'm sure will be harder for her to adjust to. Please pray for us that we all make it through the ordeal unscathed and relatively in tact!

Recovering

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



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



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

Surgery

So. . . . This post is destined to be filled with LOTS of news. First off, Hannah had her ENT appointment today and it was decided that her tonsils and adenoids have to go or her apnea will most likely get worse as she (and the tonsils and adenoids) continues to grow. She'll also have tubes put in her ears to keep the fluid draining from her Eustachian tubes so that the hearing loss she's currently experiencing won't be permanent. I have to call tomorrow to schedule the appointment with the surgeon, but it will likely happen soon-most likely within a week or so. Because she's so young, the surgery won't be done outpatient like it usually is. They'll do it at the hospital and she'll be admitted for at least 24 hours after to be sure she's ok, drinking well, and staying hydrated. Do I sound calm, matter of fact, even happy to hopefully be getting my little girl some relief? I hope so. I'm trying very hard to be. BUT I'm not. I'm not in the least. I'm freaking out. The thought of my little girl having surgery, any surgery no matter how "minor" scares the begeezes out of me. Please send some prayers our way that we stay calm, Hannah stays calm, and that everything goes smoothly both during and after the surgery. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on when it's scheduled for and how she does.

Now, just in case that isn't stressful enough, here's the rest of our big news. We're moving. Not just moving like across town or even across the state, we're moving across the country-from Indiana to Rhode Island! I've been sitting on this news for about a month now, but have been unable to make it public because of Kyle's current (soon to be former once Friday rolls around) job situation. Being in limbo for so long has been stressful and now with the surgery it just got more stressful because they want Kyle to start on March 2nd, but we still have to put our house on the market, take a house hunting trip to Rhode Island, secure temporary housing, pack and move, Kyle needs to defend his Master's thesis, and allow Hannah at least 10 days to recover from her surgery! That is A LOT to do in 2 weeks. So, since we just found out about the surgery Kyle is going to attempt to negotiate a later start date citing extenuating and unforeseeable circumstances. Please pray that the new company will be reasonable and allow us the time that we need so that I do not have to stay behind alone to help Hannah recover and that Hannah will be recovered well enough to perform normally at her psychologist evaluation on March 5th.

While we feel that this move will generally be a positive thing for Hannah as far as the resources that will be available to her there, I am definitely concerned about how the actual moving and adjustment will play out. She's already on edge from our schedules being disrupted, our house being in disarray, and her sensory playroom dismantled. Two months in temporary housing might not be fun for any of us if we don't find access to things to keep her sensory diet in tact while the weather remains cold. I'm not sure a corporate housing company would be keen on us hanging a swing from the ceiling of their furnished apartment or bolting a hammock into the walls! Right now I'm praying we find somewhere with an indoor pool. It may be wishful thinking, but that would certainly make things much easier. Leaving the support network we've built up here will be hard on us all. Besides family, there are only two couples we have ever trusted to watch Hannah and who know how to handle a meltdown, we adore her therapist and don't relish the thought of having to find a replacement as great as she is, finding kids (and their parents) who will immediately "get" Hannah and her quirks and love her just the same just won't happen-it'll take time and for that I'm sad for Hannah. She doesn't make friends easily so for her to lose (at least for regular play dates) the only two she really has is heartbreaking to me. Though intellectually she knows that we are moving and is totally pumped about it, I'm positive she doesn't get just how far away Rhode Island is and that Evelyn or Addie won't be just stopping by to play anymore. :(

PS. Speaking of friends, Hannah recently hosted a "slumber party" for her best friend for 4 days and I got some great pictures. If these aren't the picture of happiness then I don't know what is. We've had a long road to get to this point, but we made it with two little ones so I know she can do it again. It'll just take time. Now, it's not all roses, shortly after both of these photos the happy moment was spoiled by Evelyn pushing the personal space issue just a tad too far and Hannah hauling off and hitting her, but those happy moments DID happen. That's a testament to the hard work both of these little ones have put in and all that they have weathered to make their friendship work.

PPS. Doesn't everyone have an old mattress in their living room for their kids to jump on? Don't even pretend you weren't thinking it! If you've ever spent a considerable amount of time with a sensory seeking kid with SPD then you'd understand.

Sleep Study

Hannah's sleep study was an absolute nightmare (no pun intended)! I will never in my life put myself through such trauma if I can help it. That being said, we did glean some useful information from it that I'll get to in just a second. First though, here's a rundown of our night just in case you were dying to know.

We arrived at the hospital a little before 8pm (already an hour past Hannah's bedtime, but that's when they start the studies). We were the only crazy people who braved the impending snowstorm to make it to their sleep study so we were alone in the sleep lab. The tech was a bit overly cheerful for my taste and definitely was not much for inducing a calm state for sleep. Her voice was loud and just a tad too fake cheerful and she constantly waved her hands around all over the place and bounced Hannah around. Hannah did AMAZING with the procedure for getting all the electrodes on her. She sat quietly and still while the tech glued, taped, and then bandaged dozens of electrodes all over her body. She'd actually been looking forward to going to the "sleep doctor" since I'd been talking it up so much in an attempt to head off any disasters so she was ready for the adventure UNTIL they put the oxygen tubes and carbon dioxide readers into her nostrils. The moment she felt those prongs being inserted into her nose big fat crocodile tears started rolling down her cheeks and she started saying "No, No, No!" in a very pitiful voice and trying to rip them out. We had to hold her arms down while the tech taped them to her face. It broke my heart :(

By 9pm everything was on her and it was time to go to sleep. At this point we are 2 hours past her bedtime and she's running on adrenaline. She continues to keep trying to pull out the oxygen and the tech seems pretty irritated about this. We go through her bedtime routine as best we can and then as soon as it's time for lights out Hannah says she has to go potty. If the tech wasn't irritated before, she certainly was then because she had to unhook all of the wires attached to the electrodes from the machine and the tubes for the oxygen and carbon dioxide so that we could walk to the bathroom. Then she had to hook them all back up after Hannah was done. Finally I get Hannah settled into the bed and I go lay down on the fold out chair in the room. For the briefest of seconds I think that she is actually going to fall asleep, but alas that was not the case. Hannah jabbers on and on to me until at least 10pm because I am in the room. If I fail to respond in some way, shape, or form she gets hysterical thinking I"m not in the room anymore and tries to jump out of the bed which is impossible with all of those wires. SO, I have to respond in order to keep her in the bed and attached to all of those electrodes. Eventually she fell asleep for almost an hour. I watched her blood oxygen level and heart rate monitor for awhile until I saw her pulse start to drop.

Convinced she was asleep, I allowed myself to begin falling asleep only to be awakened by hysterical screams of, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" She was sitting bolt upright and attempting to rip the oxygen tubes out and the bandages off of her head. I flew off of the chair, tripped in the covers, and nearly did a face plant onto the tile floor as I stumbled over to her bed in the dark (I have terrible night vision!). I called for the tech (if she'd been paying attention like she was supposed to I would have thought she would have already been on her way since Hannah was the only kid in the lab she had to monitor) to come help me, but Hannah managed to get the oxygen and CO2 tubes out and some of the bandages off. The tech came in and reinserted everything and bandaged her back up. She was quite loud and didn't try at all to have a soothing voice or manner so that Hannah might not have woken fully up. She left and we started all over again. Hannah fell asleep about a half hour later and just as I allowed myself to drift off myself the screams started again. Because Hannah had to stay in the bed and keep all her wires and tubes firmly attached, I couldn't let her cry it out. I had to respond each and every time she started to get hysterical. This happened once every hour for the entire night. Hannah cycled through a 1/2 hour of sleep and then a 1/2 hour of calming down over and over again until at around 5am the tech came in and said that we should just call it quits. I spent pretty much the entire night kneeling on the tile with my arm shoved through the bed rails to keep Hannah from ripping off the electrodes or to calm her back to sleep when she settled down. I got quite adept at reinserting the tubes into her nose and extremely skilled at protecting the bandages and electrodes from her flailing arms. At one point the tech had to come in and unhook everything because she flailed around so much that she wrapped all the wires around herself and I could not unwind her and she was panicking because she could not move!

At 5am the tech came in and took off all of the electrodes and wires and monitors and sent us home. She said that Hannah had never stopped breathing and that she talked in her sleep with her eyes open and snored really loudly. I'm pretty sure she was not qualified to tell us any of that, but it is what it is. We were told it would be a week to 10 days before we had the results of the study. We had a horrible drive back home in a crazy snow storm with 3 cranky people in the car, but we all survived somehow.

Yesterday the developmental pediatrician called and gave me the results of the study. It turns out that Hannah did indeed stop breathing throughout the night several times. The study recorded what is considered mild obstructive sleep apnea as well as abnormally low levels of REM sleep. The doctor said that this may be a sign of Hannah's body defending against more severe episodes of apnea by preventing her from getting into the deeper stages of sleep where apnea usually occurs. She also concurred that Hannah does indeed talk in her sleep with her eyes open. This is totally freaky to me. Now I'll never know when she's actually awake. All the times she did it in the lab I apparently thought she was awake. The doctor referred us to a pediatric ENT (ear nose and throat doc) who will most likely remove Hannah's tonsils and adenoids as well as put tubes in her ears (more on that in a just a second). This will be done at Riley instead of locally because Hannah is so young and so that she will have a pediatric specialist for her anesthesiologist because of the apnea. Along with the fact that Hannah's adenoids and tonsils are most likely causing her apnea, they are also preventing the fluid from draining through the Eustachian tubes in her ears. She got an ear infection in early November and they have never drained since. At Hannah's hearing test (earlier the same day as her sleep study) she failed in her left ear and they of course detected fluid in both ears. They also recommended she see an ENT to drain her ears so it can be determined if the hearing difficulties are a result of the fluid or a sign of the late onset hearing loss that can sometimes occur in kids who had neonatal herpes.

Though the thought of surgery for Hannah is very scary to me, it's comforting at least to have some idea of what the problem is and to know that it's fixable. To think that she could soon be getting a good night's rest for the first time in her short life is a happy thought. It's also nice to have some validation that there was indeed something wrong instead of having to listen to countless people assuring me that I was just an over reactive first time mom and being told that no one's kid sleeps as well as they would like and that Hannah's "troubles" are completely typical.

PS. Thanks to all who sent well wishes our way before the study and who shared your stories about sleep. I really appreciated them!

PPS. Doesn't she look all cute in her bandages and wires? Even lounging in a hospital bed she's adorable! Although the head bandage to keep the electrodes in her hair does make her resemble a burn victim just a bit!

Sleep Wonderful Sleep

Those are the words I'm longing to say. As many of you know, we've pretty much always struggled with Hannah's sleep and how to teach her to go to sleep and stay asleep. We had high hopes for her weighted blanket and while it does seem to have helped some, it has not been the miracle we had been hoping for. Besides having a sleep study done, the developmental pediatrician recommended that we try melatonin an hour before bedtime. I've been reluctant to go out and buy it (it's an over the counter supplement that your body makes naturally anyway) because I just hate the thought of having to give Hannah anything even remotely close to medicine if I can help it, but this week pretty much sealed the deal. I'm willing to try it and I went out and bought some today. Not only has Hannah been having trouble falling asleep, but she's not been sleeping through the night again either. She's been waking up between 2-4 times a night crying. She's obviously tired and cranky throughout the day because she's not getting a restful night's sleep and this makes her much less able to cope with her other challenges. Last night for example she was up a total of 3 times. She also got to bed late because of church. Thankfully she pretty much went right to sleep. Then today she had preschool and then her friend Addie came over. There were some really great moments to their play date, but also some really rough ones. Twice Hannah hit Addie when there was unwanted physical contact and several other times she went into hysterics when Addie disrupted her lining up of Little People, tried to interrupt her petting of the cat, or did not want to play with her pattern blocks in the "right" way. Normally there are a few incidents each play date, but nothing quite this rough. The hitting of other kids is definitely a newer development that I am not pleased about. On a positive note, we have both the sleep study and her psychologist appointment scheduled. The sleep study is next Tuesday and the psychologist is March 5th. I'm glad the sleep study is so soon because we so need some help. I'm not looking forward to the actual study though. I don't think it's going to be a fun night. I've had a sleep study so I know what all it entails and frankly I'm a bit skeptic about how they intend to keep all the electrodes on Hannah and keep her in the bed. I know this is a pediatric sleep clinic and it's what they do, but still. I'll believe it when I see it! It should be interesting to say the least.

For some reason Hannah has picked up the word "bummer" from somewhere (I'm not sure where) and has been using it quite frequently and in the proper context. I'm sure I've said it before since I grew up during the word's heyday, but I don't use it regularly so I'm not thinking she'd have heard it enough from me to truly understand what it means. Obviously she's heard it somewhere and often enough that she's inferred it's meaning quite adequately. Two of my favorite incidences of her using the word both happened this week. They may not sound as funny written out as they did in person, but I've got to put them on here anyway so bear with me. The first time she was pretending to leave a message on one of her phones for her friend Addie's mom. The message I heard her leave was this, "Hi Kim! How's Addie? Is she still coughing? Poor thing. That's a bummer. Bye." The second time was just yesterday. Our kitchen floor was a little wet from melting snow and therefore slippery. Our old dog, Abby, came trotting around the corner and slipped. Her back end went right out from under her and she fell to the ground. Hannah saw it happen and turned to me and said in a concerned tone of voice that was almost fake, "Aww, Abby fell. What a bummer." I had to bite my lip to keep from cracking up laughing at that one. You probably had to be there to know how funny it was. I think it was the tone of voice that did it for me.

And the Winner Is. . . . .

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

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

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

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

Interesting

First off, just a friendly reminder that if you want a chance at winning Daniel Tammet's book Born on a Blue Day you have until midnight tonight (Sunday the 18th) to submit your name for my blog. I've really enjoyed reading everyone's suggestions. You are all so creative!

Now, moving onto the real reason for this post. I find it interesting that most times that I find Hannah role playing of her own volition it is a reenactment of a situation that is difficult (or at the very least unpleasant) for her. For example, she puts her stuffed animals and Little People in time out and gives them reminders, she fixes food at her kitchen and then pretends to eat it or feeds it to me, she does her entire bedtime routine to put her babies and stuffed animals (and tonight me!) to bed or down for a nap, she even takes her own temperature or takes her baby doll's temperature. All of these activities are ranked extremely low on her favorites list, but yet when she's playing on her own she chooses to think about them and recreate them. I wonder why?

Another thing I find interesting is Hannah's fixation with my hair. She's always liked playing with it and stroking it and pulling it, but her fascination with it has really ramped it up a notch recently. Right after Christmas I decided to get my hair cut. Because I was planning on making quite a drastic change (I cut off 14 inches) I prepped Hannah for it extensively. I showed her about how short it would be and we pulled my hair up to see what I might look like afterwards. I expected her to either be totally freaked out when I came home or intrigued for awhile. Thankfully she didn't freak out, but her fascination with my hair has lasted for much longer than I ever could have expected. It's been over 3 weeks now and she still comes up to me, grabs both sides of my hair and says, "I love your hair Mommy." Until I got my hair cut she'd never said anything about the way my hair looked before. She's also still asking/stating "You got your hair cut?" and "Your hair is short?" pretty much every day. I wonder exactly what's going on in her little 2 1/2 year old mind that makes this change so captivating for her.

This past week has been a bit rocky because we've been stuck inside A LOT and I don't just mean inside like we haven't played outside. I mean inside like we didn't leave the house for 3 days straight even to go to the mailbox and get the mail because it was below zero the entire time with windchills that were even colder at around -30 degrees Fahrenheit! There's only so much of each other Hannah and I can take without other human contact and we were totally at each other's throats before the weekend rolled around. Thankfully Kyle didn't have to work this weekend and it finally warmed up to a balmy 8 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday so we got a bit of a reprieve. Today was much better. We went to church and out to lunch with friends. Hannah even took a good nap. Here's hoping that tomorrow will be just as good. We're going to the library (we haven't been in almost 2 weeks which is unusual for us) so that should be a nice diversion.

PS. Just in case you were wondering about the choice of photos for this post, all of these pictures with the exception of the first one were taken by Hannah herself. When our camera started frizzing out on us this past fall we gave it to Hannah to play with once we got our new one. It still works, although it frequently takes blurry or split image photos. She's a photo taking machine just like her mama and takes dozens of pictures every single day! What a chip off of the old block. I'm so proud!

Google Searches

First, don't forget to enter my contest to name this blog. If you haven't already read Born on a Blue Day it's awesome so get those brains going.

Since adding the feedjet stat tracker on my blog I have been very interested in seeing how people find my blog. Most people without a direct link to our blog address find it by linking off of someone else's blog, but sometimes it comes up in google search results for various things. Some of the searches it is pretty obvious why our blog came up, anything pertaining to adoption for example since Adoption is the first word of the blog title, but other searches leave me scratching my head as to how on earth we managed to make our way into those results. Since I first started tracking, here are the things typed into the Google Search window (typos and all) that resulted in my blog being clicked on.

hyperlexia iq

the bads of adoption (I have no idea how we made it into that one!)

velveteen rabbit strep

sensory

body parts definition knees shoulders

adoption journey blog

dinosaur dreams

what dinosaurs adoption is (what on earth were they searching for?!?)

my baby adoption journey 2008

burning up shivering vommiting

baby delibrately bangs head

baby adoption blog

strongest antibiotic for pneumonia with prescription

gymnastics teacher ornaments

noah's dentist trip blog

should baby sit up with pneumnia

first dentist

positive of head shoulders (huh?)

hopball

baby autism extremely laid back smiles

babies room temperature pneumonia

dinosaur dreams

spontak family tree

Hannah autism Natalie

aspergers in girls news video

nurtured heart

how to dress 3 weeks baby

head circumference off the charts 18 months (this one just makes me smile even though I know why Hannah's blog comes up!)

baby disobedient 18 months

adoption blogs

My First Bloggy Contest

I mentioned awhile back that I feel my blog needs a bit of a name change. Hannah is no longer a baby and we are no longer in the adoption process (although adoption is a life long journey) so it seems fitting that the blog no longer be called Adoption Journey and Baby Updates. I've toyed with making the title something to do with our entire family, something to do with Hannah's name (her name was a big secret when we started this blog), or something to do with our soon to be newly inducted status of special needs family. The big problem is that I don't have a creative bone in my body. I admire all the funny, inspiring, clever, or just plain neat blog titles of the many blogs I follow. Here are just a few of them: MOM- NOS, the incipient turvy, Lagniappe, Pancakes Gone Awry, Pomianowski Pandemania, Good Enough Mama, good fountain, Life with Two Busy Boys, A Quiet Life. You get the idea. They all have creative titles and I want one! Here's your homework. Come up with a fun or just plain creative title for my blog and leave it in the comments section of this post. I'll have Kyle help me choose the winner and then the winner will receive their prize, a copy of Daniel Tammet's Memoir Born on a Blue Day. If you've not read it or heard about him before, he's a British man who has Asperger's Syndrome who is also a Savant (think Rainman). His book is brilliant and a quick and easy read. He's also got a new book out called Embracing the Wide Sky (well it's been out since October, but still it's new to me since I just learned about it) that I'm dying to read. Once I pick a winner I'll post it on the blog and the winner should email me their mailing address and I'll send you out your book. I'll leave the contest open until midnight Sunday January 18th. That ought to give you plenty of time to get your creative juices flowing and name my blog! Good luck and may the best title win!

Unqualified

There are days when I feel like I've got this Mommy job wrapped up. I find brilliant solutions to impossible problems, stop tantrums in their tracks, and juggle endless numbers of tasks with a smile on my face. Then there are times when I feel hopelessly unqualified for this amazing responsibility I have been charged with. I'm an impostor struggling hard to keep my head above water and the level is rising more quickly than I can tread water. This week I feel unqualified. I think as an adoptive parent I maybe feel more pressure than some non adoptive parents to get things right. I want to somehow prove that I am indeed worthy of this amazing gift God (along with Tiffany and Mike) has blessed me with, to prove that a mistake was not made in choosing me to be Hannah's mommy. I try to do my best, I truly do. I know in my mind that's all I really can do, but still . . . . I can't stop my heart from wanting the very best for my little girl and wondering if maybe all my ignorance will permanently screw her up. This week just did not help put those worries to rest.

Parenting Hannah is so hard. I want to raise a kind hearted, loving, and respectful little girl who loves the Lord and serves others before she thinks of herself, but I haven't a clue how to go about doing that. Hannah's an only child so I don't want her to grow up spoiled, feeling entitled, and thinking she's the center of the universe. She also has challenges to overcome that most other kids her age don't have and I don't want to create unrealistic expectations for her. There are times when these two desires of mine butt heads and I don't know which should take precedence. Throw the fact that Hannah's one smart cookie into the mix and that she already knows how to manipulate the system and I find myself at a loss for how to handle so many situations. It is often unclear to me when a particular undesirable behavior or action is the result of normal (or not so normal as is often the case with Hannah's creative ways of getting herself into trouble) toddler disobedience or a result of something over which she truly has no control. If she's being disobedient I don't want to let it slide and allow her to get away with being rude, disrespectful, or just plain honory, but at the same time if she can't control what she's doing or the emotions she's feeling then I don't want to punish her for behavior that isn't her fault. Still, if I let her get away with too much that she does have control over then I could see her smart little brain sensing weakness and thinking she can just take control whenever she wants and that would not be a good thing. There are just so many factors to throw into the mix. With some things it's easy to know what's disobedience and what's her simply being overwhelmed. In social situations the culprit is most like sensory overload, but at home when being asked to do something that she has successfully accomplished multiple times before it can be harder to tell. To make matters worse, Kyle and I often disagree on the course of action in these cases so we are left wondering who truly is right. For example, Hannah doesn't really like brushing her teeth, but this is something we can usually at least muddle through. But the last 3 nights in a row, teeth brushing has been the scene of a battle of epic proportions ending in tears (both of us), time outs, and even a few reminders (AKA spankings) over disrespectful behaviors as a result of the tooth brushing. Brushing her teeth has never had quite this violent of an effect on Hannah and the interesting thing is that I haven't had any problems with her brushing her teeth in the mornings this week-just at night. So, I'm left wondering if she's simply being disobedient and trying to get out of something she dislikes because she thinks she can or if there is something more going on that I don't realize and she can't control that is making teeth brushing simply unbearable for her. Because in any situation of crisis proportions (or even minor obedience infractions for that matter) there is a choice to be made in a split second about how to handle the situation, I've had to decide how to handle her meltdowns while in the midst of screams, flailing arms, and kicking feet. Each time in this particular battle I have chosen to view this as a disobedience issue and treated it as such. Kyle believes the opposite is true. Though we both have chosen our side, neither of us is fairly confident of our stance. There seems to be no reliable way of knowing for sure what's going on in this case. If there was an Idiot's Guide to Parenting your Brilliant Child Who Just Might Have Asperger's and Definitely has SPD I'd buy it in an instant no matter how much it cost. I'd skip the introduction and turn right to the chapter on How to Not Irreversibly Screw Up your Child Because of your Idiocy. Alas, no such book exists. Believe me, I've scoured Amazon looking for it! Instead I read blog after blog searching for mothers like me who are bravely going where (I can't really say no mom has gone before since I've read way too many blogs for that to be the case) most moms have never been before and I find solace in knowing that while I have no mommy friends in person who share my struggles, these women are out there and they do understand. They share their stories and I read and laugh and cry right along with them as their children amaze, confuse, and frustrate them. I am so grateful for the Internet and all those who help me get through each day even if they never know how much they've done.