March

I have a feeling March is going to be a rough month. Kyle has already traveled out of state once and he is schedule to go out of state (and out of country) at least 3 more times this month. Hannah gets all out of sorts when he is gone and even the toddler, who I will hereby refer to as the Hurricane on this blog, seems to be affected by his absence. When he's gone I don't sleep well and that affects my patience to boot. It's a vicious cycle! We also have a 6 day weekend coming up this week. Hannah's school's "spring break" is actually 2 days off at the end of one week, the weekend, and then 2 days off at the beginning of the next week. The change in routine and the lack of structure on breaks really throws Hannah off as well. Add to that the fact that Kyle will also be gone for half of that break and we're prepping for disaster!

On a positive note, the door alarm is working. We do not believe Hannah has managed to leave her room even one time without our knowledge and that goes a LONG way to easing my fears about the medication stealing. There's still always the daytime that she could go for it, but at least I'll be awake and alert to her absence. I try not to let her out of my sight for very long at a time.

We had her latest IEP meeting and got things set up for next year. They even added some specific and measurable academic goals to ensure that she's not being allowed to simply slide by not learning since she already meets grade level standards. They identified that her reading level was at the beginning of 3rd grade level and her reading goal is to be at the beginning of 4th grade level by the end of first grade. I think that's actually a very ambitious goal since 3rd grade is where reading gets tough. You stop learning to read and start reading to learn. Comprehension and vocabulary knowledge as well as life experiences become a bigger part of reading than decoding and those are the things she sometimes struggles with. Her math goal is to be at the end of 2nd grade level by the end of the year. I actually think that is a skimpy goal since she's mastered much of 2nd grade material already. She's only doing first grade curriculum because there are a few holes in her knowledge on a select set of concepts. Her overall knowledge and computation ability is already into the 2nd grade level now. She continues to have her various social skill and behavior goals and now has OT goals as well since that was finally added to her IEP after the full evaluation the team did a few months ago. In general, I'm quite pleased with her IEP and I think it should set her up for success next year. The biggest factor will be her teacher. The wrong teacher could be her demise. This year the principal hand picked her teacher and it was a perfect fit. I HOPE they do the same thing next year.

Hannah's ability to spell and write complicated sentences has really blossomed the past month. I'm quite impressed by her progress. They do a lot of writing in her classroom and she does quite a bit in the resource room as well. Writing was one of her biggest weaknesses going into the school year and now I would say she's above grade level on it too!

Hannah continues to grow into her role as big sister. Jealously still abounds, but she did express to me the other day that she hopes the Hurricane gets to stay forever. She likes to play with him (in small doses) and he wakes her up every morning which she pretends to hate, but really loves! Working the behavior plan is tough with the Hurricane around, but somehow I'm making it work.

Never Dull

Life it seems is never dull around here. You know how you read something and you think, "Wow! That's crazy/funny," but it's only funny because it's not happening to you and you know it'd never happen to you because things like that always happen to someone else? Well, that's my life. I'M the one who those things happen to! Kyle's been gone on a business trip to Germany for the past week and the kiddos (mostly Hannah) decided to really give it to me while I was doing my single mommy gig. Before even a day had elapsed Hannah had cut her hair again! I believe this is the 7th, maybe 8th time she's done this. This time she decided to cut the bangs she had created the last time she got ahold of the scissors completely off. She has maybe an 1/8 on an inch right at the front of her forehead left. Then she got into the baby wipes and scattered them about the toddler's room for the dog to shred. Seriously, shouldn't that phase have passed when she was like 2? Next she decided to douse the cat in baby shampoo. Let me just say that the cat was both angry and humiliated. I still haven't managed to get it all rinsed out of him yet and I'm covered in scratches from the attempts. It's quite difficult to hold a cat by the scruff while also wielding the sprayer and trying to scrub the shampoo out. Finally, a few nights ago she figured out how to pick her door lock (the door alarm still isn't in yet so we HAD to switch the door knob around while I was here alone) by prying a nail out of the wall and using that to pop the lock! She did it several times one night before I finally figured out what she was doing and where the nails were coming from. Now all pictures and nails are removed from her room. It's starting to look pretty bare in there! Oh, and just to be sure I preserve everything, a few days before Kyle left Hannah was supposed to be doing a job card chore. I had to supervise the toddler so she was left alone for periods of 5 minutes at a time. After one of those 5 minute intervals I went to check on her and it was like all heck had broke loose in the basement! Paint was smeared on the walls in several places. The paint bottles themselves were coated in paint and then doused with glitter. The dollhouse roof had been repainted. The floor was covered in glitter. There was paint on the carpet. AND she had left a trap for me of a pool of paint on the bathroom floor for me to step in and track all over the place. This was actually the 2nd trap she had set for me. The first one she made a trail of Q-tips leading to behind her chair to try to fake me into thinking she was hiding behind there instead of in my bathroom getting into my body spray. I'd say I made a fatal parenting error by allowing her to read Roald Dahl's book Matilda!

In other news, the school system finally did thier full evaluation of Hannah for her IEP eligibility. The information the psychologist gave was no surprise. We already knew she is freaking brilliant. He mentioned that she has some executive function deficits, but that at the moment they really aren't much of an issue due to her age, but will most likely become more of an issue as she gets older. That was the first I had heard of executive function problems. We actually thought we had managed to dodge that bullet. I guess not. The big kicker was the OT's report. They assessed her fine motor skills, her sensory system, and her vision. I had no idea that OT's dabbled in the vision arena, but apparently they do. Her fine motor skills were perfect. No surprise there. She showed significant sensory issues. Also not surprising. What was surprising though was that the OT felt that she had some visual processing problems. She said that her two eyes do not work together correctly and that that could be the cause of some of her hyperactiveness. She also said it could cause reading problems down the road when the type gets smaller and the white space on the page lessens. She recommended she have an evaluation by a behavioral optometrist for possible vision therapy. UGH! That's all we need, more therapy. I read up on vision therapy since I'd never really heard much about it and I can't say that I'm convinced. A lot of what I've read seems a bit like voodoo science and there seems to be no real evidence to back it up. We are definitely going to have to do some thinking about that before we jump into something else. Anyone else know anything about vision therapy or had your child do it?

Finally, Wednesday we have Hannah's evaluation at the severe behavior clinic. Apparently, even if she does qualify for the program, we will be put on a waiting list for services. It could be quite awhile before treatment could begin. Sigh. . . .

Hannah seems to be settling into sisterhood well enough. She's had her moments of jealousy and still gets quite clingy, but I see her enjoying our new little one as well. Whenever something annoys her, such as crying, I try to put it into the perspective of how she used to do it when she was a baby. That seems to help a bit. She's been very curious about how she was when she was the baby's age. We've watched some old home movies of her at that age and then compared the two of them. Boy was that a shock. She wasn't nearly as physically competent, but boy was she a lot more verbal!

Photo Notes: All of these pictures are from December. We've got swim lessons, Christmas, and working in the shop with Pap.

Kindergarten

Well, it finally happened. My baby girl is officially a kindergartner now. So far things have gone well I think. We had meetings with both the principal and the special ed staff and Hannah's classroom teacher before school started. It was formally considered an eligibility meeting, but we went over all of Hannah's needs and I really felt like we had a good base going for the first day of school. She qualified for services under an IEP and the actual IEP meeting was set for the end of the month. Her teacher seems awesome and has been doing a lot of observation of Hannah to ascertain her needs in the classroom already and it looks like she's already noticed a pattern to when her sensory needs ramp up and wants to set up a mid afternoon sensory break to help Hannah get through the morning. She called to see if I would be ok with that. Would I be ok with that? Seriously! I expected to have to fight tooth and nail to get sensory needs even acknowledged. She's also already noticed a few of the behavioral and social concerns we had going into school. I really do think Hannah's been holding up remarkably well given how hard it must be to be on her best behavior all day long. The reports have been that she's had good days, but she's been left with a hair trigger and barely enough energy to walk home! I'm sure it will get easier for her as things go on, but this week (and maybe several more after it) is going to be tough at home I imagine.

It was VERY hard for me to drop her off Monday morning at the curb and just go, but they don't even let parents into the building at drop off and pick up. In fact, if you drive you don't even get out of the car. They walk up to the car and open the door for the kids and everything. I'm sure this makes transitions easier for the kids, but it sure can be hard for the parents of the kindergartners! Especially on the first day!

Well, it's been 2 weeks since I started this post and Hannah began her 3rd week of school today and we also had her IEP meeting. I was VERY pleased with the plan the team came up with to support and supplement Hannah's education. I think she's in excellent hands. I've also been quite happy with the communication from school so far. Her teacher emails me back every time I send her a question or heads up. She also has class wide newsletters and a class website. Hannah seems happy at school and I'm looking forward to seeing how the year progresses. Tomorrow she starts heading into the resource room to do work beyond the typical kindergarten curriculum. I'm tickled pink that they truly realize that it's essential that Hannah be challenged in order to keep her behaviors in check. I'm not sure the resource room teacher has ever had to do differentiated instruction with a kid that is ahead academically like Hannah, but she seems more than willing and up for the challenge.

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?

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?!? :)

Name Change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thankful

I know Thanksgiving has come and gone and everyone else has done their "thankful" posts, but I'd still like to write one. I am SO thankful for my family. Hannah and Kyle are my reasons for getting up every morning. I am eternally grateful for God placing them both in my life. When I think about my life before the both of them it just seems odd. I feel as if they were always a part of me. I am thankful for a warm bed to sleep in and plenty of food to eat. I am thankful to live in a country where I can worship God without fear of persecution. I am thankful for my friends and extended family and all the fun times we are able to share together. I am thankful for Tiffany and Mike and the sacrifice they made in order for Kyle and I to become parents. I am thankful that they have both chosen to continue to be a part of our lives. I am thankful that Hannah will always know about her birthfamily and if she ever has questions she will know that she can either ask Kyle or I or just pick up the phone and call Tiffany or Mike and ask them. Most of all, I am thankful for Jesus and his amazing sacrifice of dieing on the cross for my sins so that I can live forever in Heaven with him.

Moving on to current news in the Spontak household. . . . Poor Hannah has a double ear infection AND a staph infection. Along with that she's got a cold and a horrible cough. She's miserable. I feel so bad for her. I gave behavior boot camp (more on that in a moment) a rest today to simply cut her some slack.

Even though she's sick, Hannah's been doing some mighty fine reading lately. Her sight word vocabulary continues to increase and she's starting to read sentences consisting entirely of words that are sight words for her quickly enough to have some comprehension. This is a big deal. She no longer labors over every single word pausing to notice each and every word, but reads fluently from one word to the next until she reaches one that is not immediately recognizable and then attempts to sound it out. Tonight in the bathtub she was asking me to write sentences for her to read on the bathtub walls using her tub crayons! Don't get me wrong, we aren't reading chapter books here or anything, but still mighty fine reading for a two year old if I do say so myself. Here's a sampling of what she was reading tonight in the tub. I can see a cat. The dog can run. Hannah sees the sun is up. Daddy loves Hannah. We like cats and dogs. Can you see the bus? They see it. We like to go to the zoo. Do you like bees? Mommy and Daddy love me. He is up. Is it on the top? No, you can not run to the bus. Are you sensing a theme here? :) One thing that is really cool is that she's very good at using picture clues and context to figure out an unfamiliar word. For example, the other day she was reading a book she had never seen before that had two sentences per page and followed basically the same format on most pages. The first line was usually, "Can you see it?" Then the next line was something to the effect of, "I can see a ____________." (or we see a, they see a, he sees a, etc) Most of the words for what the people saw were not words Hannah is able to sound out, but she was able to figure out the mystery word using the context and the picture on each page. She read the entire book without error pointing to each and every word as she said it, even difficult words like rooster, horse, and mouse. I was so proud of her. I thought Kyle was going to have a heart attack when she picked it up and read it like a pro for him. When she finished he turned to me and said, "Does she have it memorized?"

Ok, about behavior boot camp. Lately Hannah has been VERY sassy. She says "NO!" all the time, shouts, whines, and uses a nasty tone of voice to attempt to get what she wants. I've tried about everything, but hadn't really seen any results. Things got really bad over the holiday weekend after being indulged by various extended family members at Thanksgiving gatherings. I finally had enough and informed Hannah that she would no longer get warnings about speaking rudely, arguing, or saying "NO!" when told to do something. Now she is immediately put in time out without discussion or elaboration for any of those offenses. So far this shock and awe method has been working fairly well, but it's too early to say if it's a real change in behavior or if she's simply feeling out the changes.

Hannah's appointment with the orthopedic doc is Monday. I'm very anxious to go and see what they suggest. Lately her running style has become more and more "odd." For you horsey people reading, she very significantly wings out when she runs and this really slows down her speed, causes her to veer to one side, and seems to increase her tripping. Tuesday is our meeting with the special education department within the local schools to begin the transitioning process from early intervention to the public school system. I am also anxious for this meeting since I just have a feeling that it's going to be a tough road given her gifts to convince anyone that she ought to qualify for special services. I plan on taking some videos of her at school and at home to demonstrate the significance of the difference between her capabilities and what she is able to display at school to take to the developmental clinic in February, so if I need to use some of that footage to convince the folks here that there are definite issues then I will.

Hannah is seriously excited about Christmas this year, but doesn't quite get that Christmas is a holiday/event/day and not a place. Multiple times a day she asks me if we are going to Christmas today. She's still sorting out the secular and religious aspects of Christmas. Today I gave her a children's nativity set to play with. While I was opening it up she saw Jesus in the manger and correctly said, "That's baby Jesus!" Then she caught a glimpse of a donkey and asked, "Is that Jesus' reindeer?" I had to bite my lip not to laugh hysterically in her face. A lengthy conversation resulted detailing the characters in the Christmas story and differentiating them from Santa and his friends. Last year she wouldn't go near a Santa and referred to all Santa's she saw as "No-Na" AKA Noah as in Noah's ark. This year she's requested several times already to go see Santa (and his reindeer). I plan on taking her, but I'm not optimistic about the prospects of the visit being successful. Then, you never know. She does have a thing for men with facial hair! I'm really looking forward to decorating the house and picking out the tree with her this year. I just know she's going to have a blast. Now will be the time when she starts understanding and remembering traditions and begins to form warm fuzzy (hopefully) holiday family memories. We will also be going to see the Nutcracker in a few weeks. Kayla (Hannah's birthsister) will be performing in the production and we've been invited to attend. I'm super excited because I've always wanted to see the Nutcracker and also because I think Hannah will love it. While we were on our cruise in September Hannah was enthralled by the Vegas style shows they had each night. She loved the singing and dancing and would get up and dance along. I think she'll really like the music, costumes, and dancing at the ballet. I just hope she'll be able to sit through the whole thing. I'm not sure how long it is.

The new play room is proving to be a resounding success. We spend TONS of time in there, mostly on the hammock. It's been quite helpful in calming her when she's out of sorts and an awesome way to do a little sensory pick me up as needed throughout the day. She loves to climb in and out of the hammock and to throw herself to one side so that she tips over and falls out onto the bed. She thinks it's hilarious and we get that glorious "coo" of happiness we used to hear when she was a baby when she was in her swing or when Kyle would do the "Demon Drop" with her (hold her in a prone position over his head and pretend to drop her to the floor, slowing the speed just as he reached the floor to lie her gently on her back). We hadn't heard that lovely sound for quite some time. It really is the ultimate sound of happiness and contentment. I wish I could recreate it for you. Maybe I'll try to get some video of it.

PS. The pictures are from Grandkids' weekend at Mamaw and Papaw's house in November.

Dinosaur Dreams

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

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

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

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

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