Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Wordless Wednesday: Joy

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Let's Go Fly a Kite....

This past Thursday, The Little Miss was enjoying an episode of Sesame Street on Sprout while I was trying to get a grip on the migraine that was getting increasingly worse. As part of the episode, a little boy was flying a kite. The Little Miss was mesmerized. She asked me "That?" (this is her way of saying "What's that?"). I explained it was a kite and the wind makes it fly high in the air. She smiled, still mesmerized by the kite flying. When the kite segment was over, she looked at me and said "Have kite?" I laughed, telling her we'd have to buy one at the store figuring she'd forget about it and move on to something else.

Wrong. All she talked about for three days was "Tite." "Have tite?" "Tite up, up!"

Saturday we ran some errands and ended up at "The Big Red Ball" store (Target). The Little Miss insisted on "walk, walking" through the whole store and the entire time all I heard was "tite?".  She was on a mission and so excited once we found her kite!

Her Yeye came to visit today and it was a perfect time (ie: not too windy) to try out the kite. She'd cheer and applaud when the kite finally made it in the air but cracked up laughing every time it would come crashing down.





Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Super Moment with the Super Moon

Yes, I know, the "Super Moon" was last weekend but it's been a little busy....

While awaiting the rising of the moon over our horizon and mountains, S and I were outside gazing at the stars. My Dad had been on my mind and in my heart a lot last week as a close friend lost her Dad to cancer just a few days prior. While S and I were chatting about the stars I told her, "Grandpa is up there in the stars. He's watching you every day. If he were here right now I'm sure he'd be showering you with hugs and kisses."

S continued looking at the sky deep in thought. She then looked me in the eyes then back up at the stars and in her sweet little voice said, "Hi, Gampa!" while waving her sweet little wave. Tears formed in my eyes while I gave her a big squeeze. She has no idea how much her acknowledging her Grandpa meant to me.

Wordless Wednesday: Happy 28 months!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Friday, March 4, 2011

Parenting FAIL

The Little Miss is very strong-willed and very good at testing boundaries. Her newest trick is to get in our faces and scream "Ahhh!" when she disagrees with something we say or do. I used to tell her no but that only caused it to happen more so I now ignore. She says her peace and moves on.

Finding a day-to-day balance of working from home and spending time with The Little Miss is so difficult. We know in a few short months she's likely going to be in preschool four days a week in order to receive speech therapy through our school district. I want to savor as much time with her as I can, letting her blossom and learn with us. But the reality is, it's HARD. There are days I am swamped with urgent issues or trying to wrap up a deadline and Y is equally busy working on two major projects simultaneously (he's awaiting transfer to just one but in the meantime it's double workload for him).

That brings about today. We've had some plumbing issues since the recent freezing weather. Today was a continuation of repair people in the house so as we were preparing for their arrival, The Little Miss wanted to watch a video. She picked out Snow White but once it was in she decided she didn't like it. Her Dad went to the video shelf to pick out a DVD that might be more interesting for her. She got upset and starts screaming, "No! No! No!" and throws a DVD case at him. He calmly grabs a hold of her so she's looking at him and tells her "We don't throw things at people. That hurt Daddy." This is immediately met with hysterical sobbing. I give her a minute to calm down and when I see she's not I take her to her room and tell her that we are going to rest until she can calm down. She eventually stops crying and her breathing returns to normal. I decide to have a chat with her about how it's not nice to hurt people or throw things at people. I asked her what she did to her Daddy and she tells me (using some words and gesturing) that she threw the DVD at Daddy. I asked her if that was nice and she responded with "No.". I then told her Daddy was sad that she had hurt him and said she needed to say sorry (either with words or by sign language) and give him and hug. She immediately told me no and started crying again. So I held her on my lap letting her know she couldn't play until she said sorry or gave Daddy a hug. This continued for a good 45 minutes. I would let her sit on my lap but anytime I asked if she was ready to say sorry or give Daddy a hug it would be met with refusal and/or tears.

By the end I was in tears from complete frustration and feeling like complete poo for letting my child cry (not continuously mind you) so that her eyes were puffy and face splotchy. But this was one time I just couldn't let her actions slide. She may have been upset and frustrated that she couldn't communicate (her speech issues have caused some major frustration at times) but that doesn't excuse hurting someone by throwing something at them. In the end, she decided she'd go hug her Dad and ended up signing "sorry". She was fine the rest of the day but I wasn't. I can't shake the feeling that I FAILED. Was I being too stubborn? Was there a way to handle her outburst differently? Maybe, maybe not. Parenting is one long, continous lesson and there are times we fail and times we succeed. Unfortunately, I think today was a big fat FAIL.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Speech Update

A little follow-up from our adventures in speech therapy.....

Since my original post about The Little Miss' speech delay, we've been able to participate in 2 free therapy sessions with the help of The Children's Miracle Network. Sadly, we were unable to book the fabulous SLP who did Sophie's original evaluation. I say sadly because she and Sophie totally hit it off and you can tell a HUGE difference in Sophie's attitude working with our current SLP whom she hasn't quite clicked with.

The Little Miss was evaluated for early intervention therapies through a foundation funded by The Easter Seals. She does qualify for home therapies. We just finalized our Individual Family Service Plan (similar to an IEP for those of you familiar with those) last week. Miss G, her therapist, is absolutely terrific (and 5 months pregnant meaning in another few months we'll get someone new... but we'll deal with that when the time comes). Sophie and Miss G hit it off instantly. A BIG sigh of relief from Y and I knowing how she'd been with the SLP from the hospital.

Miss G and I are currently working on what motivates Sophie to use words versus grunting or pointing or gesturing. It seems signing and saying the words together seems to boost her confidence. We'd already been using sign language with her but it was limited to a small set of words. We're trying to expand our signing vocabulary while working on putting together the words she CAN say so we can get more two word phrases out of her. She's making progress. Her inflection on some expressions and words is perfect and there are days we're in stitches when she sees or does something and says "Oh my!" with perfect inflection. I'm going to include a list of words she can say - mostly voluntarily but a few are with some prompting. Feel free to skip over it as it's more a measuring point for myself:

Oh-tay (okay)
Ahh-right (all right)
Oh my!
tactus (cactus)
touch
no
yes
papes (grapes)
ride
sit
side
ow-side (outside)
eyes
socks
eat
up
down
jump
play
hop
Melmo (Elmo
Abby
tookie (cookie)
icky
doggy
cheese
ham
bye
hi

Add in all the family member names she can say and it's a decent list but it's no where near what a "normal" functioning 27 month old should be able to say. Baby steps and progress...we'll get there.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011