A little catch-up

Wow. As much as I hope to be completely on top of this blog it. just. doesn't. happen. There are a few things to catch up on:

Speech Therapy: The Little Miss is currently on a "service coordination" plan. This means she's improved so much that she no longer needs bi-weekly play therapy. This worked out well as her therapist is on maternity leave and she's to be tested in another week to see if she needs/qualifies for continued therapies with the school district. Her vocabulary is pretty huge at this point. The biggest issue we have is proper enunciation. Essentially, if we make her slow down and we demonstrate proper, exaggerated enunciation, she'll speak the word perfectly.  I'm wavering on the pre-school idea. While I really do wish to have her in that type of setting, I'm not sure I'm ready for her to be there at age 2 1/2 for four days a week.

Potty Training: Well, she mastered this long ago. The end of May had us traveling to Missouri for my niece's graduation from high school. The Little Miss had been doing extremely well. She rarely peed in her pull-up and was wearing underwear more and more at night (from the time she woke from her nap until bath time).  The week prior to our trip she decided she was DONE with the pull-ups. We had planned to really work on potty training when we got back but she decided for us. She wanted her underwear on and she wanted it on from the time she woke until she went to bed at night. I was fully prepared for our trip, putting her in pull-ups on the flights and she never once needed them. She went on the plane (that's fun, let me tell ya!) multiple times and even held it once when she had to go and we were mid descent and couldn't get out of our seats. This continued the entire time we were in Missouri and she's been going strong since. We still put a pull-up on at night, not wanting to risk a solid-night's sleep for accidents, but she's been completely dry for weeks now at night.

When did she turn into such a little girl!?

Gymnast or Dancer?: We received some really sad news that our local The Little Gym is closing it's doors for good the first week of August. The Little Miss LOVES her classes there and has been talking, non-stop, about taking the dance/tumble combo class when she turns 3 with her teacher, Mrs. C. Very few dance studios allow toddlers under 3 to take classes. There are two studios in town we're looking at, but we're also trying to decide if we want to abandon gymnastics all together or do some sort of combo class (which is difficult to find). She really seems to want to go for dance. In fact, we discussed the fact that if she took dance I couldn't be in the class with her. She smiled and said "I a big girl Mommy! You watch me!" She may change her mindset when the time comes but, for now, she seems to be okay with the fact I'd have to watch from the lobby and not be in the class with her. We don't want her to have so many activities she doesn't have time to just be a kid but we'd like to expose her to activities and give her a chance to socialize outside of her comfort zone of home. Decisions, decisions.

The Rings. A perpetual favorite!

Ta-Da!

So, life here continues its usual amount of crazy. We had one of The Little Miss' older cousins out for two weeks and soon, Grandma will be out for a few weeks. In between our travels and company we had landscapers performing a total make-over of the backyard. We now have GRASS! A complete novelty here in the desert and something we're really enjoying. I make no guarantees with the blog. I'm currently trying to focus on quality time with The Little Miss than just quantity of time. I admit to work preoccupying my time and, in turn, I'm distracted by email or the latest assignment that needs to be finished. In doing so I may be with The Little Miss physically, but I'm not fully being with her.

A List....

Since my mind is all over the place lately, this will be a post of lists....

1. We were astonished with The Little Miss' progress speech-wise. The past week has brought some kind of scary regression. She's back to her rambling, melodic jargon that she was doing prior to therapy. Words that had been incredibly clear are now becoming unintelligible. Personally, I'm trying not to panic...some regression is normal as kids develop new skills but even her therapist was a little worried. We're meeting with another specialist in a couple of weeks to see if there might be some other reason for the regression. In the meantime we can just hope it's either a confidence issue or a natural regression that will resolve itself.

2. Our mountains are on fire. This happens from time to time in the desert when things get really dry in the spring.  But this is the closest the actual fire has been to our house. We can't see flames yet so I'm feeling okay but winds could change at any moment.

3. This has been the year of huge expenses. We've had plumbing issues, had to replace a dishwasher, replace a large window in the house due to a stray golf ball, speech therapy, and just this past week we had to replace our router (the fourth one in recent years), the DVD/CD ROM in my laptop is dead and needs to be replaced, and buy a new camera (can't run a photography business when your camera is no longer functioning!). I'm complaining a wee bit but mostly I feel blessed that we've been able to handle most of these expenses. Granted our savings account is getting smaller by the minute but hopefully we can rebuild it soon.

4. I really want to bake. I can't seem to find the spare minutes it requires and I really don't need to eat whatever I bake. But that cookie dough? It's calling my name.

5. Sophie loves to help in the kitchen and I LOVE it. My mom never really liked us "helping" her cook so anything I can cook now was mostly self-taught. I want my daughter to know her way around a kitchen and have a love for cooking.

6. We need a vacation. A real vacation. A not-visiting-family vacation. We'd really like to go to Disney World but it's a LONG trip and expensive. So we thought, "We're closer to Disneyland, let's try there." WRONG. Unless we plan to rob a bank anytime soon I think we're going to have to nix Disney from the list. Planning a vacation with a toddler in tow is not as easy as it used to be when it was just Y and I!

7. I'm having a custom photo case made for my iPhone. I received notification it shipped today. I am SO excited to get it. It's like my own little Mother's Day gift to myself.

8. Speaking of Mother's Day. I nearly forgot it's THIS coming Sunday. For some reason I kept thinking it's next week. Nope. What do I want for Mother's Day? A nap, a massage, and time to watch a good romantic comedy...not necessarily in that order. I wouldn't mind a pedicure either.

9. I have an obsession with kid shoes. The Little Miss has WAY more shoes than she needs. I blame those deal-a-day and discount sites. Yeah, that's it. ;)

10. I'm ashamed of my weight. I really feel like I'm losing control and need to do something. I CANNOT even THINK about getting pregnant at my current weight. It would be horribly unhealthy for myself and a potential child. My eating habits haven't really changed for the worse - I'm not eating more than I used to in fact I'm making an effort to eat smaller portions. Tea and water have replaced sodas and I'm squeezing in a little exercise when I have time. I know I need to do more but I'm so completely frustrated that I'm still gaining despite the small changes I have made.

That's all my rambling for now. Hug your children. Hug your parents. Hug your spouse or significant other. Most importantly, be kind to yourself and one another.

Overheard:

With The Little Miss' budding language skills, she's had a lot of humorous quips lately. These were recently overheard:

While getting some food out of our side by side freezer, a few small things fell to the floor. Sophie, who was playing nearby, exclaimed, "Oh Mommy! Be careful!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Calling the dogs to go out for one last potty break before we headed out, they were ignoring me instead hoping for the treats we usually leave for them. Sophie, ever wise, sighs, shakes her head and says "Doggies, NOT listening."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Getting onto myself for forgetting to do something, I said "Oh I'm so dumb." Sophie, never one to miss a great repeat says, "Mommy's dumb!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After dealing with several headaches this month and needing to medicate and find a quiet spot to reduce the pain, Sophie grabs her burp cloth for her head (they've become very soft security blankets of sorts), lays on her beanbag and says, "Oh my head hurts. Need rest."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Y, heading off to meetings, came in to kiss Sophie while I was busy putting away some laundry. Noticing he hadn't kissed me she scolds, "Daddy! Kiss Mommy!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Y and I have both been extremely busy with work and have had to placate Sophie with a few "I need to finish this. I'll play in 5 minutes." Sophie, busy playing, turns to me when I tell her it's time to get dressed and says, "10 minutes, Mommy!"

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.

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.

Earlier Today....

::Sophie knocks on the door::

Me: "Who's there?"
S: "Tookie! Num Num!"
Me: "Cookie Monster?"
S: "Noooooo!"
Me: "No? Who's there then?"
S: ::runs over to hug me:: "Pho-phie!"

Ahhh....love these little bits of progress she's making speech wise!

You say tomato....

The Little Miss grunts.

A while back I mentioned I was worried about Sophie's speech development. She seemed to be progressing along normally until just around 18 months all progress stopped. She was no longer using two-word sentences and using very few words in general. It was either "eh eh eh" or "uh uh uh" or a point or sing language or some combination there of. We spoke to her pediatrician about her concerns but were told "She's still in the 'normal' range. Let's look at it again at her 2-year visit."

We switched pediatricians for her 2-year visit (same practice, different Dr. - long story). Anyway, we discussed our speech concerns and The Little Miss even demonstrated her "babbling" and lack of speech. Our pediatrician said there's some definite cause for concern so let's start the ball rolling for speech evaluation. That was in November.

I called the requisite numbers for all the referrals and were told "We can get you the hearing evaluation but speech evaluations are running 4 to 6 months out." Geez. Apparently I went into the wrong field! Her hearing evaluation was scheduled for early January, just after our holiday trip. We'd yet to hear from the speech people but were on the cancellation list so knew we could possibly get a call any time. As we assumed, Sophie had no hearing loss. Two days later, we get a call from the Speech center with a last minute cancellation. Literally. They called at 9:30am for a 10:30am appointment. The Little Miss wasn't dressed, I was dressed but not for public consumption and it takes us 45 minutes to get to the hospital where the evaluations take place. C-razy! But knowing how long it takes to even get an appointment I jumped at the chance. We made it, with 5 minutes to spare.

After an hour and a half evaluation with a FABULOUS SLP we learned Sophie does indeed have a delay. She has a greater than 50% deficiency in "expressive speech and language". In some language areas she's functioning at a 36 month level but in expressive speech and language she's barely functioning at a 15-18 month level. (Which makes sense as that was when she stopped progressing normally speech-wise.). There's some concern she may have a possible motor disorder called Apraxia of Speech (or Speech Apraxia). She has several "characteristics" of Apraxia of Speech like being able to do something once then never again (two word sentences, saying a word once then never again, etc). Other characteristics include having trouble forming the sounds and words consistently. Sophie can watch our mouths closely and attempt to make the sound but come out with something totally different. Unfortunately, Speech Apraxia can't really be fully diagnosed until age 3.

So where does that leave us? In limbo, really. Our insurance will not cover speech therapy for developmental delays. It was recommended that The Little Miss initially receive 16 weeks of therapy with a re-evaluation at 12 weeks to see how she's progressing. Through a local hospital and The Children's Miracle Network's Helping Hands program we can receive 4 sessions. That still leaves 12 sessions to fund. We're in the process of getting The Little Miss evaluated for Early Intervention home therapies. Generally, children like Sophie with one deficiency don't qualify BUT we learned recently there are funds available for just Speech Therapy. We're keeping our fingers crossed she qualifies. We have a couple of other options to look into but if she doesn't qualify for anything else we'll be paying out of pocket.

Next month, well week actually, she's being evaluated for EI services. The following week she begins the first of four sessions through CMN. Family members have asked if I'm "distraught" over her diagnosis and I'm not. Not at all, really. I'm glad to know I wasn't crazy and my concerns over her speech were founded. I'm glad we know what's going on; why she's delayed. I'm glad other people (outside of family/friends) are seeing just how bright she is but how frustrated she gets when we don't understand her "jargon". I'm glad she's going to be receiving help and we're going to be learning some tools to work with her at home. She's already making progress. Since her initial evaluation we've been practicing using two-word sentences and focusing on the ending sounds of words she knows. She's been using those words more and more and trying to use sentences when she can. She gets frustrated when she fails (head down, bottom lip out) so we encourage and get excited about EVERY attempt. It's going to be a long process. She should catch up we just don't know how long it will take. I'm heartbroken to see her so frustrated at times but thrilled to see her eyes light up when she KNOWS she said something correctly and we understood her.

We hope to report, in a few months, that we can't get our little jabberbox to STOP talking. I'm positive she'll be full of some VERY interesting and imaginative stories.

A cousin's tutu makes for a great head piece!