March 11, 2010

First, a forgotten story from yesterday. Kaylynn and I were sitting on the floor rolling a ball to each other - or, I was rolling it to her and she was rolling it part way back to me. I told her to push hard on the ball, so she put her hand on top of it and pushed down (toward the floor) very hard. Needless to say, the ball did not roll my way.

Today was a day for thinking. Kaylynn did a lot of it. You could see her little brain working - it was kind of fun to watch.

Today we had the visit from the Early Childhood Intervention program that our doctor recommended. So Kaylynn stayed home in the morning. We followed a similar routine to other days this week - Julian would get her up and change her diaper; I would spend a couple hours with her so Julian could sleep, since he worked the later shift. She was fairly well occupied with breakfast. A new discovery - she really likes cantaloupe. I gave her pineapple, strawberry, grape, honeydew... and the last thing I had to give her, she liked. Because of her cold, I was really pushing fruit and other non-dairy foods to keep her from getting more congested. In fact, she had rice milk in her cereal and ate every bit and drank some of the milk.

So, Linda and Cheryl from the Early Childhood Intervention program arrived. Linda was the "adult" intake person and Cheryl was the one who played with and assessed Kaylynn. They brought some of their own toys, and Kaylynn was quite interested in what was in the bag. I think she took out just about everything to play with. A lot of the assessment was as we thought. She has incredible fine motor skills. In fact, she pulled out a pair of (safety) scissors and Cheryl showed her how to use them. One demonstration and Kaylynn was hooked - she was cutting paper all over the place and doing it rather well. That's actually an advanced skill. Her vocabulary continues to improve and Cheryl and Linda were not as concerned that other people can't understand her as our doctor was, but they told us to keep repeating her words correctly (e.g., "ba ba" - say "bottle" back to her) and just talk to her all the time about what we're doing, what she's doing, what's going on around her and her language will continue to improve. Her gross motor skills are also good as is her understanding of multi-step instructions (example: please pick up the book and bring it to Wendy). They did recommend a hearing test be done, so we're trying to figure out when to schedule that.

We brought her to school a little late because of the meeting. It was "western day," and the best I could come up with were some overalls and a black turtleneck. Some kids were decked out with cowboy hats, but we didn't have stuff like that. Today's report was, "Kaylynn had a really good day :) She got to enjoy the last few min. of music - she loves getting her stamp at the end of the class. Because of the rain we went downstairs and rode bikes. We also got to ride in the wagon. Kaylynn liked riding in the wagon." She ate all of her soup and her fruit leather but wasn't interested **at all** in the egg. I didn't think she would be, but it's always worth a try. They say to offer a new food at least 7 different times because it may take that long for kids to try it at all, so I'll keep trying.

After school we did an errand, returning some clothes Juilan had picked up and buying some play-doh (though I intended to buy a humidifier...) She got a little whiny about the play-doh (wanted to hold it) and I asked her to say "please." I also did the sign for please. She imitated the sign and I decided that was as good as an ask, so I gave it to her to hold. From then on, she called it a "please."

On the way home, I gave her some raisins and dry cereal to snack on, since she's usually hungry after school and dinner was going to be a bit late. When Saber (still my "muscle" while I can't lift) handed the raisins to her, he referred to them as "humiliated grapes" (a line from one of my favorite movies, Benny and Joon). I started laughing, Saber started laughing, and Kaylynn thought the whole thing was funny. I could hear her giggling behind me. When she was done with the raisins, she held out her hands to Saber and said "yucky." We didn't have anything handy to wipe her hands and tried to tell her that. She repeated the word and gesture several times. She was quiet for a moment and then said "y u ck y" - very slowly, as if Saber was just not understanding her and she had to slow it down for him. We cracked up, which made her start to laugh again.

So... dinner... I gave her the rest of her soup and some pasta. She ate the chunks out of the soup but didn't want the broth. She had a few bites of pasta (after playing with it & the fork for a while) and then she started... well, watch the video. (Long story short - pasta and soup were combined into one big gooey mess.) The entire episode lasted for at least 7 minutes. It ended when it all started dumping on the floor and the dogs were getting to it... I didn't want them to get sick. Before I started filming, she was able to get the food back and forth between bowls without spilling, which is why I commented that she was starting to get sloppy - she hadn't spilled much at all up to that point.

Tonight, bath time was brought to you by the letters Z, C and W and the number 0. We had a fun bath and she produced lots of "boogies" for me to suck out of her nose. The humidity was helpful. She played with water running out of the faucet (kind of a trickle) while I sponged down her hair with a wash cloth. Julian was right - it is easier when she's distracted and she didn't get upset about it at all. When she was playing with the squirty toys, she squirted some water on her own face and into her eye. I think it's good for her to get comfortable with water on her face when she does it herself.

I was supposed to pick up a humidifier tonight (or a mister, I'm not sure which Julian wanted...) but couldn't find one at the store we went to and I needed to get home for dinner and bath time, so maybe we'll pick one up tomorrow. I'm inclined to get a mister, like I had when I was a kid. We don't need whole-house humidity, especially at this time of year. Any ideas where I can find one?